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LIVING AGE.
E Plukibus Unum.
"These publications of the day should from time to time be winnowed, the wheat carefully preserved, and
the chafE thrown away."
" Made up of every creature's best."
"Various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change.
And pleased with novelty, may be indulged."
FIFTH SERIES, VOLUME VII.
FROM THE BEGINNING, VOL. CXXII.
JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER.
1874.
BOSTON:
LITTELL AND GAY.
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TABLE OF THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS '
OF
THE LIVING AGE, VOLUME CXXIL
THE SEVENTH QUARTERLY VOLUME OF THE FIFTH SERIES
JULY, AUGUST, SEPTEMBER, 1874.
131
451
515
579
643
707
Quarterly Review.
Authors and Publishers, ....
The Isle of Wight,
The Countess of Nithsdale, .
King Victor Amadeus of Savoy and Sar-
dinia : The Verdict of History
Reversed,
Motley's John of Bameveld and Six-
teenth-Century Diplomacy, .
English Vers de Societe,
British Quarterly Review.
Finger Rings, ,.\ 387
The Depths of the Sea, . . . . 77J
New Quarterly Review.
Drummond of Hawthornden, . . . 259
On the Personal History of Lord Ma-
caulay, 323
Habit in Plants, and Power of Acclima-
tization, . . . . ,
Birds and Beasts in Captivity,
Contemporary Review.
Letters from Elizabeth Barrett Brown
499
673
ing,
24
67
347
Mr. Browning's Place in Literature,
" Latent Thought," ....
The Place of Homer in History and in
Egyptian Chronology, . . 361, 742
Petrarch, 479
Blackwood's Magazine.
The Story of Valentine ; and his Brother, 15,
147, 472, 530
Alice Lorraine, 86, 208, 336, 402, 686, 755
The Romance of the Japanese Revolu-
tion, 238
The Poets at Play, 281
Family Jewels, 539
Essays by Richard Congreve, . . . 696
Eraser's Magazine.
Shakespeare's Son-in-law, ... 52
Ornithological Reminiscences, , .112
Ruskin's Recent Writings, . . .154
Assyrian Discoveries, . . . .177
A Professor Extraordinary, . . . 432
CoRNHiLL Magazine.
A Rose in June, . 32, 104, 353, 424, 595
Far from the Madding Crowd, 165, 295, 659
English Lyrical Poetry, . . . .195
St. Thomas, 609
Three Feathers 720
Macmillan's Magazine.
Recent Works on the Buildings of Rome, 3
Masters of Etching, . . . .215
The Convent of San Marco, . . 308, 565
A Curious Product, .... 380
\
Temple Bar.
Manners and Customs in China, .
Louis Philippe, ....
Victoria Magazine.
The Rights of Children, .
Athenaeum.
The Petrarch i an Commemoration, .
The Hearne Letters,
95
413
230
508
510
Spectator.
Examination-Marks, .... 252
Locker's " London Lyrics," . . . 254
"Josh Billings " in English, . . . 317
Bishop Wordsworth on Cremation, . 441
Dorothy Wordsworth's Scotch Journal, . 630
Leon Gambetta on the Situation, . . 635
Mary Lamb's Letters, .... 761
Professor Tyndall's Address, . . . 765
Saturday Review.
Titles, 62
Count of Paris's History of the Ameri-
can War, 637
Pall Mall Gazette.
The Third Empire, . . . ,
Fritz Renter, . . . , ,
Gambetta's Speech,
. 250
• 574
• 633
Chambers' Journal.
Colour in Animals, . . . ,
An Old English Traveller, .
Ul
S7
227
IV
CONTENTS.
The Tasmanian Blue Gum Tree, . . 376
Combs, ZJ"^
Comets, 444
Derisive Punishments, .... 446
The Manor-House at Milford, 489, 553, 619,
793
All the Year Round.
Whitby Jet, 185
The Country Cousin, .... 269
Academy.
Women's Rights in the Last Century, . 60
The Brunswick Onyx Vase, . . . 506
Nature.
Col. Gordon's Journey to Gondokoro, . 61
Inaugural Address of Prof. John Tyn-
dall, . . . . . .802
Saturday Journal.
The Names of Plants, . , . ,126
INDEX TO VOLUME CXXII.
Animals, Colour in .... 57
Alice Lorraine, 86, 208, 336, 402, 686, 755
Authors and Publishers, .
Assyrian Discoveries, ....
Acclimatization, Power of, in Plants,
American War, History of, by the Count
of Paris, . • .
Address, Inaugural, of Prof. John Tyn-
dall,
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, Letters
from
Browning's, Robert, Place in Literature,
Brunswick Onyx Vase, The .
Barneveld, John of. Motley's .
Birds and Beasts in Captivity,
131
177
499
637
802
Colour in Animals, . . .
,=^hina, Manners and Customs in .
Children, The Rights of .
Country Cousin, The
Convent of San Marco, ,
Combs,
Curious Product, A . . .
Cremation, Bishop Wordsworth on
Comets,
Congreve, Richard, Essays by
Drummond of Hawthornden,
Derisive Punishments, .
Depths of the Sea, .
English Lyrical Poetry,
Etching, Masters of
English Traveller, An Old
Empire, The Third
Examination-Marks,
English Vers de Societe,
308:
24
67
506
643
673
57
95
230
269
;. 565
37^
380
441
444
696
259
446
771
195
215
227
250
252
707
Far from the Madding Crowd, 165, 295, 659
Finger Rings, 387
Gordon's, Col., Journey to Gondokoro, 61
Gum Tree, The Tasmanian . . . 376
Gambetta's Speech, . . . 633, 635
Homer, Place of, in History and Chro-
nology, 361, 742
Habit in Plants, and Power of Acclima-
tization, 499
Hearne Letters, The .... 510
Inaugural Address of Prof. John Tyn-
dall,
802
Jet, Whitby 185
Japanese Revolution, The Romance of . 238
" Josh Billings " in English, . . . 317
Jewels, Family 539
Lyrical Poetry, English
Locker's " London Lyrics,"
" Latent Thought," .
Louis Philippe,
Lamb's, Mary, Letters, .
195
254
347
413
761
Marco, San, The Convent of . 308, 565
Macaulay, On the Personal History of . 323
Moon's Figure as Obtained in the Stereo-
scope, 383
Manor-House at Milford, 489, 553, 619, 793
Motley's John of Barneveld, . . . 643
Names, The, of Plants, ....
Nithsdale, The Countess of .
Ornithological Reminiscences, .
Onyx Vase, The Brunswick .
Plants, The Names of .
Publishers and Authors, ....
Poetry, English Lyrical ....
Poets, THe, at Play, ....
Professor Extraordinary, A .
Punishments, Derisive ....
Petrarch,
Petrarchian Commemoration, .
Plants, Habit in, and Power of Acclima-
tization, .....
Paris's, Count of. History of the Ameri-
can War,
Rome, Recent Works on the Buildings of
Rose in June, A . 32, 104, 353, 424
Ruskin's Recent Writings,
Rings, Finger .
Reuter, Fritz .
Street, Alfred B. .
Shakespeare's Son-in-law,
Sterne, Laurence, Letter of
St. Thomas,
Sea, Depths of the .
126
515
112
506
126
131
195
281
432
446
479
508
499
637
3
595
154
387
574
39
52
189
609
771
VI
INDEX.
Titles,
Traveller, An Old English
Thought, Latent
The Tasmanian Blue Gum Tree,
Three Feathers,
Tyndall's, Professor, Address,
. 62
. 227
. 347
. 376
. 720
765, 802
Valentine ; and his Brother, The Story
of . . . . 15, 147, 472, 530
Victor Amadeus of Savoy and Sardinia, 579
Vers de Societe, English . . . 707
Women's Rights in the Last Century, . 60
Whitby Jet, 185
Wordsworth, Bishop, on Cremation, . 441
Wight, The Isle of 451
Wordsworth's, Dorothy, Scotch Journal, 630
POETRY.
Ascension, The
As the Heart Hears,
Ballad, .
Bunyan at Bedford,
Clytemnestra,
Fritz, King
Friend, To a. Leaving England in Sep-
tember,
Fisher, The
Growing Up, .
Happy Man, The
Jesus Only,
July Dawning,
130
642
258
386
258
130
190
768
66
770
2
514
Last Tryst, The 450
Mist, The
Message and Answer,
Not Lost,
Nature, .
322
706
386
450
On the Cliff,
Pietra Degli Serovigni, Of the Lady
Requiescit,
Ruined Chapel,
Serenades,
Sonnet, .
Seaside Golden-Rod,
Spring, In the .
Sea- Fog, The .
Song of the Flail,
Sonnet, .
Spectre of the Rose, The
Thames Valley Sonnets,
To a Thrush, .
Three Angels, .
Thrice, . . . .
Two Sonnets, .
Unknown Deity, The
Voices of the Dead,
Wild Bee, The
Wordsworth, Dora .
66
258
322
578
194
258
3^6
514
642
706
770
130
194
322
322
770
66
824
2
578
TALES.
Alice Lorraine, 86, 208, 336, 402, 686, 755
Country Cousin, The .... 269
Far from the Madding Crowd, 165, 295, 659
Manor-House at Milford, The 489, 553, 619,
793
Professor Extraordinary, A . . . 432
Rose in June, A . 32, 104, 353, 424, 595
Three Feathers, 720
Valentine ; and his Brother, The Story
^^ ' • • • I5» I47» 472, 530
LITTELL'S LIVIiTG- AGE.
Fifth Series, I lfo, 1569. "Julv 4, 1874. ^^^°°^,^^^|^?i.^S'
Volmne VII. > j i ^ Yoi, CXXII.
CONTENTS.
I. Recent Works on the Buildings of
Rome. By Edward A. Freeman, . . Macmillan'' s Magazine^ ... 3
II. The Story of Valentine; and his
Brother. Part VIIL, .... Blackwood's Magazine^ . . .IS
III. Letters from Elizabeth Barrett Brown-
ing TO the Author of " Orion " on
Literary and General Topics. Part IV., Contemporary Rrjiew^ . , .24
IV. A Rose in June. Part VI., . . . Cornhill Magazine^ . . .32
V. Alfred B. Street, 39
VI. Shakespeare's Son-in-law. A Study of
Old Stratford. By C. Elliot Browne, . . Eraser's Magazine^ . , , 52
VII. Colour in Animals, Chambers'' Journal^ . . • 57
VIII. Women's Rights in the Last Century, Academy^ 60
IX. Col. Gordon's Journey to Gondokoro, Nature^ 61
X. Titles, , , Saturday Review 62
• POETRY.
Jesus Only, 2 1 The Wild Bee, 2
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JESUS ONLY, ETC.
JESUS ONLY.
" And when the voice was past, Jesus was found
alone." — St. Luke ix. 36.
The vision fades away, —
The brilliant radiance from heaven is gone ;
The angel visitants no longer stay.
Silent the Voice — Jesus is found alone.
In strange and sad amaze
The three disciples watch, with longings vain,
While the cloud-chariot floats beyond their
gaze;
Yes, these must go — He only will remain.
" Oh, linger, leave us not,
Celestial Brothers ! heaven has seemed so near
While ye were with us — earth was all for-
got ! "•
See, they have vanished ; He alone is here.
" He only — He, our own,
Our loving Lord, is ever at our side.
What though the messengers of heaven are
gone !
Let all depart, if He may still abide ! "
Such surely was their thought
W^ho stood beside Him on that wondrous eve.
So would we feel ; Jesus, forsake us not,
W^hen those unutterably dear must leave 1
For all their priceless love.
All the deep joy their presence could impart,
Foretaste together of the bliss above.
We thank Thee, Lord, though with a breaking
heart !
Nor murmur we to-day
That he who gave should claim his own again ;
Long from their native heaven they could
not stay.
The servants go, — the Master will remain.
Jesus is found alone —
Enough for blessedness in earth or heaven !
Yet to our weakness hath His love made
known.
More than Himself shall in the end be given.
" Not lost, but gone before,"
Are our beloved ones ; the faithful Word
Tells of a meeting-place to part no more ;
" So shall we be forever with the Lord ! "
Sunday Magazine. H. L. L.
THE WILD BEE.
I COME at morn, when dewdrops bright
Are twinkling on the grasses.
And woo the balmy breeze in flight
That o'er the heather passes.
I swarm with many lithesome wings,
That join me, through my ramble,
In seeking for the honeyed things
Of heath and hawthorn bramble.
And languidly amidst the sedge.
When noontide is most stilly,
I loll beside the water's edge,
And climb into the lily.
I fly throughout the clover crops
Before the evening closes.
Or swoon amid the amber drops
That swell the pink moss-roses.
At times T take a longer route,
In cooling autumn weather.
And gently murmur round about
The purple-tinted heather.
To Poesy I am a friend ;
I go with Fancy linking,
And all my airy knowledge lend.
To aid him in his thinking.
Deem not these little eyes are dim
To every sense of duty ;
We owe a certain debt to him
Who clad this earth in beauty.
And therefore I am never sad,
A burden homeward bringing,
But help to make the summer glad
In my own way of singing.
When idlers seek my honeyed wine,
In wantonness to drink it,
I sparkle from the columbine,
Like some forbidden trinket ;
But never sting a friend — not one —
It is a sweet delusion,
That I may look at children run.
And smile at their confusion.
If I were man, with all his tact
And power of foreseeing,
I would not do a single act
To hurt a human being.
And thus my little life is fixed.
Till tranquilly it closes.
For wisely have I chosen 'twixt
The thorns and the roses.
Chambers' JoumaL
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
From Macmillan's Magazine.
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF
ROME.*
BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN.
Of all the various forms of homage
which the world has paid to the city
which was once deemed to be its mis-
tress, none is really more speaking than
the countless multitudes of books of
which Rome has been the subject. If
we say that works on Roman topography
have been growing for the conventional
term of a thousand years, we are some
centuries within the mark. We might
almost venture to add another half mil-
lennium of formal and distinct descrip-
tions of Rome, as distinguished from
notices in the works of historians, poets,
and professed geographers. Modern
scholars still edit and comment on the
topographical writings of the fourth and
fifth centuries, which describe Rome as
it stood when the line of the Western
Caesars, reigning in Italy at least if not
in Rome, was still unbroken.f And
the series goes on, through the middle
ages, through the Renaissance, till we
reach those great works of modern Ger-
man research which have worked out
every detail, both of the surviving re-
mains and of the lost buildings, of the
Eternal City. We can still track out
our way round the walls of Rome by
the guidance of the anonymous pilgrim
from Einsiedlen in the eighth century.J
We pause not unwillingly in the history
* I. " Die Ruinen Roms und der Campagna." Von
Dr. Franz Reber. Leipzig, 1863.
2. " Rome and the Campagna, an Historical and
Topographical Description of the Site, Buildings, and
Neighbourhood of Ancient Rome." By Robert Burn,
M. A. Cambridge and London, 1871.
3. *' Rome." By Francis Wey, with an Introduction
by W. W. Story. London, 1872.
t " Die Regionen der Stadt Rom." Von L. Preller.
Jena, 1846.
" Codex Urbis Romae Topographicus." Edidit
Carolus Ludovicus Urlichs. Wirceburgi, 1871.
" Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum." Von
H. Jordan. Zweiter Band. Berlin, 187 1.
The first volume of this last work has not yet ap-
peared. Among the three the student will find several
recensions of the text and abundant commentaries on
the early and mediasval topographers of Rome.
t The Itinerarium Einsidlense is printed by Ulrichs,
p. 58, and the latter part by Jordan, p. 646. The
former text is specially valuable, as it contains the in-
scriptions, many of them now lost or defaced, which
were copied by the pilgrim.
of the First Crusade, when the monk of
Malmesbury stops his narrative to de-
scribe the topography of Rome, to tell us
how the Romans, once the lords of the
world, were now the lowest of mankind,
who did nothing but sell all that was
righteous and sacred for gold.* The
chain never breaks ; we have pictures of
Rome in every age ; but unluckily the
picture drawn in each age sets before us
less than the picture drawn in the age
just before it. Archbishop Hildebert of
Tours, whose verses William of Malmes-
bury copies, sang of Rome, when the
marks of the sack of Robert Wiscard
were still fresh upon her, as a city already
ruined.f But the worst ruin had not
come in his day. We may forgive the
Norman and the Saracen ; we may for-
give the contending Roman barons ; but
we cannot forgive the havoc wrought by
Popes and Popes' nephews in the boasted
days of the Renaissance. When we look
at what they have done, we may be thank-
ful that there are still some things,
heathen and Christian, which have lived
through four ages of relentless destruc-
tion and disfigurement. For Rome as
the monumental city, as the museum of
art and history, the evil day was, not
when the Goth or the Vandal or the
Norman entered her gates, but when
Popes came back from their place of
happy banishment to destroy their city
piecemeal. We may rejoice that their
day is over. New causes of destruction
may arise, as the capital of new-born
Italy spreads itself once more over hills
which have become almost as desolate as
they were when the first settlers raised
their huts on the Palatine. As new
streets arise, there is danger that many
* William of Malmesbury (Gesta Regum iv. 351.)
thus begins his account of Rome: "De Roma, quas
quondam domina orbis terrarum, nunc ad compara-
tionem antiquitatis videtur oppidum exiguum, et de
Romanis, olim rerum dominis genteque togata, qui
nunc sunt hominum inertissimi, auro trutinantes justi-
tiam, pretio venditantes canonum regulam."
t The verses of Hildebert begin thus :
" Par tibi Roma nihil, cum sis prope tota ruina ;
Quam magni fueris Integra, fracta doces."
Presently after we read :
" Non tamen aut fieri par stanti machina murO|
Aut restaurari sola ruina potest."
4
relics of
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
old Rome, many ruined frag-
ments, many foundations which have to
be looked for beneath the earth, may be
swept away or hopelessly hidden. But
the main source of evil is dried up ; there
is no fear of columns being pounded into
lime, no fear of perfect or nearly perfect
buildings being used as quarries ; per-
haps even there is less danger of that
subtler form of destruction which cloaks
itself under the garb of restoration. All
has become, if not wholly safe, at least
safer than it was, now that the power
which so long boasted itself that it could
do mischief is happily banished beyond
the bounds of the ancient Rome, shut up
in a modern palace in a suburb which
formed no part of the city either of Ser-
vius or of Aurelian.
Of the general antiquities of Rome,
of its early topography and early history,
and of the light which modern researches
have thrown upon them, I do not mean
to speak here at any length. The history
of Rome is indeed written in her monu-
ments, and new pages of that history,
above all in its earliest
most daily brought to
now see many things
through the great works of digging which
are still going on in various parts of the
city, above all on the spot which was the
cradle of Rome and on the spot which
was the centre of her full-grown life, on
the Palatine Hill and in the Roman Fo-
rum. But the pages of history which are
thus brought to light are pages which need
the greatest caution in reading. They
are oracles which tell their own tale, but
which tell it only to inquirers who draw
near in the spirit of sound criticism, not
in that of blind belief or hasty conjecture.
Of all the works of men's hands in the
Eternal City, two classes speak to the
mind with a deeper interest than any
others. The first are the small remains
of primitive times, the still-abiding relics
of the days when the Ramnes of the
Palatine and the Titienses of the Capitol
lived each on their separate hills, as dis-
tinct and hostile tribes. These relics
speak of the first birth of Rome ; next to
them, almost beyond them from the point
of view of universal history, come, in
chapters, are al-
light. We can
in a new li^ht
deep and enthralling interest, the memo-
rials of Rome's second birth, of the day
when with a new faith she put on a new
life. Between these two periods of birth
and of revival, the time of mere dominion,
the time of the Republic and of the ear-
lier Empire, has but a secondary charm.
Its proudest monuments yield in interest,
as historical memorials, alike to the
foundations of the primaeval Ro7na Qua-
drata and to the churches reared in all the
zeal of newly-won victory out of the spoils
of the temples of decaying heathendom.
The purely artistic student naturally
looks on them with other eyes. The
stones of the primitive fortress can
hardly claim the name of works of
art at all. And the basilicas, built with
columns brought from other buildings,
columns often of unequal proportions,
and crowned with capitals of different
orders, are apt to be looked on simply
as signs of the depth of degradation
into which art had fallen. Of these
two propositions the truth of the former
cannot be denied ; the latter is true or
false accoiding to the way in which the
history of art is looked at. The for-
tresses of primaeval days from which, if
we only read them aright, we may learn
such precious lessons of primaeval his-
tory, are hardly to be called works of
architecture ; they are simply works of
construction. They are simply the put-
ting together of stones, sometimes in a
ruder, sometimes in a more workmanlike
fashion, to serve a practical need. There
is no system of decoration, no ornament of
any kind, upon them. Indeed among the
scanty remains which we have of pri-
maeval work at Rome we could not look
for any system of decoration. There is
not so much as a gateway of the primae-
val fortress left to us, and in no age should
we ask for much of architectural detail
in the mouth of a sewer or in the roof of
an underground well-house.* Had Rome
never risen higher than the other cities
* All scholars seem now agreed that the lower story
of the building which bears the name — mediaevai only,
but still perhaps traditional — of the Mamertine Prison,
was at first simply a well-house or tullianum, and that,
when it was afterwards used as a prison, the true mean-
ing of its name was forgotten, and it was connected
with the legendary King Servius Tullius.
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
of Latiutn, she might have been as rich
in remains of these early times as some
of the other cities of Latium still are.
Still in the early remains of Rome, scanty
as they are, in these abiding relics of a
time when the names and deeds of men
are still legendary, we can see clear signs
of two stages in the art of construction.
We can see a stage when the greatest of
all constructive inventions was still un-
known, and another stage when it was
already familiar. We can see in Rome,
as in Latium, in Greece, in Ireland, and
in Central America, works of the time
when men were still striving after the
great invention of the arch. We can
see works which are clearly due to a
stage when men were still trying various
experiments, when they were making
various attempts to bring stones so as to
overlap and support one another, but
when the perfect arch, with its stones
poised in mid-air by a law of mutual me-
chanical support, had not yet rewarded
the efforts of those who were feeling
their way towards it. The roof of the
Tullianum is no true vault, any more
than the roof of New Grange or of the
Treasury at Mykene. In some of the
passages connected with it the roof has
real mutually supporting voiissoirs ; but
the shape of the voussoirs is still polyg-
onal ; the most perfect form of the arch
had-not yet been lighted on. In the
Cloaca Maxima we find the round arch
in its simplest form, but in a form per-
fect as reo:ards its construction. This
great invention, which was independently
made over and over again in times and
places far apart from one another, was
also made at Rome, or at all events
somewhere in Central Italv. The round
arch, the great invention of Roman art,
the very embodiment of Roman strength
and massiveness, the constructive ex-
pression of the bounderies which were
never to yield, of the dominion which
was never to pass away, came into being
in a work characteristically Roman. The
beginning of Roman architecture is to be
found, not in a palace or in a temple, but
in those vast drains which were said to
form an underground city, rivalling in ex-
tent the city which they bore aloft, j
What Rome began in her sewers, she
carried out in her gateways, in her
aqueducts, in her baths and her am-
phitheatres. Other nations invented
the round arch as well as Rome ; in
Rome alone it found an abiding home.
It was only in Rome, and in the lands
which learned their arts from Rome, that
it became the great constructive feature,
used on a scale which, whatever we say of
the Roman architects, stamps the Roman
builders as the greatest that the world
ever saw. But it was not till, in common
belief, the might, the glory, and the art
of Rome had passed away, that Rome,
working in her own style in the use of
her own great constructive invention,
learned to produce, not only mighty
works of building, but consistent works
of architecture.
In this way the two turning points in
the history of Rome, her birth and her
new birth, the days of her native infancy
and the days when she rose to a new life
at the hands of her Christian teachers
and her Teutonic conquerors, are brought
into the closest connection with one an-
other. From the point of view of the
unity of history, the course of the archi-
tecture of Rome strikingly answers to
the course of the literature of Rome.
Her architecture and her literature alike
are, during the time of Rome's greatest
outward glory, during the ages which
purists mark out by the invidious name
•'classical," almost wholly of an imita-
tive kind. As men followed Greek mod-
els in literature and clothed Roman
words and thoughts in the borrowed
metres of Greece, so men followed Greek
models in art also. They clothed a
Roman body in a Greek dress, and
masked the true Roman construction
under a borrowed system of Greek orna-
mental detail. In both cases the true
national life was simply overshadowed ;
it was never wholly trampled out. While
philosophy and rhetoric, epic and lyric
poetry, were almost wholly imitative, law
and satire and, to some extent, history
remained national. So too in architec-
ture. If we stand in the Forum and ad-
mire the exotic grace of the columns of
the temple of Vespasian and of the Great
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
Twin Brethren, the eye rests also on the
gigantic vaults of the Basilica of Con-
stantine. We may even catch a distinct
^[limpse of the huge arcaded mass of the
Flavian Amphitheatre, nor do we wholly
turn away from the arch of Severus and
the small fragments of the disfigured
arcades of the Tabularium. All these
are Roman works ; Greek decorative
elements are to be traced in all of them ;
but what stands out in all its boldness,
in all its dignity, is the true native art of
Rome. That is the art which used the
round arch as its constructive feature,
and which could therefore bridge over
and bind together distant spaces which
were altogether beyond the reach of the
Greek system of the column and entab-
lature. When we see the Roman system
of construction carried out on the mighti-
est scale, when, in such a pile as Caracal-
la's Baths, we see Roman art preparing
itself to influence the world as purely
Greek art never could do, it is not amiss
to remember that at the same moment
men like Ulpian and Paulus were building
up that great fabric of purely Roman Law
which was in the like sort to influence
the world, to be the source of the juris-
prudence of modern Europe, and to win
for Rome a wider dominion than was
ever won for her by the arms of Julius
and Trajan. At last the two great ele-
ments of revolution drew nigh. New
nations were knocking at the gates of
Rome, asking, not to wipe out her name
or to destroy her power, but rather to be
themselves admitted to bear the one and
to wield the other. A new creed, born
in one of her distant provinces, was
making its way, in the teeth of all oppo-
sition, to become the creed of the Roman
Empire and of all lands which bowed to
Roman rule, whether as subjects or as
disciples. Diocletian might be the per-
secutor of the Church and Constantine
might be her nursing-father ; but both
alike were men of the same period ; each
had a share in the same work. Each
alike marks a stage in the change by
which the chief magistrate of the Roman
Commonwealth grew, first into the des-
potic sovereign girt with the trappings of
eastern royalty, and then into the for-
eign King who came to be anointed as
Ccesar and Augustus with the rites of a
creed of which the first bearers of those
names had never heard. Under the line
of Emperors from Diocletian to Theo-
dosius the real influence of Rome was
not ending, but beginning. And it was
in these days too that the architecture of
Rome fittingly cast off its great fetters,
and stood forth in a form which was to
be the root of the later architecture of all
Europe. The construction which first
showed itself in the Great Sewer, at last
won for itself a consistent form of deco-
ration in the palace of Diocletian and in
the churches of Constantine.
The history of Roman architecture, as
a whole, is still to be written, because the
history of Rome itself, as a whole, is still
to be written. Writers who deal with the
architecture of Rome, or with anything
else that belongs to Rome, from any of
those special points of view which are
implied in the words "classical," "me-
diaeval," and " modern," are often doing
admirable service within their own spe-
cial range, but they are not grappling
with the subject as a whole. I have now
to speak only of the buildings of Rome,
and not of any of the other aspects of
Roman history ; but the same law ap-
plies to all. I have put at the head of
this article the names of three books
published within the last twelve years, of
which the first two are of a very different
character from the third. The volumes
of Professor Reber and Mr. Burn are of
the utmost value to the student of Ro-
man topography and history in every
way that has to do with the buildings of
classical and pagan Rome. But there
they stop. Alongside of sound and
scholar-like books like these one would
hardly have ventured to mention a book
like that of M. Wey, which does not as-
pire to anything higher than pleasant
gossipping talk, save for one thing only.
M. Wey, in his unsystematic rambles,
has in one sense bridged over the gap
better than the careful research of the
German and the English scholar. He
has at least dealt with Pagan temples and
Christian churches in one volume as
parts of one subject. In architectural
matters, as well as in other matters, we
have to fight against the superstition
that Rome came to an end in 476. This
superstition, as applied to art, naturally
demands that a wide line should be
drawn between the heathen basilica
which Maxentius reared and of which
Constantine took the credit, and the Chris-
tian basilica which Constantine reared in
readiness for the crowning of his Teu-
tonic successor. From my point of view,
we can no more draw any wide line in
matters of architecture than we can in
matters of law or language or religion.
The story is one, without a break, al-
most without a halting place. The former
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
part of the tale is imperfect without the
latter ; the latter part is unintelligible
without the former. Rome invented the
round arch at an early stage of her his-
tory. She has used it down to our own
day in every stage of her history. But
it was in that stage of her history which
is marked by the reigns of Diocletian
and Constantine that she first made the
round arch the leading feature of an in-
dependent and harmonious style of archi-
tecture. This aspect of Roman history,
like every other, should be written as one
story, and as yet it has not been written as
one story. I still long to see the history
of the genuine Roman buildings of Rome,
from the first strivings after the arch in
the roof of the Tullianum to the church
of the third Otto and the house of Cre-
scentius, traced out as one single volume
of the history of art, the later pages of
which must not be unkindly torn away
from the earlier.
The many works, chiefly the result of
German scholarship, by which the topog-
raphy and early history of Rome have
been so largely illustrated during the
last forty years deal of course largely
with the buildings of all dates ; but their
object is hardly to supply a connected
history of architecture at Rome. But the
minute and splendidly illustrated volume
of Professor Reber is specially devoted
to the buildings of the city, and it deals
elaborately with their architectural detail.
In Mr. Burn's book also, the buildings oc-
cupy, though not an exclusive, yet a prom-
inent, place, and they are largely illus-
trated by engravings. And both the
German and the English writer give us
also an introduction specially devoted to
a sketch of the origin and growth of Ro-
man architecture down to the point at
which they unluckily stop. Both books
give the result of real research and sound
scholarship, but of course the work of
Professor Reber, as specially devoted to
the buildings, treats their details in a
more elaborate and technical way. And
if Professor Reber is a little too believ-
ing as to the traditions of early times, it
is a fault which does little damage in a
work which by its nature is almost whol-
ly concerned with the remains of the his-
torical ages. Our only complaint is that
so diligent an inquirer and so clear an
expositor did not go on further. It
would surely not have been a task un-
worthy of his powers to have given the
same skill with which he has traced out
the buildings of earlier times to trace out
the first estate of the head church of
Rome and Christendom. The same pow-
er which can call up the Flavian Amphi-
theatre in its ancient form might also
call up the mighty pile of the old Saint
Peter's, when the crowning place of the
Caesars had not been swept away for the
gratification of papal vanity. The nar-
row prejudices which once looked on
such buildings as these as worthless and
barbarous, unworthy of a glance or a
thought from the eye or the mind of
taste, have surely passed away along with
the kindred prejudice which once looked
with the same contempt on the wonders
of mediaeval skill in our own and in
other northern lands. The early Chris-
tian buildings of Rome and Ravenna
are indeed far from lacking their vota-
ries ; they have been in many quarters
carefully studied and illustrated, and
their history has been carefully traced
out. What is needed is to put them
thoroughly in their true relation with re-
gard to the buildings which went before
them and to the buildings which followed
them. The steps by which the arrange-
ments of the earliest churches grew out
of the arrangements of pagan buildings
have been already often traced out ; but it
is no less needful to show the steps by
which both the system of construction and
the architectural detail of the so-called
classical period changed into the construc-
tion and the detail of what the classical
purist is tempted to look on as the barbar-
ous Romanesque. In architecture, as in
everything else, the works of the true
Middle Age, the time when two worlds
stood side by side, is the time which, in
the view of universal history, has an in-
terest beyond all other times. But with
regard to architecture, just as with re-
gard to other things, it is exactly the pe-
riod which is least studied and least un-
derstood. It is neglected because of that
very transitional character which gives it
its highest interest. There is a classical
school and there is a mediaeval school ;
each studies the works of its own favour-
ite class in the most minute detail ; but
the intermediate period, the period whose
works tie together the works on each
side of it into one unbroken series, is
looked on by both parties as lying with-
out its range. The classical purist looks
on a basilican church as something hope-
lessly barbarous — something put to-
gether out of fragments ruthlessly plun-
dered from buildings of
a better age.
He sees a sign of degraded taste in the
greatest step in advance which architec-
ture ever took since the arch itself was
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
8
brought to perfection, in that bold stroke
of genius by which Diocletian's architect
at Sp-ilito hrst called into being a consist-
ent round-arched style. On the other
hand there is, or was a few years back, a
school which looked on the old Saint
John's and the old Saint Peter's as build-
ings only half escaped from paganism,
time of Augustus or Trajan. And this
belief is strengthened by the fact that, in
the subsidiary arts, in painting, sculpture,
and the like, the later time really was a
time of decline. But when we once take
in the position which the age of Diocle-
tian and Constantine holds in universal
history, we shall at once see that it is ex-
and which professed itself grieved to see | actly the age in which great architectural
an Ionic or Corinthian capital placed, I developments were to be looked for. It
even in an architectural treatise, side by | is certain, as the ornaments of the arch of
side with what it was pleased to call Constantine prove, that in Constantine's
"the sacred details of Christian art." I day the mere art of sculpture had gone
By these "sacred details" were meant down not a little since the days of Trajan.
'• ,„ , , I It is certain also that the bricks of the age
of Constantine are not so closely and
regularly fitted together as the bricks of
the age of Nero. But there is no absurd-
ity in holding that, while the arts of the
sculptor and of the bricklayer went down,
the art of the architect might go up. If
we allow that the chief merit of architec-
ture is consistency, that the constructive
and the decorative system should go hand
in hand, architecture was certainly ad-
vancing, while the subsidiary arts were
decaying. Through the whole " classical "
period construction and decoration were
kept asunder: the construction was Ro-
man ; the decoration was Greek. It was
only in buildings which needed little or
no decoration that the inconsistency is
avoided. In an amphitheatre the Greek
elements are so secondary that they do
not force themselves on' the eye ; the
half columns have sunk into something
like the pilasters of a Romanesque build-
ing, and the general effect is that of a
consistent round-arched style. In some
amphitheatres, and in bridges and aque-
ducts, the Greek ornamental features van-
ish altogether, and we see the Roman
construction standing out in all its grand
and simple majesty. Buildings of this
kind are the direct parents of the plainer
and more massive forms of Romanesque,
such as we see in many of the great
churches of Germany. But such a style
as this is essentially plain, essentially
massive, and there are places where
the details of the architecture of England,
France, and Germany from the thirteenth
to the sixteenth centuries. Between two
such sets of narrow prejudices as these,
the buildings of the intermediate time, the
time when the true Roman construction
was throwing off its incongruous Grecian
mask, have, for the most part, fared but
badly. A small special school gave itself
to their study, but they have been cast
aside by the two larger schools on either
side of it.
I have more than once, in different
ways, tried to set forth the seeming para-
dox that the architecture of the so-called
" classic " days of Rome is really a tran-
sition from the Grecian, the pure style of
the entablature, to the Romanesque, the
fully developed style of the round arch.
The case is perfectly plain. The Greek
architecture works its main constructive
features, the column and the entablature,
into its main ornamental features. The
Romanesque architecture also works its
main constructive features, the round
arch and the piers or columns on which
it rests, into its main ornamental features.
The classical Roman, coming between
the two, does not follow this universal law
of all good architecture. Sometimes, as
in most of the temples, it simply imitates
Greek forms : in other buildings it com-
monly uses the round arch as the princi-
pal constructive feature, but masks it, as
far as it can, under a system of decora-
tion borrowed from the Greek construc-
tion. This inconsistency marks the clas- 1 buildings are wanted which are at once
sical Roman style as an imperfect and
transitional style. The difficulty in ac- j
cepting this doctrine comes from two
causes. Till men have learned to take
wide views of history as a whole, it is
hard for them to believe that the time of
the seeming decline of Rome was really
the time of her new birth. It is hard for
them to believe that the time of Diocle-
tion and Constantine was, in architecture
or in anything else, an advance on the
lighter and more enriched. The begin-
nings of a light and ornamental round-
arched style showed themselves when the
arch was first allowed to spring directly
from the capital of the column. '^We now
have for the first time a pure and consist-
ent round-arched style, better suited for
the inside of a church or hall or other
large building than the massive arches of
the amphitheatre and the aqueduct. And
when the column and arch were once es-
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
tablished as the main constructive fea-
tures, they naturally supplied a new sys-
tem of decoration. As arched buildings
had once been inconsistently decorated
with ornamental columns and entabla-
tures, they could now be consistently
decorated with ornamental arcades. We
see the beginning of this system as early
as the church of Saint Apollinaris at
Chassis ; and from thence, diverging at
one time into the wilder and ruder forms
of Lorsch and Earls Barton, it grows into
the endless decorative arcades of Pisa
and Lucca, and into the more moderate
use of the same kind of enrichment in
the Romanesque of Normandy and Eng-
land. Thus it was that Romanesque grew
up. Change the form of the arch, de-
vise a system of mouldings and other or-
naments which suit the new form of arch,
and Romanesque changes into Gothic.
The hall of Spalato is thus the true be-
ginning of every later form of good and
consistent architecture. It is the imme-
diate parent of Durham and Pisa ; it is
the more distant parent of Westminster
and Amiens.
On the whole, the course of the earlier
stages of this long history can be no-
where so well studied as in Rome. Ra-
venna has its own charm and its own les-
son. It has a perfectly unique collection
of buildings of an age of which there are
few buildings elsewhere. In the later
forms of Romanesque Rome is far less
rich than Pisa and Lucca, or than Milan
and Pavia ; and of Gothic, even of Italian
Gothic, there is at Rome all but an abso-
lute lack. But nowhere else can we find
the same store of pagan and early Chris-
tian buildings standing side by side.
Nowhere therefore can we so well trace
out the steps by which the inconsistent
classical Roman style was improved into
the consistent Romanesque. We start
from the very beginning. We have seen
in Rome theinvention — one of the many
independent inventions — of the arch it-
self. But, as far as we can see, Rome
failed to make the most of her own inven-
tion. If we had any perfect buildings of
the time of the Kings and of the early
Republic, we should be better able to
follow out our subject. But, as far as we
can see, the charm of Greek art, the ex-
quisite loveliness of Greek forms, cut
short all native effort in this as' in other
ways. Rome, in her most brilliant days,
failed to form a native architecture, just
as she failed to form a native literature.
We gaze with admiration on the exqui-
site examples which Rome has to show of
the transplanted art of Greece ; we call
up before our eyes the full splendour of
the vast expanse of colonnades, the
ranges of temples and palaces and basil-
icas, which covered the hills and valleys
of Rome. Imagination fails as it strives
to conceive the spreading forest of mar-
ble which gathered round the soaring
column from which the sculptured form
of Trajan looked down on his mighty
works. And yet, if we could see them in
their splendour, an eye accustomed to
other forms of art might perhaps grow
weary of the endless repetition of one
idea. We might feel that we had had
more than enough of the stiff forms of
the Grecian portico ; we might weary of
horizontal lines, of flat roofs, however
rich with bronze or gilding. We might
long to see the unvaried outline broken
by the spreading cupolas of Byzantium,
by the tall campaniles of mediaeval Italy,
or by the heaven-piercing spires of Ger-
many and England. We might feel too
that, after all, the splendours of Rome
were not Roman, that the conqueror had
simply decked himself out in the bor-
rowed plumes of conquered Hellas. In
such a mood, we might turn away from
the Temple of the Capitoline Jupiter,
from the vast Julian Basilica at its foot,
to those works in which somewhat of a
Roman spirit showed itself beneath the
mask and varnish of the foreign sys-
tem of ornament. A plain arch of brick,
even if put together with the utmost
skill of the days of Nero, is in itself a far
less beautiful object than a fluted column
crowned by a Corinthian capital. But on
the soil of Rome the arch of brick is na-
tive, and the Corinthian capital is foreign.
A day was to come when the foreign form
of beauty was to be pressed into the ser-
vice of the native form of construction ;
but that day was still far distant. The
two forms still stood side by side, either
standing wholly apart or else welded into
one whole by a process of union much
like that which was delighted in by the
mythical Etruscan tyrant.* We might
mark, as we still mark, with more of won-
der than of pleasure, the attempt of
* I need hardly quote the description of the Vir-
gilian Rlezentius :
" Mortua quinetiam jungebat corpora vivis."
Certainly nothing can be more truly living than the
grand conception of the really Roman part of the
Pantheon, while the Greek portico had become some-
thing very nearly dead, with the unfliited columns, the
disproportionate pediment, and the frieze where — un-
doubtedly very much for the convenience of historians
— the name of a living man took the place once allotted
to the sculptured forms of gods and heroes.
10
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
Agrippa to tie on a would-be Grecian
portico to a truly Roman body. And
when we see that the classic architect
knew no better way of lighting so great
and splendid a pile than by making a hole
in the top which left its pavement to be
drenched by every passing shower, we
might turn to the ranges of windows in
some despised early Christian church,
and think that, in one respect at least,
the builders of the days of Constantine
and Theodosius had made some improve-
ments on the arts of the days of Augus-
tus. From such an incongruous union
of two utterly distinct principles of build-
ing we might turn with satisfaction to
those buildings where the real Roman
spirit prevails, more truly Roman some-
times in their decay, when the Greek cas-
ing has been picked away from them,
than they could ever have been in the
days of their perfection. The Baths
of Caracalla, the Temple of Venus and
Rome, the Basilica of Maxentius or of
Constantine, as they now stand ruined,
show only their Roman features. They
amaze us by the display of the construc-
tive powers of the arch on the very
grandest scale. In the days of their
glory, features of Greek decoration, beau-
tiful no doubt in themselves, but out of
place as the mask of such a noble reality,
must have marred the vast and simple
majesty of the true Roman building. As
it is we see in them links in a chain
which takes in the Cloaca Maxima at one
end and the naves of Mainz and Speyer
at the other ; when they were perfect,
their exotic features might have 'made
them as inharmonious as the Pantheon.
We can admire the theatre of Marcellus,
we can almost forgive the purpose of the
Flavian Amphitheatre, when we see how
completely the Roman element has tri-
umphed over the Greek. So, in one fea-
ture especially Roman, one for which the
habits and the arts of other nations could
supply no parallel, in the triumphal
arches, we see the native Roman forms
stand forth as the leading feature of
the structure, while the Greek features,
the columns added simply for ornament,
gradually lose their importance. In the
arches of Severus and Constantine the
columns have lost much of the import-
ance which they have in the arches of
Drusus and Titus. But the most con-
sistent work of the kind is really the de-
spised arch of Gallienus, where the round
arch boldly spans the way, and where
the Greek element has shrunk up into a
shallow pilaster which has almost to be
looked for. We are told that the Janus
Quadrifrons was once adorned with de-
tached columns ; but they are gone and
we do not miss them. The old Latin
deity might be well satisfied with the four
bold arches and the vault which were the
creation of his own land ; he needed not
the further enrichment of features bor-
rowed from the temples of the deities of
another mythology. In all these exam-
ples, and in many more — wherever, in
short, use came first and decoration
second — the Roman forms hold an un^
doubted supremacy, and sometimes they
have banished the foreign element alto
gether. But it was a higher achievement-
to lay hold on the noblest feature of the
foreign style, to press it into the service
of the native construction, to teach the
columns of Greece to bear the arches of
Rome. What the entablature was in the
Greek system the arch was in the Roman,
and no greater step in the history of art
was ever taken than when it was found
that the column which had given so much
grace and beauty to the one construction
could be made to give equal grace and
beauty to the other. At the bidding of
Diocletian consistent round-arched archi-
tecture first showed itself. The restorer
and organizer of the Empire might fit-
tingly be also the restorer and organizer
of the building art. The Emperor who
handed on the legacy of Rome to so many
ages might well be also the creator of a
type of building which contained in itself
the germ of every good and consistent
building which was to follow it.
It is at this point that our guides fail
us, that they hand us over to other
guides, and that they leave us to bridge
the chasm which yawns between them
for ourselves. Chasm in truth there is
none ; all is true and genuine growth,
step by step, though the battle was long
and hard, longer and harder in Rome
itself than it was elsewhere. At Ravenna
the triumph of the arched system, with
the arches resting on columns, seems to
have been complete from the moment
that the city became an Imperial dwell-
ing-place. Nowhere in
Placidia or Theodoric
columns still supporting
Nowhere at Ravenna are the horizontal
lines of the outside of the Grecian temple
transferred to the inside of the Christian
church. But the triumph of the new style
was perhaps less thorough because it was
so speedy. Nowhere at Ravenna does the
arch rest, as it does at Spalato, at once on
the abacus of the column. An interme-
the buildings of
do we see the
the entablature.
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
II
diate member, which is not without its
constructive use, but which is artistically
a survival, though no more than a sur-
vival, of the broken entablature, is thrust
in between them.* At Rome, on the other
hand, the two modes of construction went
on side by side, and the entablature re-
mained in occasional use to divide the
nave and aisles of Roman churches, after
the northern architects had exchanged
the round arch itself for the more aspir-
ing pointed forms. Of the three greatest
churches of Rome, the first in rank, the
church of Saint John Lateran, the true
metropolitan church of Rome, the Mother
Church of the City and of the World,
used the arch in all its perfection in that
long range of colums which papal barbar-
ism has so diligently laboured to destroy.
But in the Liberian Basilica on the
Esquiline the entablature — save again
where triple-crowned destroyers have cut
through its long unbroken line — reigns
as supreme as the arch does in the Lat-
eran. In the Vatican Basilica both
forms were used ; but the entablature had
the precedence. It was used in the main
rows of columns which divided the nave
from the main aisles, while the arcade
was used only to divide the main aisles
from the secondary aisles beyond them.
It was between the long horizontal lines
of the elder form of art, lines suggesting
the days of Augustus rather than the
days of Diocletian, that Charles and
Henry and Frederick marched to receive
the crown which Diocletian rather than
Augustus had bequeathed to them. And,
as if to make the balance equal, the
church of the brother Apostle, standing
beyond the walls of Leo no less than be-
yond the walls of Servius and Aurelian,
the great basilica of Saint Paul, modern
as it is in its actual fabric, preserves,
better than any other, the form of a great
church with arches resting on the col-
umns, the memory in short of what the
patriarchal church itself once was. In
the lesser churches the arched form is
by far the most common, but the entab-
lature keeps possession of a minority
which is by no means contemptible. And
at last it appears again, by a kind of dying
effort, in the work of Honorius the Fourth
in the basilica of Saint Lawrence, a work
distant only by a few years from the last
finish of Pisa, from the first beginnings of
Salisbury. That the struggle at Rome
* The Ravenna stilt may be compared with the stilt
between the column and the entablature in Egyptian
architecture. In the Saracenic styles it became a
great feature with both round and pointed arches.
should have been thus long and hard is
in no way wonderful. Of the pagan
buildings of Ravenna nothing remains
but a few inscribed stones and such like,
and the columns which are used up again
in the churches. Not a single temple or
other building is standing, even in ruins.
They most likely perished early. fhe
position of Ravenna was more like that of
the New Rome than that of the Old.
The city sprang at once, in Christian
times, from the rank of a naval station to
that of an abode of Emperors. But at
Rome, where the stores of earlier build-
ings were so endless, where paganism
held its ground so long, and where so
many of the pagan temples were spared
till a very late time, the older mode of
building was not likely to be forsaken all
at once. The churches had either been
basilicas or were built after the model of
the basilicas. And in the basilicas, the
rows of columns which divided the build-
ing, the' beginning of nave and aisles,
certainly supported, down at least to the
days of Diocletian and Constantine, not
arches, but a straight entablature. Saint
Mary on the Esquiline .therefore, in its
long horizontal lines, simply clave to the
existing fashion ; the arches of Saint
John Lateran and of Saint Paul were an
innovation which had to fight its way
against received practice.
But the transition may be traced, not
only in the construction and arrangement
of buildings, but in their ornamental de-
tails. Classical purism allows of only a
very few forms of capital. There are the
three Greek orders in their pure state,
and at Rome it would be hard to shut
out their Roman modifications. The pe-
culiar Roman or Composite capital, the
union of Ionic and Corinthian forms,
may perhaps be admitted by straining a
point. But there toleration ends. Yet
one may surely say that, though the
Greek forms are among the loveliest cre-
ations of human skill, yet, if men are con-
fined in this way to three or four models,
they are sure to weary of their sameness.
The Corinthian capital is as beautiful an
arrangement of foliage as can be devised ;
but it is hard to be forbidden either to
attempt other arrangements of foliage or
to seek for ornament in other forms be-
sides foliage. The later Roman builders
clearly thought so ; they brought in vari-
ous varieties, which it is easy to call cor-
ruptions, but which it is just as easy to call
developments. Among the vast stores of
capitals which are to be found among the
buildings of Rome, there are many which,
12
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
though they follow the general type of
the Tonic or the Corinthian order, do not
rigidly follow the types of those orders
which are laid down by technical rules.
Professor Reber has given some exam-
ples of this departure from rigid technical
exactness even in the Colosseum itself.
T^ie forms used in the Colosseum are
certainly not improvements ; the point is
that there should be varieties of any kind.
But I must speak in a different tone of
certain capitals, to my mind of singular
splendour and singular interest, which
lie neglected among the ruins of the Baths
of Caracalla. The artist has been so far
from confining himself to one prescribed
pattern, either of volute or of acanthus-
leaves, that he has ventured to employ
vigorously carved human or divine figures
as parts of the enrichment of his capitals.
And among the stores of fragments which
lie in the lower gallery of the Tabula-
rium, there are a number of capitals
which go even further, capitals of which
the volute is formed by the introduction
of various animal figures. If it be true
that the volute took its origin from a
ram's horn, such a change is something
like going back again to the beginning.
In these capitals, some at least of which,
if not " classical," are certainly pagan, we
get the beginning of that lavish employ-
ment of animal figures in Romanesque
capitals of which we have many examples
in England and Normandy, but the best
forms of which are certainly to be found
in some of the German and Italian build-
ings. At Wetzlar and at Gelnhausen, at
Milan, Monza, and Pavia, we may see
how ingeniously the volute can be made
out of various arrangements of the heads
of men, lions, bulls, and the primitive
ram himself, and how, in the noblest type
of all, it is formed by the bird of Cassar
bowing his head and folding his wings,
as if in the presence of his master. Such
forms as these may be grotesque, fanci-
ful, barbarous, according to technical
rules ; I venture to see in them perfectly
lawful efforts of artistic and inventive
skill. And at any rate, here we have the
beginning of them, in Roman buildings
early in the third century. And there is
another building which I have always
looked on with especial interest, the
small range of columns, the remains of
the Temple of the Dii Consentes, imme-
diately below the clivus of the Capitol.
Here is a work of pagan reaction, a tem-
ple consecrated to the old Gods of Rome
after some of the earliest Christian
churches were already built. As a mon-
ument of the religious and artistic his-
tory of Rome, it has the same kind of in-
terest which we feel when we find, ever
and anon at home, a church built or
adorned after the elder fashion during the
reaction under Philip and Mary. This
temple was the work of a devout and
zealous pagan, Prastextatus the friend of
Julian, though it was built, not during
the reign of his patron, but in the tolerant
days of Valentinian. This building, as a
pagan building, as part of the buildings
of the Forum, comes within Professor
Reber's ken. We have to thank him for
illustrating its remarkable capitals, in
which we find neither human nor animal
forms, but, by an equal departure from
the ideal precision of any known order,
the place of the figures of Hercules and
Bacchus in the capitals of Caracalla is
supplied by armour and weapons in the
form of a trophy. Both Professor Reber
and Mr. Burn note these steps in archi-
tectural development. Why do they not
go on to notice the next step, when we
find capitals of the same anomalous kind
used up again in the Laurentian Basilica ?
From thence another easy step leads us
to the use of the same forms in the
churches of Lucca, and one more step
leads us to the western portal of Wetzlar
and to the Imperial palace at Gelnhausen,
The complaint then which I have to
make is that we have excellent works il-
lustrating the pagan antiquities of Rome,
and excellent works illustrating the Chris-
tian antiquities of Rome, but that we have
no book, as far as I know, which clearly
and scientifically traces out the connection
between the two, and which sets them forth
as being both alike members of one un-
broken series. In M. Wey's book I can
at least turn from a picture of the Temple
of Saturn to a picture of the church of
Saint Clement, even though either may
be picturesquely mixed up with a picture
of a peasant or a buffalo. Professor
Reber and Mr. Burn give me all that I
can want up to a certain point ; only then
they stop, without any reason that I can
see for stopping.
I have two more remarks to make on
the connection between the Pagan and the
early Christian buildings of Rome. The
exclusive votaries of classical antiquity
sometimes raise a not unnatural outcry at
the barbarism of Popes, Emperors, and
Exarchs — the memory of Theodoric for-
bids us to add Kings — in building their
churches out of the spoils of older build-
ings. But what were they to do ? They
naturally looked on the question in a
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
13
wholly different way from that in which it
is natural for us to look at it. They had
no antiquarian feeling about the matter ;
such feelings at least were far stronger in
the breast of the Goth than they were in
the breast of the Roman. The feeling of
a Bishop or of a zealous Emperor or mag-
istrate would rather be that with which
Jehu or Josiah brake down the house of
Baal. The temples were standing use-
less ; churches were needed for the wor-
ship of the new faith ; the arrangements
of the temples seldom allowed of their
being turned into churches as they stood,
while they supplied an endless store of
columns which could be easily carried off
and set up again in a new building. The
act cannot fairly be blamed ; in a wider
view of history and art it can hardly be
regretted.
Besides this objection from outside,
which may make some minds turn away
from the study of the early Christian
buildings at Rome, there is another re-
mark, an admission it may be called, to
be made from within. There can be no
doubt that the form which was chosen for
the early churches, though it fostered art
in many ways, checked it, in the West at
least, in one way. The arch is the parent
of the vault ; the vault is the parent of
the cupola ; and to have brought these
three forms to perfection is the glory of
Roman art. But for some ages the con-
tinuity of Roman art in this respect is to
be looked for in the New Rome and not
in the Old. The type of church which
was adopted at Constantinople allowed the
highest development of the art of vault-
ing, and sent it in its perfect form back
again into the Western lands where it
had first begun. Saint Mark is the child
of Saint Sophia, and Saint Front at Peri-
gueux is the child of Saint Mark. But the
oblong basilican type of the Roman
churches had no place for the cupola,
and the one objection to the use of the
column as a support for the arch is that
it makes it hardly possible to cover the
building with a vault. The vault and the
dome were therefore used in the West
only in the exceptional class of round
buildings, and in the apses of the basili-
can churches. The basilican churches
had only wooden roofs, and their naves
could be made no wider than was con-
sistent with being covered with a wooden
roof. Sometimes, as in the basilica which
bears the name of Saint Cross in Jerusa-
lem, where an ancient building of great
width has been turned into a church, the
single body of the old structure is divided
by longitudinal ranges of columns in the
new. In short, at the very moment when
the arch won its greatest triumph, both
of construction and of decoration, archi-
tecture, as far as the roof was concerned,
fell back on the principle of the entabla-
ture. The practice of vaulting large
spaces, such as we see in the Baths of
Caracalla and the basilica of Maxentius,
went altogether out of use, till a distant
approach to the boldness of the old Ro-
man construction came in again in the
great German minsters of the twelfth
century.
It is the round-arched buildings, and
especially the early type of them, which
form the main wealth of the Christian
architecture of Rome. The later Roman-
esque gave Rome one boon only, but that
was a precious one. Rome now gained,
what she had never had either in Pagan
or in early Christian times, something to
break the monotony of her horizontal
lines. The pagan temple was all glo-
rious without ; the Christian basilica
was all glorious within ; but neither of
them had anything in its external outline
to lead the eye or the mind upward.
That lack was supplied by the tall narrow
bell-towers which add so much to the
picturesqueness of many a view in Rome,
and which are the only mediaeval works
which at all enter into the general artistic
aspect of the city. Of the sham Gothic of
Italy Rome has happily but little to show.
The sprawling arches of Rome's one
Gothic church by the Pantheon show
that we are on the way to the time of ut-
ter destruction. They are the pioneers
of the havoc of the Renaissance. Rome
was now at last to be truly sacked by the
barbarians. We may pass by the ravage
wrought on the temples at the foot of the
Capitol, on the Colosseum, on the stately
columns of Nerva's Forum. One who
has followed the line of argument of this
article will perhaps rather be inclined to
mourn over the destroyed and disfigured
churches of the early days of Roman
Christianity. Then it was that the fury
of the destroyer was let loose on the ven-
erable piles which Constantine had reared
and where Theodoric had made his offer-
ings. Pope after Pope had the pleasure
of writing up his name, of recording his
" munificence," on the holy places which
he laid waste. The disfigurement of
Saint John Lateran, the destruction of
Saint Peter's, may stand on record as the
great exploits of papal rule in Rome.
Men enter the modern Vatican Basilica
and wonder why the building seems so
RECENT WORKS ON THE BUILDINGS OF ROME.
14
much smaller than it really is. We may
be sure that no man wondered on that
score in the ancient building, as no man
now wonders in the restored church of
Saint Paul. No wonder that the building
looks small when three arches have
taken the place of twenty-four intercolum-
niations ; the vastness of the parts takes
away from the vastness of the whole. In
this mood we turn from the boasted glory
of the Renaissance to try and call up to
our minds the likeness of the nobler pile
which has passed away. That dreary
and forsaken apse, that front which it
needs some faith to believe to be part of
a church at all, may pass away from our
thoughts. They have sprung up on
ground which no part of the old basilica
ever covered. We turn from the work
of the Borghese to the portal of ancient
times, when the one imperial tomb which
Rome still holds was not yet thrust down
out of sight and out of mind.* We enter,
and, as the eye hurries along the few
yawning arches of the nave, we long for
the days when it might have rested step
by step along the endless ranges of its
columns. And even the majesty of the
dome cannot make us forget that on its
site once stood the altar, not as now,
standing alone and forlorn, with its huge
baldacchino further to lessen the effect
of size and dignity, but standing in its
place, canopied by the apse blazing with
mosaics, with the throne of the Patri-
arch rising in fitting dignity among his
presbyters, the throne from which a
worthier Leo than the Medicean de-
stroyer came down on the great Christ-
mas feast, first to place the crown of
Rome on the head of the Frankish
Patrician, and then, as a subject before
his sovereign, to adore the majesty of
the Frankish Caesar.f We turn trom
the church of the Emperors to the spe-
cial church of the Popes, to their own
forsaken home on the Lateran, to the
patriarchal church, disfigured indeed,
but not, like its successful rival, wholly
destroyed. We strive to call up the
pile as it stood when its columns, its
arches, were still untouched, not only
before the destroyers of later times had
hidden the marble columns beneath dull
stuccoed masses of stone, but even
before Northern forms which have no
* The tomb of Otto the Second, which stood in front
of the old Saint Peter's, is thrust down into the crypt
of the modern church. To be sure several torabs of
Popes have shared the same fate.
t Einhard, 801: " Post quas laudes ab eodem pon-
itfice more antiquorum principum adoratus est."
true abiding place on Italian soil had
thrust themselves into the windows both
of its apse and of its clerestory. We
picture it as it was when Hildebrand
arose from the patriarchal throne of the
world, from the throne which his suc-
cessors have swept away as an useless
thing,* to declare the King of Germany
and Italy deposed from both his king-
doms. We picture it as it was when
Urban sat in the midst of his assembled
Council, and called Anselm of Canter-
bury, as himself the Pope of another
world, to take his seat beside him in the
circle of which the destroyers have left
no trace behind.f So we might go
through all the buildings, great and small,
of which any portion has been spared to
us. Everywhere there is the same de-
struction, mutilation, or concealment of
the ancient features, the same thrusting
in of incongruous modern devices, the
same fulsome glorification of the doers of
the havoc. Still, in the vast extent of the
city, enough is left for us to trace out all
the leading features of the various forms
which were taken by the early Christian
buildings, and to connect them with the
buildings of the pagan city which form
the models out of which they grew by
healthy and natural development. The
historical associations of these buildings
are surely not inferior to those of their
pagan predecessors. As marking a stage
in the history of art, we must look on
them as links in the chain, as the central
members which mark the jjreat turnins:-
point in a series. That series, as we
have seen, begins with the arch of the
Great Sewer ; it goes on, obscured for
awhile, but never wholly broken, under
the influence of a foreiijn taste. Through
the buildings of Rome and Spalato and
Ravenna and Lucca it leads us to the
final perfection of round-arched architec-
ture, both in its lighter and more grace-
ful form at Pisa, and in its more massive
and majestic variety at Caen and Peter-
borough and Ely and Durham.
* The fact has been once or twice lately brought into
notice that in the cloister of Saint John Lateran, the
patriarchal chair of the Bishop of Rome may be seen,
cast out among other disused fragments. A paltry
altar fills its place in the apse, and the whole ancient
arrangement, which may be traced in one or two of the
smaller churches of Rome, is utterly destroyed.
t Eadmer, Hist. Nov. p. 52, Selden. " Cum vero
ad concilium venturum esset, et episcopis qui de Italia
et Gallia venerant suas sedes ex consuetudine vendl-
cantibus, nemo existeret qui se vel audisse vel vidisse
archiepiscopum Cantuariensem Romano concilio ante
haec interfuisse diceret, vel scire quo tunc in loco sedere
deberet, ex prascepto Papse in corona sedes illi posita
est, qui locus noa obscuri honoris in tali conveutu solet
haberL"
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
IS
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS
BROTHER.
CHAPTER XVI.
Dick Brown got up very early next
morning, with the same sense of exhilara-
tion and light-heartedness which had
moved him on the previous night. To be
sure he had no particular reason for it,
but what of that ? People are seldom so
truly happy as when they are happy with-
out any cause. He was early in his
habits, and his heart was too gay to be
anything but restless. He got up though
it was not much past five o'clock, and
took his turn at the pump in the yard,
which formed the entire toilet arrange-
ments of the tramps' lodging-house, and
then strolled down with his hands in his
pockets and his ruddy countenance shin-
ing afresh from these ablutions, to where
the river shone blue in the morning sun-
shine at the foot of Coffin Lane. Dick
had passed through Windsor more than
once in the course of his checkered ex-
istence. He had been here with his
tribe — those curious unenjoying slaves
of pleasure who are to be found wherever
there is merrymaking, little as their share
may be in the mirth — on the 4th of June,
the great fete day of Eton, and on the
occasion of reviews in the great Park,
and royal visits ; so the place was mod-
erately familiar to him, as so many places
were all over the country. He strolled
along the raised path by the water-side,
with a friendly feeling for the still river,
sparkling in the still sunshine, without
boat or voice to break its quiet, which he
thought to himself had "brought him
luck," a new friend, and perhaps a long
succession of odd jobs. Dick and his
mother did very fairly on the whole in
their wandering life. The shillings and
sixpences which they picked up in one
way or another kept them going, and it
was very rare when they felt want. But
the boy's mind was different from his
fate ; he was no adventurer — and though
habit had made the road and his nomadic
outdoor life familiar to him, yet he had
never taken to it quite kindly. The thing
of all others that filled him with envy was
one of those little tidy houses or pretty
cottages which abound in every English
village, or even on the skirts of a small
town, with a little flower-garden full of
flowers, and pictures on the walls inside.
The lad had said to himself times without
number, that there indeed was something
to make life sweet — a settled home, a
certain place where he should rest every
night and wake every morning. There
was no way in his power by which he
could attain to that glorious conclusion ;
but he thus secured what is the next best
thing to success in this world, a distinct
conception of what he wanted, an ideal
which was possible and might be carried
out. He sat down upon the bank, swing-
ing his feet over the mass of gravel which
the workmen, beginning their morning
work, were fishing up out of the river,
and contemplating the scene before him,
which, but for them, would have been
noiseless as midnight. The irregular
wooden buildings which flanked the rafts
opposite looked picturesque in the morn-
ing light, and the soft water rippled up to
the edge of the planks, reflecting every-
thing,— pointed roof and lattice window,
and the wonderful assembly of boats. It
was not hot so early in the morning ; and
even had it been hot, the very sight of
that placid river, sweeping in subdued
silvery tints, cooled down from all the
pictorial warmth and purple glory of the
evening, must have cooled and refreshed
the landscape. The clump of elm-trees
on the Brocas extended all their twinkling
l.eaflets to the light ; lower down, a line of
white houses, with knots of shrubs and
stunted trees before each, attracted Dick's
attention. Already line's of white clothes
put up to dry betrayed at once the occu-
pation and the industry of the inhabitants.
If only his mother was of that profession,
or could adopt it, Dick thought to him-
self,— how sweet it would be to live;
there, with the river at hand and the
green meadow-grass between — to live
there forever and ever, instead of wander-
ing and tramping about the dusty roads !
There was no dust anywhere on that
clear fresh morning. The boy made no
comment to himself upon the still beauty
of the scene. He knew nothing of the
charm of reflection and shadow, the soft
tones of the morning brightness, the cool
green of the grass ; he could not have
told why they were beautiful, but he felt
it somehow, and all the sweetness of the
early calm. The great cart-horse stand-
ing meditative on the water's edge, with
its heads and limbs relieved against the
light sky ; the rustling of the gravel as it
was shovelled up, all wet and shining,
upon the bank ; the sound of the work-
men's operations in the heavy boat from
which they were working, — gave a wel-
come sense of " company " and fellowship
to the friendly boy ; and for the rest, his
soul was bathed in the sweetness of the
i6
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
morning. After a while he went higher
up the stream and bathed more than his
soul — his body too, which was much the
better for the bath ; and then came back
again along the Brocas, having crossed in
the punt by which some early workmen
went to their occupation, pondering many
things in his mind. If a fellow could get
settled work now here — a fellow who was
not so fortunate as to have a mother who
could take in washing ! Dick extended
his arms as he walked, and stretched him-
self, and felt able for a man's work, though
he was only sixteen — hard work, not
light — a good long day, from six in the
morning till six at night ; what did he
care how hard the work was, so long as
he was off the road, and had some little
nook or corner of his own — he did not
even mind how tiny — to creep into, and
identify as his, absolutely his, and not
another's ? The cottages facing to the
Brocas were too fine and too grand for
his aspirations. Short of the ambitious
way of taking in washing, he saw no royal
road to such comfort and splendour ; but
homelier places no doubt might be had.
What schemes were buzzing in his young
head as he wa.lked back towards Coffin
Lane ! He had brought out a hunch of
bread with him, which his mother had
put aside last night, and which served for
breakfast, and satisfied him fully. He
wanted no delicacies of a spread table,
and dreams of hot coffee did not enter
his mind. On winter mornings, doubt-
less, it was tempting when it was to be
had in the street, and pennies were forth-
coming ; but it would have been sheer
extravagance on such a day as this. The
bread was quite enough for all Dick's
need ; but his mind was busy with pro-
jects ambitious and fanciful. He went
back to the lodging-house to find his
mother taking the cup of weak tea with-
out milk which was her breakfast ; and,
as it was still too early to go to his ap-
pointment to Val, begged her to come
out with him that he might talk with her ;
there was no accommodation for private
talk in the tramps' lodging-house, al-
though most of the inmates by this time
were gone upon their vagrant course.
Dick took his mother out by the river-
side again, and led her to a grassy bank
above the gravel-heap and the workmen,
where the white houses on the Brocas,
and the waving lines of clean linen put
out to dry, were full in sight. He began
the conversation cunningly, with this
practical illustration of his discourse be-
fore his eyes.
you,"
here,
ever
"Mother," said Dick, "did you never
think as you'd like to try staying still in
one place and getting a little bit of a
home 1 "
" No, Dick," said the woman, hastily ;
"don't ask me — I couldn't do it. It
would kill me if I were made to try."
"No one ain't a-going to make
said Dick, soothingly ; " but look
mother — now tell me, didn't you
try .? »
"Oh yes, I've tried — tried hard
enough — till I was nigh dead of it "
" I can't remember, mother."
" It was before your time," she said,
with a sigh and uneasy movement —
" before you were born."
Dick did not put any further questions.
He had never asked anything about his
father. A tramp's life has its lessons as
well as a lord's, and Dick was aware that
it was not always expedient to inquire
into the life, either public or private, of
your predecessors. He had not the least
notion that there had been anything par-
ticular about his father, but took it for
granted that he must have been such a
one as Joe or Jack, in rough coat and
knotted handkerchief, a wanderer like the
rest. He accepted the facts of existence
as they stood without making any diffi-
culties, and therefore he did not attempt
to " worrit " his mother by further refer-
ence to the past, which evidently did
" worrit " her. " Well, never mind that,"
he said ; "you shan't never be forced to
anything if I can help it. But if so be as
I got work, and it was for my good to
stay in a place — supposing it might be
here ? "
" Here's different," said his mother,
dreamily.
" That's just what I think," cried Dick,
too wise to ask why; "it's a kind of a
place where a body feels free like, where
you can be gone to-morrow if you please
— the forest handy and Ascot handy, and
barges as will give you a lift the moment
as you feel it the right thing to go.
That's just what I wanted to ask you,
mother. If I got a spell of work along of
that young swell as I'm going to see, or
anything steady, mightn't we try .? If
you felt on the go any day, you might
just take the road again and no harm
done ; or if you felt as you could sit still
and make yourself comfortable in the
house "
" I could never sit still and make my-
self comfortable," she said ; " I can't be
happy out of the air, Dick — I can't
breathe ; and sitting still was never my
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
n
way — nor you couldn't do it neither,"
she added, looking in his face.
" Oh, couldn't I though ! " said Dick,
with a laugh. " Mother, you don't know
much about me. I am not one to grum-
ble, I hope — but if you'll believe me,
the thing I'd be proudest of would be to
be bound prentis and learn a trade."
" Dick ! "
" I thought you'd be surprised. I
know I'm too old now, and I know it's
no good wishing," said the boy. " Many
and many's the time I've lain awake of
nights thinking of it ; but I saw as it
wasn't to be done nohow, and never
spoke. I've give up that free and full,
mother, and never bothered you about
what couldn't be ; so you won't mind if I
bother a bit now. If I could get a long
spell of work, mother dear ! There's
them men at the gravel, and there's a
deal of lads like me employed about the
rafts ; and down at Eton they're wanted
in every corner, for the fives-courts and
the rackets, and all them things. Now
supposing as this young swell has took a
fancy to me, like I have to him — and
supposing as I get work — let's say sup-
posing, for it may never come to nothing,
— wouldn't you stay with me a bit,
mother, and try and make a home ? "
" rd like to see the gentleman, Dick,"
said his mother, ignoring his appeal.
" The gentleman ! " said the boy, a lit-
tle disappointed. And then he added,
cheerily — " Weil, mother dear, you shall
see the gentleman, partickler if you'll
stay here a bit, and I have regular work,
and we get a bit of an 'ome."
" He would never come to your home,
lad — not the likes of him."
"You think a deal of him, mother.
He mightn't come to Coffin Lane ; I
daresay as the gentlemen in college don't
let young swells go a-visiting there. But
you take my word, you'll see him ; for
he's taken a fancy to me, I tell you.
There's the quarter afore ten chiming. I
must be off now, mother ; and if any-
thing comes in the way you'll not go
against me ? not when I've set my heart
on it, like this ? "
"■ I'll stay — a bit — to please you,
Dick," said the woman. And the lad
sprang up and hastened away with a light
heart. This was so much gained. He
went quickly down, walking on through
the narrow High Street of Eton to
the great red house in which his new
friend was. Grinder's was an institu-
tion in the place, the most important
of all the Eton boarding houses, though
LIVING AGE. VOL. VL 3I4
a dame's, not a master's house,
elegant young Grinder, who was
only
The
Val's tutor, was but a younger branch of
his exalted family, and had no immediate
share in the grandeurs of the establish-
ment, which was managed by a dominie
or dame, a lay member of the Eton com-
munity, who taught nothing, but only
superintended the meals and morals of
his great houseful of boys. Such per-
sonages have no place in Eton proper —
the Eton of the Reformation period, so to
speak — but they were very important in
Val's time. Young Brown went to a side
door, and asked for Mr. Ross with a little
timidity. He was deeply conscious of
the fact that he was nothing but " a cad "
— not a kind of visitor whom either dame
or tutor would permit " one of the gen-
tlemen " to receive ; and, indeed, I think
Dick would have been sent ignominious-
ly away but for his frank and open coun-
tenance, and the careful washing, both in
the river and out of it, which he had that
morning given himself. He was told to
wait ; and he waited, noting, with curious
eyes, the work of the great liouse which
went on under his eyes, and asking him-
self how he would like to be in the place
of the young curly-headed footman who
was flying about through the passages,
up-stairs and down, on a hundred er-
rands ; or the other aproned functionary
who was visible in a dark closet at a dis-
tance, cleaning knives with serious per-
sistence, as if life depended on it. Dick
decided that he would not like this mode-
of making his livelihood. He shrank
even from the thought — I cannot tell
why, for he had no sense of pride, and
knew no reason why he should not have
taken service in Grinder's, where the ser-
vants, as well as the other inmates, lived
on the fat of the land, and wanted for
nothing ; but somehow his fancy was not
attracted by such a prospect. He watched
the cleaner of knives, and the curly-
headed footman in his livery, with inter-
est ; but not as he watched the lads oa
the river, whose life was spent in launch-
ing boats and withdrawing them from,
the water in continual succession. He
had no pride ; and the livery and the liv-
ing were infinitely more comfortable than
anything he had ever known. " His
mind did not go with it," he said to him-
self ; and that was all it was necessary to
say.
While he was thus meditating, Valen-
tine Ross, in correct Eton costume ^-
— black coat, high hat, and white necktie
— fresh from his tutor, with books under
iS
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
his arm, came in, and spied him where he
stood waiting. Val's face lightened up
into pleased recognition, — more readily
than Dick's did, who was slow to recog-
nize in this solemn garb the figure which
he had seen in undress dripping from
the waters. " Hollo, Brown ! " said Val ;
" I am glad you have kept your time.
Come up-stairs and I'll give you what I
promised you." Dick followed his patron
up-stairs, and through a long passage to
Val's room. "Come in," said Val, rum-
maging in a drawer of his bureau for the
half-crown with which he meant to pre-
sent his assistant of last night. Dick en-
tered timidly, withdrawing his cap from
his head. The room was quite small, the
bed folded up, as is usual at Eton. The
bureau, or writing-desk with drawers,
adorned by a red-velvet shelf on the top,
stood in one corner, and a set of book-
shelves similarly decorated in another ; a
heterogeneous collection of pictures, hung
as closely as possible, the accumulation
of two years, covered the walls ; some
little carved brackets of stained wood
held little plaster figures, not badly
modelled, in which an Italian image-seller
drove a brisk trade among the boys. A
blue and black coat, in bright stripes
(need I add that Val — august distinction
— was in the Twenty-Two ?), topped by
a cap of utterly different but equally
bright hues — the colours of the house —
hung on the door ; a fine piece of colour,
if perhaps somewhat violent in contrast.
The window was full of bright geraniums,
which grew in a box outside, and gar-
'landed with the yellow canariensis and
wreaths of sweet-peas. Dick looked
.round upon all these treasures, his heart
throbbing with admiration, and some-
thing that would have been envy had it
"been possible to hope or wish for any-
;thing so beautiful and delightful for him-
■self ; but as this was not possible, the
'boy's heart swelled with pleasure that
'his young patron should possess it, which
•was next best. " Wait a moment," cried
Val, finding, as he pursued his search, a
note laid upon his bureau, which had
'been brought in in his absence ; and Dick
stood breathless, gazing round him, glad
of the delay which gave him time to take
in every detail of this school-boy palace
into his mind. The note was about some
■momentous piece of business, — the do-
mestic economy of that one of "the
boats " in which Val rowed number
fjeven, with hopes of being stroke when
Jones left next Election. He bent his
i)rows over it, and seizing paper and pen,
wrote a hasty answer, for such important
business cannot wait. Dick, watching
his movements, felt with genuine gratifi-
cation that here was another commission
for him. But his patron's next step made
his countenance fall, and filled his soul
with wonder. Val opened his door, and
with stentorian voice shouted " Lower
boy ! " into the long passage. There was
a momentary pause, and then steps were
heard in all directions up and down, rat-
tling over the bare boards, and about
half-a-dozen young gentlemen in a lump
came tumbling into the room. Val in-
spected them with lofty calm, and held
out his note to the last comer, over the
heads of the others. " Take this to
Benton at Guerre's," he said, with admi-
rable brevity ; and immediately the mes-
senger departed, the little crowd melted
away, and the two boys were again alone.
" I say, I mustn't keep you here," said
Val ; " my dame mightn't like it. Here's
your half-crown. Have you got anything
to do yet ? I think you're a handy fellow,
and I shouldn't mind saying a word for
you if I had the chance. What kind of
place do you want ? "
" I don't mind what it is," said Dick.
" I'd like a place at the rafts awful, if I
was good enough ; or anything, sir. I
don't mind, as long as I can make enough
to keep me — and mother ; that's all I
care."
"Was that your mother?" said Val.
" Do you work for her too ? "
"Well, sir, you see she can make a deal
in our old way. She is a great one with
the cards when she likes, but she won't
never do it except when we're hard up
and she's forced ; for she says she has to
tell the things she sees, and they always
comes true : but what I want is to stay
in one place, and get a bit of an 'ome to-
gether— and she ain't good for gentle-
men's washing or that sort, worse luck,"
said Dick, regretfully. " So you see. sir,
if she stays still to please me, I'll have to
work for her, and good reason. She's
been a good mother to me, never going
on the loose, nor that, like other women
do. I don't grudge my work."
Val did not understand the curious
tingling that ran through his veins. He
was not consciously thinking of his own
mother, but yet it was something like
sympathy that penetrated his sensitive
mind. " I wish I could help you," he
said, doubtfully. " I'd speak to the peo-
ple at the rafts, but I don't know if they'd
mind me. I'll tell you what, though, "he
added, with sudden excitement. " I can
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
^9
do better than that — I'll get Lichen to
speak to them ! They might not care for
me — but they'll mind what Lichen says."
Dick received reverentially and grate-
fully, but without understanding the full
grandeur of the idea, this splendid prom-
ise— for how should the young tramp
have known, what I am sure the reader
must divine, that Lichen was that Olym-
pian demigod and king among men, the
Captain of the Boats ? If Lichen had
asked the Queen for. anything, I wonder
if her Majesty would have had the cour-
age to refuse him ? but at all events no-
body about the river dared to deny him.
To be spoken to by Lichen was, to an
ordinary mortal, distinction enough to
last him half his (Eton) days. Dick did
not see the magnificence of the prospect
that thus opened to him, but Val knew all
that was implied in it, and his counte-
nance brightened all over. " I don't
think they can refuse Lichen anything,"
he said. " Look here, Brown ; meet us
at the rafts after six, and I'll tell you
what is done. I wish your mother would
tell me my fortune. Lots of fellows
would go to her if they knew ; but then
the masters wouldn't like it, and there
might be a row."
" Bless 3'ou, sir, mother wouldn't — not
for the Bank of England," cried Dicifc
"She might tell you yours, if I was to
ask her. Thank you kindly, sir ; I'll be
there as sure as life. It's what I should
like most."
" If Lichen speaks for you, you'll get
it," said Val ; " and I know Harry wants
boys. You're a good boy, ain't you?"
he added, looking at him closely — "you
look it. And mind, if we recommend you,
and you're found out to be rowdy or bad
after, and disgrace us. Lichen will give
you such a licking ! Or for that matter,
111 do it myself."
" I'm not afraid," said Dick. " I ain't
rowdy ; and if I get a fixed place and a
chance of making a home, you just try
me, and see if I'll lose my work for the
sake of pleasure. I ain't that sort."
" I don't believe you are," said Val ;
" only it's right I should warn you ; for
Lichen ain't a fellow to stand any non-
sense, and no more am I. Do you
think that's pretty ? I'm doing it, but I
haven't the time."
This was said in respect to a piece of
wood-carving, which Valentine had be-
gun in the beginning of the year, and
which lay there, like many another en-
terprise commenced, gathering dust but
approaching no nearer to completion.
Dick surveyed it with glowing eyes.
" I saw some like it in a shop as I came
down. Oh, how I should like to try!
I've cut things myself out of a bit of
wood with an old knife, and sold them at
the fair."
"And you think you could do this
without any lessons .? " said Val, laugh-
ing; "just take and try it. I wonder
what old Fullady would say ! there are
the saws and things. But look here,
you'll have to go, for it's time for eleven
o'clock school. Take the whole concern
with you, quick, and I'll give you five
bob if you can finish it. Remember after
six at the rafts to-night."
Thus saying, the young patron pushed
\\\?> protdgd before him out of the room,
laden with the wood-carving, and rushed
off himself with a pile of books under his
arm. All the boys in the house seemed
flooding out, and all the boys in Eton to
be pouring in different directions, one
stream intersecting another, as Dick is-
sued forth, filled with delight and hope.
He had not a corner to which he could
take the precious bit of work he had
been intrusted with — nothing but the
common room of the tramps' lodging-
house. Oh for a " home," not so grand
as Val's little palace, but anything that
would afford protection and quiet — a
place to decorate and pet like a child !
This feeling grew tenfold stronger in
Dick's heart as he sat wistfully on the
river's bank, and looked across at the rafts
in which were sublime possibilities of
work and wages. How he longed for the
evening I How he counted the moments
as the day glowed through its mid hours,"
and the sun descended the western sky,
and the hour known in these regions as
"after six" began to come down softly
on Eton and the world I
CHAPTER XVII.
Dick's mother sat upon the bank
where he had left her, with her hands
clasping her knees, and her abstract eyes
gazing across the river into the distance,
seeing scarcely anything before h'jr, but
seeing much which was not before her
nor could be. A tramp has no room to
sit in, no domestic duties to do, even
were she disposed to do them ; and to
sit thus in a silent musing, or without
even musing at all, in mere empty leisure,
beaten upon by wind and sun, was as
characteristic of her wandering life as
were the long fatigues of the road along
20
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
which at other times she would plod for
hours, or the noisy tumult of race-course
or fair through which she often carried
her serious face and abstract eyes — a
figure always remarkable and never hav-
ing any visible connection with the scene
in which she was. But this day she was
as she had not been for years. The
heart which fulfilled its ordinary pulsa-
tions in her breast calmly and dully on
most occasions, like something far off
and scarcely belonging to her, was now
throbbing high with an emotion which
influenced every nerve and fibre of her
frame. It had never stilled since last
night when she heard Val's name sound-
ing clear through the sunny air, and saw
the tall well-formed boy, with his wet
jersey clinging to his shoulders, moving
swiftly away from her, a vision, but more
substantial than any other vision. Her
old heart, the heart of her youth, had
leaped back into life at that moment ;
and instead of the muffied beating of the
familiar machine which had simply kept
her alive all these years, a something full
of independent life, full of passion, and
eagerness, and quick-coming fancies, and
hope, and fear, had suddenly come to
life within her bosom. I don't know if
her thoughts were very articulate. They
could scarcely have been -so, uneducated,
untrained, undisciplined soul as she was
— a creature ruled by impulses, and with
no hand to control her ; but as she sat
there, and saw her placid Dick go hap-
pily off, to meet the other lad who was to
him "a young swell," able to advance
and help him, one to whom he had taken
a sudden fancy, he could not tell why, —
the strangeness of the situation roused
her to an excitement which she was in-
capable of subduing. " It mayn't be him
after all — it mayn't be him after all,"
she said to herself, watching Dick till he
disappeared into the distance. She
would have given all she had (it was not
much) to go with him, and look face to face
upon the other. It seemed to her that
she must know at the first glance whether
it was him or not. But, indeed, she had
no doubt that it was //////. For I do not
attempt to make any pretence at deceiv-
ing the well-informed and quick-sighted
reader, who knows as well as I do who
this woman was. She had carried on her
wandering life, the life which she had
chosen, for the last eight years, exposed
to all the vicissitudes of people in her
condition, sometimes in want, often mis-
erable, pursuing in her wild freedom a
routine as mechanically fixed as that of
the most rigid conventional life, and
bound, had she known it, by as unyield-
ing a lacework of custom as any that
could have affected the life of the Hon-
ourable Mrs. Riciiard Ross, the wife of
the Secretary of Legation. But she did
not know this, poor soul ; and besides,
all possibility of that other existence, all
hold upon it or thought of it, had disap-
peared out of her horizon for sixteen
years.
Sixteen years ! a large slice out of a
woman's life who had not yet done more
than pass the half-way milestone of hu-
man existence. She had never possessed
so much even of the merest rudimentary
education as to know what the position
of Richard Ross's wife meant, except
that it involved living in a house, wearing
good clothes, and being surrounded by
people of whom she was frightened, who
did not understand her, and whom she
could not understand. Since her flight
back into her natural condition, the slow
years had brought to her maturing mind
thoughts which she ujiderstood as little.
She was not more educated, more clever,
nor indeed more clear in her confused
fancies, than when she gave back one of
her boys, driven thereto by a wild sense
of justice, into his father's keeping ; but
many strange things had seemed to pass
before her dreamy eyes since then, —
things she could not fathom, vague
visions of what might have been right,
of what was wrong. These had come to
little practical result, except in so far that
she had carefully preserved her boy Dick
from contact with the evil around — had
trained him in her way to truth and
goodness and some strange sense of
honour — had got him even a little edu-
cation, the faculties of reading and writ-
ing, which were to herself a huge dis-
tinction among her tribe ; and, by keep-
ing him in her own dreamy and silent
but pure companionship, had preserved
the lad from moral harm. She had, how-
ever, a material to work upon which had
saved her much trouble. The boy was,
to begin with, of a character as incom-
prehensible to her as were the other
vague and strange influences which had
shaped her shipwrecked life. He was
good, gentle, more advanced than her-
self, his teacher, in the higher things
which she tried to teach him, getting hy
instinct to conclusions which onlypiin-
fully and dimly had forced themselves
upon her, not subject to the temptations
which she expected to move him, not
lawless, nor violent, nor hard to control,
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER:
21
but full of reason and sense and steady
trustworthiness from his cradle. She
had by this time got over the surprise
with which she had slowly come to rec-
ognize in Dick a being totally different
from herself. She was no analyst of char-
acter, and she had accepted the fact with
dumb wonder which did not know how
to put itself into words. Even now there
av/aited her many lesser surprises, as
Dick, going on from step to step in life,
did things which it never would have oc-
curred to her to do, and showed himself
totally impervious to those temptations
against which it had been necessary for
her to struggle. His last declaration to
her was as surprising as anything that
went before it. The nomad's son, who
had been " on the tramp" all his life,
whose existence had been spent "on the
road," alternating between the noisy ex-
citement of those scenes of amusement
which youth generally loves, and that
dull semi-hibernation of the winter which
gives the tramp so keen a zest for the
new start of spring, — was it the boy so
bred who had spoken to her of a " home,"
of steady work, and the commonplace
existence of a man who had learned a
trade? She wondered with a depth of
vague surprise which it would be impos-
sible to put into words — for she herself
had no words to express what she meant.
Had it not happened to chime in with the
longing in her own mind to stay here and
see the other boy, whose momentary con-
tact had filled her with such excitement, I
don't know how she would have received
Dick's strange proposal ; but in her other
agitation it had passed without more
than an additional but temporary shock
of that surprise which Dick constantly
gave her ; and she did not count the cost
of the concession she had made to him,
the tacit agreement she had come under
to live under a commonplace roof, and
confine herself to indoor life during this
flush of midsummer weather, for the
longing that she had to know something,
if only as a distant spectator, of the life
and being of that other boy.
After a while she roused herself and
went over in the ferry-boat to the other
side of the river, where were " the rafts "
to which Dick looked with so much anx-
iety and hope. Everything was very
stiil at the rafts at that sunny hour be-
fore mid-day, when Eton, shut up in its
schoolrooms, did its construing drowsily,
and dreamed of the delights of "after
twelve" without being able to rush forth
and anticipate them. The attendants on
the rafts, lightly-clad, softly-stepping
figures, in noiseless boating shoes and
such imitation of boating costume as
their means could afford, were lounging
about with nothing to do, seated on the
rails drawling in dreary Berkshire speech,
or arranging their boats in readiness for
the approaching rush. Dick's mother
approached along the road, without at-
tracting any special observation, and got
into conversation with one or two of
these men with the ease which attends
social intercourse on these levels of life.
" If there is a new hand wanted, my lad
is dreadful anxious to come," she said.
" Old Harry's looking for a new lad,"
answered the man she addressed. And
so the talk began.
"There was a kind of an accident on
the river last night," she said, after a
while; "one of the gentlemen got his
boat upset, and my lad brought it
down "
" Lord bless you, call that a hacci-
dent?" said her informant; "half-a-
dozen of 'em swamps every night. They
don't mind, nor nobody else."
" The name of this one was — Ross, I
think," she said, very slowly ; " maybe
you'll know him ?"
"I know him well enough — he's in
the Victory ; not half a bad fellow in his
way, but awful sharp, and not a bit of
patience. I seed hi.m come in dripping
wet. He's free with his money, and I
daresay he'd pay your lad handsome. If
I were you, I'd speak to old Harry him-
self about the place ; and if you say
you've a friend or two among them
young swells, better luck."
" Is this one what you call a swell ?"
said the woman.
" Why, he's Mr. Ross, ain't he ? that's
Eton for honourable," said one of the
men.
"//"^ aint Mr. Ross," said an older and
better-informed person, with some con-
tempt. The older attendants at the rafts
were walking peerages, and knew every-
body's pedigree. " His father was Mis-
ter Ross, if you please. He used to be
at college in my time ; a nice light-haired
sort of a lad, not good for much, but with
heaps of friends. Not half the pluck of
this one : this one's as dark as you,
missis, a kind of a foreign-looking blade,
and as wilful as the old gentleman him-
self. But I like that sort better than the
quiet ones ; the quiet ones does just as
much mischief on the sly."
" They're a rare lot, them lads are,"
said the other — " shoutins: at a man
S3
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
like's he was the dust under their feet.
Ain't we their fellow-creatures all the
same ? It ain't much you makes at the
rafts, missis, even if you gains a lot in
the season. For after all, look how short
the season is — you may say just the
summer half. It's too cold in March,
and it's too cold in October — nothing
to speak of but the summer half. You
makes a good deal while it lasts, I don't
say nothing to the contrary — but what's
that to good steady work all round the
year ? "
" Maybe her lad isn't one for steady
work," said another. " It is work, I can
tell you is this, as long as it lasts ; from
early morning to lockup, never a moment
to draw your breath, but school-hours,
and holidays, and half-holidays without
end. Then there's the regular boating
gents as come and go, not constant like
the Eton gentlemen. They give a deal
of trouble — they do; and as particular
with their boats as if they were babies,
I tell you what, missis, if you want him to
have an easy place, I wouldn't send him
here."
" He's not one that's afraid of work,"
said the woman, " and it's what he's set
his heart on. I wonder if you could tell
me now where this Mr. Ross comes from ?
— if he's west-country now, down Devon-
shire way ? "
" Bless you, no," said the old^r man,
who was great in genealogies ; " he's from
the north, he is — Scotland or there-
abouts. His grandfather came with him
when he first came to college — Lord
something or other. About as like a lord
as I am. But the nobility ain't much to
look at," added this functionary, with
whom familiarity had bred contempt.
"They're a poor lot them Scotch and
Irish lords. Give me a good railway
man, or that sort ; they're the ones for
spending their money. Lord — I can't
think on the old un's name."
"Was it— Eskside?"
" You're a nice sort of body to know
about the haristocracy," said the man ;
"in course it was Eskside. Now, mis-
sis, if you knowed, what was the good of
coming asking me, taking a fellow in ? "
" I didn't know," said the woman, hum-
bly ; " I only wanted to know. In my
young days, long ago, I knew — a family
of that name."
"Ay, ay, in your young days. You
were a handsome lass then, I'll be
bound," said the old man, with a grin.
" Look here," said one of the others —
"here's old Harry coming, if you like to
speak to him about your lad. Speak up
and don't be frightened. He ain't at all a
bad sort, and if you tell him as the
boy's spry and handy, and don't mind a
hard day's work — speak up ! only don't
say I told you." And the benevolent ad-
viser disappeared hastily, and began to
pull about some old gigs which were
ranged on the rafts, as if much too busily
occupied to spare a word. The woman
went up to the master with a heart beat-
ing so strongly that she could scarcely
hear her own voice. On any other occa-
sion she would have been shy and reluc-
tant. Asking favours was not in her
way — she did not know how to do it.
She could not feign or compliment, or do
anvthing to ingratiate herself with a
patron. But her internal agitation was so
strong that she was quite uplifted beyond
all sense of the effort which would have
been so trying to her on any other occa-
sion. She went up to him sustained by
her excitement, which at the same time
blunted her feelings, and made her almost
unaware of the very words she uttered.
"Master," she said, going straight to
the point, as the excited mind naturally
does — "I have a boy that is very anxious
for work. He is a good lad, and very
kind to me. We've been tramping about
the country — nothing better, for all my
folks was in that way ; but he don't take
after me and my folks. He thinks steady
work is better, and to stay still in one
place."
" He is in the right of it there," was
the reply.
" Maybe he is in the right," she said ;
" I'm not the one to say, for I'm fond of
my freedom and moving about. But,
master, you'll have one in your place that
is not afraid of hard w^ork if you'll have
my son."
" Who is your son ? do I know him ? "
said the master, who was a man with a
mobile and clean-shaven countenance,
like an actor, with a twinkling eye and a
suave manner, the father of an athletic
band of river worthies who were regarded
generally with much admiration by " the
college gentlemen," to whom their prow-
ess was well known, — " who is your
son ? "
The woman grew sick and giddy with
the tumult of feeling in her. The words
were simple enough in straightforward
meaning; but they bore another sense,
which made her heart flutter, and took
the very light from her eyes. " Who was
her son .'' ' It was all she could do to
keep from betraying herself, from claim-
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
23
ing some one else as her son, very differ-
ent from Dick. If she had done so, she
would have been simply treated as a mad
woman : as it was, the bystanders, used
to tramps of a very different class, looked
at her with instant suspicion, half dis-
posed to attribute her giddiness and fal-
tering to a common enough cause. She
mastered herself without fully knowing
either the risk she had run or the look
directed to her. " You don't know him,"
she said. " We came here but last night.
One of the college gentlemen was to
speak for him. He's a good hard-working
lad, if you'll take my word for it, that
knows him best."
" Well, missis, it's true as you know
him best; but I don't know as we can
take his mother's word for it. Mothers
ain't alvvays to be trusted to tell what they
know," said the master, good-humouredly.
" I'll speak to you another time, for here
they are coming. Look sharp, lads."
" All right, sir ; here you are."
The tide was coming in — a tide of
boys — who immediately flooded the
place, pouring up-stairs into the dressing-
rooms to change their school garments
for boating dress, and gradually occupy-
ing the rafts in a moving restless crowd.
The woman stood, jostled by the living
stream, watching wistfully, while boat
after boat shot out into the water, — gigs,
with a laughing, restless crew — out-
riggers, each with a silent inmate, bent
on work and practice ; for all the school
races had yet to be rowed. She stood
gazing, with a heart that fluttered wildly,
upon all those unknown young faces and
animated moving figures. One of them
was bound to her by the closest tie that
can unite two human creatures ; and yet,
poor soul, she did not know him, nor had
he the slightest clue to find her out — to
think of her as anyhow connected with
himself. Her heart grew sick as she
gazed and gazed, pausing now upon one
face, now upon another. There was one
of whom she caught a passing glimpse,
as he pushed off into the stream in one
of the long-winged dragon-fly boats, who
excited her most of all. She could not
see him clearly, only a glimpse of him be-
tween the crowding figures about;— »an
oval face, with dark clouds of curling
hair pushed from his forehead. There
came a ringing in her ears, a dimness in
her eyes. Women in her class do pot
faint except at the most tremendous
emergencies. If they did, they would
probably be set down as intoxicated, and
summarily dealt with. She caught at the
wooden railing, and held herself upright
by it, shutting her eyes to concentrate
her strength. And by-and-by the bewil-
dering sick emotion passed ; was it him
whom she had seen ?
After this she crossed the river again in
the ferry-boat, though it was a halfpenny
each time, and she felt the expenditure to
be extravagant, and walked about on the
other bank till she found Dick, who natu-
rally adopted the same means of finding
her, neither of them thinking of any re-
turn " home," — a place which did not
exist in their consciousness. Then they
went and bought something in an eating-
shop, and brought it out to a quiet corner
opposite the " Brocas clump," and there
ate their dinner, with the river flowing at
their feet, and the skiffs of " the gentle-
men " darting by. It was, or rather
looked, a poetic meal, and few people
passed in sight without a momentary envy
of the humble picnic ; but to Dick Brown
and his mother there was nothing out of
the way in it, and she tied up the frag-
ments for supper in a spotted cotton
handkerchief when they had finished.
It was natural for them to eat out of
doors, as well as to do everything else
out of doors. Dick told her of his good
luck, how kind Valentine had been, and
gave her the half-crown he had received,
and an account of all that was to be done
for him. " If they don't mind him,
they're sure to mind the other gentle-
man," said devout Dick, who believed ia
Val's power with a fervent and unques-
tioned faith. After a while he went
across to the rafts, and hung about there
ready for any odd job, and making him-
self conspicuous in eager anxiety to
please the master. His mother stayed
still, with the fragments of their meal
tied up in the handkerchief, on the same
grassy bank where they dined, watching
the boats as they came and went. She
did not understand how it was that they
all dropped off one by one, and as sud*
denly reappeared again when the hour
for clinner and the hour of " three o'clock
school" passed. But she had nothing to
do to call her frorn that musing and si-
lence to which she had become habitu-
ated, and remained there the entire after-
noon doing nothing but gaze, At last,
however, she made a great effort, and
roused herself. The unknown boy after
whom she yearned could not be identified
among all these strange faces ; and there
was something which could be done for
good Dick, the boy who had always been
good to her, She did for Dick (vhat ns)
:24
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
one could have expected her to do ; she
went and looked for a lodging where
they could establish themselves. After
a while she found two small rooms in a
house facing the river, — one in which
Dick could sleep, the other a room with
a fire-place, where his hot meals, which
he no doubt would insist upon, could be
cooked, and where, in a corner, she her-
self could sleep when the day was over.
She had a little stock of reserve money
on her person, a few shillings saved, and
something more, which was the remnant
of a sum she had carried about with her
for years, and which I believe she in-
tended " to bury her," according to the
curious pride which is common among
the poor. But as for the moment there
was no question of burying her, she felt
justified in breaking in upon this little
hoard to please her boy by such forlorn
attempts at comfort as were in her power.
She ventured to buy a few necessaries,
and to make provision as well as she
knew how for the night — the first night
which she would have passed for years
under a roof which she could call her
own. One of the chief reasons that rec-
onciled her to this step was, that the
room faced the river, and that not Dick
alone, but the other whom she did not
know, could be watched from the win-
dow. Should she get to know him, per-
haps to speak to him, that other? — to
watch him every summer evening in his
boat, floating up and down — to distin-
guish his voice in the crowd, and his
step ? But for this hope she could not, I
think, have made so great a sacrifice
for Dick alone — a sacrifice she had
not been able to make when the doing
of it would have been still more im-
portant than now. Perhaps it was be-
cause she was growing older, and the in-
dividual had faded somewhat from her
consciousness ; but the change bewil-
dered even herself. She did it notwith-
standing, and of her free will.
From The Contemporary Review.
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH BARRETT
BROWNING
■^O THE AUTHOR OF " ORION " ON LITERARY
AND GENERAL TOPICS.
IV.
With how fine a temper, and how gen-
•erous a spirit Miss E. B. Barrett bore all
the objections made to her new theory of
English Rhymes, has only been slightly
shown in the previous instalment of these
papers. Provoking as some of the stric-
tures must have been to one who had not
accidentally fallen into what would be
commonly regarded as lyrical heresies,
but who had systematically intended, and
laboured to do, the very things most de-
murred to — she passes them over in the
note about to be given, with only a re-
mote reference ; playfully speaking of her
dog " Flush," then touching upon the
" Dead Pan," then turning to other ob-
jects of literary interest, with a nobly ex-
pressed admiration of Miss Martineau : —
Saturday night (no other date).
Never in the world was another such a dog
as my Flush ! Just now, because after reading
your note, I laid it down thoughtfully without
taking anything else up, he threw himself into
my arms, as much as to say — "Now it's my
turn. You're not busy at all now." He un-
derstands everything, and would not disturb
me for the world. t)o not tell Miss Mitford
— but her Flush (whom she brought to see
me) is not to be co7npared to mine ! — quite
animal and dog-natural, and incapable of my
Flushie's hypercynical refinements. There is
not such a dog in the world as he is, I must
say again — and never was, except the one
Plato swore by. I talk to him just as I should
do to the " reasoning animal on two legs " — the
only difference being that he has four super-
erogatorily.
I am very glad to hear of Miss Martineau
and " Orion." She has a fine enthusiasm and
understanding, or rather understanding and
enthusiasm, for poetry, — which shows a won-
derful and beautiful proportion of faculties,
considering what she is otherwise. I do not
say so because she fancied my " Pan " —
which you may not think worthy of such
praise — and which she very probably was
pleased with on account of its association
with her favourite poet Schiller — such
associations affecting the mind beyond its
cognizance. My " Pan " takes the reverse
of Schiller's argument in his famous " Gods of
Greece," and argues it out.
No, — nobody has said that " the paper was
the work of a private friend," [alluding, prob-
ably, to some critique I had written about her
poetry] but everybody with any sense must
have thought it.
Ever and truly yours,
E. B. B.
Oh — do not put me in despair about "times
and seasons." The book must and shall come
out this season.
The next is a fragment found in the
same envelope, the first leaf having gone
astray : —
Fragment.
Think of my stupidity about Leigh Hunt's
poem of " Godiva " 1 The volume I lent has
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
25
Just returned, and most assuredly there is no
such poem in it. His late republication may
contain it — and that also I have lent. You
shall have it in time.
I hear rumours of greatness in respect of a
Mr. Patmore's new volume of poems just ad-
vertised. They are said to be " only second to
Tennyson's by coming secondly" — which,
however, makes a difference ! Tell me, if you
see them, what you think of them. He is said
to be quite a young man — that is, a very
young man.
Oh, no — I promise to try not to kill myself
[with over-work] but I am very busy and anx-
ious, and can't help being both.
We now come to the question of Versi-
fication— an Art quite fixed and final if
we keep to the old classic system of
counting feet, or syllables, — and a most
eel-like subject, chameleon-like, lustrous,
dove's-breast-like, chromatic sprite and
sylphid, when, boldly diverging from the
old, well-known tracks and measurements,
poets take to the spiritual guidance of
"airy voices" dictating euphonious ac-
cents, pauses, beats of time, wavy lilts
and pulsations, often not amenable to any
laws except those of musical utterance
and emotion. These varied measures,
numbers, utterances, when an attempt is
made to force them within the confines of
special laws, are very apt, in many in-
stances, to find their spirit evaporate, and
nothing but a caput uiortuum remaining
in its place. Perhaps the greatest diffi-
culty in forming a settled judgment of
these new forms of versification arises
from the fact that one good ear will fre-
quently be found to differ from another
good ear, with regard to the effect of the
same rhythmic music. In short, one can
read it musically, and another cannot.
One is delighted with it — the other de-
nounces it. A remarkable instance of
this will appear in the next of Miss Bar-
rett's letters which I am about to give.
It will be found interesting, as well as
curious, from a peculiar circumstance.
In the previous instalment of this series,
a note is mentioned which had been ad-
dressed to Miss Barrett's cousin, Mr.
John Kenyon, — shown to her, — lent to
me, and returned — referring admiringly
to her bold experiments in novel rhymes.
This note, which I had fancied to have
been written by Landor, I have since
found was written by Mr. Browning.
The Letter I am now about to give has
special reference to Mr. Browning's
poetry. It will thus be discovered that
two poets who had never seen each other
at this time, were already intimate in im-
agination and intellectual sympathy ; —
that one appreciated the other com-
pletely, while the other (viz.. Miss Bar-
rett) took a sweeping exception to a
special phase of the genius she so well
estimated in all other respects. And in
this exception she was, as I considered,
only justified in certain respects.
The note begins with an amusing ref-
erence to something: outrS which had
been written to Miss Barrett by some-
body, whose name I was endeavouring to
guess ; then touches briefly on the poems
of Mr. Trench, and passes on to Mr.
Browning with a striking commentary : —
May ist, 1843.
Your over-subtlety, my dear Mr. Home,
has ruined you ! Suspecting me of man-traps
and spring-guns, you shoot yourself with the
hypothesis of a spring-gun — which takes its
place at once among "remarkable accidents."
For — I stated the bare fact when I said " a
man." Man it was — no woman it was! —
man it was, and man it ought to be. Yes, and
it wasn't Leigh Hunt either, I make oath to
you ! I wish it hadhttn Leigh Hunt.
No man would have ventured to say such a
thing.-* Ventured! — why, you are quite in-
nocent, Mr. Home. I won't tell you the name ;
but I affirm to you that those words, as I
quoted them, were written by a man, and to
me. And, by no means in jest or lightness of
heart, as a woman would have written them —
nor in arch-mock at the infirmities of our na-
ture, as Leigh Hunt might have written them,
but in grave naivete, — in sincere earnestness,
and without the consciousness of saying any-
thing out of the way. [My last guess was that
it came from America.] Now, 1 wouldn't tell
you the name for the world.
At the end of your last note you attempt an
impossible application of a quotation which
won't be applied in such a manner for two sep-
arate reasons. " I prythce do not mock me."
You are quite right. " Anybody can be se-
vere." As to Mr. Trench, I have only sucli
knowledge of him as extracts in your article
and other reviews can give ; and although he
has probably more faculty than many who are
facile and copious, he seems to be dry and
limited, and without impulse in the use of it, —
and meets, I should think, with liberal justice
at your hands. Browning, however, stands
high with me. I want very much to know
what you mean by his worst fault, which you
have not touched upon ? Will you tell me
in confidence, and I will promise never to
divulge it, if you make a condition of secrecy }
Mr. Browning knows thoroughly what a poet's
true work is ; — he is learned, not only in pro-
fane learning, but in the conduct of his genius ;
he is original in common things ; his very ob-
scurities have an oracular nobleness about
them which pleases me.
I cannot help pausing an instant to re-
mind the reader that the above critique
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
was written in 1843, when only a very
special class had made similar discover-
ies, and that the writer had never seen
the poet ; so that we may fairly regard
this as a striking proof of her genius in
discerning, and her generosity in the full
admission of what she recognized. Miss
Barrett thus continues : —
His passion burns the paper. But I will guess
at the worst fault — at least, I will tell you what
has always seemed tome the worst fault — a
want of harmony. I mean in the two senses —
spiritual and physical. There is a want of
softening power in thoughts and in feelings, as
well as words ; everything is trenchant — black
and white, without intermediate colours —
nothing is tender ; there is little room in all
this passion, for pathos. And the verse —
the lyrics — where is the ear ? Inspired spirits
should not speak so harshly; and, in good
sooth, they seldom do. What? — from
" Paracelsus " down to the ** Bells and Pome-
granates " — a whole band of angels — white-
robed and crowned angel-thoughts, with palms
in their hands — and no music I
The too sweeping assertion of the last
words I distinctly remember contesting
in my next note. Admitting all the fair
critic had said as to the frequent obscuri-
ties of meaning, and involutions, or
harshness of style, I reminded her that
almost any schoolboy — without select-
ing Lord Macaulay's model one — who
had some natural faculty and a good
scholastic drilling, could write " smooth
verses,'' and where this was not done by
those who were evidently masters of the
Art of Poetry, there was a reason for it.
Nobody should regard it as attributable
to carelessness, or even indifference.
On the other hand, the lady was referred
to several striking instances of rhythmic
music, and particularly among the " Bells
and Pomegranates." It was difficult to
resist a dancing emotion as one read
how all the children and townspeople
went dancing after the " Pied Piper of
Hamelin," while every horseman must
have accompanied the riders in the ride
with " the good news " to Ghent. I was
so impressed with this at the time — and
never having known what could be done
in that way, as I subsequently experi-
enced in the Australian bush — that I
remember asking the poet if he could
"tighten iiis girths while at full speed,"
as I had felt while doing this, with his
poem, that I had more than once just lost
my balance. In short, I only partially
agreed with the fair critic about the mu-
sic. And this question directly brings
us-to Versification ; but, as the mere syn-
opsis of such an Essay would occupy
several pages, and, so far, interrupt the
course of the Letters, it has been consid-
ered advisable to postpone the discussion
till the close of these papers. We will
therefore do no more at present than
touch upon the question of Versification
with reference chiefly to Miss Barrett,
and incidentally to the Laureate and one
or two other poets, commencing, of ne-
cessity, with Chaucer.
It has been seen that Miss Barrett was
a true admirer and student of the Father
of English Poetry; but from the influ-
ence of early habit, it seems probable
that his admirable variations of the eu-
phony of heroic couplets, so as to correct
the monotony of their ten-syllable regu-
larity, and systematic pauses, were not
especially noticed by her, unless, in some
cases, as objectionable. The method
adopted by Chaucer to obtain variety of
harmony in this measure was not, how-
ever, so much with respect to the position
of pauses and accents in the line, as in
the rhythmical embodiment of an eleventh
syllable. He also, on special occasions,
breaks up the couplet-system, by ending
a poetical paragraph with the first word of
the rhyme and a full stop. And then
takes it up again, with its proper rhyme
in the first line of the next poetical divi-
sion or paragraph. Two or three exam-
ples of the former will make the princi-
ple clear enough : —
He mote be dedde — a king as well as a page,
&c. — The Knight's Tale.
I speake of many an hundred year ago, &c.
Wife of Bath's Tale.
Thy temple in Delphos wol I barfote sake, &c.
The Frankelin's Tale.
At Orliaunce in studie a booke he seie, &c.
Ibid.
Where was your pitie, O people mercilesse,
&c. — Lamentation of Mary Magdaleine.
Her nose directed straight, and even as line,
&c. — The Court of Love.
With these, and similar variations, the
poems of Chaucer abound. Read in ac-
cordance with the early training of most
of us, the reader will exclaim — •' It won't
come in ! " Of course it will not ; but the
foregoing lines will all be found perfectly
harmonious if the words which cause the
difficulty are treated like a turn in music,
so that they come "trippingly" off the
tongue. Thus, "as well as," being read
as weWs — " many an," mati^yn, — '' tem-
ple in," temprin, — "studie a," studi'a^
— "pitie, O people," pUi-o--peopl\-^
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
n
" even as," ev'jtas, &c. For such expla-
nations, to all those who do not in the
least need them, the writer begs to ten-
der every proper apology. The desire to
make this matter perfectly clear must be
his excuse. These harmo?tious varia-
tions* were dropped' by nearly all the
poets during many years after Chaucer.
In lyrical vQTse, and more especially in
the octo-syllabic measure, the first great
innovator — not precisely the discoverer,
but certainly the first great master — was
Coleridge. In the "Vision of Pierce
Ploughman," in Lidgate's and several
other old English and Scottish Ballads,
similar musical variations occur, but ap-
parently without intention, and by hnppy
inspiration, though not with the numer-
ous forms of variety introduced by Cole-
ridge. It is said that he once exclaimed
with glee — "They all think they are
reading eight syllables, — and every now
and then they read nine, eleven, and thir-
teen, without being aware of it."
But to take a general and broad view of
English versification, I find the following
Letters from Leigh Hunt carefully fas-
tened to the Letter from Miss Barrett
upon the same subject. Although they
bear no date of the year upon them, the
allusions show that they were written
mainly in comment, with a mild infusion
of controversy, on a certain paragraph in
my Introduction to the volume of " Chau-
cer Modernized," and also in reply to
some comments I had made upon the
versification of his " Legend of Florence."
Differing with Mr. Leigh Hunt so widely
on certain points of theology and social
ethics as did Miss Barrett (which will be
displayed fully and " argued out " in one
* As a somewhat extreme illustration, I hope the
following anecdote will be pardoned. " I notice," said
Tennyson (this was long before he became Poet Lau-
reate), "that you have a number of lines in "Orion'
which are not amenable to the usual scanning."
"True ; but they can all be scanned by the same num-
ber of beats of time." " Well ; how then do you scan
— mind, I don't object to it — but how do you scan —
The long, grey, horizontal wall of the dead-calm sea?"
Now, as this was the only instance of such a line, the
engineer fancied he was about to be " hoist with his own
petard ;" however, he proposed to do it thus —
Tne I long | grey | hori | zont'l | wall | o' the | dead |
calm I sea.
It could easily be put into an Alexandrine line: and,
by a different arrangement of the beats of time, the line
might even be brought into eight beats : —
The I long | grey | hori | zont'l | wall-o' the j dead-calm
I sea.
The poet smiled, and apparently accepted the scanning
— at any rate, the first one. Some of the variations,
however, subsequently introduced by Leigh Hunt in his
beautiful play of "The Legend of Florence," would
have to be tried, like those of Beaumont and Fletcher,
by yet more unorthodox principles ol harmony.
of her future Letters), I yet feel sure she
would have been highly gratified had she
known that her views on the Art of Eng-
lish Poetry had been so specially con-
served for so many years, even in literary
entombment, with one of the most ac-
complished and elegant of the illiufiinati
(using tlie terra in its best sense) of his
time.
Kensington, November 24.
My Dear Horne, — I should have written
by return of post, but had something to finish
by tea-time which I could not delay.
The English prosodists have generally pro-
ceeded, I believe, upon the assumption that
their heroic measure is a particular mode of
iambics, with a variation of spondees, tro-
chees, &c. I therefore, if I distinctly see the
drift of it, doubt whether your paragraph can
stand exactly as it does ; but it is impossible
for us now to exchange talk on this subject by
letter, and as I am coming to Montague Street,
to-morrow (Wednesday), would it not be as
well for us to have our Bosterisms out at once
vivd voce ? For then, you see, we can have as
many as we please in a good long chat, and so
do what we can with this perplexing matter
finally ; for in truth, it is a very perplexing
one, and has scratched the fingers of everybody
that has approached it. I will also bring you
another book, expressly on the subject — at
least comprising it.
The "Ancient Mariner" did much, no
doubt, in the poetical circles in which it was
almost exclusively known [How sad is this
record of neglect of living genius, which thus
incidentally drops from the pen of one of the
poet's contemporaries ! ], and Coleridge, I
should say, is unquestionably the great mod-
ern master of lyrical harmony. But what the
Percy Reliques achieved in the ^'Ti^jj, was a
general simplification of the poetic style, and
the return to faith in nature and passion.
We will have a good set-to upon these mat-
ters to-morrow, if you think fit ; and you shall
have, in the course of a good plump half-hour,
all I have to say about them.
Ever heartily,
Leigh Hunt.
Unfortunately, something prevented
the proposed conversation, but here is
another note on the same subject writ-
ten during the same month : —
Kensington, November.
My Dear Horne, — This is merely one or
tvi'o more marginalia which, on recollection, I
intended to have scribbled. The fact is, that
as to " spectacle " [to which, apparently, I
had demurred, as being too harsh a word in a
certain line] it is " harsh," uttered by a harsh
man ; but what if Chaucer had said it, thou
Horne ! To this I suppose you will say, " Im-
possible." Well, but suppose you find it in
him some day? or something equivalent?
[The logic of this is exquisite, and so like.
2S
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
Leigh Hunt in a case of friendly controversy,
where the shades of the earnest and the hu-
morous continually ran into each other.]
This is nothing. But now as to —
The poet now v refers to several very
remarkable lines in his " Le^jend of Flor-
ence,'-but this examination must be de-
ferred for the reasons previously' given.
To come at once to our own time.
The peculiar variety which we have been
discussing scarcely ever occurs in any of
Miss Barrett's earlier poems ; but latterly
it is to be found : —
Or,- as noon and night
Had clapped together, and utterly struck out
The intermediate time, undoing themselves
In the act. Aurora Leigh. Book III.
Be sure 'tis better than what you work to get.
Ibid.
So, happy and unafraid of solitude, &c. — Ibid.
Except in fable and figure : forests chant, &c.
Ibid.
To a pure white line of flame more luminous
Because of obliteration, more intense
The intimate presence carrying in itself.
Ibid., Book IX.
It is possible that some readers may
not have been prepared for this ; and
still less for the same Chaucerian varia-
tion (which many persons may have fan-
cied rough, and antiquated, merely from
having been trained to a regular syllabic
mode of reading) to be found continually,
and, of course, gracefully, adopted by the
Laureate. Here are three or four illus-
trations taken quite at random, or quite
as much so as usual with such takinsfs : —
He crept into the shadow : at last he said, &c.
Enoch Arden.
How merry they are down yonder in the wood,
&c. — Ibid.
Had rioted his life out, and made an end,
Aylmer''s Field.
Strike thro' a finer element than her own ?
Ibid.
Which rolling o'er the palaces of the proud,
&c. — Ibid.
And oxen from the city and goodly sheep, &c.
Ti'ans. Iliad.
Sat glorying ; many a fire before them blazed.
Ibid.*
* In the above specimen of a translation from the
Iliad — truly a model for all future translators — those
who like to have as close a translation of a great poet's
words as can be poetically given, will feel surprised at
the Laureate's preference for —
" And champing golden grain, the horses stood
Hard by their chariots, waiting for tite dawn^^
instead of his more literal —
The " Experiments " (in versification)
published by the Laureate at the end of
the volume containing " Enoch Arden "
and "Aylmer's Field," should be studied
by all who take an interest in the progress
of English poetry in these respects. The
experiment entitled " Boadic^a" will be
regarded as a success after a second
reading, and the poem on " Milton " (in
a/caics) 3.t once. Somehow, it seems to
be precisely the right kind of measure to
adopt with regard to Milton. The " Hen-
decasyllabics," will require more read-
ings than may be consonant with an ad-
mission of success in a metre of Catullus.
Still, there are some lines which at least
render the cause quite hopeful. Canc^J
Kingsley's " Andromeda " is also a mer-
itorious experiment.
The variations derived from the octo-
syllabic measure of the old Ballads, as
brought to perfection by Coleridge, and
carried, into other perfections, I submit,
by Tennyson, and lastly by Swinburne,
have now been, more or less, adopted by
lyrical poets in general, — by some as
conscious students and followers, by
others from the almost unconscious in-
fluence which leading spirits invariably
exercise upon contemporaries of less
originality and power. In the variation
upon the octo-syllabic measure we may
observe several who have been very suc-
cessful, more especially among poetesses
— from Jean Ingelow, " Sadie," and Miss
Rossetti, to the last graceful appearances
in the lyrical form, of Jeanie Morison
(Mrs. Campbell, of Ballochyle), and Mrs.
Emily Pfeiffer.
In the previous instalment of these
papers it was remarked that all young
poets have commenced their songs in a
bird-like manner. They have scarcely
ever had any more thought of the classi-
cal terms and technicalities, and the va-
rious laws of the Art, than the bird on
the bough, who " warbles away," with no
" And eating hyary grain diuA pulse, the steeds
Stood by their cars, waiting the throned morn."
The first is of the usual sort, and has nothing of the
close truth of the description of the dry mealy corn,
together with the green herbage. A. so the word
"chariots" instead of "cars," has lost us the grand
suggestion of the embattled host looking upward to Eos
on her Throne, an hour or so afterwards ! The very
same kind of error is committed by Mr. Gladstone,
who prefers giving the common-plnce '''sharp-tipped
lance," to the original '■''copper-tipped.'''' (See Con,
Rev., Feb., 1874.) For what possible reason, of a
good kind, should we not have that piece of insight into
the arms and armourer's work of the Homeric age?
Besides, the very fact of the lances being tipped with
copper, will account for many a man's life being saved
by the point turning before it had passed through his
shield or breast-plates.
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
29
idea of such things as crotchets and
quavers, appoggiatiwas and the nach-
schlag — the trochaic or the iambic
rhythm — the dactyhc, anapaestic, or am-
phibrachic rhythm. The illustration is of
course only figurative, and rather one-
sided, but true in spirit. The poetesses
who have appeared during the last few
years — commencing with Jean Ingelow,
and closing (for the present) with Jeanie
Morison and Mrs, Emily Pfeiffer, are all
instances of this, more especially the two
last-named ladies, who run most grace-
fully into several melodious measures, as
by a spontaneous impulse. But while we
are admiring this simplicity and artless
ease, we must be yet more impressed
with tlie force of poetical idiosyncrasy
which shall enable those who have passed
through the curriculum of studies for the
Art, with all its laws and technicalities
— like Canon Kingsley, Robert Bu-
chanan, and George MacDonald — to
return to nature and first principles
in the charming and bird-like freedom of
their Songs for Children — thus happily
superseding the horrid barefaced de-
pravities and vulgar doggrels of the very
great majority of our early Nursery Songs
and Rhymes.
It has been previously stated in these
papers, that the work entitled " A New
Spirit of the Age" — being critiques on
the writings of contemporaries in 1844 —
was edited, and partly written, by the
transcriber of these Letters ; and that he
was assisted by the contributions of
three or four eminent authors. The prin-
cipal, and most valuable of these, was
Miss E. B. Barrett. One of the critiques,
and certainly one of the best, was mainly
written by that lady. It was forwarded
in two Letters, which were carefully
transcribed. As the second edition of
the work has been out of print these
thirty years in England (though I am
aware that at least three " unauthorized "
editions were subsequently printed in
America), I venture to think tlie readers
of the present day will not be indisposed
to welcome a few extracts from Miss
Barrett's Letters containing her contribu-
tions,— now for the first time acknowl-
edged,— and in especial those just al- means, so far as we could desire, outstrip the
(and which we will subsequently tran-
scribe) will be understood by the follow-
ing interesting episode in the author's
private history : —
" Mr. Landor went to Paris in the be-
ginning of the century, where he wit-
nessed the ceremony of Napoleon being
made Consul for life, amidst the accla-
mations of multitudes. He subsequently
saw the dethroned and deserted Em-
peror pass through Tours, on his way to
embark, as he intended, for America.
Napoleon was attended only by a single
servant, and descended at the Prefecture,
unrecognized by anybody excepting Lan-
dor. The people of Tours were most
hostile to Napoleon ; as a republican
politician, Landor had always felt a
hatred towards him, and now he had but
to point one finger at him, and it would
have done what all the musquetry, artil-
lery and 'infernal machines ' of twenty
years of wars and passions had failed to
do. The tigers of the populace would
have torn him to pieces. Need it be
said that Landor was too noble a man to
avail himself of such an opportunity.
He held his breath, and let the hero pass.
Possibly this hatred on the part of Lan-
dor, like that of many other excessively
self-willed men, was as much owing to
exasperation at the commanding suc-
cesses of Napoleon, as at his falling off
from pure republican principles. How-
beit, Landor's great hatred, and yet
'greater' forbearance are hereby re-
corded."
The remark having been made by me
that, as a general rule, the originality of
a man — say and do what he may — is
necessarily in itself an argument and
reason against his rapid popularity. Miss
Barrett's Letter proceeds as follows : —
In the case of Mr. Landor, however, other
causes than the originality of his faculty op-
posed his favour with the public. He has
[the date of this letter is 1844, Landor being
then alive] the must select audience, perhaps
— the fittest, the fewest — of any distinguished
author of the day ; and this of his choice.
" Give me," he said in one of his prefaces,
" ten accomplished men for readers, and I am
content." And the event does not by any
luded to, which are almost exclusively
devoted to a review of the writings of
Walter Savage Landor.
It was preceded by a few biographical
and other remarks, founded upon com-
munications forwarded to me by Mr.
Landor. The spirit of a Greek epigram
written by him on Napoleon the Eirst'good. This was not exactly the way to
modesty, or despair, or disdain, of this aspira-
tion.
In reply to an adverse criticism in a
certain quarterly journal, he offered the
critic "three hot penny rolls" for his
luncheon, if he could write anything as
30
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
make friends with tlie tribe. Miss Bar-
rett thus continues, —
lie writes criticism for critics, and poetry
for poets ; his drama, when he is dramatic,
will suppose neither pit nor gallery, nor critics,
nor laws. lie is not a publican among poets
— he does not sell his Amreeta cups upon the
highway. He delivers them rather with the
dignity of a giver to ticketed persons ; ana-
lyzing their flavour and fragrance with a
learned delicacy, and an appeal to the esoteric.
His very spelling of English is uncommon
and theoretic. And as if poetry were not, in
English, a sufficiently unpopular dead lan-
guage, he has had recourse to writing poetry
in Latin ; with dissertations on the Latin
tongue, to fence it out doubly from the popu-
lace. Odi profanum vulgus ct arceo.
In a private note to me, in acknowledg-
ing the reception of a copy of my one-act
tragedy (" The Death of Marlo'we ") he
wrote, — " I had r^<^^it before with greater
pleasure tlian," &c. ; but nobody must
imagine from this that he favoured the
adoption of a phonetic system of spelling,
rational as such a system would be. As
to the word "redd," its adoption would
really be a.i advantage.
Mr. Landor is classical in the highest sense.
His conceptions stand out clearly cut and fine,
in a magnitude and nobility as far as possible
removed from the small and sickly vagueness
common to this century of letters. If he
seems obscure at times it is from no infirmity
or inadequacy of thought or word, but from
extreme concentration and involution in brev-
ity ; for a short string can be tied in a knot as
well as a long one. He can be tender, as the
strong can best be ; and his pathos, when it
comes, is profound. His descriptions are full
and startling ; his thoughts self-produced and
bold ; and he has the art of taking a common-
place under a new aspect, and of leaving the
Roman brick, mr.rble. In marble, indeed, he
seems to work ; for there is an angularity in
the workmanship, whether of prose or verse,
which the very exquisiteness of the polish
renders more conspicuous. You may com-
plain, too, of hearing the chisel ; but after all
you applaud the work — it is a work well done.
The elaboration produces no sense of heavi-
ness; the severity of the outline does not
militate against beauty ; if it is cold, it is also
noble ; if not impulsive, it is suggestive. As
a writer of I^atin poems he ranks with our
most successful scholars and poets ; having
less harmony and majesty than Milton had — |
when he aspired to that species of " Life in
Death " — but more variety and freedom of j
utterance. Mr. Landor's English prose writ- }
ings possess most of the characteristics of his I
poetry, only they are more perfect in their '
class. His " Pericles and Aspasia " and
" Pentameron " are books for the world and
for all time, whenever the world and time shall
come to their senses about them; complete in
beauty of sentiment and subtlety of criticism.
His general style is highly scholastic and ele-
gant ; his sentences have artiailatiotis, if such
an expression may be permitted, of very excel-
lent proportions. And, abounding in striking
images and thoughts, he is remarkable for mak-
ing clear ground there, and for lifting them,
like statues to pedestals, where they may be
seen most distinctly, and strike with the most
enduring, though often the most gR-adual, im-
pression. This is the case, both in his prose
works and his poetry. It is more conspicu-
ously true of some of his smaller poems,
which for quiet classic grace and tenderness,
and exquisite care in their polish, may best be
compared with beautiful cameos and vases of
the antique.
There are two of Landor.s works which
are probably known to less than half-a-
dozen people of the present day. One of
them is entitled " Poems from the Ara-
bic and Persian." They are as full of
ornate fancy, grace, and tenderness, as
the originals from which they appeared
to be translated, and were accompanied
by a number of erudite critical notes,
likely to cause much searching among
Oriental scholars. And the search, after
all, was certain to be in vain, as no such
poems really existed in the Arabic or
Persian. The other brochure was " A
Satire upon Satirists," a copy of which
Mr. Landor sent to me. It was a scath-
ing piece of heroic verse, and a brief ex-
tract may, perhaps, be given at the close
of this series.
Allusion having been made to Landor
with reference to " Napoleon the thirst,"
an extract from one of Miss Barrett's
private Letters will prove interesting in
the shape of a fragment of literary ven-
geance which the poet bequeathed to the
Conqueror : —
Your [Life of ] "Napoleon" touched me
very much ; and what I estimated was that we
are not suffered in this, as in some other animat-
ed narratives, to be separated from our higher
feelings without our consciousness. I like the
tone of thought distinguishable through, and
from, the cannonading, — the half sarcasm
dropped, as unaware, among the pseudo glo-
ries which are the subjects of description.
"The dead say nothing." There are fine
things, too, more than I can count, particularly
with the book out of sight. The Duke d En-
ghien's death has haunted me, with the con-
cluding words on human power — that " effiu-
ence of mortality already beginning to decay."
The book's fault is its inequality of style ; in
fact, that you didn't write it all ; and I am
consistent enough not to complain of that.
Did you ever see Mr. Landor's epigram upon
Napoleon "i He was so kind as to give it to
LETTERS FROM ELIZABETH B. BROWNING.
3T
me, the only evening I ever spent in his com-
pany, — and here it is : —
Tif TTQTE, NaToAeov, ra aa TrpiJTa Kol varara
■ypmpei
'Epya; Xp^wf tekvuv al^an repno^tevog.
Receiving this epigram while on a visit
with a mutual lady-friend in the country,
I requested her the next time she
called on Miss Barrett to hand her the
following paraphrastic translation, —
Napoleon ! thy deeds beyond compeers,
Who shall write, thrillingly ? —
The Father of Years !
And — with the blood of children — will-
ingly.
Feeling that there was another side to
the question, I requested the same lady
to hand also another epigram to the fair
secluded classic, —
Holy Alliance ! — Time can scarcely tell
To heaven or hell,
What blood and treasure sank into the void
Of husht-up night.
For " Divine Right," —
Which that one man destroyed !
This subject naturally leads to recol-
lections of the first great French Revolu-
tion,— to Carlyle's wonderfully graphic
work on that subject, — and to several
Letters from Miss Barrett concerning
Carlyle, which were printed in the critical
work previously mentioned. But the fol-
lowing Letter was 7iot printed, having
arrived some days too late. The refer-
ences to theological dogmas are charac-
terized by the writer's usual independ-
ence of thought, and force of expres-
sion : —
It is impossible to part from this subject
without touching upon a point of it we have
already glanced at by an illustration, when we
said that his object was to discover the sun,
and not to specify the landscape. He is, in
fact, somewhat indefinite in his ideas of
"faith" and "truth." In his ardour for the
quality of belief, he is apt to separate it from
its objects ; and although in the remarks on
tolerance in his " Hero Worship " he guards
himself strongly from an imputation of lati-
tudinarianism, yet we cannot say but that he
sometimes overleaps his own fences, and sets
us wondering whither he would be speeding.
This is the occasion of some disquiet to such
of his readers as discern with any clearness
that the ^rui/i itself is, a more excellent thing
than o.ur belief \xv the truth ; and that, h priori,
our belief does not make the tritth. But it is the
effect, more or less, of every abstract consid-
eration that we are inclined to hold the object
of abstraction some moments longer in its
state of separation and analysis than is at all
necessary or desirable. And, after all, the
right way of viewing the matter is that Mr.
Carlyle intends to teach us something, and not
everything; and to direct us to a particular
instrument, and not to direct us in its specific
application. It would be a strange reproach
to offer to the morning star, that it does not
shine in the evening.
For the rest, we may congratulate Mr. Car-
lyle and the dawning time. We have observed
that individual genius is the means of popular
advancement. A man of genius gives a
thought to the multitude, and the multitude
spread it out as far as it will go, until another
man of genius brings another thought, which
attaches itself to the first, because all truth is
assimilative, and perhaps even reducible to
that monadity of which Parmenides discoursed.
Mr. Carlyle is gradually amassing a greater
reputation than might have been l6oked for at
the hands of this Polytechnic age, and has the
satisfaction of witnessing with his living eyes
the outspread of his thought among nations.
That this Thought — the ideas of this prose
poet, should make way with sufBcient rapidity
for him to live to see the progress, as a fact
full of hope for the coming age ; even as the
other fact, of its first channel furrowing
America (and it is a fact that Carlyle was gen-
erally read there before he was truly recog-
nized in his own land), is replete with favour-
able .promise for that great country, and
indicative of a noble love of truth in it passing
the love of dollars.
The io\\oW\v\% fragmetit of a Letter was
not intended for the work previously men-
tioned, but might very well have been in-
cluded in it — although I should have
proposed here and there to interpolate an
adverse word : —
Fragment.
I have been reading Carlyle's " Past and
Piesent." There is nothing new in it, even of
Carlyleism — but almost everything true. But
tell me, why should he call the English people
a silent people, whose epics are in action, and
whose Shakespeare and Milton arc mere acci-
dents of their condition? Is that true? Is
not this contrary — most extremely, to truth?
[Indeed, I do think it very true,] This Eng-
lish people — has it not a nobler, a fuller, a
more abounding and various literature than all
the peoples of the earth, " past or present,"
dead or living, all except one — the Greek
people ? It is " fact," and not " sham," that
our literature is the fullest, and noblest, and
most suggestive — do you not think so? I
wish I knew Mr. Carlyle, to look in his face,
and say, " We are a most singing people — a
most eloquent and speechful people — we are
none of us silent, except the undertaker's
mutes."
Most truly and loquaciously yours,
E. B. Barrett.
Had I been challenged so stoutly —
nay, charged home, at the point of the
32
A ROSE IN JUNE.
pen — in our present day, I should cer-
tainly have taken side with Thomas Car-
lyle. By a "singing people" must be
meant either poets or vocalists, and in
both cases, especially the former, the men
of genius have always been exceptions.
We all know how Shakespeare and Mil-
ton were regarded in their own day ; and
if such men now lived, we see clearly
how tliey would be treated by managers
of theatres, and by nearly every living
publisher — for the good business-reason
that "they wouldn't sell." Meantime a
noble Duke the other day gave ^2.000
for a bull! To keep up our breed. Most
cattle-spirited and praiseworthy, of course.
The epics^in action, alluded to by Carlyle,
would find their audience in the sedulous
readers of Abyssinian wars, and Ashan-
tee wars, — not to speak of the insatiate
and inexhaustible readers of the deeds of
the "hero "of the late Tichborne wars!
For speechful eloquence, are not Mr.
Disraeli and Mr. Bright remarkable ex-
ceptions among English people; — Mr.
Gladstone also, standing upon a waggon
for a couple of hours without his hat —
and allowed by twenty thousand people
to stand thus uncovered — on a pitiless
windy day pouring out " speech " like any
"Christiom child" — who shall say that
such things, because they are the common
property of England, are the common
capacities of the English people ? As to
'• silentness," even among each other,
does not everybody know this at home
and abroad ?
With reference to Miss Barrett's claim-
ing for us so full, and noble, and varied a
general literature, it is no doubt a just
eulogy, although one might demur to the
term "suggestive," as it would seem far
more applicable to the literature of Ger-
many. Yet, again, the ex'ceptions among
us are undoubted, even in the face of
German idealities, — one striking in-
stance of which, among many that could
be adduced, will be manifest when I place
before the reader Miss Barrett's sugges-
tions for the lyrical drama of " Psyche,"
previously mentioned.
R. H. HORNE.
From The Cornhill Magazine.
A ROSE IN JUNE.
CHAPTER X.
Mr. Incledon was a man of whom
people said that any girl might be glad to
marry him ; and considering marriage
from an abstract point of view, as one
naturally does when it does not concern
one's self, this was entirely true. In po-
sition, in character, in appearance, and in
principles he was everything that could
be desired : a good man, just, and never
consciously unkind ; nay, capable of gen-
erosity when it was worth his while and
he had sufficient inducement to be gener-
ous. A man well educated, who had been
much about the world, and had learned
the toleration which comes by experi-
ence ; whose opinions were worth hearing
on almost every subject ; who had read a
great deal, and thought a little, and was
as much superior to the ordinary young
man of society in mind and judgment as
he was in wealth. That this kind of man
often fails to captivate a foolish girl, when
her partner in a valse, brainless, beard-
less, and penniless, succeeds without any
trouble in doing so, is one of those mys-
teries of nature which nobody can pene-
trate, but which happens too often to be
doubted. Even in this particular, how-
ever, Mr. Incledon had his advantages.
He was not one of those who, either by
contempt for the occupations of youth or
by the gravity natural to maturer years,
allow themselves to be pushed aside from
the lighter part of life — he still danced,
though not with the absolute devotion of
twenty, and retained his place on the side
of youth, not permitting himself to be
shelved. More than once, indeed, the
young officers from the garrison near, and
the young scions of the county families,
had looked on witli puzzled noncompre-
hension, when they found themselves al-
together distanced in effect and popular-
ity by a mature personage whom they
would gladly have called an old fogie had
they dared. These young gentlemen of
course consoled their vanity by railing
j against the mercenary character of women
j who preferred wealth to everything. But
I it was not only his wealth upon which
! Mr. Incledon stood. No girl who mar-
! ried him need have felt herself with-
I drawn to the grave circle in which her
I elders had their place. He was able to
* hold his own in every pursuit with men
1 ten years his juniors, and did so. Then,
I too, he had almost a romantic side to his
1 character ; for a man so well off does not
! put off marrying for so long without a
j reason, and though nobody knew of any
'previous story, any "entanglement,"
which would have restrained him, va-
rious picturesque suggestions were afloat ;
and even failing these, the object of his
A ROSE IN JUNE.
S3
choice might have laid the flattering unc-
tion to her soul that his long waiting had
been for the realization of some perfect
ideal which he found only in her.
This model of a marriageable man
took his way from the White House in a
state of mind less easily described than
most of his mental processes. He was
not excited to speak of, for an interview
between a lover of thirty-five and the
mother of the lady is not generally ex-
citing ; but he was a little doubtful of his
own perfect judiciousness in the step he
had just taken. I can no more tell you
why he had set his heart on Rose than I
can say why she felt no answering incli-
nation towards him — for there were
many other girls in the neighbourhood
who would in many ways have been
more suitable to a man of his tastes and
position. But Rose was the one woman
in the world for him, by sheer caprice of
nature ; just as reasonable, and no more
so, as that other caprice which made him,
with all his advantages and recommen-
dations, not the man for her. If ever a
man was in a position to make a deliber-
ate choice, such as men are commonly
supposed to make in matrimony, Mr.
Incledon was the man ; yet he chose just
as much and as little as the rest of us do.
He saw Rose, and some power which he
knew nothing of decided the question at
once for him. He had not been thinking
of marriage, but then he made up his
mind to marry ; and whereas he had on
various occasions weighed the qualities
and the charms of this one and the other,
he never asked himself a question about
her, nor compared her with any other
woman, nor considered whether she was
suited for him, or anything else about
her. This was how he exercised that in-
estimable privilege of choice which wo-
men sometimes envy. But having once
received this conviction into his mind,
he had never wavered in his determina-
tion to win her. The question in his
mind now was, not whether his selection
was the best he could have made, but
whether it was wise of him to have en-
trusted his cause to the mother rather
than to have spoken to Rose herself.
He had remained in the background dur-
ing those dreary months of sorrow. He
had sent flowers and game and messages
of enquir)'^ ; but he did not thrust himself
upon the notice of the women, till their
change of residence gave token that they
must have begun to rouse themselves for
fresh encounter with the world. When he
was on his way to the White House he
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 314
had fully persuaded himself that to speak
to the mother first was the most delicate
and the most wise thing he could do.
For one thing, he could say so much
mpre to her than he could to Rose ; he
could assure her of his goodwill and of
his desire to be of use to the family
should he become a member of it. Mr.
Incledon did not wish to bribe Mrs.
Damerel to be on his side. He had in-
deed a reasonable assurance that no such
bribe was necessary, and that a man like
himself must always have a reasonable
, mother on his side. This he was perfect-
ly aware of, as indeed any one in his
senses would have been. But as soon
as he had made his declaration to Mrs.
Damerel, and had left the White House
behind, his thoughts began to torment
him with doubts of the wisdom of this
proceeding. He saw very well that there
was no clinging of enthusiastic love, no
absolute devotedness of union, between
this mother and daughter, and he began
to wonder whether he might not have
done better had he run all the risks and
broached the subject to Rose herself,
shy and liable to be startled as she was.
It was perhaps possible that his own
avowal, which must have had a certain
degree of emotion in it, would have
found better acceptation with her than the
passionless statement of his attentions
which Mrs. Damerel would probably
make. For it never dawned upon Mr.
Incledon's imagination that Mrs. Dam-
erel would support his suit not with calm-
ness, but passionately — more passion-
ately, perhaps, than would have been pos-
sible to himself. He could not have di-
vined any reason why she should do so,,
and naturally he had not the least idea
of the tremendous weapons she was
about to employ in his favour. I don't
think, for very pride and shame, that he
would have sanctioned the use of them
had he known.
It happened, however, by chance that
as he walked home in the wintry twilight
he met Mrs. Wodehouse and her friend
Mrs. Musgrove, who were going the same
way as he was, on their way to see the
Northcotes, who had lately come to the
neighbourhood. He could not but join
them so far in their walk, nor could he
avoid the conversation which was inevi-
table. Mrs. Wodehouse indeed was
very eager for it, and began almost be-
fore he could draw breath.
" Did you see Mrs. Damerel after all ? '^
she asked. " You remember I met you
when you were on your way ? "
34
A ROSE IN JUNE.
" Yes ; she was good enough to see
me," said Mr. Incledon.
" And how do you think she is look-
ing ? I hear such different accounts ;
some people say very ill, some just ^s
usual. I have not seen her myself,"
said Mrs. Wodehouse, slightly drawing
herself up, "except in church."
" How was that ? " he said, half
amused. " I thought you had always
been great friends."
Upon this he saw Mrs. Musgrove give
a little jerk to her friend's cloak, in warn-
ing, and perceived that Mrs. Wodehouse
wavered between a desire to tell a griev-
ance and the more prudent habit of self-
restraint.
" Oh ! " she said, with a little hesita-
tion ; " yes, of course we were always
good friends. I had a great admiration
for our late good Rector, Mr. Incledon.
What a man he was ! Not to say a word
against the new one, who is very nice,
he will never be equal to Mr. Damerel.
What a fine mind he had, and a style, I
am told, equal to the very finest preachers !
We must never hope to hear such ser-
mons in our little parish again. Mrs.
Damerel is a very good woman, and I
feel for her deeply ; but the attraction in
that house, as I am sure you must have
felt, was not her, but him."
" I have always had a great regard for
Mrs. Damerel," said Mr. Incledon.
" Oh, yes, yes ! I am sure — a good
wife and an excellent mother and all that ;
but not the fine mind, not the intellectual
conversation, one used to have with the
dear Rector," said good Mrs. Wodehouse,
who had about as much intellect as would
lie on a sixpence ; and then she added,
■" Perhaps I am prejudiced ; I never can
.get over a slight which I am sure she
.showed to my son."
" Ah ! what was that ? "
Mrs. Musgrove once more pulled her
jfriend's cloak, and there was a great deal
more eagerness and interest than the oc-
^casion deserved in Mr. Incledon's tone.
" Oh, nothing of any consequence !
What do you say, dear? — a mistake?
Well, I don't think it was a mistake.
They thought Edward was going to ;
yes, that was a mistake, if you please. I
am sure he had many other things in his
1 mind a great deal more important. But
they thought ; and though common
>civiHty demanded something different,
.and I took the trouble to write a note and
ask it, I do think ; but, however,
^ter the words I had with her to-day, I
no longer blame Rose. Poor child ! I
am always very sorry for poor Rose."
" Why should you be sorry for Miss
Damerel ? Was she one of those who
slighted your son ? I hope Mr. Edward
Wodehouse is quite well."
" He is very well, I thank you, and get-
ting on so satisfactorily ; nothing could
be more pleasant. Oh, you must not
think Edward cared ! He has seen a
great deal of the world, and he did not
come home to let himself be put down by
the family of a country clergyman. That
is not at all what I meant ; 1 am sorry for
Rose, however, because of a great m.my
things. She ought to go out as a govern-
ess or companion, or something of that
sort, poor child ! Mrs. Damerel may try,
but I am sure they never can get on as
they are doing. I hear that all they have
to depend on is about a hundred and fifty
a year. A family can never live upon tha*-,
not with their habits, Mr. Incledon ; and
therefore, I think I mav well say poor
Rose ! "
" I don't think Miss Damerel will ever
require to make such a sacrifice," he said,
hurriedly.
" Well, I only hope you are right,"
said Mrs. Wodehouse. " Of course
you know a great deal more about busi-
ness matters than I do, and perhaps their
money is at higher interest than we think
for ; but if I were Rose I almost think I
should see it to be my duty. Here we
are at Mrs. Northcote's, dear. Mr. In-
cledon, I am afraid we must say good-
bye."
Mr. Incledon went home very hot and
fast after this conversation. It warmed
him in the misty cold evening, and
seemed to put so many weapons into his
hand. Rose, his Rose, go out as a gov-
erness or companion ! He looked at the
shadow of his own great house standing
out against the frosty sky, and laughed
to himself as he crossed the park. She
a dependant, who might to-morrow if she
pleased be virtual mistress of Whitton
and all its wealth ! He would have liked
to have said to these women, "In three
months Rose will be the great lady of the
parish, and lay down the law to you and
the Green, and all your gossiping so-
ciety." He would even, in a rare fit of
generosity, have liked to tell them, on the
spot, that this blessedness was in Rose's
power, to give her honour in their eyes
whether she accepted him or not ; which
was a very generous impulse indeed, and
one which few men would have been equal
A ROSE IN JUNE.
35
to — though indeed as a matter of fact
Mr. Incledon did not carry it out. But
he went into the lonely house where
everything pleasant and luxurious, except
the one crowning luxury of some one to
share it with, awaited him, in a glow of
energy and eagerness, resolved to go
backagain to-morrow and plead his cause
with Rose herself, and win her, not pru-
dentially through her mother, but by his
own warmth of love and eloquence. Poor
Rose in June ! In the wintry setting of
the White House she was not much like
the Rector's flower-maiden, in all her del-
icate perfection of bloom, "queen rose of
the rosebud garden," impersonation of all
the warmth, and sweetness, and fra-
grance, and exquisite simple profusion of
summer and nature. Mr. Incledon's
heart swelled full of love and pity as he
thought of the contrast — not with pas-
sion but soft tenderness, and a deli-
cious sense of what it was in his power
to do for her, and to restore her to. He
strayed over the rooms which he had
once shown to her, with a natural pride
in their beauty, and in all the delicate
treasures he had accumulated there, until
he came to the little inner room with its
grey-green hangings, in which hung the
Perugino, which, since Rose had seen it,
he had always called his Raphael. He
seemed to see her too, standing there
looking at it, a creature partaking some-
thing of that soft divinity, an enthusiast
with sweet soul and looks congenial to
that heavenly art. I do not know that
his mind was of a poetical turn by
nature ; but there are moments when life
makes a poet of the dullest, and on this
evening the lonely quiet house within the
parks and woods of Whitton, where there
had been neither love, nor anything
worth calling life, for years, except in
the cheery company of the servants' hall,
suddenly got itself lighted up with ethe-
real lights of tender imagination and feel-
ing. The illumination did not show out-
wardly, or it might have alarmed the
Green, which was still unaware that the
queen of the house had passed by there,
and the place lighted itself up in prospect
of heV coming.
After dinner, however, Mr. Incledon
descended from these regions of fancy,
and took a step which seemed to himself
a very clever as well as prudent, and at
the same time a very friendly one. He
had not forgotten, any more than the
others had, that summer evening on the
lawn at the Rectory, when young VVode-
house had strayed down the hill with
Rose out of sight of the seniors of the
party, and though all his active apprehen-
sions on that score had been calmed
down by Edward's departure, yet he was
too wise not to perceive that there was
something in Mrs. Wodehouse's dis-
jointed talk more than met the eye at
the first glance. Mr. Incledon had a
friend who was one of the Lords of the
Admiralty, and upon whom he could rely
to do him a service ; a friend whom he
had never asked for anything — for what
was official patronage to the master of
Whitton 1 He wrote him a long and
charming letter, which, if I had only room
for it, or if it had anything to do except
incidentally with this simple history,
would give the reader a much better idea
of his abilities and social charm than any-
thing I can show of him here. In it he
discussed the politics of the moment, and
that gossip on a dignified scale about
ministers and high officials of state which
is half history — and he touched upon
social events in a light and amusing
strain, with the half cynicism which lends
salt to correspondence ; and he told his
friend half gaily, half seriously, that he
was beginning to feel somewhat solitary,
and that dreams of marrying, and marrying
soon, were stealing into his mind. And
he told him about his Perugino (" which
I fondly hope may turn out an early
Raphael "), and which it would delight him
to show to a brother connoisseur. " And,
by-the-bye," he added, after all this, " I
have a favour to ask of you which I have
kept like a lady's postscript. I want you
to extend the aegis of your protection over
a fine young fellow in whom I am con-
siderably interested. His name is Wode-
house, and his ship is at present on that
detestable slave trade service which costs
us so much money and does so little good.
He has been a long time in the service,
and I hear he is a very promising young
officer. I should consider it a personal
favour if you could do something for him ;
and (N.B.) it would be a still greater ser-
vice to combine promotion with as dis-
tant a post as possible. His friends are
anxious to keep him out of the way for
private reasons — the old ' entanglement '
business, which, of course, you will un-
derstand ; but I think it hard that this
sentence of banishment should be con-
joined with such a disagreeable service.
Give him a gun-boat and send him to
look for the North-west passage, or any-
where else where my lords have a whim
for exploring ! I never thought to have
paid such a tribute to your official dig-
36
A ROSE IN JUNE.
nity as to come, hat in hand, for a place,
like the rest of the world. But no man,
I suppose, can always resist the common
impulse of his kind ; and I an happy in
the persuasion that to you I will not plead
in vain."
I am afraid that nothing could have
been more disingenuous than this letter.
How it worked, the reader will see here-
after ; but, in the meantime, I cannot de-
fend Mr. Incledon. He acted, I suppose,
on the old and time-honoured sentiment
that any stratagem is allowable in love
and war, and consoled himself for the
possible wrong he might be doing (only a
possible wrong, for Wodehouse might be
kept for years cruising after slaves for
anything Mr. Incledon knew) by the un-
questionable benefit which would accom-
pany it. "A young fellow living by his
wits will find a gunboat of infinitely more
service to him than a foolish love affair
which never could come to anything," his
rival said to himself.
And after having sealed this letter, he
returned into his fairyland. He left the
library where he had written it, and went
to the drawing-room which he rarely
used, but which was warm with a cheer-
ful fire and lighted with soft wax-lights
for his pleasure should he care to enter.
He paused at the door a moment and
looked at it. The wonders of upholstery
in this carefully decorated room, every
scrap of furniture in which had cost its
master thought, would afford pages of
description to a fashionable American
novelist, or to the refined chronicles of
the Family Herald; but I am not suffi-
ciently learned to do them justice. The
master of the house, however, looked at
the vacant room with its softly burning
lights, its luxurious vacant seats, its
closely drawn curtains, the books on the
tables which no one ever opened, the pic-
tures on the walls which nobody looked
at (except on great occasions), with a curi-
ous sense at once of desolation and of
happiness. How dismal its silence was !
not a sound but the dropping of the ashes
from the fire, or the movement of the
burning fuel ; and he himself a ghost
looking into a room which might be in-
habited by ghosts for aught he knew.
Here and there, indeed, a group of chairs
had been arranged by accident so as to
look as if they were occupied, as if one
unseen being might be whispering to an-
other, noiselessly smiling, and pointing at
the solitary. But no, there was a pleas-
anter interpretation to be given to that
soft, luxurious, brightly-coloured vacan-
cy ; it was all prepared and waiting, ready
for the gentle mistress who was to come.
How different from the low-roofed
drawing-room at the White House, with
the fireplace at one end of the long room,
with the damp of ages in the old walls,
with draughts from every door and win-
dow, and an indifferent lamp giving all
the light that they could afford ! Mr. In-
cledon, perhaps, thought of that, too,
with an increased sense of the advantages
he had to offer ; but lightly, not knowing
all the discomforts of it. He went back
to his library after this inspection, and
the lights burned on, and the ghosts, if
there were any, had the full enjoyment of
it till the servants came to extinguish the
candles and shut up everything for the
night.
CHAPTER XI.
When Rose went up the creaking
stairs to bed on that memorable night her
feelings were like those of some one who
has just been overtaken by one of the
great catastrophes of nature — a hurri-
cane or an earthquake — and who, though
escaped for the moment, hears the tem-
pest gathering in another quarter, and
knows that this is but the first flash of its
wrath, and that he has yet worse en-
counters to meet. I am of Mr. Incledon's
opinion — or rather of the doubt fast
ripening into an opinion in his mind —
that he had made a mistake, and that
possibly if he had taken Rose her-
self " with the tear in her eye," and
pressed his suit at first hand, he might
have succeeded better ; but such might-
bes are always doubtful to affirm and im-
possible to prove. She sat down for a
while in her cold room, where the
draughts were playing freely about, and
where there was no fire — to think ; but
as for thinking, that was an impossible
operation in face of the continued gleams
of fancy which kept showing now one
scene to her, now another ; and of the
ringing echo of her mother's words which
kept sounding through and through the
stillness. Self-indulgence — choosing her
own pleasure rather than her duty — what
she liked instead of what was right.
Rose was far too much confused to make
out how it was that these reproaches
seemed to her instinct so inappropriate to
the question ; she only felt it vaguely,
and cried a little at the thought of the
selfishness attributed to her ; for there is
no opprobrious word that cuts so deeply
into the breast of a romantic, innocent
girl. She sat there pensive till all her fac-
A ROSE IN JUNE.
37
ulties got absorbed in the dreary sense of
cold and bodily discomfort, and then she
rose and said her prayers, and untwisted
her pretty hair and brushed it out, and
went to bed, feeling as if she would have
to watch through the long dark hours till
morning, though the darkness and loneli-
ness frightened her, and she dreaded the
night. But Rose was asleep in half an
hour, though the tears were not dry on
her eyelashes, and I think slept all the
long night through which she had been
afraid of, and woke only when the first
grey of daylight revealed the cold room
and a cold morning dimly to her sight —
slept longer than usual, for emotion tires
the voung. Poor child ! she was a little
ashamed of herself when she found how
soundly she had slept.
" Mamma would not let me call you,"
said Agatha, coming into her room ; "she
said you were very tired last night ; but
do please come down now and make
haste. There is such a basket of flowers
in the hall from Whitton, the man says.
Where's Whitton ! Isn't it Mr. Incle-
don's place ? But make haste. Rose, for
breakfast, now that you are awake."
So she had no time to think just then,
but had to hurry down-stairs, where her
mother met her with something of a wist-
ful look, and kissed her with a kind of
murmured half apology. " I am afraid I
frightened you last night. Rose."
" Oh, no, not frightened," the girl said,
taking refuge among the children, before
whom certainly nothing could be said ;
and then Agatha and Patty surged into
the conversation, and all gravity or
deeper meaning was taken out of it. In-
deed, her mother was so cheerful that
Rose would almost have hoped she was
to hear no more of it, had it not been for
the cluster of flowers which stood on the
table, and the heaped-up bunches of beau-
tiful purple grapes which filled a pretty
Tuscan basket, and gave dignity to the
bread and butter. This was a sign of the
times nvhich was very alarming ; and I do
not know why it was, unless it might be
by reason of her youth, that those deli-
cate and lovely things — fit offerings for a
lover — never moved her to any thought
of what it was she was rejecting, or
tempted her to consider Mr. Incledon's
proposal as one which involved many de-
lightful things along with himself, who
was not delightful. This idea, oddly
enough, did not find any place in her
mind, though she was as much subject to
the influence of all that was lovely and
pleasant as any girl could be.
The morning passed, however, without
any further words on the subject, and her
heart had begun to beat easier and her
excitement to calm down, when Mrs.
Damerel suddenly came to her, after the
children's lessons, which was now their
mother's chief occupation. She came
upon her quite unexpectedly, when Rose,
moved by their noiseless presence in the
room, and unable to keep her hands off
them any longer, had just commenced in
the course of her other arrangements
(for Rose had to be a kind of upper house-
maid, and make the drawing-room habita-
ble after the rough and ready operation
which Mary Jane called "tidying'-) to
make a pretty group upon a table in the
window of Mr. Incledon's flowers. Cer-
tainly they made the place look prettier
and pleasanter than it had ever done yet,
especially as one stray gleam of sunshine,
somewhat pale, like the girl herself, but
cheery, had come glancing in to light up
the long, low, quaint room and caress the
flowers. " Ah, Rose, they have done you
good already ! " said her mother ; " you
look more like yourself than I have seen
you for many a day."
Rose took her hands from the last
flower-pot as if it had burnt her, and
stood aside, so angry and vexed to have
been found at this occupation that she
couln have cried.
" My dear," said her mother, going up
to her, " I do not know that Mr. Incle-
don will be here to-day ; but if he comes
I must give him an answer. Have you
reflected upon what I said to you ? I
need not tell you again how important it
is, or how much you have in your power."
Rose clasped her hands together in
self-support — one hand held fast by the
other, as if that slender grasp had been
something worth clinging to. "Oh!
what can I say ? " she cried ; " I -^ told
you ; what more can I say ? "
" You told me ! Then, Rose, every-
thing that I said to you last night goes for
nothing, though you must know the truth
of it far, far better than my words could
say. Is it to be the same thing over again
— always over again .? Self, first and last,
the only consideration ? Everything to
please yourself ; nothing from higher mo-
tives ? God forgive you. Rose ! "
"Oh, hush, hush! it is unkind — it is
cruel. I would die for you if that would
do any good ! " cried Rose.
" These are easy words to say ; for dv-
ing would do no good, neither would it
be asked from you," said Mrs. Damerel,
impatiently. " Rose, I do not ask this in
38
A ROSE IN JUNE.
ordinary obedience, as a mother may
command a child. It is not a child but a
woman who must make such a decision ;
but it is my duty to show you your duty,
and what is best for yourself as well as
for others. No one — neither man nor
woman, nor girl nor boy — can escape
from duty to others ; and when it is
neglected some one must pay the pen-
alty. But you — you are happier than
most. You can, if you please, save your
family."
"We are not starving, mamma," said
Rose, with trembling lips; "we have
enough to live upon — and I could work
— I would do anything "
" What would your work do. Rose ?
If you could teach — and I don't think
you could teach — you might earn
enough for your own dress ; that would
be all. Oh, my dear ! listen to me. The
little work a girl can do is nothing. She
can make a sacrifice of her own inclina-
tion— of her fancy; but as for work,
she has nothing in her power."
" Then I wish there were no girls ! "
cried Rose, as many a poor girl has done
before her, "if we can do nothing but be
a burden — if there is no work for us,
no use for us, but only to sell ourselves.
Oh, mamma, mamma ! do you know what
you are asking me to do ? "
"I know a great deal better than you
do, or you would not repeat to me this
vulgar nonsense about selling yourself.
Am I likely to bid you sell yourself.-^
Listen to me. Rose. I want you to be
happy, and so you would be — nay, never
shake your head at me — you would be
happy with a man who loves you, for you
would learn to love him. Die for us ! I
have heard such words from the lips of
people who would not give up a morsel
of their own will — not a whim, not an
hour's comfort "
" But I — I am not like that," cried
Rose, stung to the heart. " I would give
up anything — everything — for the chil-
dren and you ! "
" Except what you are asked to give
up; except the only thing which you can
give up. Again I say, Rose, I have
known such cases. They are not rare in
this world."
" Oh, mamma, mamma ! "
"You think I am cruel. If you knew
my life, you would not think so; you
would understand my fear and horror of
this amiable self-seeking which looks so
natural. Rose," said her mother, drop-
ping into a softer tone, "I have some-
thing more to say to you — perhaps some-
thing that will weigh more with you than
anything I can say. Your father had set
his heart on this. He spoke to me of it
on his death-bed. God knows ! perhaps
he saw then what a dreary struggle I
should have, and how little had been
done to help us through. One of the last
things he said to me was, ' Incledon will
look after the boys.' "
" Papa said that ? " said Rose, putting
out her hands to find a prop. Her limbs
seemed to refuse to support her. She
was unprepared for this new unseen an-
tagonist. " Papa ? How did he know ? '
The mother was trembling and pale,
too, overwhelmed by the recollection as
well as by her anxiety to conquer. She
made no direct answer to Rose's ques-
tion, but took her hand within both of
hers, and continued with her eyes full of
tears : " You would like to please kz'm,
Rose — it was almost the last thing he
said — to please him, and to rescue me
from anxieties I can see no end to, and
to secure Bertie's future. Oh, Rose !
you should thank God that you can do so
much for those you love. And you would
be happy, too. You are young, and love
begets love. He would do everything
that man could do to please you. He is
a good man, with a kind heart ; you
would get to love him ; and, my dear,
you would be happy too."
" Mamma," said Rose, with her head
bent down and some silent tears drop-
ping upon Mr. Incledon's flowers — a
flush of colour came over her downcast
face, and then it grew pale again ; her
voice sounded so low that her mother
stooped towards her to hear what she
said — "mamma, I should like to tell you
something."
Mrs. Damerel made an involuntary
movement — a slight instinctive with-
drawal from the confidence. Did she
guess what it was ? If she did so, she
made up her mind at the same time not
to know it. " What is it, dear ? " she
said, tenderly, but quickly. " Oh, 'Rose !
do you think I don't understand your ob-
jections ? But, my darling, surely you
may trust your mother, who loves you
more than all the world. You will not
reject it — I know you will not reject it.
There is no blessing that is not promised
to those that deny themselves. He will
not hurry nor press you, dear. Rose,
say I may give him a kind answer when
he comes ? "
Rose's head was swimming, her heart
throbbing in her ears and her throat.
The girl was not equal to such a strain.
ALFRED B. STREET.
39
To have the h'ving and the dead both
uniting against her — both appealing to
her in the several names of love and
duty against love — was more than she
could bear. She had sunk into the near-
est chair, unable to stand, and she no
longer felt strong enough, even had her
mother been willing to hear it, to make
that confession which had been on her
lips. At what seemed to be the extremity
of human endurance she suddenly saw
one last resource in which she might
still find safety, and grasped at it, scarcely
aware what she did. " May I see Mr.
Incledon myself if he comes ? " she
gasped, almost under her breath.
" Surely, dear," said her mother, sur-
prised ; " of course that would be the
best ; — if you are able for it, if you will
think well before you decide, if you will
promise to do nothing hastily. Oh, Rose !
do not break my heart ! "
" It is more likely to be my own that I
will break," said the girl, with a shadow of
a smile passing over her face. " Mamma,
will you be very kind, and say no more .''
I will think, think — everything that you
say ; but let me speak to him myself, if
he comes."
Mrs. Damerel looked at her very ear-
nestly, half suspicious, half sympathetic.
She went up to her softly and put her
arms round her, and pressed the girl's
drooping head against her breast. " God
bless you, my darling ! " she said, with
her eyes full of tears ; and, kissing her
hastily, went out of the room, leaving
Rose alone with her thoughts.
If I were to tell you what these
thoughts were, and all the confusion of
them, I should require a year to do it.
Rose had no heart to stand up and fight
for herself all alone against the world.
Her young frame ached and trembled
from head to foot with the unwonted
strain. If there had been indeed any
one — any one —to struggle for ; but how
was she to stand alone and battle for
herself? Everything combined against
her ; every motive, every influence. She
sat in a vague trance of pain, and, in-
stead of thinking over what had been
said, only saw visions gleaming before
her of the love which was a vision, noth-
ing more, and which she was called upon
to resign. A vision! — that was all; a
dream, perhaps, without any ^foundation.
It seemed to disperse like a mist, as the
world melted and dissolved around her
— the world which she had known —
showing a new world, a dreamy, undis-
covered country, forming out of darker
vapours before her. She sat thus till the
stir of the children in the house warned
her that they had come in from their daily
walk to the early dinner. She listened to
their voices and noisy steps and laughter
with the strangest feeling that she was
herself a dreamer, having nothing in
common with the fresh real life where all
the voices rang out so clearly, where
people said what they meant with spon-
taneous outcries and laughter, and there
was no concealed meaning and nothing
beneath the sunny surface ; but when she
heard her mother's softer tones speaking
to the children. Rose got up hurriedly,
and fled to the shelter of her room. If
anything more were said to her she
thought she must die. Happily Mrs.
Damerel did not know that it was her
voice, and not the noise of the children,
which was too much for poor Rose's
overstrained nerves. She sent word by
Agatha that Rose must lie down for an
hour and try to rest ; and that quiet was
the best thing for her headache, which,
of course, was the plea the girl put forth
to excuse her flight and seclusion. Aga-
tha, for her part, was very sorry and dis-
tressed that Rose should miss her dinner,
and wanted much to bring something up-
stairs for her, which was at once the
kindest and most practical suggestion of
all.
ALFRED B. STREET.
That it should be possible for a series
of extracts from the works of one emi-
nent American to be attributed, with lit-
tle danger of contradiction, to another, is
only one more illustration of the too well
known fact, that what is most excellent,
is not always most widely known, nor
most highly esteemed.
The British Quarterly Review, in an
extended notice of the Life and Writings
of Thoreau, quotes as proof and illustra"
tion of his poetic genius, numerous gems
of description which certainly establish
the claims of their author to the charac-
ter of a true poet, but which, many of
them, were really written, not by Thoreau,
but by Alfred B. Street, who has been
called the " Herrick " and the " Teniers "
of American poets.
Why his poems have been too gener^
ally forgotten while he is still only on the
threshold of a respected and venerated
old age, might be hard to tell. Probably
lines and couplets from his writings, era-
40
ALFRED B. STREET.
bodying some delicately discriminating
and suggestive description, some preg-
nant epithet, linger in the minds of many
who have forgotten or vi^ho never knew
the name of their author.
As is so often the case the longer and
more ambitious poems of this writer are
of much less value than the shorter and
less pretentious ones, though all embody
more or fewer of those exquisite mosaics
of descriptive touch, which constitute the
principal charm of his works.
That his merits were not overlooked by
the highest authorities of the past or
passing generation, some of their criti-
cism on his works will best show; the
extracts which they give in support of
their opinions, have an intrinsic and abid-
ing beauty which will be at least equally
appreciated now.
Alfred B. Street was born in the vil-
lage, now city, of Poughkeepsie, Dutchess
County, N. Y., well known as one of the
most beautiful in the State, situated on
the side and summit of a slope that swells
up from the Hudson. From College Hill
there is a prospect of almost matchless
beauty. A scene of rural and sylvan
loveliness expands from every point at its
base ; the roofs and steeples of the busy
village rise from the foliage in which it
seems embosomed ; the river stretches
league upon league with its gleaming
curves beyond ; to the west is a range of
splendid mountains ending at the south
in the misty peaks of the Highlands ;
whilst at the north, dim outlines sketched
upon the distant sky, proclaim the domes
of the soaring Catskills. It was among
these scenes that our author passed his
days of childhood ; here his young eye
first drank in the glories of Nature, and
" the foundations of his mind were laid."
When, however, at the age of fourteen,
he removed with his family to Monticello,
he was immediately surrounded with
scenes in striking contrast with those of
his former life. Sullivan County had been
organized only a score of years, and was
scarcely yet rescued from the wilderness.
Monticello, its county town,' was sur-
rounded by fields which only a short time
before were parts of the wild forest,
which still hemmed them in on every side.
These forests were threaded with bright
streams and scattered with broad lakes,
while here and there the untiring axe of
the settler, during the last quarter of a
•century, had been employed in opening
the way for the industry and enterprise of
man. Secluded as Sullivan County is in
the southvvesternmost nook of the State,
it would be difficult to find within its
bounds another region of such sylvan
beauty and wild grandeur. The eye is
filled with images that make their own en-
during places in the mind, storing it with
rich and unfading pictures. Among
these scenes, as might be supposed, Mr.
Street ranged with a ceaseless delight,
probably heightened by the strong con-
trast they afforded in their startling pic-
turesqueness to the soft, quiet beauty of
those of Dutchess. Instead of the smooth
meadowy ascent, he saw the broken hill-
side blackened with fire, or just growing
green with its first crop. Instead of the
yellow corn-field stretching as far as the
eye could see, he beheld the clearing
spotted with stumps, with the thin rye
growing between ; instead of the com-
fortable farm-house peeping from its or-
chards, he saw the log-cabin stooping
amid the half-cleared trees ; the dark ra-
vine took the place of the mossy dell, and
the wild lake of the sail-spotted and far-
stretching river.
Thus communing with nature, Mr.
Street embodied the impressions made
upon him in language, and in that form
most appropriate in giving vent to deep
enthusiastic feeling and high thought —
the form of verse. Poem after poem was
written by him, and being published in
those best vehicles of communication
with the public, the periodicals, soon at-
tracted attention. Secluded from man-
kind, and surrounded with nature in her
most impressive features, his thought
took the direction of that which he saw
most, and thus description became the
characteristic of his verse. Equally cut
off from books, his poetry found its ori-
gin in his own study of natural scenes,
and in the thoughts that rose in his own
bosom. The leaves and flowers were his
words ; the fields and hillsides were his
pages ; and the whole volume of Nature
his treasury of knowledge. This, while it
may have made him less artistic, was the
means of that ori^inalitv and unlikeness
to any one else which are to be found in
his pages.
But while thus employing his leisure,
Mr. Street was engaged in studying his
profession of law in the office of his father,
and in due time was admitted to the bar.
After practising for a few years at Mon-
ticello, in 1839 he removed to Albany,
where he has continued to reside until
the present time.
The Foreign Quarterly Review, one of
the most distinguished of the English
publications, in an article which bears
ALFRED B. STREET.
4^
severely upon nearly every other Ameri-
can poet except Bryant, Longfellow, Hal-
leck, and Emerson, speaks in the follow-
ing manner of Mr. Street :
" He is a descriptive poet, and at the
head of his class. His pictures of Amer-
ican scenery are full of gusto and fresh-
ness ; sometimes too wild and diffuse,
but always true and beautiful. The open-
^ '\ing of a piece called the ' Settler ' is very
" striking. •*
His echoing axe the settler swung
Amid the sea-like solitude,
And rushing, thundering down were flung
The Titans of the wood ;
Loud shrieked the eagle, as he dashed
From out his mossy nest, which crashed
With its supporting bough.
And the first sunlight, leaping, flashed
On the wolfs haunt below.
His poems are very unequal, and none of
them can be cited as being complete in
its kind. He runs into a false luxuriance
in the ardor of his love of nature, and in
the wastefulness of a lively, but not
large imagination ; and like Browne, the
author of the ' Pastorals,' he continually
sacrifices general truth to particular de-
tails, making un-likenesses by the crowd-
ing and closeness of his touches. Yet
with all his faults his poems cannot be
read without pleasure."
The Westminster Review also noticed
the poems in the following manner :
" It is long since we met with a volume
of poetry from which we have derived so
much unmixed pleasure as from the col-
lection now before us.
" Right eloquently does he discourse of
Nature, her changeful features and her
varied moods, as exhibited in his own
' America with her rich green forest-
robe ; ' and many are the glowing pic-
tures we would gladly transfer to our
pages, did our limits permit, in proof of
the poet's assertion that ' Nature is
man's best teacher.' But we must only
quote
A FOREST W^ALK.
A lovely sky, a cloudless sun,
A wind that breathes of leaves and flowers,
O'er hill, through dale, my steps have won
To the cool forest's shadowy bowers j
One of the paths, all round that wind
Traced by the browsing herds, I choose,
And sights and sounds of human kind,
In Nature's lone recesses lose ;
The beech displays its marbled bark
The spruce its green tent stretches wide,
While scowls the hemlock, grim and dark,
The maple's scalloped dome beside.
All weave on high a verdant roof
That keeps the very sun aloof,
Making a twilight soft and green
Within the columned, vaulted scene.
Sweet forest odors have their birth
From the clothed boughs and teeming earth ;
Where pine-cones dropped, leaves piled and
dead,
Long tufts of grass and stars of fern
With many a wild-flower's fairy urn
A thick, elastic carpet spread ;
Here, with its mossy pall, the trunk
Resolving into soil, is sunk ;
There, wrenched but lately from its throne,
By some fierce whirlwind circling past.
Its huge roots massed with earth and stone,
One of the woodland kings is cast.
Above, the forest tops are bright
With the broad blaze of sunny light ;
But now a fitful air-gust parts
The screening branches, and a glow
Of dazzling, startling radiance darts
Down the dark stems, and breaks below ;
The mingled shadows off are rolled,
The sylvan floor is bathed in gold ;
Low sprouts and herbs, before unseen.
Display their shades of brown and green ;
Tints brighten o'er the velvet moss.
Gleams twinkle on the laurel's gloss ;
The robin, brooding in her nest.
Chirps, as the quick ray strikes her breast,
And as my shadow prints the ground,
I see the rabbit upward bound.
With pointed ears an instant look.
Then scamper to the darkest nook.
Where, with crouched limb and staring eye,
He watches while I saunter by.
A narrow vista carpeted
With rich green grass invites my tread ;
Here, showers the light in golden dots,
There, sleeps the shade in ebon spots.
So blended that the very air
Seems network as I enter there.
The partridge, whose deep rolling drum
Afar has sounded on my ear,
Ceasing its beatings as I come.
Whirrs to the sheltering branches near;
The little milk snake glides away.
The brindled marmot dives froni day ;
And now, between the boughs, a space
Of the blue laughing sky Ttrace ;
On each side shrinks the bowery shade ;
Before me spreads an emerald glade ;
The sunshine steeps its grass and moss.
That couch my footsteps as I cross ;
Merrily hums the tawny bee,
The glittering humming-bird I see;
Floats the bright butterfly along.
The insect-choir is loud in song ;
A spot of light and life, it seems
A fairy haunt for fancy dreams.
Here stretched, the pleasant turf I press
In luxury of idleness ;
42
ALFRED B. STREET.
Sun-streaks, and glancing wings, and sky
Spotted with cloud-shapes, charm my eye ;
While murmuring grass, and waving trees
Their leaf-harps sounding to the breeze,
And water tones that tinkle near
Blend their sweet music to my ear;
And by the changing shades alone,
The passage of the hours is known."
A complete and beautiful edition of
Mr. Street's poems, in a large octavo vol-
ume of more than three hundred pages,
was published by Messrs. Clark & Austin
of the city of New York. The following
criticism of it appeared in the Demo-
cratic Review, and we cannot better im-
part to the general reader an idea of Mr.
Street's mental characteristics, than by
transferring it, beautifully written as it is,
to our pages. It was originally published
anonymously, but is understood to be
from the fine and graphic pen of H. T.
Tuckerman, and was republished in " A
Sketch of American Literature," by Mr.
Tuckerman, appended to Shaw's " Com-
plete Manual of English Literature : "
" God has arrayed this continent with
a sublime and characteristic beauty, that
should endear its mountains and streams
to the American heart ; and whoever
ably depicts the natural glory of America,
touches a chord which should yield re-
sponses of admiration and loyalty. In
this point of view alone, then, we deem
the minstrel who ardently sings of forest
and sky, river and highland, as eminently
worthy of respectful greeting. This
merit we confidently claim for the author
of these poems. That he is deficient
occasionally in high finish — that there is
repetition and monotony in his strain —
that there are redundant epithets, and a
lack of variety in his effusions, we con-
fess, at the outset, is undeniable ; and
having frankly granted all this to the
critics, we feel at liberty to utter his just
praise with equal sincerity. Street has
an eye for Nature in all her moods. He
has not roamed the woodlands in vain,
nor have the changeful seasons passed
him by without leaving vivid and lasting
impressions. These his verse records
with unusual fidelity and genuine emo-
tion. We have wandered with him on a
summer's afternoon, in the neighbour-
hood of his present residence, and
stretched ourselves upon the greensward
beneath the leafy trees, and can there-
fore testify that he observes, con ainore,
the play of shadows, the twinkle of sway-
ing herbage in the sunshine, and all the
phenomena that make the outward world
so rich in meaning to the attentive gaze.
He is a true Flemish painter, seizing
upon objects in all their verisimilitude.
As we read him, wild flowers peer up
from among brown leaves ; the drum of
the partridge, the ripple of waters, the
flickering of autumn light, the sting of
sleety snow, the cry of the panther, the
roar of the winds, the melody of birds,
and the odor of crushed pine-boughs, are
present to our senses. In a foreign land,
his poems would transport us at once to
home. He is no second-hand limner,
content to furnish insipid copies, but
draws from reality. His pictures have
the freshness of originals. They are
graphic, detailed, never untrue, and often
vigorous ; he is essentially an American
poet. His range is limited ; but he has
had the good sense not to wander from
his sphere, candidly acknowledging that
the heart of man has not furnished him
the food for meditation, which inspires a
higher class of poets. He is emphatical-
ly an observer. In England we notice
that these qualities have been recog-
nized; his 'Lost Hunter' was finely-
illustrated in a recent London periodical
— thus affording the best evidence of the
picturesque fertility of his muse. Many
of his pieces, also, glow with patriotism.
His ' Gray Forest Eagle ' is a noble
lyric, full of spirit ; his forest scenes are
minutely, and, at the same time, elabo-
rately true ; his Indian legends and de-
scriptions of the seasons have a native
zest which we have rarely encountered.
Without the classic elegance of Thom-
son, he excels him in graphic power.
There is nothing metaphysical in his turn
of mind, or highly artistic in his style ;
but there is an honest directness and cor-
dial faithfulness about him, that strikes
us as remarkably appropriate and manly.
Delicacy, sentiment, ideal enthusiasm,
are not his by nature ; but clear, bold,
genial insight and feeling he possesses to
a rare degree ; and on these grounds we
welcome his poems, and earnestly advise
our readers to peruse them attentively,
for they worthily depict the phases of
Nature, as she displays herself in this
land, in all her solemn magnificence and
serene beauty."
We extract also a portion of an elabo-
rate and exquisite criticism upon the same
volume, which appeared in a late number
of the American Review, written by its
editor, George H. Colton.
"The rhymed pieces are of different
degrees of excellence. There are quite
too many careless lines, and here and
there is an accent misplaced, or a heavy
ALFRED B. STREET.
43
word forced into light service ; but the
rhythm in general runs with an equable
and easy strength, the more worthy of
regard because so evidently unartificial ;
and there is often — not in the simply
narrative pieces, like ' The Frontier In-
road ' or ' Morannah,' but in the fre-
quent minute pictures of Nature — a
heedless but delicate movement of the
measure, a lingering of expression corre-
sponding with some dreamy abandon-
ment of thought to the objects dwelt
upon, or a rippling lapse of language
where the author's mind seemed con-
scious of playing with them — caught, as
it were, from the flitting of birds among
leafy boughs, from the subtle wander-
ings of the bee, and the quiet brawling
of woodland brooks over leaves and peb-
bles.
" Some liquid lines from ' The Wille-
wemoc in Summer ' are an example, at
once, of Mr. Street's sweetness of versifi-
cation, in any of the usual rhyming meas-
ures, and still more of his minute pictur-
ing of Nature,
Bubbling within some basin green
So fringed with fern the woodcock's bill
Scarce penetrates the leafy screen,
Leaps into life the infant rill.
Now pebbly shallows, where the deer
Just bathes his crossing hoof, and now
Broad hollowed creeks that, deep and clear,
Would whelm him to his antlered brow ;
Here the smooth silver sleeps so still
The ear might catch the faintest trill,
The bee's low hum — the whirr of wings,
And the sweet songs of grass-hid things.
Blue sky, pearl cloud and golden beam
Beguile my steps this summer day,
Beside the lone and lovely stream,
And mid its sylvan scenes to stray ;
The moss, too delicate and soft
To bear the tripping bird aloft,
Slopes its green velvet to the sedge,
Tufting the mirrored water's edge.
Where the slow eddies wrinkling creep
Mid swaying grass in stillness deep.
"Still more exquisite — exquisite in
every sense of the word — unquestion-
able ^<7<?/ry — is 'The Callikoon in Au-
tumn.' The last verse in particular is of
the finest order.
Sleep-like the silence, by the lapse
Of waters only broke,
And the woodpecker's fitful taps
Upon the hollow oak ;
And, mingling with the insect hum,
The beatings of the partridge drum,
With now and then a croak,
As, on his flapping wing, the crow
O'er passes, heavily and slow.
All steeped in that delicious charm
Peculiar to our land.
That comes, ere Winter's frosty arm
Knits Nature's icy band ;
The purple, rich and glimmering smoke
That forms the Indian Summer's cloak,
When, by soft breezes fanned.
For a few precious days he broods
Amidst the gladdened fields and woods.
See, on this edge of forest lawn,
Where sleeps the clouded beam,
A doe has led her spotted fawn
To gambol by the stream ;
Beside yon mullein's braided stalk
They hear the gurgling voices talk ;
While, like a wandering gleam.
The yellow-bird dives here and there,
A feathered vessel of the air.
" So also of a short piece called ' Mid-
summer ; ' if an ethereal and dreamy
' landscape ' by Cole or Durand is a
paintings why not this a poem ?
An August day ! a dreamy haze
Films air and mingles with the skies ;
Sweetly the rich dark sunshine plays,
Bronzing each object where it lies.
Outlines are melted in the gauze
That Nature veils ; the fitful breeze
From the thick pine low murmuring draws.
Then dies in flutterings through the trees.
" Another piece of a different style, but
equally vivid and felicitous, is the prelude
to a scene of ' Skating.' It is impossible
not to admire it in every line. It is, by
the way, an example almost faultless of
measuring the melody by accents, not by
syllables.
The thaw came on with its southern wind,
And misty, drizzly rain ;
The hill-side showed its russet dress.
Dark runnels seamed the plain ;
The snow-drifts melted off like breath,
The forest dropped its load,
The lake, instead of its mantle white,
A liquid mirror showed ;
It seemed, so soft was the brooding fog.
So fanning was the breeze.
You'd meet with violets in the grass.
And blossoms on the trees.
" In the use of language, more espe-
cially in his blank verse, Mr. Street is
simple yet rich, and usually very felici-
tous. This is peculiarly the case in his
choice of appellatives, which he selects
and applies with an aptness of descriptive
beauty not surpassed, if equalled, by any
poet among us — certainly by none ex-
cept Bryant. What is more remarkable
— quite worthy of note amid the deluge
44
ALFRED B. STREET.
of diluted phraseology bestowed on us
by most modern writers — is the almost
exclusive use, in his poems, of Saxon
words. We make, by no means, that
loud objection to Latinisms which many
feel called upon to set forth. In some
kinds of verse, and in many kinds of prose,
they are of great advantage, mellowing
the diction, enlarging and enriching the
power of expression. Unquestionably
they have added much to the compass of
the English language. This is more,
however, for the wants of philosophy than
of poetry — unless it be philosophical
poetry. For in our language nearly all
the strono:est and most picturesque
words, verbs, nouns, adjectives, are of
one and two syllables only ; but, also,
nearly all such words are of Saxon origin.
Descriptive poetry, therefore, to be of
any force or felicity, must employ them ;
and it was this, no doubt, that led Mr.
Street — unconsciously it may be — to
choose them so exclusively. For the
same reason, Byron, who in power of
description is hardly equalled by any
other English poet, used them to a
greater extent, we believe, than any other
'moulder of verse' since Chaucer, unless
we may except Scott in his narrative
verse ; Wordsworth, on the other hand,
whose most descriptive passages have
always a philosophical cast, makes con-
stant draft on Latinized words, losing as
much in vigour as he gains in melody
and compass. In all Mr. Street's poems
the reader will be surprised to find scarce-
ly a single page with more than three or
four words of other than Saxon derivation.
This extraordinary keeping to one only
of the three sources of our language —
for the Norman-French forms a third —
is owing, in great part, to the fact that
his poetry is almost purely descriptive ;
yet not wholly to this, for any page of
Thomson's ' Seasons,' or Cowper's
* Task,' will be found to have four times
as many. It is certain, at least, that the
use of such language has added im-
mensely to the simplicity, strength, and
picturesque effectiveness of Mr. Street's
blank verse ; and, as a general considera-
tion of style, we recommend the point to
the attention of all writers, whose diction
is yet unformed, though we hold it a mat-
ter of far less importance in prose than in
poetry.
" It will not be difificult to make good
all we have said, by choice extracts, ex-
cept for the difficulty of choosing. What,
for example, could be finer in its way
than some passages from
Stroll ' ?
A September
The thread-like gossamer is waving past,
Borne on the wind's light wing, and to yon
branch
Tangled and trembling, clings like snowy silk.
The thistle-down, high lifted, through the rich
Bright blue, quick float, like gliding stars, and
then
Touching the sunshine, flash and seem to melt
Within the dazzling brilliance.
j That aspen, to the wind's soft-fingered touch,
Flutters with all its dangling leaves, as though
Beating with myriad pulses.
" Besides this observation, keen as the
Indian hunter's, of all Nature's slight and
simple effects in quiet places, Mr. Street
has a most gentle and contemplative eye
for the changes which she silently throws
over the traces where men have once
been. For instance, in ' The Old Bridge '
and ' The Forsaken Road.' So of a pas-
sage in ' The Ambush,' which sinks into
the mind like the falling of twilight over
an old ruin.
Old winding roads are frequent in the woods,
By the surveyor opened years ago.
When through the depths he led his trampling
band,
Startling the crouched deer from the under-
brush.
With unknown shouts and axe-blows. Left
again
To solitude, soon Nature touches in
Picturesque graces. Hiding, here, in moss
The wheel-track — blocking up the vista,
there.
In bushes — darkening with her soft cool tints
The notches on the trees, and hatchet-cuts
Upon the stooping limbs — across the trail
Twisting, in wreaths, the pine's enormous
roots,
And twining, like a bower, the leaves above.
Now skirts she the faint path with fringes deep
Of thicket, where the checkered partridge
hides
Its downy brood, and whence, with drooping
wing.
It limps to lure away the hunter's foot,
Approaching its low cradle ; now she coats
The hollow stripped by the surve5^or's band
To pitch their tents at night, with pleasant
grass.
So that the doe, its slim fawn by its side.
Amidst the fire-flies in the twilight feeds ;
And now she hurls some hemlock o'er the
track,
Splitting the trunk that in the frost and rain
Asunder falls, and melts into a strip
Of umber dust.
" As the painter of landscapes, how-
ever, can never rank among the greatest
ALFRED B. STREET.
45
of painters, so the merely descriptive
poet can never stand with the highest in
his art. It needs a higher power of the
mind, the transforming, the creative.
Mr, Street endeavours only the pictures
of external things. He rarely or never
idealizes Nature ; but Nature unidealized
never brings a man into the loftier re-
gions of poeiry. For the greatest and
highest use of material Nature, to the
poet, is that she be made an exhaustless
storehouse of imagery ; that through her
multitude of objects, aspects, influences,
subtle sources of contrast and compari-
son, he should illustrate the universe of
the unseen and spiritual. This is to be
TTOLTjTT]^ — Maker ^ Creator. It is that
strange power of
Imagination bodying forth
The forms of things unknown.
It is to interpret, ^idealize'' Nature.
" This is what Mr. Street never at-
tempts. He never gives wing to his im-
agination. He presents to us only what
nature shows to him — nothing farther.
Or, if he makes the attempt, striking out
into broader and sublimer fields, he is
not successful. He is not at home, in-
deed, when describing the grander fea-
tures of Nature herself, but only as he is
picturing her more minute and delicate
lineaments. He can give the tracery of
a leaf, or the gauze wings of a droning
beetle, better than the breaking up of a
world in the Deluge, or the majesty of
great mountains —
Throning Eternity in icy halls.
A remarkable example of this is the first
piece, ' Nature.' Through the first part,
where he is describing the Creation, the
Deluge, the sublime scenery in parts of
the world with which his senses are not
actually familiar, his imagination does
not sustain itself, and his verse is com-
paratively lame and infelicitous. But
when he comes to the quiet scenes in
America, which he has seen and felt, he
has such passages as these, passages
which, in their way, Cowper, Thomson,
Wordsworth or Bryant never excelled.
• " Thus of Spring : —
In the moist hollows and by streamlet-sides
The grass stands thickly. Sunny banks have
burst
Into blue sheets of scented violets.
The woodland warbles, and the noisy swamp
Has deepened in its tones.
" And of Summer : —
O'er the branch-sheltered stream, the laurel
hangs
Its gorgeous clusters, and the basswood
breathes,
From its pearl-blossoms, fragrance.
But now the wind stirs fresher ; darting round
The spider tightens its frail web ; dead leaves
Whirl in quick eddies from the mounds ; the
snail
Creeps to its twisted fortress, and the bird
Crouches amid its feathers. Wafted up,
The stealing cloud with soft gray blinds the
sky,
And in its vapory mantle onward steps
The summer shower ; over the shivering grass
It merrily dances, rings its tinkling bells
Upon the dimpling stream, and, moving on,
It treads upon the leaves with pattering feet
And softly murmured music.
" Again in Autumn : —
The beech-nut falling from its opened burr
Gives a sharp rattle, and the locust's song
Rising and swelling shrill, then pausing short,
Rings like a trumpet. Distant woods and hills
Are full of echoes, and all sounds that strike
Upon the hollow air let loose their tongues.
The ripples, creeping through the matted
grass,
Drip on the ear, and the far partridge-drum
Rolls like low thunder. The last butterfly,
Like a winged violet, floating in the meek
Pink-coloured sunshine, sinks his velvet feet
Within the pillared mullein's delicate down,
And shuts and opens his unrufiied fans.
Lazily wings the crow, with solemn croak,
From tree-top on to tree-top. Feebly chirps
The grasshopper, and the spider's tiny clock
Ticks from its crevice.
" How exquisite are these pictures !
with what an appreciation, like the mi-
nute stealing in of light among leaves
does he touch upon every delicate fea-
ture ! And then, in how subtle an alem-
bec of the mind must such language have
been crystallized. The '• curiosa felicitas''
cannot be so exhibited except by genius.
" Mr. Street has published too much ;
he should have taken a lesson from Mr.
Bryant. He constantly repeats himself,
too, both in subjects and expression.
His volume, therefore, appears monoto-
nous and tiresome to the reader ; with-
out retrenchment it can hardly become
popular. But we shall watch with much
interest to see what he can do in other
and higher spheres. Meanwhile, how-
ever, we give him the right hand of fel-
lowship and gentle regard, for he has
filled a part at least, of one great depart-
ment of the field of poetry, with as ex-
quisite a sense, with as fine a touch, with
as loving and faithful an eye, heart and
pen, as any one to whom Nature has
46
ever whispered familiar words in solitary
places.
" In addition to the above, we quote a
few felicities of thought and expression
from the volume before mentioned.
A fresh damp sweetness fills the scene,
From dripping leaf and moistened earth ;
The odor of the wintergreen
Floats on the airs that now have birth.
ALFRED B. STREET.
The whizzing of the humming-bird's swift
wings
Spanning gray glimmering circles round its
shape.
When the strawberry ripe and red,
Is nestling at the roots of the deep grass.
The trees seem fusing in a blaze
Of gold-dust sparkling in the air.
Merrily hums the tawny bee.
The wind that shows its forest search
By the sweet fragrance of the birch.
The moving shades
Have wheeled their slow half circles, pointing
now
To the sunshiny East.
A landscape frequent in the land
Which Freedom with her gifts to bless,
Grasping the axe when sheathing brand.
Hewed from the boundless wilderness.
And the faint sunshine winks with drowsiness.
Where, grasping with its knotted wreath
Of roots the mound-like trunk beneath,
In brown, wet fragments spread,
A young usurping sapling reigned ;
Nature, Mezentius-like, had chained
The living with the dead.
Within the clefts of bushes, and beneath
The thickets, raven darkness frowned, but still
The leaves upon the edges of the trees
Preserved their shapes.
A purple haze.
Blurring hill-outlines, glazing dusky nooks.
And making all things shimmer to the eye.
The sunshine twinkles round me, and the wind
Touches my brow with delicate downy kiss.
Through the dark leaves the low descending
sun
Glows like a spot of splendour from the shade
Of Rembrandt's canvas.
Listen — a murmuring sound arises up ;
'Tis the commune of Nature — the low talk
She holds perpetually with herself.
" We end our notice with selecting from
the volume a poem in a vein somewhat
different from Mr. Street's usual descrip-
tive efforts.
THE HARMONY OF THE UNIVERSE.
God made the world in perfect harmony.
Earth, air, and water, in its order each,
With its innumerable links, compose
But one unbroken chain ; the human soul
The clasp that binds it to His mighty arm.
A sympathy throughout each order reigns —
A touch upon one link is felt by all
Its kindred, and the influence ceaseth not
Forever. The massed atoms of the earth,
Jarred by the rending of its quivering breast,
Carry the movement in succession through
To the extremest bounds, so that the foot.
Tracking the regions of eternal frost,
Unknowing, treads upon a soil that throbs
With the Equator's earthquake.
The tall oak.
Thundering its fall in Appalachian woods,
Though the stern echo on the ear is lost.
Displaces with its groan the rings of air.
Until the swift and subtle messengers
Bear, each from each, the undulations on
To the rich palace of eternal Spring
That smiles upon the Ganges. Yea, on pass
The quick vibrations through the airy realms.
Not lost, until with Time's last gasp they die.
The craggy iceberg, rocking o'er the surge,
Telling its pathway by its crashing bolts.
Strikes its keen teeth within the shuddering
bark
When night frowns black. Down, headlong,
shoots the wreck ;
Lost is the vortex in the dashing waves,
And the wild scene heaves wildly as before ;
But every particle that whirled and foamed
Above the groaning, plunging mass, hath
urged
Its fellow, and the motion thus bequeathed
Lives in the ripple, edging flowery slopes
With melting lace-work; or with dimples
rings
Smooth basins where the hanging orange-
branch
Showers fragrant snow, and then it ruffles on
Until it sinks upon Eternity.
Thus naught is lost in that harmonious chain.
That, changing momently, is perfect still.
God, whose drawn breaths are ages, with those
breaths
Renews their lustre. So 'twill ever be,
Till, with one wave of his majestic arm.
He snaps the clasp away, and drops the chain
Again in chaos, shattered by its fall."
In 1842, appeared "The Burning of
Schenectady and other Poems " from the
pen of Mr. Street.
William Gilmore Simms in the Maga-
zine he established, " The Southern and
ALFRED B. STREET.
47
Western Monthly Magazine and Review,"
thus remarks :
" It is not, however, in the epic or the
dramatic, but in the descriptive that Mr.
Street excels. He is not even contem-
plative— solely descriptive, and as nice
and as elaborate in details as any of the
Flemish Masters. His delineations are
as close and correct as if Nature herself
had employed him as her chief secretary.
" Here is a spirited picture of the guard-
room revel.
Circling a table flagon-strewed
The soldiers sat in jocund mood ;
Around the fort the tempest howls ;
Thick, solid-seeming darkness scowls :
But what reck they ! with song and shout
Merrily speeds the festive scene,
Loud laughter greets the tawny scout,
As, startling, when, more shrill and keen
Swells on the air the furious gale,
He mutters of the morning's trail.
One, the most reckless of the band,
Viewing the scout with scornful eyes,
Fierce smites the table with his hand,
And swinging high his goblet, cries —
" Fill, comrades, fill, the wine is bright,
We'll drink the soldier's life to-night !
Sing, comrades, sing, the wind shall be
The chorus to our harmony !
This talk forbear — no trails we fear !
Thy boding's naught, no foe is near !
A guardian kind is Winter old !
He rears his barriers white and cold ;
His frozen forests fill the track
Between us and fierce Frontenac !
Hark to the blast, how wild its sweep !
He shouts his chorus strong and deep ;
Flow beats the snow ! we envy not
This bitter night, the sentry's lot !
Our comrades at the gates must feel
The driving sleet like points of steel !
Fill, and let thanks to fortune flow
For wine and fire, not blast and snow !
Fill, till the brim is beaming bright !
We'll drink — the soldier's life ! — to-night !
"We note several pieces of exquisite
description. Nice bits of scenery occur
in frequent pages — glimpses of wood and
water, rude mountain and cultivated valley,
slips of prospect such as a painter's eye
would seize upon and fasten in autumnal
tints upon the intelligible canvas. Occa-
sionally, too, our author moralizes well
upon the things he describes, with a pure
spirit and that gentle solemnity which
soothes and satisfies, without chilling or
oppressing, the heart."
In 1849, Frontenac, a long narrative
poem from the pen of Mr. Street was pub-
lished by Richard Bentley, London, and
subsequently ushered to the American
public by the then publishing firm of
Baker and Scribner, since Scribner, Wel-
ford & Co.
Of this poem " The Britannia," a Lon-
don periodical, thus speaks.
" Mr. Street is one of the writers of
whom his country has reason to be proud.
His originality is not less striking than
his talent. In dealing with the romance
of North American life, at a period when
the red man waged war with the Euro-
pean settler, he has skilfully preserved
that distinctive reality in ideas, habits,
and action characteristic of the Indian
Tribes, while he has constructed a poem
of singular power and beauty. In this
respect ' Frontenac ' is entirely different
from ' Gertrude of Wvomins:,' which
presents us only with ideal portraiture.
Mr. Street has collected all his materials
from Nature. They are stamped with
that impress of truth which is at once
visible even to the inexperienced eye,
and, like a great artist, he has exercised
his imagination only in forming them into
the most attractive, picturesque, and beau-
tiful combinations.
" We can best give an idea of Mr.
Street's production by saying that it re-
sembles one of Cooper's Indian ro-
mances thrown into sweet and varied
verse. The frequent change of metre is
not we think advantageous to the effect
of the poem as a whole, and the reader
uninitiated in the pronunciation of Indian
proper names may find the frequent re-
currence a stumbling block as he reads ;
but the rapidity of the narrative, the ex-
citing incidents of strife and peril which
give it life and animation, and the exquis-
ite beauty of the descriptive passages
must fascinate the mind of every class of
readers, while the more refined taste will
dwell with delight on the lovely images
and poetic ideas with which the verse is
thickly studded."
Thus speaks Duyckinck's " Literary
World " published some years ago.
" When Europeans first penetrated the
valleys of the Hudson and the Mohawk,
they found a confederacy of Red men,
who, by the power of itttion, bore sway
over all the surrounding tribes. The
Ho-de-no-son-ne, once consisting of nine
united nations, for a time, according to
Algonquin tradition, were known as the
Eight Tribes. At the period of the Dutch
discovery, they called themselves the Five
Nations, Akonoshioni ; or, as more cor-
rectly written, Ho-de-no-son-ne. Ordina-
rily, when speaking of themselves, they
used the term Ongwe Honivee, a generic
word, equivalent to Indian^ and which
48
ALFRED B. STREET.
applied to the whole red race, just as we,
appropriating the name of the continent,
call ourselves Americans. Subsequently,^
and within our written history, another
tribe, the Tuskaroras, was adopted into
the Union, and the confederacy became
known as the Six Nations. The polity
which regulated these United Red Men
is hardly known. So far as ascertained,
the number of tribes might be increased
or diminished, according to circumstan-
ces. The power of war and peace was
given up by each member of the Confed-
eracy; votes were given by tribes. The
singular bond of the totem, or family
name and device, ran through all the na-
tions, Algonquins as well as Iroquois.
It bore some analogy to coats of arms.
Descent was by the female side. The
son of a chief could not succeed him.
His brother, or, in default of a brother,
the male child of his daughter, was the
heir-apparent; and his claims were sub-
mitted to a council for approval, without
which he was not inducted into office.
Married women among them retained
their name or totem, as well as their prop-
erty. Matrons might take part in coun-
cil. There were Council Fires or Delib-
erative Assemblies in each tribe, and a
Grand Council of the Confederacy made
up of delegates from the tribes composing
it, as our Senate consists of representa-
tives of the States. Over all presided
the Atotarho or " Convener of the Coun-
cil ; " an office, in some respects, not un-
lii<e that of President of our Republic.
This system was democratic in practice.
The independence of the individual
tribes was jealously guarded. All war-
riors were volunteers, without pay or re-
source from the public. The people
were trained to war as the business of
life. Hunting was merely foraging.
' The thirst for glory,' says Mr. School-
craft, 'the strife for personal distinction
filled their ranks, and led them through
desert paths to the St. Lawrence, the Illi-
nois, the Atlantic seaboard, and the
southern Alleghanies. They conquered
wherever they went. They subdued na-
tions in their immediate vicinity. They
exterminated others. They adopted the
fragments of subjugated tribes into their
confederacy, sank the national homes of
the conquered into oblivion, and thus re-
paired the losses of war.'
" Of the great deeds of this noble race
sings our poet. Mr. Street has, in Fron-
tenac, attempted only the metrical ro-
mance, and a capital one he has written.
He has been most happy in the choice of
his subject.
" Street has a peculiar power to see, and
to describe in words and rhythm, visible
nature. He paints to the eye of mind as
Cole and Durand paint to the bodily
sight, the woods and waters, the sunny
glades and solemn caverns, the distant
landscape, and the group just by. Be-
sides, like Cole and Durand, his heart
adores his native land. He studies and
loves our America. His images, his he-
roes, his similes, his story, all are Ameri-
can ; and therefore I love him, and want
to make you and all true readers of native
books, love him too. Even as the bold
leaguers, whose successors we are, paint-
ed on some barked tree or whitened doe-
skin, the brave deeds of their sires and
comrades, and by their Ho-no-we-na-to,
or hereditary Keeper of the Records,
kept alive perpetual tradition from father
to son, so has the author of Frontenac
recorded one chapter of the history of
the ' United People,' and married it to
verse, which I would fain wish immortal.
I hail this pale-faced Ho-no-we-na-to,
who has filled his mind with the lore of
the Iroquois, and whose diction might
have been the utterance of a Ho-de-no-
son-ne soul. Hear him :
As Thurenserah viewed the lovely sky,
It looked, to his wild fancy-shaping eye,
Like holy Hah-w^en-ne-yo's * bosom' bright
With his thick-crowded deeds, one glow of
light —
And his rich belt of wampum broadly bound
White as his pure and mighty thoughts, around.
"What an image ! The broad expanse
of starry sky, belted with constellations,
to the untutored Indian's mind, suggested
the broad chest of the mighty brave,
whose thick-crowded deeds could scarce
find room to be emblazoned there in glory.
The milky way was the rich belt of wam-
pum, white as His pure thoughts.
"Again: the Atotarho is appealing
to his warriors, who, overawed by the ac-
counts they receive of the Frenchman's
artillery, hesitate to resist : —
Have you forgot that here is burning
The pure Ho-de-no-son-ne fire .'*
Rather than, from its splendor turning.
Leave it to Yon-non-de-yoh's spurning,
Around it, glad, shoulcl all expire !
See ! its smoke streams before your eye
Like Hah-wen-ne-yoh's scalp-lock high !
"The Atotarho, Thurenserah {Anglice^
* God.
ALFRED B. STREET.
49
' The Dawn of Day '), the hero of the
romance, is a heroine — Lucille, the
daughter of Sa-ha-wee, Priestess of the
Sacred Fire of the Onondagas, who had
been carried a captive to France, and
wedded there Frontenac ; this Lucille
becomes Atotarho of the Iroquois, and
after performing all chivalrous and gal-
lant acts, according to Indian warfare, at
last overcome, is about to be burnt at the
stake with Indian torments, a prisoner.
The sacred fane has been destroyed and
the fire gone out, when her sex is discov-
ered, and her mother avows herself in
the priestess, and the wife of the con-
queror, the long-lost and long-renowned
Sa-ha-wee. Here we have the romance.
The interest of the story is well sustained,
and the improbabilities are so artfully car-
ried out, of our modern notions of what
would be likely, into olden Ho-de-no-son-
ne days, that no one but an Iroquois has
any right to say aught against them. The
versification is varied ; not always perfect,
nor even carefully conducted — but full of
substance, needing \.\\t file^ yet worthy of
that toil which, in another edition, the
rhyme-builders ought to bestow.
" As for instance : —
Now by smooth banks, where, stretched be-
neath the shade
The Indian Hunter gazed with curious eye,
Now catching glimpses of some grassy glade,
Rich with the sunshine of the open sky ;
Now by the vista of some creek, where stood
The moose mid-leg, and tossing high his
crown
Hazy with gnats, and vanishing 'm the wood,
Waking to showers of white the shallows
brown.
Thus on they passed by day.
Alter the words italicized into he van-
ished^ and both sound and sense are im-
proved, for it was the moose and not the
gnats that vanished. Now you see how
hard I have striven to find fault, and after
all my quotation draws a picture beauti-
ful as Durand can paint. The word-pic-
tures of Street are marvels. Listen — he
is looking over the battlements of Quebec.
The lower city's chimneys rose
Along the marge in long array,
"Whilst, in its calm and smooth repose
Like air the broad curved river lay.
A brigantine was creeping round,
With its one sail, Cape Diamond's bound ;
By Orleans' Island a bateau
Was like a lazy spider, slow
Crawling. The boatmen, spots of red,
Pushing their poles of glimmering thread.
" But here is a graver strain : —
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 316
HYMN TO THE DEITY. — AN IROQUOIS HYMN-
Mighty, mighty Hah-wen-ne-yo, spirit pure
and mighty, hear us !
We thine own Ho-de-no-son-ne, wilt thou be
forever near us.
Keep the sacred flame still burning! guide
our chase, our planting cherish !
Make our warriors' hearts yet taller ! let our
foes before us perish !
Kindly watch our waving harvests ! Make
each Sachem's wisdom deeper !
Of our old men, of our women, of our children
be the keeper !
Mighty, holy Hah-wen-ne-yo ! Spirit pure
and mighty, hear us —
We thine own Ho-do-no-son-ne, wilt thou be
forever near us !
Yah-hah ! forever near us ! Wilt thou be for-
ever near us !
" A single stanza from the description of
Cayuga Lake :
Sweet sylvan lake ! beside thee now,
Villages point their spires to Heaven,
Rich meadows wave, broad grain-fields bow,
The axe resounds, the plough is driven ;
Down verdant points come herds to drink, —
Flocks strew, like spots of snow, thy brink j
The frequent farm-house meets the sight,
'Mid falling harvests scythes are bright,
The watch dog's bark comes faint from far,
Shakes on the ear the saw-mill's jar ;
The steamer, like a darting bird.
Parts the rich emerald of thy wave.
And the gay song and laugh are heard —
But all is o'er the Indian's grave.
Pause, white man ! check thy onward stride I
Cease o'er the flood thy prow to guide !
Until is given one sigh sincere
For those who once were monarchs here,
And prayer is made, beseeching God
To spare us his avenging rod
For all the wrongs upon the head
Of the poor helpless savage shed ;
Who, strong when we were weak, did not
Trample us down upon the spot.
But weak when we were strong, were cast
Like leaves upon the rushing blast."
The following is from " The Albion."
" There is something in a name, and
Mr. Street has chosen one that has this
recommendation. It is peculiar and yet
euphonious, begetting some curiosity in
those not well read in Canadian story to
learn who or what Frontenac might be.
" The scenes are laid in the castle and
city of Quebec ; in the deep forests of
the then uncleared wilderness, and on
the waters of the Canadian rivers and
lakes ; these afford ample scope for de-
scription, which is evidently Mr. Street's
forte. The poem contains not fewer
than seven thousand lines, mainly in the
octosyllabic metre, but pleasingly varied.
" Mr. Street must surely have made per-
so
ALFRED B. STREET.
sonal acquaintance with that most pic-
turesque city, Quebec, for he writes of it
with much unction.
In the rich pomp of dying day,
Quebec, the rock-throned monarch,
glowed —
Castle and spire and dwelling gray.
The batteries rude that niched their way
Along the cliff, beneath the play
Of the deep yellow light, were gay.
And the curved flood below that lay
la flashing glory flowed ;
Beyond, the sweet and mellow smile
Beamed upon Orleans' lovely isle ;
Until the do^vnward view
Was closed by mountain-tops that, reared
Against the burnished sky, appeared
In misty, dreamy hue.
Reared on the cliff, at the very brink
Whence a pebble dropped would sink
Fourscore feet to the slope below,
The Castle of St. Louis caught
Dancing hues of delicate pink.
With which the clouds o'erhead were
fraught
From the rich sunset's streaming glow.
" The funeral of Frontenac takes place
in the Recollets' Church, and the con-
cluding passage entitled 'Mass for the
dead ' is extremely musical.
Sunset again o'er Quebec
Spread like a gorgeous pall ;
Again does its rich, glowing loveliness deck
River, and castle, and wall.
Follows the twilight haze,
And now the star-gemmed night ;
And out bursts the Recollets' Church in a
blaze
Of glittering, spangling light.
Crowds in the spacious pile
Are thronging the aisles and nave
With soldiers from altar to porch, in file
All motionless, mute and grave.
Censers are swinging around.
Wax-lights are shedding their glare.
And, rolling majestic its volume of sound,
The organ oppresses the air.
The saint within its niche.
Pillar and picture and cross.
And the roof in its soaring and stately pitch.
Are gleaming in golden gloss.
The chorister's sorrowing strain
Sounds shrill as the A\anter breeze.
Then low and soothing, as when complain
Soft airs in the summer trees.
The taper-starred altar before.
Deep mantled with mourning black,
With sabre and plume on the pall spread
o'er.
Is the coffin of Frontenac
Around it the nobles are bowed,
And near are the guards in their grief,
While the sweet-breathing incense is ^vreath-
ing its cloud
Over the motiorUess chief.
But the organ and singers have ceased.
Leaving a void in air,
And the long-drawn chant of the blazoned
priest
Rises in suppliance there.
Again the deep organ shakes
The walls with its mighty tone.
And through it again the sweet melody
breaks
Like a sorrowful spirit's moan.
" The author is an observer and must
be a lover of Nature. How condensed and
striking, is the following description of
the bursting forth of a Canadian Spring.
'Twas May ! the Spring, with magic bloom,
Leaped up from Winter's frozen tomb.
Day lit the river's icy mail ;
The bland, warm rain at evening sank ;
Ice fragments dashed in midnighfs gale ;
The moose at morn the ripples drank.
The yacht, that stood with naked mast
In the locked shallows motionless
When sunset fell, went curtseying past
As breathed the morning's light caress.
"Are not the above lines excellent?
The four that we have italicized contain
a volume of suggestions, and are alone
sufficient to stamp Mr. Street a man of
genius.
" If Edwin Landseer desired to paint
the portrait of a moose deer, could he find
any more graphic sketch than, the follow-
ing ?
'Twas one of June's delicious eves ;
Sweetly the sunset rays were streaming,
Here, tangled in the forest leaves.
There on the Cataragin * gleaming.
A broad glade lay beside the flood
Where tall dropped trees and bushes stood
A cove its semi -circle bent
Within, and through the sylvan space.
Where lay the light in splintered trace,
A moose, slow grazing, went ;
Twisting his long, curved, flexile lip
Now the striped moose-wood's leaves to strip,
And now his maned neck, short and strong,
Stooping, between his fore-limbs long.
Stretched widely out, to crop the plant
And tall, rich grass that clothed the haunt.
On moved he to the basin's edge.
Moving the sword-flag, rush, and sedge.
And, wading short way from the shore,
Where spread the water-lilies o'er
A pavement green with globes of gold,
Commenced his favourite feast to hold.
So still the scene — the river's lapse
Along its course gave hollow sound,
With some raised wavelet's lazy slaps
On log and stone around ;
And the crisp noise the moose's cropping
Made, with the water lightly dropping
I * Iroquois name for th« River St. Lawrence^
ALFRED B. STREET.
51
From some lithe, speckled lily stem
Entangled in his antlers wide,
Thus scattering many a sparkling gem
Within the gold-cups at his side.
Sudden he raised his head on high,
Spread his great nostrils, fixed his eye,
Reared half his giant ear-flaps, stood,
Between his teeth a half-chewed root,
And sidelong on the neighbouring wood
Made startled glances shoot.
Resuming then his stem, once more,
He bent, as from suspicion free.
His bearded throat the lilies o'er,
And cropped them quietly.
" Another extract.
The summer sun was sinking bright
Behind the woods of Isle Perrot ;
Back, Lake St. Louis gleamed the light
In rich and mingled glow ;
The slanting radiance at Lachine
Shone on an animated scene.
Beside the beach upon the swell
Scores of canoes were lightly dancing,
With many a long bateau, where fell
The sun on pole and drag-rope glancing.
Throngs were upon the gravelly beach,
Bustling with haste, and loud in speech j
Some were placing in rocking bateaus
Cannon and mortars and piles of grenades ;
Some were refitting their arrows and bows,
Others were scanning their muskets and
blades ;
Some were kindling their bivouac fire ;
Others were blending
Their voices in son^ ;
While others, contending
With utterance strong.
Scarce kept from blows in their reckless ire."
In a Dutch work entitled " De Kerk
School en Witenschap in de Vereenigde
Staten Van Nord-Amerika,'" by D. Bud-
dingh, a distinguished scholar and anti-
quarian of the Netherlands, is the follow-
ing, translated by Mr. E. B. O'Callaghan.
" We here pass by the poets James G.
Percival, J. G. C. Brainard, John Pierpont,
Willis and others, in order to make close
acquaintance with the poets Alfred B.
Street, and Henry W. Longfellow, already
named above by us as the Minstrel of the
Night."
After a biography of Mr. Street, in
which Mr. Buddingh remarks, " His rep-
utation as a poet even extended to Eng-
land, when he, in 1846, published a vol-
ume in large octavo in New York, in
which were 'The Lost Hunter,' and his
wood-picture, ' The Gray Forest Eagle,'
surpassing his descriptions of the Seasons
(which remind us of Thomson), and his
Indian Legends.
" Streets great merit as a poet con-
sists in his rare gift of nature-painting.
Passing by the earlier poem, ' American
Forest Spring,' we select as an instance
of his nature-j^ainting, his * Forest Walk.'
We have not space here for any other
than this poem of Street whose love for
Nature made him her original and strik-
ing delineator."
In a large, closely printed, double-col-
umn octavo volume entitled, " Bildersaal
der Welt Literatur, von Dr. Johannes
Scherr" embracing a selection of trans-
lations by various writers, from the poets
of the Indian, Chinese, Hebrew, Arabian,
Persian, and Turkish ; Greek and Ro-
man ; Provengal, Italian, Spanish, Portu-
guese and French, English, Scotch, Ger-
man and Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Nor-
wegian and Danish ; Bohemian, Servian,
Polish and Russian ; Hungarian and
Romaic, America is represented. We
have Percival's " Eagle," Bryant's "Than-
atopsis," Longfellow's " Excelsior,"
Street's " Settler," Irving's " Falls of the
Passaic," and Drake's " American Flag."
Philar^te Chasles, late Professor in the
College of France, and one of the most
distinguished French authors and critics,
in his "Anglo-American Literature and
Manners," and in a chapter, " Of some
Anglo-American Poets," speaks thus :
"The only names which we can single
out from this forest of versifiers are
Street, Halleck, Bryant, Longfellow, and
Emerson."
The following notice occurs in the
" Hand-Book of American Literature,"
published by W. & R. Chambers, Lon-
don and Edinburgh. " Alfred B. Sreet
has published descriptive poems highly
commended for their graphic power. In
Frontenac, a tale of the Iroquois, the
author has added a narrative interest to
his descriptive passages, of which sev-
eral are clearly written with picturesque
effect."
In Vapereau's " Dictionnaire Univer-
sel des Contemporains," published at
Paris, in Mr. Street's biography, M.
Vapereau in speaking of his works re-
marks, " Where is found an undeniable
power of description, a vivid apprecia-
tion of nature, and a manner of thought
entirely American."
In "The Poets and Poetry of Amer-
ica," Mr. Griswold says, " Mr. Street de-
scribes with remarkable fidelity and mi-
nuteness, and while reading his poems
one may easily fancy himself in the for-
est, on the open plain, or by the side of
the shining river."
In " Allibone's Dictionary of Authors "
it is said of Mr. Street, " In 1843-44
(succeeding General John A. Dix,) he
52
SHAKESPEARE S SON-IN-LAW.
was the editor of * The Northern Light.'
Perhaps it would be correct to say that
his rank among American poets is the
same as that generally assigned to Dry-
den among English poets."
In "The Crayon," an art journal, is
found the following :
" The soft brown moss, in which the
vivid green of the new shoots comes like
spangles, is more grateful to the feet
than the clay of the road, and so I pene-
trate the grove.
Here sprouts the fresh young wintergreen,
There swells a mossy mound ;
Though in the hollows drifts are piled
The wandering wind is sweet and mild,
And buds are bursting round.
Where its long rings unwinds the fern,
The violet, nestling low,
Casts back the white lid of its urn
Its purple streaks to show.
• ••.*•
Amid the creeping-pine which spreads
Its thick and verdant wreath,
The scauberry's downy spangle sheds
Its rich, delicious breath.
(Street's ' American Forest Spring.')
That was in Street's locality.
" Also the poets know what an increase
of effect they gain in describing the mo-
tion of such 'objects by applying a hu-
manizing verb, as, for example, in Shake-
speare :
But look ! The morn in russet mantle clad
V/alks o'er the dew of yon high eastern hill.
" As vivid as the bolt itself, is this in
Byron.
From peak to peak the rattling crags among
Leaps the live thunder.
" And in the epithet used by Street
there is a close approximation to the
effect of a rain-cloud traversing the fields.
And in its vapory mantle onward steps
The summer shower."
Also, in another article.
" Our American Street has plied his
pencil-pen upon (winter) scenes with ad-
mirable care for detail. We can select
but one or two sturdy bits.
Yon rustic bridge
Bristles with icicles ; beneath it stand
The cattle-group long pausing while they drink
From the ice-hollowed pools, that skim in sheets
Of delicate glass, and shivering as the air
Cuts with keen stinging edge ;
"Take another.
The morning rises up
And lo, the dazzling picture I every tree
Seems carved from steel, the silent hills are
helmed
And the broad fields have breastplates. Over
all
The sunshine flashes in a keen, white blaze
Of splendor searing eye-sight. Go abroad !
The branches yield crisp cracklings, now and
then
Sending a shower of rattling diamonds down
On the mailed earth, as freshens the light wind.
The hemlock is a stooping bower of ice.
And the oak seems as if a fairy's wand
Away had swept its skeleton frame, and placed
A polished structure trembling o'er with tints
Of rainbow beauty there. But soon the sun
Melts the enchantments like a charm away.
" We hold that Thomson, in as many
lines, never wrote so many apt expres-
sions of natural effects."
" The Crayon " also published three es-
says on " The Landscape Element in
American Poetrj^," assigning to Bryant,
Street, and Lowell in each essay, their
place as the exponent and representative
of this distinctive school of our literature.
Extended specimens are given of their
poetry, bringing out their picturesque
qualities and pictorial beauties.
Mr. Street has delivered manifold
poems before the literary societies of the
Colleges of New York and elsewhere,
Geneva, Yale, Union, Hamilton, &c. ; is
a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, of
Cambridge Art Union, and has received
the distinction of an honorary member-
ship of the Literary Society of Nurem-
berg, the " Literarische Verein^^ of which
Mr. Longfellow is likewise a recipient.
From Eraser's Magazine.
SHAKESPEARE'S SON-IN-LAW.
A STUDY OF OLD STRATFORD.
Stratford-upon-Avon in the seven-
teenth century must have presented a
very perfect type of the small midland
towns which ranked in size and import-
ance between the villages and the larger
boroughs. Grouped about a fair and
stately church and an old Guild-house
were three or four streets of low, half-
timber houses, sparingly intermixed with
a few of larger size, such as the College
where Combe lived, and the ever mem-
orable New Place, environed by well-
wooded gardens and gently sloping
towards the river, which then, as to-day,
crept lazily through the many arches of
the old bridge, now " making sweet music
to the enamelled stones " of the shallows,
SHAKESPEARE S SON-IN-LAW.
S3
now heavy and stagnant in the deep pools
under the shadow of the elms and wil-
lows. Imagine this, with a foreground
of rich meadow land, dank and moist as
Cuyp's river banks, streaked with tall
hedgerows and backed by the undulatfng
banks, which, do duty for hills in this
part of England, and you have a picture
of Stratford as it must have appeared in
the time of Shakespeare. The fertility
of this middle-most valley of England
is unrivalled. Dry and matter-of-fact
Speed, who knew the district well, and
was a frequent visitor at Warwick, hard
by, is almost betrayed into poetry when
he comes to describe " the meandering
pastures, with their green mantles so em-
broidered with flowers, that from Edge-
hill we behold another Eden." In our
day, Hugh Miller, rambling by the Avon
on a hot day in June, descants with
enthusiasm upon the rich aquatic vegeta-
tion, and declares that he had seen noth-
ing in living nature which so well en-
abled him to realize the luxuriant semi-
tropical life of the period of the coal-
measures. But the beauty of the land-
scape is very treacherous. Built or bor-
dering upon low alluvial soil, near the
point where the great red sandstone dis-
trict of central England begins to be
overlaid by the lias, the town is very
liable to floods, which year after year
leave behind them a plentiful crop of
fevers and agues. In the autumn months
it often happens that the quiet little
river, swollen by hundreds of tiny conflu-
ents from the high grounds, spreads
itself along the valley into the semblance
of a huge mere, and the scene from Strat-
ford Bridge is
A fiat malarian world of reed and rush.
The whole neighbourhood was formerly
very unhealthy. If we may depend upon
the entries of burials in the parish regis-
ter, the death rate during the last twenty-
five years of the sixteenth century must
have greatly exceeded that of a modern
manufacturing town ; and in the very
year of Shakespeare's birth, the plague
is estimated to have carried off one-
seventh of the inhabitants. Even in
these days of improved drainage the rate
is high. Out of one hundred and eighty-
eight deaths from natural causes in 1868,
sixty-six were registered as caused by
zymotic diseases. The neighbourhood
of Stratford has always given employ-
ment to a number of doctors, and in the
time of Elizabeth there is reason to be-
lieve that this little town or its immedi-
ate vicinity possessed two physicians, be-
sides several apothecaries, and a number
of the irregular practitioners who always
abound in aguish districts. During the
first quarter of the seventeenth century
the most noted of the Stratford doctors
was John Hall, who had the luck to im-
mortalize his name by marrying the eld-
est daughter of Shakespeare. The regis-
ter of Stratford, under the date of 1607,
has the following entry among the mar-
riages :
John Hall, gentleman, and Susanna Shaxpere.
This is the first, and well-nigh the only
contemporary notice of Hall. Who he
was, and whence he came, the reasons
which induced him to settle at Stratford,
and, indeed, almost everything connected
with his personal history, are all hidden
in that singular obscurity which seems to
envelop all the surroundings of Shake-
speare. With the exception of a few
brief notices in the Corporation Records
relating to his holding the office of Bailiff,
we hear nothing more of him until after
his death, when one of his many manu-
script case-books came into the hands of
Dr. Cooke, of Warwick, who translated it
from the professional Latin, and pub-
lished it in 1659 under the title of Select
Observations upon English Bodies of
Eminent Persons in Desperate Diseases.
This singular book, little known and
strangely neglected, is of great interest
to investigators of Shakespeare's life and
times. Nearly all the " eminent English
bodies," of whose patching up and phy-
sicking it is the record, were those of
Shakespeare's friends and neighbour's,
and it is the only source from which we
may get a glimpse, however slight, of the
people among whom his last years were
spent. To these last days, indeed, these
doleful pages are in some sort the
epilogue, for we find here most of the
friends and contemporaries of his youth
in the sere and yellow leaf journeying
peacefully, but for the most part pain-
fully, to the grave, under the pilotage of
Dr. Hall. Among his patients we have
" Mrs. Hall, of Stratford (my wife), being
miserably tormented with the cholic ; "
Elizabeth Hall (" my only daughter,
vexed with tortura oris"); Mrs. Green
(most likely the wife of the Town Clerk,
who was a relative of the poet) ; Mrs.
Combe (the wife of the Combe to whom
Shakespeare left his sword) ; Mrs. Sad-
ler (his early friend, and god-mother of
his daughter Judith) ; Esquire Underhill
(perhaps the former proprietor of New
54
SHAKESPEARE S SON-IN-LAW.
Place), who in these days was miserably
tormented by the " running gout," as
became an aged justice ; and Alderman
Tyler, the person whose name was erased
from the will, treated for a thoroughly
aldermanic complaint, " exceeding heat
of tongue." A Mrs. Nash also, probably
the wife of Shakespeare's friend, and
mother of the Nash who married Hall's
daughter, appears in these pages, and
several other members of the Combe and
Underbill families. The book is nothing
more than an ordinary case-book of the
period ; but in the word or two descrip-
tive of the individual which Hall affixes
to each case we are often able to discover
the bent of his own mind, and in some
measure to reconstruct the society of
the neighbourhood. There is abundant
evidence that his practice lay amongst
the best families of the district, and he
was often sent for to attend patients liv-
ing at a great distance. At Compton
Wyniates he was in frequent attendance
upon the Marquis of Northampton, and
even attended him when residing at Lud-
low as Warden of the Welsh Marches.
At Warwick his principal patients were
"Baronet Puckering," son of Elizabeth's
Speaker, of the same name, , " very
learned, much given to study, of a rare
and lean constitution, yet withal phleg-
matic," and Lord Brook, the famous
friend of Sir Philip Sydney, who appears
to have been a confirmed invalid during
his latter years of retirement at Warwick.
At Clifford, near Stratford, lived the
Rainsfords, who are frequently mentioned
in this book, notably " my lady Rainsford,
beautiful, and of a gallant structure of
body." There can be little doubt that
Shakespeare would be a frequenter of
this house, as Sir Henry Rainsford is
said by Aubrey to have been a great
friend to poetry and poets. Drayton
mentions in one of his letters to Drum-
mond of Havvthornden, that he is accus-
tomed to spend three months of every
summer at Clifford, and again alludes to
it in the Polyolbion as —
. . . dear Clifford's seat, the place of health
and sport,
Which many a time hath been the muse's
quiet port.
Another patient of great consideration
with Hall was Esquire Beaufou, of Guy's
Cliff, " whose name I have always cause
to honour." His worst illness was
caused by " eating great quantity of
cream at the end of his supper, about
the age of seventy." His wife, the Lady
Beaufou, was " godly and honest, being
of a noble extract." At Walcot, in Ox-
fordshire, he had a good patient in Lady
Jenkinson, who was probably the widow
of the Sir Anthony Jenkinson who w?.s
twice sent by Elizabeth as ambassador
to Russia. Other patients residing in or
near Stratford were Mrs. Harvey, "very
religious ; " the Lady Johnson, " fair,
pious, chaste ; " Mr. Drayton, " an excel-
lent poet," treated for a tertian, and
dosed with a pleasant mixture, which
"wrought both upwards and down-
wards ; " Mistress Woodward, " a maid,
very witty and well-bred, yet gibbous ; "
Mr. Fortescue, "catholic, a great drinker,
of a very good habit of body, sanguine,
very fat ; " Mr. Trap, the Puritan curate
of Stratford, "for his piety and learning
second to none."
The case of George Quiney is one of
the most interesting in the book. He
was the son of Shakespeare's old friend
Richard, the writer of the one extant let-
ter addressed to Shakespeare (asking for
the loan of " xxlb."), and the brother of
Thomas, who married the poet's second
daughter. In 1624 he was curate of
Stratford, and became Dr. Hall's patient
for "grievous cough and gentle feaver,
being very weak" — in other words, he
appears to have been in the last stage
of a galloping consumption. The medi-
cal men of our day let us off with a few
doses per dietn^ and a pill or a potion at
night, but in Quiney's time the doctor
was a tyrant from whom no hour, or
even meal, was free. This unhappy
young man was physicked indeed. In
the morning he took a warm emulsion
fasting ; followed after breakfast by a
hydromel, and at night by another emul-
sion and pills. At dinner they put saf-
fron into his sauce, "because profitable
for the brest," and musk into his wine,
"to corroborate the heart." His head
was shaved, "and an " emplaster " of
twenty-eight ingredients applied to it ;
and besides all this, he was dosed with
small messes of myrrh and tragacanth
made into a paste and taken "lying on
the back, to the end it may dissolve it-
self." Under this treatment the patient
ultimately died, and Hall dismisses him
with the remark that " he was a man of
good wit, expert in tongues, and very
learned," which proves at any rate that
there was one man of culture amongst
the Stratford townsmen. From this spe-
cimen it will, be seen that our doctor's
practice was of the heroic type. Nature,
according to his theory, was not a friend
SHAKESPEARE S SON-IN-LAW.
55
to be gently entreated and coaxed, but
an enemy to be fiercely wrestled with and
conquered. In common with most prac-
titioners of his time, he had some very
nasty and coarse medicines. He often
gave "juyce of goose-dung" and frog-
spawn water aS' tonics, and one of his fa-
vourite catalpasms was, " R., a swallow's
nest, straw, sticks, dung, and all." Pow-
dered human skull and even human fat
are strongly recommended, and he fre-
quently prescribes a restorative made
from snails and earth-worms. Medicine
at this period was in a state of transition,
and the old remedies, based for the most
part upon the doctrine of sympathies and
correspondences, still held their own
against the new and better practice which
acknowledged no authority but experi-
ment and observation. In turning over
the pages of this book we cannot fail to
be struck by the great prevalence of fe-
vers and agues. Many varieties are men-
tioned by Hall, such as " the malign
spotted fever," "erratic fever," the"un-
garic fever," the " new fever," and ter-
tians and quotidians of many kinds ; and
as a result of these, probably, we contin-
ually meet with cases of " hypochondriac
melancholy." If the cases in this book
are to be taken as fairly representative,
it follows that the popular ideal of the
land of Shakespeare must be consider-
ably modified. Stratford was no bucolic
paradise of red-faced yokels, but a town
of lean and melancholy invalids : a very
nursery of Hamlets, Timons, and
Jacques', scarcely ever free from —
. . . burning fevers, agues pale and» faint ;
Life-poisoning pestilence, and frenzies wood ;
Surfeits, imposthuraes, grief, and damn'd
despair.
It is, perhaps, worth notice that no
great poet has so frequently employed
images derived from these diseases.
The physicist of the future who, upon
some advanced stage of Mr. Buckle's
thesis, will expound to our grandsons the
various causes which led up to that most
wonderful of all phenomena, Shake-
speare, will no doubt have much to say
about the influence of locality in produ-
cing the morbid melancholy which, in
place and out of place, seems to pervade
everv page of his writings. There is lit-
tle doubt that Hall would be Shake-
speare's attendant during his last illness,
although we have no account of it in this
book, the entries in which unfortunately
do not commence till 1617, the year after
his death, although it is by no means cer-
tain that Shakespeare's case would have
been given, as the doctor is very chary
of recording his failures. But who was
Shakespeare's apothecary or surgeon ?
A pocket-book of Hall's is said to have
once been in the possession of Malone,
in which there was a statement that his
name was Nason, but in another place
corrected to Court. Now among Hall's
patients we find both "John Nason of
Stratford, Barber," and " Mrs. Grace
Court, wife to my apothecary." In those
days the lancet had scarcely been di-
vorced from the razor, so probably both
names are correct. Court being the apoth-
ecary, and Nason acting as surgeon or
bfood-letter. We are told by Ward, af-
terwards Vicar of Stratford, and also at
the same time practising as a physician
— a not uncommon conjunction of offices
in the seventeenth century — that Shake-
speare died of a fever, contracted at a
merry meeting with his friends Drayton
and Ben Jonson.* In that year (1616)
we find from the entries in the Parish
Register that the fever was unusually
active in Stratford, and it is probable,
therefore, that we may acquit the feast-
ing of any share in the poet's death.
In the autumn of 1632 the fever again
became terribly busy, in Hall's words,
" killing almost all that it did infect," and
the doctor himself nearly fell a victim
to it. From the way in which his disor-
der was treated, in the first instance by
himself, and afterwards, as he grew
worse, by a friendly physician from War-
wick — and which was, in fact, the routine
practice of the period — we may gather a
pretty accurate idea of the last hours in
this world of that bright but saddened and
world-worn spirit — inhabiter of that most
eminent of all " eminent English bodies,"
which seventeen years before had lain
burning and tossing in the same house,
probably in the same room. The battle
commenced in the usual manner, by
bleeding: "8 oz. from the liver-vein;"
and was followed up by active cathartics.
Afterwards, at frequent intervals, they
gave him a strong decoction of hartshorn,
the effects of which naturally made him,
as he says, " much macerated and weak-
ened, so ^hat I could not turn myself in
bed ; " and between the doses of harts-
horn he took an electuary, of which the
principal ingredient was the famous pow-
der of gems, then much in vogue, and
* Diary of the Rev. John Ward, Vicar of Strat-
ford-upon-Avon. Edited by Severn. London, iS^q.
Dr. Ward, like Hall, left behind hira a number of MS.
case-books.
56
composed of jacynths, smardines, rubies,
leaf-gold, and red coral. At night he
swallowed potions of diascordium and
syrup of poppies, and in the morning
more cathartics to drive away the little
life still left. The heart gradually sink-
ing, a plaster of musk and aromatics was
applied to the breast ; and then, the
poor weakened brain wandering, and the
troubled spirit ready to pass the thresh-
old, a pigeon was cut open, and its raw
flesh applied warm to the soles of his feet,
in the expectation that the vital magnet-
ism of the bird would draw away the hu-
mours from the head. And then ! In
Shakespeare's case, we know how it
ended ; but Dr. Hall, who must have had
the constitution of a horse, recovered.
The book entirely corroborates the
well-known and persistent Stratford tra-
dition that the immediate descendants of
Shakespeare were Puritans, and there-
fore inclined to hold the writings of their
illustrious relative in little respect. Dr.
Hall was certainly a Puritan of a very
pronounced type. The word "bodies"
upon his title-page seems to imply a reser-
vation as to souls which savours of this
school, and the book abounds in the pious
phrases which at that time were certain
shibboleths of the sect. Cooke, the edi-
tor, tells us that " he was in great fame
for his skill far and near ; and this I take
to be a great sign of his ability, that
such who spare not for cost, and they
who have more than ordinary understand-
ing, nay, such as hated him for his reli-
gion, often made use of him." When
Dowdall visited Stratford in 1693, the
earliest pilgrim who has left an account of
his visit, he made friends with the parish
clerk, who was then upwards of eighty
years old. While viewing the church,
the old man pointed to Shakespeare's
tomb, and said emphatically, " He was
the best of his family " ! This has always
seemed to us the most expressive testi-
mony, and, from the old town gossip's
point of view, speaks volumes, plainly
telling of a bright period of generous liv-
ing at the New Place, too soon followed
by a time of darkness, when cakes and
ale were not. ^
John Hall died in November 1635. By
his nuncupative will, made on the day
of his death, he left his " study of books "
— and amongst these, unless they had
undergone a similar sifting to that be-
stowed upon Don Quixote's, would be the
priceless Shakespeare Library — to his
son-in-law Nash, " to dispose of them as
you see good," and, in striking contrast
SHAKESPEARE S SON-IN-LAW.
to the indifference displayed by his great
father-in-law, exhibits a laudable anxiety
for his literary progeny. " As for my
manuscripts, I would have given them to
Mr. Boles if he had been here, but foras-
much as he is not here present, you may,
son Nash, burn them or do with them
what you please." Such is the wondrous
diversity of human nature, Macbeth and
Othello are dismissed without a word to
the tender mercies of ignorant players,
and still more ignorant printers, or, for
the matter of that, to the chances of utter
oblivion ; but Dr. Hall upon his bed of
death, is troubled about his poor little
case-books. The way in which the pres-
ent book came to be published is detailed
by Cooke in an address to the reader pre-
fixed to the first edition, but omitted in
the succeeding impressions. At the be-
ginning of the Civid Wars, probably ia
1642, Cooke, then quite a young man, was
acting as surgeon to the Roundhead troop
who were keeping the bridge at Stratford,
and quartered with him was "a mate
allied to the gentleman who wrote the
observations." This young man invited
Cooke to New Place to see the books left
by Dr. Hall. Mrs. Hall showed him the
books, and then said " she had some
[other] books left by one that professed
physic with her husband, for some money.
I told her that if I liked them I would
give her the money again." Mrs. Hall
then "brought them forth, amongst which
there was this, with another of the au-
thor's, both intended for the press. I be-
ing acquainted with Mr. Hall's hand, told
her that one or two of them were her hus-
band's, and showed them to her. She
denied, I affirmed, till I perceived she be-
gan to be offended, and at last I returned
her the money." This is the only scrap
of intelligence, save the inscription upon
her monument, which time has left us
about Shakespeare's daughter, and it
must be allowed that it does not show her
in a pleasant light. Mistress Hall was
certainly wise in a worldly sense, as well
as " wise to salvation." We may, per-
haps, however, derive from the incident
a consolatary inference. The tradition
mongers have always delighted to rack
our imagination with visions of the burn-
ing of Shakespeare's manuscripts at the
hands of a Puritanic and unsympathetic
kindred. The fair bargainer of the above
scene was not the woman to dispose of
her father's manuscripts — if there were
any — without a proper consideration,
and the probability seems to be that
Heminge and Condell would get them all.
COLOUR IN ANIMALS.
57
But we must not be led into doing injus-
tice to Mrs. Hall. It is quite possible
that Cooke may have been mistaken in
the inference which he evidently intends
us to draw. We know that it is quite
possible for eve;n the largest-hearted and
most sympathetic of women to be a dead
hand at a bargain, and after all there is
no crime in desiring to change a number
of musty little manuscripts into current
coin of the realm. Mrs. Hall's tomb-
stone in Stratford Church asks us —
To weepe with her that wept with all
That wept, yet set herselfe to chore
Them up with comforts cordiall j
which could hardly have been said of a
narrow-minded woman.
We have endeavoured in vain to dis-
cover some trace of Hall's parentage or
extraction. His name does not occur
upon the Register of the College of Phy-
sicians, or upon those of the Universities,
and, as Cooke tells us that he was a good
French scholar and had travelled, it is
probable that his degree was from Leyden
or Paris. There was a John Hall who
practised at Maidstone about 1565, and
published a translation of Lanfranc's
famous Ars Chirurgica. This Hall also
published some poetry of a religious cast,
and was a very decided Puritan. Is it
possible that our Dr. Hall could have
been a son or nephew of his ? There is
certainly a curious intellectual relation-
ship in the style of the two men.
It is amusing, how the real state of
affairs at Stratford, during the last years
of Shakespeare's life, differed from that
which has been pictured for us by the
sentimental biographers who have sur-
rounded the poet in his retirement with
troops of admiring worshippers. The
truth seems to be that Stratford was
a perfect hotbed of religious and do-
mestic strife. The municipal govern-
ment was in the hands of a narrow Puri-
tan majority, who administered the local
affairs in the spirit of a Scottish Kirk ses-
sion, pretending to a strict control over
the personal morals of the inhabitants.
In 1602 we learn from the town records,
published from the originals by Mr. Hal-
liwell, that amongst other attempts at
reformation they passed a resolution that
" no plays should be played in the cham-
ber," and that any of the council who
shall " give leave or license thereto "
should forfeit ten shillings ; and again in
161 2, when their illustrious townsman |
was in the very zenith of his fame, they j
repeated the resolution in still stronger I
[ terms, with an exordium on " the incon-
1 veniences of plays being very seriously
' considered of, and their unlawfulness,"
I and increasing the penalty to ten pounds.
Stratford also in those days was greatly
I troubled and excited about the enclos-
I ures. Combe and Mannering, two of the
largest landowners, wished to enclose a
j part of the common-field, and the small
j owners and the townsmen generally, hav-
ing probably certain rights at stake, re-
sisted vigorously. A portion of Shake-
speare's estate would be injuriously af-
fected by the change ; and almost the
only morsel of information left to us
about his private life, except the will and
the legal documents relating to his prop-
erty, has reference to this agitation. It
is a memorandum in the handwriting of
the Town Clerk, to the effect that " Mr.
Shakespeare told Mr. J. Greene that he
was not able to beare the enclosing of
Welcombe," and is dated September i,
161 5, a few months only before his death.
In the same year an application to re-
strain the enclosers was made to Lord
Chief Justice Coke, at Warwick Assizes,
and some idea of the temper of the
townsmen may be obtained from the or-
der of the Court, which censures Combe
and his friends, and declares that the
order is taken "for preventynge of tu-
mults, whereof in this very towne of late,
upon these occasions, there had been
lyke to have been an evill begynninge of
some great mischiefe."
This was Arcadian Stratford.
C. Elliot Browne.
From Chambers' Journal.
COLOUR IN ANIMALS.
The variety of colouring in animal life
is one of the marvels of nature, only now
beginning to be studied scientifically. It
is vain to say that an animal is beautiful,
either in symmetry or diversity of colour,
in order to please the human eye. Fishes
in the depths of the Indian seas, where
no human eye can see them, possess the
most gorgeous tints. One thing is re-
markable : birds, fishes, and insects
alone possess the metallic colouring ;
whilst plants and zoophytes are without
reflecting shades. The mollusca take a
middle path with their hue of mother-of-
pearl. What is the reason of these ar-
rangements in the animal kingdom ? It
is a question which cannot be satisfacto-
rily answered ; but some observations
S8
have been made which throw light on the
subject. One is, that among animals,
the part of the body turned towards the
earth is always paler than that which is
uppermost. The action of light is here
apparent. Fishes which live on the side,
as the sole and turbot, have the left side,
which answers to the back, of a dark
tint ; whilst the other side is white. It
may be noticed that birds which fly, as it
were, bathed in light do not offer the
strong contrast of tone between the upper
and lower side. Beetles, wasps, and
flies have the metallic colouring of blue
and green, possess rings equally dark all
round the body ; and the wings of many
butterflies are as beautifully feathered
below as above.
On the other hand, mollusca which live
in an almost closed shell, like the oyster,
are nearly colourless ; the larvae of in-
sects found in the ground or in wood
have the same whiteness, as well as all
intestinal worms shut up in obscurity.
Some insects whose life is spent in dark-
ness keep this appearance all their lives ;
such as the curious little beetles inhabit-
ing the inaccessible crevasses of snowy
mountains, in whose depths they are hid-
den. They seem to fly from light as
from death, and are only found at cer-
tain seasons, when they crawl on the
flooring of the caves like larvse, without
eyes, which would be useless in the re-
treats where they usually dwell.
This relation between colouring and
light is very evident in the beings which
inhabit the earth and the air ; those are
the most brilliant which are exposed to
the sun ; those of the tropics are brighter
than in the regions around the North
Pole, and the diurnal species than the
nocturnal ; but the same law does not
apparently belong to the inhabitants of
the sea, which are of a richer shade
where the light is more tempered. The
most dazzling corals are those which
hang under the natural cornices of the
rocks and on the sides of submarine grot-
toes ; while some kinds of fish which are
found on the shores as well as in depths
requiring the drag-net, have a bright red
purple in the latter regions, and an insig-
nificant yellow brown in the former.
Those who bring up gold-fish know well
that to have them finely coloured, they
must place them in a shaded vase, where
aquatic plants hide them from the ex-
treme solar heat. Under a hot July sun
they lose their beauty.
The causes to which animal colouring
is due are very various. Some living
COLOUR IN ANIMALS.
substances have it in themselves, owing
to molecular arrangement, but usually
this is not the case ; the liveliest colours
are not bound up with the tissues. Some-
times they arise from a phenomenon like
that by which the soap-bubble shews its
prismatic hues ; sometimes there is a
special matter called pigment which is
united with the organic substance. Such
is the brilliant paint, carmine, v/hich is
the pigment of the cochineal insect, and
the red colour of blood, which may be
collected in crystals, separate from the
other particles to which it is united.
Even the powder not unknown to la-
dies of fashion is one of Nature's beau-
tifying means. That which is left on the
hands of the ruthless boy when he has
caught a butterfly, is a common instance ;
but there are birds, such as the large
white cockatoo, which leave a white
powder on the hands. An African travel-
ler speaks of his astonishment on a rainy
day to see his hands reddened by the
moist plumage of a bird he had just killed.
The most ordinary way, however, in
which the pigment is found is when it
exists in the depths of the tissues, re-
duced to very fine particles, best seen
under the microscope. When scattered,
they scarcely influence the shade ; but
when close together, they are very per-
ceptible. This explains the colour of
the negro : under the very delicate layer
of skin which is raised by a slight burn
there may be seen abundance of brown
pigment in the black man. It is quite
superficial, for the skin differs only from
that of the European in tone ; it wants
the exquisite transparency of fair races.
Among these, the colours which impress
the eye do not come from a flat surface,
but from the different depths of layers
in the flesh. Hence the variety of rose
and lily tints according as the blood
circulates more or less freely ; hence the
blue veins, which give a false appear-
ance, because the blood is red ; but the
skin thus dyes the deep tones which lie
beneath it ; tattooing with Indian ink is
blue, blue eyes owe their shade to the
brown pigment which lines the other side
of the iris, and the muscles seen under the
skin produce the bluish tone well known
to painters.
The chemical nature of pigment is lit-
tle known ; the sun evidently favours its
development in red patches. Age takes
it away from the hair when it turns white,
the colouring-matter giving place to very
small air-bubbles. The brilliant white
of feathers is due to the air which fills
COLOUR IN ANIMALS.
59
them. Aae, and domestic habits ex-
changed Tor a wild state, alter the ap-
pearance of many birds and animals ; in
some species the feathers and fur grow
white every year before falling off and
being renewed"; as in the ermine, in
spring the fur which is so valued assumes
a yellow hue, and after a few months,
becomes white before winter.
It would, however, be an error to sup-
pose that all the exquisite metallic shades
which diaper the feathers of birds and
the wings of butterflies arise from pig-
ments ; it was a dream of the alchemists
to try to extract them. Their sole cause
is the play of light, fugitive as the
sparkles of the diamond. When the
beautiful feathers on the breast of a hum-
ming-bird are examined under the micro-
scope, it is astonishing to see none of
the shades the mystery of which you
would penetrate. They are simply made
of a dark-brown opaque substance not
unlike those of a black duck. There is,
however, a remarkable arrangement ; the
barb of the feather, instead of being a
fringed stem, offers a series of small
squares of horny substance placed point
to point. These plates, of infinitesimal
size, are extremely thin, brown, and, to all
appearance, exactly alike, whatever may
be the reflection they give. The brilliant
large feathers of the peacock are the
same ; the plates are only at a greater
distance, and of less brightness. They
have been described as so many little
mirrors, but that comparison is not cor-
rect, for then they would only give back
light without colouring it. Neither do
they act by decomposing the rays which
pass through them, for then they would
not lose their iris tints under the micro-
scope. It is to metals alone that the me-
tallic plumage of the humming-birds can
be compared ; the effects of the plates in
a feather are like tempered steel or crys-
tallized bismuth. Certain specimens emit
colours very variable under different
angles, the same scarlet feather becom-
ing, when turned to ninety degrees, a
beautiful emerald green.
The same process which nature has
followed in the humming-bird is also
found in the wing of the butterfly. It is
covered with microscopic scales, which
play the part of the feather, arranged
like the tiles of a house, and taking the
most elegant forms. They also lose
their colour under magnifying power, and
the quality of reflection shews that the
phenomena are the same as in feathers.
There is, however, a difference in the ex-
tent of the chromatic scale. Whilst the
humming-bird partakes in its colours of
the whole of the spectrum from the violet
to the red, passing through green, those
of the butterflies prefer the more refrangi-
ble ones from green to violet, passing
through blue. The admirable lilac shade
of the Morpho vienelas and the Morpho
cypris is well known, and the wings of
these butterflies have been used by the
jewellers, carefully laid under a thin
plate of mica, and made into ornaments.
A bright green is not uncommon, but the
metallic red is rare, excepting in a beau-
tiful butterfly of Madagascar, closely
allied to one found in India and Ceylon.
The latter has wings of a velvet black
with brilliant green spots ; in the former,
these give place to a mark of fiery red.
There is the same difference between
the metallic hues of creatures endowed
with flight and the iris shades of fishes,
that there is between crystallized bis-
muth and the soft reflections of the
changing opal. To have an idea of the
richness of the fish, it is only necessary
to see a net landed filled with shad or
other bright fish. It is one immense
opal, with the same transparency of shade
seen through the scales, which afford the
only means of imitating pearls. It is due,
however, not to the scales, but to ex-
tremely thin layers lying below the scales
under the skin and round the blood-
vessels, which look like so many threads
of silver running through the flesh.
Rdaumur first noticed and described
them ; sometimes their form is as regu-
lar as that of a crystal, and of infinitesi-
mal size and thickness. The art of the
makers of false pearls is to collect these
plates in a mass from the fish, and make
a paste of them with the addition of glue,
which is pompously named " Eastern
Essence." This is put inside glass
beads, and gives them the native white-
ness of pearls.
Many observations have been made
lately by our naturalists as to the de-
fence which colour supplies to animals :
hares, rabbits, stags, and goats possess
the most favourable shade for concealing
them in the depths of the forest or in the
fields. It is well known that when the
Volunteer corps were enrolled, and the
most suitable colour for the riflemen was
discussed, it was supposed to be green.
Soldiers dressed in different shades were
placed in woods and plains, to try which
offered the best concealment. Contrary
to expectation, that which escaped the
eyes of the enemy was not green, but
6o
WOMEN S RIGHTS IN THE LAST CENTURY.
the fawn colour of the doe. Among
hunting quadrupeds, such as the tiger,
the leopard, the jaguar, the panther, there
is a shade of skin which man has always
been anxious to appropriate for his own
use. The old Egyptian tombs have
paintings of the negroes of Sudan, their
loins girt with the fine yellow skins for
which there is still a great sale. All the
birds which prey upon the smaller tribes,
and fishes like the shark, are clothed in
dead colours, so as to be the least seen
by their victims.
There is an animal which, for two
thousand years, has excited the curiosity
and superstition of man by its change of
colour — that is, the chameleon. No
reasonable observation was ever made
upon it, until Perrault instituted some
experiments in the seventeenth century.
He observed that the animal became pale
at night, and took a deeper colour when
in the sun, or when it was teased ; whilst
the idea that it took its colour from sur-
rounding objects was simply fabulous.
He wrapped it in different kinds of cloth,
and once only did it become paler when
in white. Its colours were very limited,
varying from gray to green and greenish
brown.
Little more than this is known in the
present day : under our skies it soon loses
its intensity of colour. Beneath the Afri-
can sun, its livery is incessantly changing ;
sometimes a row of large patches appears
on the sides, or the skin is spotted like a
trout, the spots turning to the size of a
pin's head. At other times, the figures
are light on a brown ground, which a mo-
ment before were brown on a light
ground, and these last during the day.
A naturalist speaks of two chameleons
which were tied together on a boat in
the Nile, with sufficient length of string
to run about, and so always submissive to
the same influences of light, &c. They
offered a contrast of colour, though to a
certain degree alike ; but when they slept
under the straw chair which they chose
for their domicile, they were exactly of
the same shade during the hours of rest
— a fine sea-green that never changed.
The skin rested, as did the brain, so that
it seemed probable that central activity,
thought, will, or whatever name is given,
has some effect in the change of colour.
The probability is, that as they become
pale, the pigment does not leave the skin,
but that it is collected in spheres too
small to affect our retina, which will be
impressed by the same quantity of pig-
ment when more extended.
It is undoubtedly the nerves which
connect the brain with organs where the
pigment is retained. By cutting a nerve,
the colouring-matter is paralyzed in that
portion of the skin through which the
nerve passes, just as a muscle is isolated
by the section of its nerve. If this opera-
tion be performed on a turbot when in a
dark state, and thrown into a sandy bot-
tom, the whole body grows paler, except-
ing the part which cannot receive cere-
bral influence. The nerves have, in gen-
eral, a very simple and regular distribu-
tion : if two or three of these are cut in
the body of the fish, a black transversal
band following the course of the nerve
will be seen ; whilst, if the nerve which
animates the head is thus treated, the
turbot growing paler on the sand, keeps
a kind of black mask, which has a very
curious effect.
These marks will remain for many
weeks, and what may be called paralysis
of colour has been remarked in conse-
quence of illness or accident. Such was
seen in the head of a large turbot, the
body being of a different colour. It was
watched, and died after a few days, evi-
dently of some injury which it had re-
ceived. The subject offers a field of im-
mense inquiry : the chemical and physi-
cal study of pigments, the conditions
which regulate their appearance, their in-
tensity, and variations under certain in-
fluences ; the want of them in albinos,
and the exaggerated development in
other forms of disease. To Mr. Darwin,
in England, and to M. Ponchet, in France,
the subject is indebted for much re-
search, which will no doubt be continued
as occasion offers.
From The Academy.
WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN THE LAST CEN-
TURY,
In turning through some files of old
newspapers, we have been surprised to
notice that the question as to the pro-
priety of women taking a more prominent
part in public affairs was quite as dili-
gently discussed a century ago as it is
now-a-days. A few extracts which we
have made will furnish somewhat curious
illustrations of this. The Morning Post
of April 14, 1780, contains the following
announcement : —
" Casino, no. 43 Great Marlborough
Street, this evening, the 14th inst., will
commence the First Sessions of the Fe-
COLONEL GORDON S JOURNEY TO GONDOKORO.
6i
MALE Parliament. The Debate to be
carried on by Ladies only, and a Lady to
preside in the chair. Question — Is that
assertion of Mr. Pope's founded in jus-
tice, which says ' Every woman is at
heart a rake?' ""On the Sunday evening
a theological question to be discussed."
In succeeding issues of the paper,
formal reports of the proceedings of this
parliament in petticoats are published,
such as : — " Friday, April 21. The Speak-
er having taken the chair, it was resolved
ne7n. coii. that the assertion of Mr. Pope's,
which says, ' Every woman is at heart a
rake' is not founded in justice. A mem-
ber presented to the House several peti-
tions from men milliners, men mantua
makers, &c., &c., against a bill entitled
' An Act to prevent men from monopo-
lizing women's professions.' Resolved
that said bill and said petitions be con-
sidered."
"Such is the universal rage for public
speaking," writes the Morning Post, of
May 20, 1780, "that the honourable Mrs.
L , possessed of no less than two
thousand pounds a year, constantly
speaks at the Casino Rooms on the
nights of the ladies' debates."
In the Morning Post oi March 9, 1781,
we meet with this report : — "La Belle
Assembl^e — Budget. The opening of
the Budget, and the debate which en-
sued upon the taxes that were proposed
by the female Premier, as the Ways and
Means for procuring the supplies for the
present year, afforded such high and un-
common amusement to the numerous and
splendid company in the Rooms, that a
general request was made that on the
subsequent Friday the Ladies should re-
sume the consideration of the Budget, in
preference to the question given out from
the chair. In obedience, therefore, to
the desire of the public, the Ladies mean
this evening to resume the debate on the
following taxes, viz. : —
1. Old maids and bachelors over a cer-
tain age.
2. On men milliners, men mantua mak-
ers, men marriage brokers.
3. On female foxes, female dragoons,
female playwrights, and females of all
descriptions who usurp the occupations of
the men.
4. On monkies, lap-dogs, butterflies,
parrots, and puppies, including those of
the human species.
5. On made-up complexions.
6. On French dancers, French frizeurs,
French cooks, French milliners, and
French fashion mongers.
7. On quacks and empirics, including
those of the State, the Church, and the
Bar, etc., etc."
About this time, too, we find the fol-
lowing ingenious problem propounded for
the solution of a like gathering in " The
Large Hall, Cornhill : " — "Which is the
happiest period of a man's life : when
courting a wife, when married to a wife,
or when burying a bad wife."
In 1788 an advertisement appears of
the proposed opening, on March 17, of
Rice's elegant rooms (late Hickford's),
Brewer Street, Golden Square, for public
debate by ladies only. The first subject
suggested seems quite as comprehensive
in the matter of women's rights as the
most zealous advocate of them in our own
day could desire. This is it : " Do not
the extraordinary abilities of the ladies in
the present age demand academical hon-
ours from the Universities, a right to
vote at elections, and to be returned
members of parliament 1 "
From Nature.
COL. GORDON'S JOURNEY TO GONDO-
KORO.
We have been favoured with the fol-
lowing remarks concerning Colonel Gor-
don's journey to Gondokoro. Colonel
Gordon, " His excellency, the Governor-
general of the equator ! " arrived at Khar-
toum on March 13, and had with him a
Pa// Ma// Gazette of Feb. 13 ; he writes
on the 17th from Khartoum as follows: —
" At this season of the year the air is
so dry that animal matter does not decay
or smell, it simply dries up hard ; for in-
stance, a dead camel becomes in a short
time a drum.
" The Nile, flowing from the Albert
Nyanza below Gondokoro, spreads out
into two lakes ; on the edge of these
lakes aquatic plants, with roots extend-
ing 5 ft. into the water, flourish ; the na-
tives burn the tops when dry, and thus
form soil for grass to grow on ; this is
again burnt, and it becomes a compact
mass. The Nile rises and floats out por-
tions, which, being checked in a curve of
the channel, are joined by other masses,
and eventually the river is completely
bridged over for several miles, and all
navigation is stopped.
" Last year the governor of Khartoum
went up with three companies and two
steamers, and cut away large blocks of the
vegetation j at last one night the water
62
TITLES.
burst the remaining part, and swept
down on the vessels, dragging them
down some four miles, amidst (according
to the Governor's account) hippopotami,
crocodiles, and large fish, some alive and
confounded, others dead or dying, the
fish being crushed by the floating masses.
One hippo was carried against the bows
of the steamer and killed, and crocodiles
35 ft. long were killed : the Governor,
who was on the marsh, had to go five
miles on a raft to get to the steamer.
" The effects of these efforts of the
Governor of Khartoum is that a steamer
can now go to Gondokoro in twenty-one
days, whereas it took months formerly to
perform the same journey."
Colonel Gordon left Khartoum on
March 21, and in his last letter from
Fashoda, 10^ N., he touches on some of
the scenes on the banks of the rivers —
the storks, which he was in the habit of
seeing arrive on the Danube in April,
laying back their heads between their
wings and clapping their backs in joy at
their return to their old nests on the
houses, now wild and amongst the croco-
diles 2,000 miles away from Turkey ; the
monkeys coming down to drink at the
edge of the river, with their long tails,
like swords, standing stiff up over their
backs ; the hippos and the crocodiles.
Such scenes to a lover of nature, as Col.
Gordon is, doubtless would serve to
make up in some measure for the loss of
civilized society and comforts.
From The Saturday Review.
TITLES.
In the latter part of Mr. Bryce's ac-
count of Iceland in the Cornhill Maga-
zine* he gives a curious picture of a state
of society in which men who are perfect-
ly civilized in their thoughts and manners
live in a physical condition not much
above that of savages. And one feature
of very primitive life they still keep in all
its fulness. They have hardly any sur-
names, and they have no titles. A man
is simply Sigurd ; if you wish to distin-
guish him from some other Sigurd, he is
simply Sigurd Magnusson. If you go to
a house, and wish to see its mistress, you
ask for nobody but plain Ingebiorg ; or,
if you wish to be formal, you do not call
her Lady or Mrs., but only Ingebiorg
Sigurdsdottir. For in Iceland, as in old
* LiviKG Age, No. 1567.
Rome, a married woman is known by her
father's name ; she cannot take the sur-
name of her husband, because he has no
surname for her to take. In all this we
are carried back to the days when the
smallest man in Athens or Rome could
not call Perikles or Caesar anything but
Perikles or Caesar — nay more, when
he could not call Agariste or Julia any-
thing but Agariste or Julia. At Rome,
to be sure, there were Ittle delicacies
about the use of prcenomen, ftomen, and
cognomens while Perikles could be
nothing but Perikles in the mouth
of anybody, he whom the outer world
called Caesar would be known to an inner
circle as Caius. So in the Universities a
man is spoken to from the first moment
of introduction by his cognomen, 2i[\o\v'mg
for a few exceptional cases in which,
owing to some special charm either in
the man himself or in his prcEnome7i, the
prcenomen is used instead. But Greeks,
Romans, Icelanders, and undergraduates
all agree in calling a man by nothing but
one or other of his real names. Even in
Iceland there are respectful ways of
marking official rank, as when a man
speaks to the Governor or the Bishop,
but there is nothing like our fashion of
putting a handle to the name of every-
body. We use this last phase of set pur-
pose ; people constantly say that such a
man has got a title, that he has got a
" handle to his name," when he is made
anything which gives him a right to be
called Sir or Lord. Grave heraldic au-
thorities who write peerages and books
of landed gentry, and people who write
letters to explain how, though they are
not peers, they are still noblemen, draw a
distinction between "titled" and "un-
titled " nobility, or gentry, or whatever
word they choose to express that foreign
thing which the law of England has al-
ways so unkindly refused to acknowledge.
When people say that the new lord or
baronet or knight has got a " title," or a
"handle," they forget that he has been
called by a " title," or a " handle," ever
since the first time that his nurse spoke
of him as " Master Tommy," or perhaps
more familiarly as " Master Poppet."
We are so much in the habit of giving
everybody titles, just as we are so much
in the habit of talking in prose, that we
have got to be as unconscious of the one
process as of the other. We are so con-
stantly in the habit of giving everybody
the titles of Mr., Mrs., Miss, or Master,
that we forget that all these are titles,
and we fancy that no one bears a title but
those who are called Lord, Lady, or Sir.
In fact, the smaller every-day titles are
more strictly and purely titles than the
others, because they are mere titles,
while the others are in most cases titles
and something more. Duke, Earl,
Bishop, are not mere titles ; they wear
badges of actual rank ; they are originally
and still to some extent, descriptions
of office. But we call people Mr. and
Mrs., not to express rank or office, but
simply to avoid what passes for the un-
due familiarity of calling them, in Greek
or Icelandic fashion, simple John and
Mary. The custom undoubtedly came
in through the use of official descriptions.
A man was called John the Earl, or Peter
the Bishop, or anything else, greater or
smaller, to mark him off from those Johns
or Peters who held some other office or
no office at all. The official description
easily slides into the title used, not
-merely to describe office, but to express
respect. But, as long as the description
marks out any definite office, or even any
definite rank, it is not a mere title ; it
really serves to point out what the man
is, and not merely to avoid the necessity
of calling him by his simple Christian
or surname. If John Churchill is Duke
of Marlborough, we call him Duke of
Marlborough, not merely to avoid calling
him John Churchill, but to express the
fact that he is Duke of Marlborough.
But if John Churchill is nothing but
John Churchill, and we call him Mr.
John Churchill, we do so, not to express
any fact at all, but merely to avoid the
seeming rudeness of calling him simply
John Churchill. Thus the Icelander
recognizes the official rank of the Gov-
ernor and the Bishop, only he differs
from us in holding that plain Sigurd and
Ingebiorg have no need to be called any-
thing but Sigurd and Ingebiorg.
In this way it is plain that the "un-
titled classes " are really those who are
most truly titled, those to whom titles
are rtiost habitually given simply as titles
and for no other reason. AH Europe,
except the happy Icelanders, conforms to
the fashion, and there seems no great
likelihood that the rest of Europe will go
back to the simpler practice of one un-
sophisticated island. How deeply em-
bedded the practice is in all modern
habits of thought is shown by the fact
that when the first French Republicans
determined to abolish titles, all that they
did was to abolish the old titles, and to
invent a new title of their own. When a
man was called Citizen Roland, it was no
TITLES. 63
less a title — indeed, according to our
showing, it was much more of a title —
than if he had been called Duke of Mont-
morency. A man was not to be called
Monsieur^ but he was to be called Ci-
toyenj but Citoyen expressed, just as
much as Monsieur^ the feeling which dis-
tinguishes all of us from the Greek, the
Roman, and the Icelander, the shrinking
from calling a man by his name and noth-
ing else. It never came into the head of
an Athenian or a Roman to speak of a
man as Citizen Perikles, or Citizen Caesar,
though there would really have been
more sense in so doing than there was
among the French Republicans, for no
Athenian or Roman had declared that all
men were equal, and the title of citizen
might have expressed the very wide dis-
tinction between the member of the rul-
ing commonwealth and the member of
any of the inferior classes, from the mere
slave up to the Latin or the Plataian.
And even in those cases where intimate
friendship or any other ground causes
men to speak of one another simply by
their names, it is only done privately and
among equals. The man whom we speak
to as Smith becomes Mr. Smith in a
speech or an article, and in the like sort
the undergraduate, to whom Smith is
Smith from the very beginning, speaks of
Mr. Smith either to his tutor or to his
scout. Thus, even when we go furthest
in dropping titles, we do not dare to drop
them altogether ; we have not got back
to the stage of talking of Perikles and
Sigurd at all times and to all persons.
There is indeed one exception, though
not in our own country. He who finds
himself reviewed in a German periodical
enjoys the privilege of being praised or
blamed by his simple surname and noth-
ing else. And it might be well to set up
an iaoKoTureia^ an interchange of privilege,
in this matter. If for no other cause, yet
for this, that, as the German and the
Englishman, if they try their hand at any
kind of title, are sure to miscall one
another, a good deal of inaccuracy is
saved if they agree to call one another
by no title at all.
There is something in our received
system of titles, great and small, which
seems very puzzling to men of all other
nations. The Baronet or Knight and the
Esquire seem very mysterious beings. It
is strange that the title of "Sir," in its
origin so purely French, should have be-
come in its use so purely English that
no Frenchman can understand it. We
suspect that what makes our titles so
64
TITLES.
puzzling to Frenchmen is their variety.
An Englishman's description may begin
in twenty different wa3'S ; a Frenchman's
description always begins in one way.
An Englishman may be Lord, Sir, Col-
onel, Doctor, plain " Mr." ; a Frenchman
is always " Monsieur." He may be
plain letter " M.," or he may be " M. le
Due ; " but he is " M." in every case.
Then the ^squire outrages the feelings
of the whole human race by sticking his
title after his name instead of before it.
This no foreigner can allow. A French-
man must indeed be familiar with Eng-
lish ways to keep himself from putting
" M. John Smith, Esq." You may write
down your description in full in your own
hand, but the " M." is sure to appear in
the address of the letter which your for-
eign friend writes to you. His feeling is,
" Vous etes trop modeste," as an English-
man is sometimes told when he begs
earnestly not to be called " Milord."
The truth is that the style of the Esquire
is altogether anomalous. It is stuck
after the name and not before, because
it is not really a title, but a description.
A. B. is described as Esquire, as another
man may be described as Knight, Clerk
— anything down to Labourer. The de-
scription of "A. B., Esquire," is, in fact,
the remnant of the oldest formula of all,
" Cnut Cyning," " Harold Eorl," and the
like, which survives, or did survive a
few years back, when visitors to Blen-
heim are called on to look at the portrait
and exploits of "John Duke." By some
odd freak, this kind of description goes
on in any mention of an Esquire which is
in the least degree formal, though col-
loquially he is spoken of by the " Mr."
which it would be thought disrespectful
to put on the outside of a letter. The
peasant who talks about Squire Tomkins
is far more consistent. Then again this
description of " Esquire," a mere de-
scription and no title^ is, oddly enough,
just the thing which a man avoids call-
ing himself. It has an odd look when a
sheriff, signing an official paper, signs
*' A. B., Esquire," and it has an odd
sound when a magistrate qualifying de-
scribes himself as "A. B., Esquire."
Whether a Sheriff who is a Baronet
should sign himself, as he commonly
does, " Sir A. B., Baronet," we doubt.
Should he not rather sign himself " A. B.,
Baronet," as his description, and wait for
other people to give him the title of Sir ?
Besides the substantive title or de-
scription, there is the honorary adjective
and the honorary periphrasis. These are
much older than mere titles ; they are as
old as Homer. What our modern rules
have done is simply to stiffen them, so
that everybody knows exactly which to
apply to everybody. But it \s odd how
the substantives and adjectives got con-
founded, as if they were things of the
same kind which excluded one another.
It is now thought vulgar to call a privy
councillor or a peer's son " Hon." or
" Right Hon. A. B., Esquire." It was the
right thing early in the last century.
And the older usage was more rational.
A peer's son is an Esquire ; " Esquire "
is therefore his proper description ; he is
also entitled to the complimentary adjec-
tive " Honourable." The substantive
and the adjective in no way exclude one
another. One might make a long list of
usages in the way of titles which are ab-
surd and nngrammatical ; as, for instance,
the last new piece of affectation, " The
Reverend the Honourable A. B.," which
seems to have just displaced " The Hon-
ourable and Reverend A. B.," which is
grammatical and intelligible. But it is
enough to point out the crowning ab-
surdity of such phrases as " Her Ma-
jesty," " Her Majesty the Queen," and
the like. They are vulgar corruptions of
the fine old formula "the Queen's Ma-
jesty." When the King, Prince, Duke,
or other exalted person has once been
described it is sense and grammar to go
on speaking of " his Majesty," " his
Highness," " his Grace ; " but it is clearly
ungrammatical to talk of " his Majesty "
when nothing has gone before for " his "
to refer to. And " Her Majesty the
Queen," can all the heralds in the land
parse these words ? When Charles the
First greeted Laud on his highest promo-
tion with the words " My Lord's Grace of
Canterbury, you are welcome," he spoke
the King's English ; but " His Grace the
Archbishop of Canterbury" is simp^le
gibberish.
From these difBculties, and from these
courtly vulgarisms, men were of old free
at Athens, and they are still free in Ice-
land.
LITTELL'S LI y IN"G AGE.
^«^' ] ^ No. 1570.— July ll, 1874. {^'vd.^mi?
Fifth Series
Volume Vn
CONTENllS.
I. Mr. Browning's Place in Literature, . Contemporary Review^ . ^ . Cjr
II. Alice Lorraine. A Tale of the South
Downs. Part V., . . . . . . Blackwood's Magazine^ . . 86
III. Manners AND Customs in China. Part II., Temple Bar, .... 95
IV. A Rose in June. Part VII., . . . Cornhill Magazine^ • • . 104
V. Ornithological Reminiscences. By \
Shirley, Eraser's Magazine^ • . .112
VI. The Names of Plants, .... Saturday Journal^ • • •126
POETRY.
Growing Up, 66 1 On the Cliff, 66
The Unknown Deity, . . . .661
Miscellany, — »: .... L . • • • • • zaS
I
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66
GROWING UP, ETC.
GROWING UP.
Oh to keep them still around us, baby dar-
lings, fresh and pure,
** Mother's " smile their pleasures cro^vning,
" mother's " kiss their sorrows' care ;
Oh to keep the waxen touches, sunny curls,
and radiant eyes,
Pattering feet, and eager prattle — all young
life's lost Paradise !
One bright head above the other, tinj hands
that clung and clasped,
Little forms, that close enfolding, all of Love's
best gifts were grasped ;
Sporting in the summer sunshine, glancing
round the winter hearth,
Bidding all the bright world echo with their
fearless, careless mirth.
Oh to keep them ; how they gladdened all the
path from day to day,
"What gay dreams we fashioned of them, as in
rosy sleep they lay ;
How each broken word was welcomed, how
each struggling thought was hailed,
"As each bark went floating seiaward, love-be-
decked and fancy-sailed !
Gliding from our jealous watching, gliding
from our clinging hold,
Lo ! the brave leaves bloom and burgeon ;
lo ! the shy sweet buds unfold ;
Fast to lip, and cheek, and tresses steals the
maiden's bashful joy ;
Fast the frank bold man's assertion tones the
accents of the boy.
Neither love nor longing keeps them j soon in
other shape than ours
Those young hands will seize their weapons,
build their castles, plant their flowers ;
Soon a fresher hope will brighten the dear
eyes w£ trained to see ;
Soon a closer love than ours in those waken-
ing hearts will be.
So it is, and well it is so ; fast the river nears
the main.
Backward yearnings are but idle ; dawning
never glows again ;
Slow and sure the distance deepens, slow and
sure the links are rent ;
Let us pluck our autumn roses, with their
sober bloom content.
All The Year Round.
THE UNKNOWN DEITY.
The'RE stood an altar in a lonely wood.
And over was a veiled deity,
J^nd no man dared to raise the veiling hood,
3iiror any knew what god they then should
see.
Yet many passed to gaze upon the thing,
And all who passed did sacrifice and prayer.
Lest the unknown, not rightly honouring.
Some great god they should anger unaware.
And each one thought this hidden god was he
Whom he .desired in his most secret heart,
And prayed for that he longed for most to be.
Gifts that was no fixed godhead to impart.
Nor prayed in vain, for prayers scarce breathed
in word
Were straight fulfilled, and every earthly
bliss
Showered down on men ; till half the world
had heard.
And left all ancient gods to worship this.
But Jove, in anger at his rites unpaid.
Tore off the veil with one fierce tempest-
breath, —
Lo ! that to which all men their vows had
made.
Shuddering they saw was their fell foeman.
Death.
And all forgot theblessings they had had.
And all forsook the kindly carven stone.
'Tis now a shapeless block ; the Zephyrs sad —
None else — their nightly prayers around it
moan.
Spectator. F. W. B.
ON THE CLIFF.
Half down the cliff the pathway ends,
The rocks grow steep and sheer ;
Hard by a sudden stream descends ;
From ledge to ledge with break and bends
It dashes cool and clear.
Across the bay green ripples flow
In endless falls and swells ;
Clear shows the ribbed sea-flow below,
And round dark rocks in whiteness glow
Smooth sands of crisped shells.
Foam-specks before the wind that glide,
The sleeping sea-gulls float :
Amid eve's crimson shadows wide.
Rocked softly by the swaying tide,
Yet safe as anchored boat.
Their white and folded wings are laid
On tides that change and flow ;
The daylight passes into shade ;
Yet calm they rest, and unafraid,
Whate'er may come and go.
So safe, 'mid waste of waters wide.
Below the darkening sky.
So safe my heart and I may bide,
Calm floating on time's changeful tide,
Beneath eternity.
Chambers' JouikaL
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
From The Contemporary Review.
MR. BROWNING'S PLACE IN LITERATURE.
No writer has aroused in his own
time and within his own sphere a more
positive interest than Mr. Browning.
He has been sincerely loved and -cor-
dially disliked. For many persons, both
men and women, his works have pos-
sessed the support, the sympathy, and
the suggestiveness of a secular Gospel ;
whilst with others they have become a
bye-word for ambiguousness of thought
and eccentricity of expression. He has
been abundantly reviewed in each iso-
lated poem ; isolated aspects of his ge-
nius have been strongly appreciated and
even subtly defined ; nevertheless, he
has been writing for forty years, and the
public are more than ever at issue con-
cerning the fundamental conditions of
his creative life ; the question is more
than ever undecided whether he is what
he professes to be, a poet, whose natural
expression is verse, or what many be-
lieve him to be — a deep, subtle, and im-
aginative thinker, who has chosen to
write in verse.
The fact is, perhaps, less strange than
it appears. Either opinion may be sup-
ported by reference to his writings ;
whether either is absolutely true can only
be discovered through a complete survey
of them ; and a survey complete enough
for such a purpose is by no means easily
obtained. Mr. Browning's collective
writings are not too voluminous to be
read, but their substance is too solid to
be compressed into a written review, and
with all its variety, too uniform for the
species of classification by which review-
ing is generally assisted. As a poet, he
has had no visible growth ; he displays
no divisions into youth, manhood, and
age ; no phases particularly marked by
the predominance of an aim, a manner,
or a conviction. His genius is supposed
to have reached its zenith in " The Ring
and the Book," because nothing he has
written before or since has afforded so
large an illustration of it, but we have no
reason to believe that his writing it when
he did, instead of before or afterwards,
was due to anything but its external
cause ; and we might reverse the po-
67
sitians of " Paracelsus " and " Fifine at
the f^'air," his first known and his latest
original work, without disturbing any
preconceived judgment of promise in the
one ar finality in the other. In their ac-
tual relation, each appears in its right
place) We see in " Paracelsus " the
idealiim of a young and lofty intelli-
gence]; in " Fifine " the semi-material
philosbphy which comes of prolonged
contact with life ; but if " Fifine " had
been written when its author was twenty-
two, i; would have seemed full of the
sophis\ry of a youthful spirit, dazzled by
the variety of life, and striving to com-
bine incompatible enjoyments and to rec-
oncile lincompatible feelings. And if
" Paracelsus " w^ere published now, we
should hail in it the final utterance of a
mind \vearied by its own eccentricities
and giving in its solemn adherence to the
time-honoured methods of human labour
and hurrian love. "Fifine at the P'air"
exhibits pne sign of a riper genius in the
tone of Satire which does not spare even
itself ; li^ut " Paracelsus " bears a still
fuller statnp of maturity in its complete
refinement of imagery and expression. It
sho-ws tlie touch of a master hand.
We do not mean to assert that during
Mr. Browning's long literary career the
manner of his inspiration has undergone
no chang^. It has changed so far, that
if we compare the first twenty years with
the last we shall find emotion predomi-
nant in th^ one period and reflection in
the other;! but reflection is considered
to have acquired a morbid development
in " Sordello," and flashes of intense
feeling occur even in the coldest of his
later works. The change has been too
gradual to draw a boundary line across
an}' moment of his life ; and though it is
in the nature of thingfs that a chang^e so
gradual should be permanent, there is
something in Mr. Browning's nature
which prevents our feeling it as such. It
appears too restless to crystallize.
To exist thus as a haunting presence
in the literary world, never old and never
young, always distinctly self-asserting,
never thoroughly defined, is to possess
the prestige of mystery which Mr.
Browning is by some persons wrongly
68
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
supposed to covet ; and it is precisely
because we believe that he does not
covet it, that his mysteriousness lies in no
intentional involvement of his thoughts,
but in the complex individuality which
is probably, though in a different way,
as mysterious to him as to us, that we do
not think his literary reputation has
much to gain by any possible solution of
it. To those for whom he is a poet, he
appeals in the manner of "deep calling
unto deep" in that infinite sense cf sym-
pathetic existence which needs no ex-
plaining ; to those for whom he is not,
his mode of self-manifestation will re-
main uninteresting or obnoxious, what-
ever its principles may be. BLt every
writer has a certain number of responsi-
ble critics whose function is not merely
to endorse such impressions but to de-
termine their causes and in son:e meas-
ure to judge them. No true critic can
dispense with all knowledge of the gene-
sis of the ideas which he is called upon
to judge ; and Mr. Browning's critics
can be true neither to themselves nor to
him till they have taken the evidence of
his collective works on this one great ques-
tion of what he is and what he has striven
to do. We think that, if rightly ques-
tioned, their answer will be unequivocal.
We have said that Mr. Browning's
genius had no perceptible growth, be-
cause it was full-grown when first pre-
sented to the world. This does not im-
ply that it had no period of manifest be-
coming; and there is evidence of such a
phase in a fragment called " Pauline,"
which became known much later than
his other works, but in the last edition
of them occupies its proper place at the
beginning. The difference of manner
and conception which divides it from
" Paracelsus " gives the rate of the prog-
ress which carried him in three years
from the one to the other, whilst the
comparative crudeness of the earlier
poem affords a curious insight into the
yet seething elements of that almost co-
lossal power. We cannot judge how far
"Pauline" was a deliberate product of
the author's imagination or a sponta-
neous overflowing of poetic feeling ; but
this does not affect its relation to his
other creations of an equally esoteric
kind, and in thought, though not in ex-
pression, it is essentially a youthful
work. It is the half-delirious self-reveal-
ing of a soul maddened by continued in-
trospection, by the irrepressible craving
to extend its sphere of consciousness,
and by the monstrosities of subjective
experience in which this self-magnifying
and self-distorting action has involved it.
The sufferer tells his story to a woman
who loves him, and to whom he has been
always more or less worthily attached ;
and ends by gently raving himself into a
rest which is represented as premonitory
of death, and in which the image of a
perfect human love rises amidst the tu-
mult of the disordered brain, transfusing
its chaotic emotions into one soft har-
mony of life and hope. The same fun-
damental idea recurs in " Paracelsus,"
but in a more subdued and infinitely
more objective form. We find there the
same consciousness of intellectual pow-
er, but with a stronger sense of respon-
sibility ; the same restless ambition, but
directed towards a more definite and more
unselfish end. There is also the same
acceptance of love as the one saving re-
ality of life, but the earthly adorer of
Pauline has become the exponent of the
heaven-born, universal love ; and we
shall see in one of Mr. Browning's more
recent poems how the final expression
of these two modes of feeling may be
imaginatively resolved into one. " Pau-
line " is strongly distinguished from its
author's subsequent works by an exces-
sive luxuriance of imagery, employed,
not as the illustration of a distinct idea,
but as the spontaneous embodiment of a
complex and intense emotion. It resem-
bles them in its very delicate and power-
ful rendering of the passion of Love.
One passage especially breathes a perfect
aroma of tenderness : —
I am very weak,
But what I would express is, — Leave me not,
Still sit by me with beating breast and hair
Loosened, be watching earnest by my side.
Turning my books or kissing me when I
Look up — like summer wind ! Be still to me
A key to music's mystery when mind fails —
A reason, a solution, and a clue !
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE
LITERATURE.
69
The one quality of Mr. Browning's in-
tellectual nature which is at present most
universally recognized is its casuistry —
his disposition to allow an excessive
weight to the incidental conditions of hu-
man action, and consequently to employ
slidinor scales in the measurement of it.
The most remarkable evidence of this
quality, supplied by his later works, is to
be found in " Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan-
gau." It is displayed with more audacity
in " Fifine at the Fair," with larger and
more sustained effect in " The Ring and
the Book." But "Fifine at the Fair,"
though very subjective in treatment,
verges too much on the grotesque to be
accepted as a genuine reflection of the
author's mind; and "The Ring and the
Book " represents him as a pleader, but
at the same time as a judge. It de-
scribes the case under discussion from
every possible point of view, but does not
describe it as subject to any possi-
ble moral doubt. " Prince Hohenstiel-
Sch wangau " is a deliberate attempt on the
author's part to defend a cause which he
knows to be weak, and as such is a typi-
cal specimen, as it is also a favourable
one, of his genius for special pleading.
It places in full relief the love of opposi-
tion which impels him to defend the
weaker side, and the love of fairness which
always makes him subsume in the defence
every argument that may be justly ad-
vanced against it ; and it also exhibits
that double-refracting quality of his mind
which can convert a final concession to
the one side into an irresistible last word
in favour of the other. It is unfortunate
that a slight ambiguity in one or two pas-
sages obscures the drift of the poem, and
disinclines its readers for taking the other-
wise small amount of trouble required for
its comprehension, for this supposed solil-
oquy of the ex-Emperor of the French is in
every respect a striking expression of the
non-pathetic side of its author's genius.
Both narrative and argument have a
coursing rapidity which rather fatigues
the mind, but they are vivid, humorous,
and picturesque, carry some serious
thought in solution, and leave behind as
their residue a distinct dramatic impres-
sion of the easy-going Bohemianism
whidh they are intended to depict. Some
objection has been taken to the mise en
scln&^i the monologue, and the introduc-
tion M the Lais of Leicester Square is,
indeed, a violation of good taste which
couldlonly be accepted on the ground of
entire\poetic fitness. But there is even
more ^lan poetic fitness — there is his-
toric tjuth in this ideal approximation of
the princely exponent of hand-to-mouth
existence to its typical embodiment in
the lowliest social form.
The Emperor is supposed to describe
or imagine the leading actions of his
reign u^der three different aspects — as
they apiear in the light of his own con-
sciencejas they would have been if they
had conformed to a general rule of right,
and as tBey must have appeared to those
who measured them by such a rule. He
begins by admitting and defending his
waveringi policy as dictated by the high-
est expedience ; and then proceeds to
enumerat^ the acts and motives which
eulogistic historians of the Thiers and
Hugo typ^ would impute to him ; oppos-
ing to thi$' ideal version step by step the
rejected Suggestions of sagacity, which
depicts hip actual thoughts and deeds in
the obviotis shallowness of their tempo-
rizing woHdly wisdom. The argument
which occupies the first half of the book
is an elaborate vindication of the policy
of leaving ^ings as they are, saving only
such improk^ement as implies no radical
change. A piece of paper lying close to
the speaker^ hand supplies him with an
illustration. The paper has two blots
upon it, and he mechanically draws a line
from one to the other ; it does not occur
to him to make a third, but it does occur
to him to correct the two already made.
That he does this and no more is typical
of his conduct through life. He has not
been gifted with the genius that could
create, but he \has been gifted with the
sober intelligence which appreciates the
risk of destroying. The great renewing
changes of life are wrought by special
agencies and under special conditions, as
in the physical world —
New teeming growth, surprises of strange life
Impossible before a world broke up
70
MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE.
And re-made, order gained by law destroyed.
Not otherwise in our society
Follow like portents, all as absolute
Regenerations : they have birth at rare.
Uncertain, unexpected intervals
O' the world, by ministry impossible
Before and after fulness of the days.
And he is convinced that the highest
wisdom of a non-inspired ruler is to
assist those who are subject to his rule to
live the life into which they were born,
trusting to the deeper laws of ex'stence
to vindicate good through evil, ard per-
fection through imperfection. He too
has recognized the destroying fDlly of
sects and opinions ; but he has seen that
to suppress the one would be to g've pre-
dominance to the other, and has thought
it best to leave truth to assert itseif in the
balance of error ; he has thought society
best saved by being left alone. He too
has had dreams of a higher utility, dreams
suggested by the
Crumbled arch, crushed aqueduct.
Alive with tremors in the shaggy growth
Of wild-wood, crevice-sown, that triumphs
there,
Imparting exultation to the hills !
Sweep of the swathe when only the winds
walk.
And waft my words above the grassy sea,
Under the blinding blue that basks o'er
Rome, —
Hear ye not still — Be Italy again ?
But with the time for action had come
a new sense of responsibility ; nearer
duties to fulfil, more urgent needs to sat-
isfy ; mouths craving food, hands craving
work, eyes that begged only for the light
of life — and he has worked first for
these. In this strain he continues.
It would be difficult to do a more equal
justice than Mr. Browning has done to
the abstract truth of the case, and to the
concrete circumstances by which such
truth might be suspended ; nor could
anything be more philosophical than his
appreciation of the conditional nature of
all earthly good, and the fruitlessness of
Utopian attempts at reform. Neverthe-
less, we scarcely ever feel during this
first part of the book that we are stand-
ing on quite firm ground. Its idea of
preservation floats between that intelli-
gent protection of an existing social or-
der which strengthens the good and
weakens the evil contained in it, and the
mere " /a2sser-/aire," which implies no
judgment on the present, and invites the
deluge for the future ; and the speaker
nowhere clearly distinguishes the divine
mission to work in a certain groove from
the natural inclination to do so. It ap-
pears to us that he defends from a reli-
gious point of view ideas which are the
natural outcome of an Atheistical philos-
ophy; and it is the habit of thus inter-
fusing— confusing we cannot call it —
principles which other minds keep apart,
or in strict subordination to each other,
which is so characteristic of Mr. Brown-
ing's reasonings upon life. At the end
of the book he drops the balance alto-
gether in an appeal, half playful, half pa-
thetic, from the vanity of words to the
incommunicable essence of individual
truth.
"Bishop Blougram's Apology " is still
more sophistical in tone, and though the
author represents it in his conclusion as
a possible course of argument rather than
a just one, it leaves a certain misgiving
as to the extent to which he endorses it.
It would not be necessary to adduce this
monologue in support of the impression
conveyed by that of " Prince Hohenstiel-
Schwangau," but that it derives a fresh
significance from its much earlier date,
which proves the co-existence of this
casuistic mood with the most poetic
phase of its author's imaginative life.
The Bishop excuses himself for having
accepted the honours and emoluments of
a Church of which he does not fully be-
lieve the doctrines, on the plea that dis-
belief is of its nature as hypothetical as
belief, and that it must be not only wise
but right to give oneself both temporally
and spiritually the benefit of the doubt.
He does not say, " My belief is too nega-
tive to justify me in renouncing the power
for good which I derive from the appear-
ance of belief; or too negative to give
me the courage to renounce the good it
affords to myself." But he implicitly
says, "I am «<?/ gifted with positive opin-
ions ; I am gifted with a positive appre-
ciation of the refinements of life and a
positive desire for them. I am clearly
violating the intentions of Providence if,
whilst rejecting a possible truth, I refuse
to the one part of my nature that for
which I can find no compensation in the
other." This palpable confusing of belief
with conformity, the higher wisdom w'ith
common expediency, worldly profit with
spiritual gain, scarcely provokes discus-
sion ; and Mr. Browning's concluding
lines appear at first sight to value such
reasoning at its worth ; but we cannot
overlook the fact that, while he has put
sound objections into the mouth of the
Bishop's opponent, he considers the Bish-
op's unsound arguments to have been a
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE
LITERATURE.
71
match for them ; and the tone of the
whole discussion imph'es at least tolera-
tion of the theory that temporal good and
spiritual gain are not disparate ideas, but
different aspects of one and the same.
There is one poetical passage in this
tissue of sophistry, and one true one —
that which asserts the frequent shallow-
ness of religious unbelief : —
Just when we are safest, there's a sunset touch,
A fancy from a flower bell, some one's death,
A Chorus ending from Euripides, —
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears
As old and new at once as Nature's self.
To rap and knock and enter in our soul.
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring.
Round the ancient idol on his base again, —
The grand Perhaps !
The author takes no account of the
many minds in which the disbelief in
certain things has assumed the positive
character of belief, but his lines are a
noble tribute to the tenacity of religious
association, even where regret for the
displaced idol has no longer power to re-
instate it.
If we observe the variety of specula-
tive opinion to which Mr. Browning con-
siders all questions of human conduct to
be subject, together with the frequent
reference in his works to a Supreme
Being in whose will alone lies the absolute
solution of such questions, we cannot
avoid the inference that the religious
sense is far stronger in him than the moral
sense. It is evident at least that his mind
naturally subordinates the general laws of
morality to the specialities of circum-
stance, and to a feeling of the distinc-
tive position of every human soul. This
belief in a special and continuous relation
of the human and the divine, or simply in
special Providence, is the mainspring of
his religious writings, and sceptic as he
is, the material mysticism of Low Church
Christianity has seldom found amongst
its own disciples a more faithful and ear-
nest exponent. But Christianity is based
upon a revelation which he does not pro-
fess to acknowledge, and whilst the exist-
ence and omnipresence of God are proved
to him by the nature of things, he recog-
nizes in nature no distinct expression of
His will. It is easy, therefore, to con-
ceive that to a mind at once so sensuous
and so poetic, so strongly impressed with
the connection between the lowest expe-
riences and the highest consciousness of
humanity, sanction will appear every-
where stronger than prohibition, and the
very belief in a divine ordaining become,
m some measure, the equal justification
of th^ varied possibilities of life. Mr.
Browiiing considers all things as good in
their ))ray. The more familiar aspects of
this idU are illustrated in the Introduc-
tion toi"The Ring and the Book," in a
passag^ which gives also some insight
into thd natural connection between the
author's aesthetic impressions of exist-
ence and his moral judgments upon it.
—\— Rather learn and love
Each fack-flash of the revolving year ! —
Red, gredn, and blue that whirl into a white,
The variance now, the eventual unity.
Which ilake the miracle. See it for your-
selres
This mans act, changeable because alive !
Action noW shrouds, now shows the informing
thobght ;
Man, like a glass ball with a spark a-top.
Out of thamagic fire that lurks inside,
Shows onetint at a time to take the eye :
Which, letia finger touch the silent sleep,
Shifted a hair's breadth shoots you dark for
brigkt.
Suffuses bright with dark, and baffles so
Your senteice absolute for shine or shade.
The empirical morality which recom-
mends itsfelf to so many less religious
minds is tlie more remote from his con-
ception thaf: he cannot accept the " great-
est happinjsss " standard on which it is
based. An objective standard of happi-
ness derived from the natural exercise of
natural human activities is as unmeaning
to him as alnatural morality to be discov-
ered in thi balance of them ; and as
little as he Accepts the greatest happiness-
test of the truth of a philosophic belief,
so little would he recognize a general-
misery prooiof the non-existence of God
or his malevolence. Happiness is with
him something eminently subjective ; as-
far as possible removed from a net result
of determinable conditions ; to be defined
in its permanent form as a courageous
struggling between aspiration and circum-
stance ; in its more intense expression as
a fugitive balance of the two. He rejects
every enjoyment that brings with it a
sense of finality as the negation of all
spiritual and intellectual life. " Be our
joys three parts pain," says his Rabbi
ben Ezra. In one of the religious poems,,
"Easter Day," are the lines : —
How dreadful to be grudged
No ease henceforth, as one that's judged
Condemned to earth forever, shut
From Heaven !
Every serious expression of Mr-
Browning's casuistry appears to point to
72
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
some singular union of belief in the sub-
jectivity of all feeling and conviction
with that belief in transcendent existence
which always implies the recognition of
fixed standards of truth ; and this double
point of view is so frankly assumed in
" Fifine at the Fair " as to give to that
eminently fantastic poem a philosDphical
significance which its more serious prede-
cessors do not possess. Its sensualistic
conceptions are expressed with the great-
est poetic power, but it asserts wiih equal
distinctness the material unity of con-
sciousness and the separate exis:ence of
the soul ; and though both ideas may be
reconciled by a religious theory Df crea-
tion, Mr. Browning cannot denj that in
accepting the one he cuts away al' rational
foundation from the other. The morality
of " Fifine at the Fair " would be even
more eccentric than its philosophy, but
that its reasonings are neutralized in this
•direction by the dramatic impulse under
which they were carried out ; whether or
not the author intended it so. The lead-
ing figure of the poem is a hard-working
social outcast, whom the author had prob-
ably seen, and who appears to have sug-
gested to him some idea of tie virtues
which reside in self-sustainmer.t and of a
moral good that may come of immorality,
and the whole resolves itself into a series
of speculations on the precise mixing of
the fruits of experience that may best
•conduce to the higher nourishment of the
:SOul. These questionings assume the
iorm of a battle within the hero's mind
(between Fifine, the vagrant, and Elvire,
;the symbol of domestic love, and unfor-
^tunately the one is conceived as an indi-
vidual, the other only as a t/pe. Elvire
is invested in the beginning with enough
•of the substance of a loving and lovable
wife to give prominence to her husband's
;arguments in favour of ai occasional
Fifine ; but as the story advances, and its
'fundamental mood becomes more pro-
.nounced, she fades into a pallid embodi-
rment of mild satisfaction and monotonous
duty, and by the time Mr. Browning has
^brought her and her companion back to
their villa-door, he cannot resist the de-
light of making her the subject of a trick
which his sense of justice sufficiently dis-
•daims to make him display it in all its
heartlessness. His Don Juan proves, in
spite of himself, that in individual life
disorder does not naturally lead to order,
nor a simply erratic fancy rise to the ab-
stractions of universal love.
We should naturally infer, from the
temper of Mr. Browning's mind, that the
warmth of its affections would belie the
indifferentism of its ideas, and we con-
stantly find it to be so. An innate ven-
eration for moral beauty, of which we
find scarcely any trace in his philoso-
phizing poems, asserts itself in all those
of a more emotional character, and so va-
rious is his mode of self-manifestation
that the evidence contained in his col-
lective works of his belief in the neces-
sary relativity of judgment is not a whit
stronger than their indirect advocacy of
courage, devotion, singleness of heart —
in short, of all the virtues which are born
of conviction. His imagination is keenly
alive to every condition of love ; but its
deepest and most passionate response is
always yielded to that form of tenderness
which by its disinterested nature most
approaches to the received ideal of the
Divine. This feeling attains its highest
expression in " Saul," where the anthro-
pomorphism so often apparent in the
author's conception of God is justified by
historic truth and ennobled by a sus-
tained intensity of lyric emotion which
has been rarely equalled and probably
never surpassed. It is the outpouring of
a passionate human friendship gradually
raised by its own strength to the pre-
sentiment of a divine love manifest in the
flesh, and to which in its final ecstasy
the very life of nature becomes the
throbbing of a mysterious and expectant
joy. The love of love is the prevailing
inspiration of all such of Mr. Browning's
poems as even trench on religious sub-
jects, and it often resolves itself into so
earnest a plea for the divine nature and
atoning mission of Christ, that we can
scarcely retain the conviction that it is
his heart, and not his mind, which ac-
ceuts it. His romance of " Christmas
Eve " presents itself as a genuine con-
fession of Christian doctrine, and the
poet is at least speaking in his own
name, when he judges the German
philosopher who has discarded the doc-
trine as still subject to its hopes and
fears. Nevertheless, the poem proves
nothing more than a sympathetic adop-
tion of a certain point of view, and a
speculative desire to reason it out ; and
as illogical as we must regard its attack on
the consistent non-believer, so unanswer-
able appears to us the conviction it ex-
presses of the religious uselessness of
any conception of Christ falling short of
literal belief. " Christmas Eve " is in
every respect a striking manifestation of
Mr. Browning's muse, for it combines, as
, does also its companion poem, his most
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
73:
earnest continuousness of thought with
his most deliberate abruptness of ex-
pression. Its ideas and images succeed
each other with the jolting rapidity of
categorical enumeration, and though this
manner is welPcalculated to convey the
rugged realities of a Dissenter's meeting,
it is singularly discordant with the im-
pressions of the abating storm, and of
the lunar rainbow, flinging its double
arch across the silent glories of the
night ; and with the gradual exaltation of
soul and sense, in which the speaker
finally realizes the actual presence of
Christ.
Mr. Browning is supposed to be taking
refuge within the outer door of a Dissent-
ing chapel on a rainy evening just as the
service is going to begin. The congre-
gation, recruited from the slums of the
neighbouring town, are hurrying in one
by one. The porch is four feet by two,
the mat is soaked, every new-comer who
edges past flings a reproachful glance at
the intruder ; the flame of the one tallow
candle shoots a fresh grimace at him at
every opening of the door. He thinks
he had better go in ; but within there are
smells and noises ; the priest is all rant-
ing irreverence, the flock all snuffling
self-satisfaction ; and in a very short
time he plunges out into the pure air
again. Alone, in the silent night, the
spirit of his dream changes : Christ
stands before him ; repentant and be-
seeching he clings to the hem of His
garment, and is wafted first to St. Peter's
at Rome, where religion is smothered in
ceremonial, and next to the lecture-room
of a German philosopher, where it is
reasoned away by the received methods
of historical criticism, and after following
through a long course of reflection the
successive phases of religious belief, he
arrives at the certainty that, however
confused be the vision of Christ, where
His love is, there is the Life, and that
the more direct the revelation of that
Love the deeper and more vital its power,
— and he awakens in the chapel, which
he had only left in a dream, with a quick-
ened sense of the presence among its
humble inmates of a transforming spirit-
ual joy, and a more patient appreciation
of the coarse medium of expression
through which it finds its way to their
souls.
The originality of the thoughts con-
tained in this poem lies entirely in their
minor developments, which so bare an
outline cannot even suggest ; but " Easter
Day," which forms the sequel to it, is in
part the expression of an idea more en-
tirely Mr. Browning's own — the idea of
the religious necessity of doubt. He
enters with considerable subtlety into the
difficulties and conditions of belief, and
proves, it appears to us with complete
success, that an unqualified faith would
defeat its own ends, neutralizing the ex-
periences of the earthly existence by an
overwhelming interest in the heavenly,
and that a state of expectancy equally re-
moved from the calmness of scientific
conviction, and the indifference of sci-
entific disbelief, is the essence of spirit-
ual life. V/e follow this doctrine with
the more interest from its congeniality to
our prevailing impression of Mr. Brown-
ing's mind ; we know how dear to his
! imagination are the shifting lisfhts, the
varied groupings, the curiously blended
contrasts of subjective experience ; how
I habitually it recoils from the rigidity of
every external standard of truth ; and in
I this implied declaration that he adores in
I the possible Saviour rather the mystery
and the message of love than the reveal-
ing of an articulate Will, we see also the
} reserve under which his most dramatic
j defence ofi Christian orthodoxy must
; have been conceived. "Easter Day"
j resolves itself into a Vision of Judgment,
(in which the man who has been blind to
I the workings of the spirit in the intellect
! and in the flesh is threatened with spirit-
[ ual death ; he awakens to a grateful con-
j sciousness that this terrible doom has
not gone out against him, that he may
[ still go through the world —
Try, prove, reject, prefer ;
still struggle to " effect his warfare."
In speaking of the religious poems, we
cannot leave unnoticed " A Death in the
Desert," the finest of the " Dramatis
Personae." St. John the Evangelist has
fled from persecution into a cavern of the
desert, and there for sixty days been at
the point of death ; but the care of the
Disciples has restored to him for a short
space the power of speech, and in a su-
preme effort of the expiring soul, he bears
witness to the presence of the revealed
Love and to the coming reign of Doubt,
through which its deeper purposes shall
be attained. This slow and solemn ex-
tinction of the last living testimony to the
mysterious truth already fading beneath
the hand of time, brooded over by the si-
lence of the desert, yet sustained by the
tender reverence of those who watch at
the head and feet and on either side of
the dying man, fanning the smouldering
74
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
4
life into its last brief outburst of pro-
phetic flame, forms a strangely impressive
picture ; and some of the lines, in which
the poet has expressed the clairvoyance
of approaching death, have a very noble
and pathetic beauty : —
I see you stand conversing, each new face
Either in fields, of yellow summer eves,
Or islets yet unnamed amid the sea ;
Or pace for shelter 'neath a portico
Out of the crowd in some enormous town,
Where now the lark sings in a solitude ;
Or muse upon blank heaps of stone and sand,
Idly conjectured to be Ephesus :
And no one asks his fellow any more
Where is the promise of his coming ? But
Was he revealed in any of His lives ;
As power, as love, as influencing soul ?
Setting aside the points on which it
necessarily reflects the common ideas of
Theism, or the common experience of ra-
tional minds, it appears to us not only
that Mr. Browning's conception of the
aesthetic and religious life is essentially
imaginative and poetical, but that the
analyzing tendency which is so disturbing
an element in his poetic genius is itself
overborne and even conditioned by it ;
that his writings, if not always inspired by
poetic emotion, are invariably marked by
that conception of life which distinguishes
a poet from a pure thinker.
A thinker, as such, will always elimi-
nate what is secondary or incidental from
his general statement of a case. With
Mr. Browning, thus to simplify a ques-
tion is to destroy it. The thinker merges
the particular in the general ; Mr. Brown-
ing only recognizes the general under the
conditions of the particular. The thinker
sees unity in complexity ; Mr. Browning
is always haunted by the complexity of
unity. It is true that a specious rea-
soner is often a narrow one, and that an
excess of imagination is considered sy-
nonymous with a deficiency of logic. But
we cannot impute narrowness of mind to
one whose imaginative powers are coex-
tensive with life ; and Mr. Browning's
logical subtlety needs no vindication ;
that it rather works in a circle than
towards any definite issue is the strongest
negative proof of the presence of an op-
posing activity, and we believe that noth-
ing short of a profound poetic bias could
possess such a power of opposition.
The dominant impression that all truth
is a question of circumstance, and conse-
quently all picturesque force a question
of detail, explains Mr. Browning's every
peculiarity of form and conception. It
explains more or less directly everything
that charms us in his writings and every-
thing that repels us. His minutest works
no less than the greatest, are each marked
by a separate unity of image or idea, but
this unity is the result of a multitude of
details, no one of which can be isolated
or suppressed. He evidently imitates the
processes of nature, and strives at unity
of effect through variety of means ; and
the principle is no doubt a sound one ;
but there is in his department of art a
manifest obstacle to its application. He.
sees as a group of ideas what he can of-
ten only express as a series, and however
he may endeavour to subordinate the
parts to the whole, it is almost impossi-
ble that in his argumentative monologues
he should always succeed in doing so ;
we do not think he does always succeed.
Every successive reading of these works
brings us nearer to their central inspira-
tion, gives greater prominence to their
leading idea, a more just subordination
to their details ; but we do not catch the
inspiration at once, and it is natural that
the minor facts and thoughts which its
warmth has so closely transfused within
the author's mind should drag themselves
out in ours to a somewhat disjointed
length, that the variety of proof should
somewhat obscure the thing it is intended
to prove. This minute elaboration of his
ideas has done much, we are convinced,
towards giving to Mr. Browning his rep-
utation for the opposite defect of indis-
tinctness in the statement of them. It is
easy to mistake a strain on the attention
for a strain on the understanding, and in
his case the strain on the attention is the
greater that, whilst he never condenses
his thoughts, he habitually condenses his
expression, and thus conveys to much of
his argumentative writing the combined
effect of abruptness and length. It is
just to admit that, most of all on these
occasions he stimulates his reader's
mind, lashing it up to its task with the
exhilarating energy of a March wind, but
the sense of being driven against an
obstacle generally remains. We have
the wind in our teeth.
From the same intellectual source
arises the deeper sense of remoteness
which he is so often said to convey. He
never employs an ill-defined idea, or a
vague or abstruse expression ; but his
belief in the complexity of apparently
simple facts constantly shows itself in
the forcing them into new relations, or
extracting from them fresh results ; and
for one person who is capable of follow-
ing out an abnormal process of thought,
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
75
and recognizing its individual value and as well as its actual antecedents, and
its relative truth, there are a hundred, | writing out the deed in the completed
not wanting in intellectual gifts, to whom I thought, which might impart to it a higher
it will remain unintelligible or unreal.
significance. His stand once taken
Proportionably great is the success of { within the man's mind, his habitual real-
this realistic mode of treatment with all
subjects of a pictorial or dramatic nature.
The beauties of most of Mr. Browning's
minor poems are generally known and
appreciated, and it would be difficult to
make a just selection from the great num-
ber of those which convey an idea, an
image, or an emotion, through a succes-
sion of minute touches, each in itself a
triumph of vivid fancy or incisive obser-
vation. The colossal power of " The
Ring and the Book " lies less in the ex-
posure of the various lights in which the
same action may be regarded by a diver-
sity of minds, than in the author's un-
limited imaginative command of the
minor circumstances and associations
which individualize the same action for
different minds. " Red-cotton Night-
cap Country " exhibits, on a smaller scale,
the value of descriptive minutiae in pro-
ducing a general effect ; and though the
poet in this case has had to deal with
ready-made personages and events, he
retains the credit of having recognized
their artistic capabilities and done justice
to them. He has not only presented to
us the fact that a tragical eruption took
place in the midst of an apparently peace-
ful atmosphere, but by dwelling on the
smallest details of its repose he has creat-
ed the idea of the calm which invites
the storm, and the mental stagnation in
which passions once aroused rage unre-
sisted. The story is told in a succession
of genre pictures, and it is through the
realistic accumulation of detail that we
gather the ideal force of its catastrophe*.
In the monologue on the Tower, Mr.
Browning has reversed the method,
which he pursues with unimportant ex-
ceptions throughout the narrative, of
presenting its incidents as an ordinary
human witness would conceive them ;
and though we cannot desire to see
omitted that part of the poem which con-
tains almost all its pathos and some of
its finest poetry, we think that if he had
aimed at mere' dramatic effect he would
have omitted it. He would have left to
fancy, speculation, and the balance of
probabilities, what real life could explain
in no other way ; as it is, he has given to
Mellerio's death the dramatic force of a
prolonged preparation and a sudden ful
ism asserts itself, and he shows us by
how simple a chain of every-day expe-
rience the human spirit may be raised to
the white heat of a supreme emotion.
Setting aside the minor question of its
perfect artistic consistency, we need only
compare this monologue, in which
thought, anxious and intense, is slowly
quivering into deed, with the finest pas-
sages of " Prince Hohenstiel-Schwan-
gau," to feel how necessary is an emo-
tional, and therefore a poetic subject, to
the thorough display of Mr. Browning's
genius. In no other is it just to itself.
Philosophic discussions, which are main-
ly intended to prove the infinite refrangi-
bility of truth, must sacrifice breadth to
subtlety, and the large insight on which
they are based has its only adequate ex-
pression in the full creativeness of poetic
life. It is not as the "idle singer of an
empty day," but it is as poet in the deep-
est sense of the word, that he has stirred
the sympathies and stimulated the thought
of the men and women of his generation.
It is of course one thing to accept this
view of the essential quality of Mr.
Browning's inspiration, and another to
place him in any known category of po-
etic art ; and the place he claims for him-
self as dramatic poet is open to dispute
if we accept the word Drama in the usual
sense of a thing enacted rather than
thought out. He has written few plays ;
in the last, and not least remarkable of
these, thought already preponderates
over action, and the increasing tendency
of his so-called dramatic poems to ex-
hibit character in the condition of mo-
tive, excludes them from any definition
of dramatic art which implies the pre-
senting it in the form of act ; but he is
a dramatic writer in this essential re-
spect, that his studies of thought and
feeling invariably assume a concrete and
individual form, and the reproach which
has been so often addressed to him of
making his personages, under a slight
disguise, so many repetitions of himself,
appears to us doubly unfounded. He is
always himself, in so far that his mode of
conception is recognizable in everything
that he writes. But there never was a
great artist with whom it was not so.
Nobody cavils at the fact that Shake-
filment, but he could not resist the spec- 1 speare is always Shakespeare, or that Sir
ulative pleasure of retracing its mental Joshua Reynolds's most lifelike portraits
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
76
are conceived in a manner which stamps
them unmistakably as his ; and it is a
truism to repeat that it is precisely this
subjective conception of the idea to be
treated which insures the vitality of the
treatment, and which distinguishes the
artistic reproduction of nature from a
vulgar or lifeless copying of it. Mr.
Browning has, it is true, a verbal
lansfuagfe of his own, which is distinct
from this finer manifestation of himself ;
a compound of colloquialisms half ec-
centric and half familiar, which must be
congenial to him, first, because he has
created it, and secondly, because he ap-
parently makes opportunities for its em-
ployment. It has its strongest expres-
sion in parts of "The Ring and the
Book," to which it gives a flavour of me-
diaeval coarseness not always inappropri-
ate, but always unpleasing ; and we find
it in a modified form wherever he is
either arguing or narrating from a point
of view which we may imagine to be his
own ; but he never attributes this lan-
guage to any person who would be by
nature unlikely to use it. It is spoken
in "The Ring and the Book" by the
Roman lawyer and the Roman gossip,
but it is not spoken by Pompilia in the
outpourings of her pure young soul ;
nor by Capon Sacchi as he relates his
first meeting with her, and the succes-
sive experiences which reveal to him, as
in the vision of a dream, the depth, the
pathos, and the poetry of life ; nor by
the Pope, as he ponders in solemn seclu-
sion the precarious chances of human
justice and the overwhelming obligations
of eternal truth. Mr. Browning does not
speak it himself, when he tells us how he
stood in the balcony of Casa Guidi on
one black summer night, " a busy human
sense beneath his feet ; " above the si-
lent lightnings "dropping from cloud to
cloud," and with his bodily eyes strained
towards Arezzo and Rome, and his mental
vision towards that long past Christmas
Day, saw the course of the Francheschini
tragedy unroll before him. To every
actor in this tragedy he has restored his
distinctive existence, and not the least
individual amongst them is the man in
whom he has most strongly caricatured
his own caprices of expression — Don
Hyacinthus de Archangelis. He is so
unpleasantly real, that, whilst we cannot
imagine the history of the case as com-
plete without a statement of the legal
fictions that were brought to bear upon
it, we scarcely understand Mr. Brown-
ing's impulse to clothe a mere represen-l
tative of legal fiction in this very mate-
rial form. We can only imagine that in
his strong appreciation of the natural un-
fitness of things, he has found a fantas-
tic pleasure in identifying the cause of
the saturnine murderer with this kindly-
natured old glutton, whose intellect elab-
orates the iniquities of the defence,
whilst his whole consciousness is satu-
rated with the anticipation of dinner, and
the thought of the little fat son whose
birth-day feast is to be held. The hu-
manity of the characters in " The Ring
and the Book" has, in fact, never been
questioned, nor could we do more than
allude to it in so merely suggestive a sur-
vey of the author's works ; but we think
there is one part of this extraordinary
composition the dramatic importance of
which has been somewhat overlooked —
Count Guido's second speech. We
might say its artistic importance, because
this expression of the central figure of
the poem gives to its wide-spreading
structure a support which nothing else
could give it ; but it is the triumph of
Mr. Browning's dramatic inspiration to
have felt that this man alone was talking
behind a mask ; and that the mask must
be torn off ; and to have restored even
to this villain in the torments of his last
hour, in the hope which sickened into
despair, and the despair which ran
through every phase of rage, scorn, and
entreaty, the sympathy which life even in
its worst form commands from life. The
concluding cry,
Pompilia, will you let them murder me ?
has an almost terrifying power.
Not only are Mr. Browning's men and
women complete after their kind ; but as
we have already said, he has impressed
the fulness of individual character even
on his descriptions of isolated mental
states. Bishop Blougram has a quite
different personality from the Legate
Ogniben, though both are easy-going
Churchmen, and one probably as con-
vinced as the other that life in the flesh
was given us to be enjoyed. Both are
distinct from Fra Lippo Lippi, and all
are equally so from the Bishop who is
ordering his tomb in St. Praxed's Church.
Lippi is the most original of the four, in
his mingled candour and cunning, his
joyous worship of natural beauty, and
his sensuality, as simple and shameless
as that of a heathen god. But the last-
mentioned Bishop is a mixed product of
nature and circumstance, and as such
even more powerfully conceived. He is
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
77
not a genial satirist like the Legate, nor
an artistic enthusiast like Lippi, nor a
combination of cynic, sophist, and epi-
curian like Bishop Blougram ; but a
childish, irascible old man, with a con-
science blunted by self-indulgence, and a
mind warped by a life-long imprisonment
in ceremonial religionism ; a scholar, a
sensualist, and, in his own narrow way,
the greatest pagan of them all. As Mr.
Browning depicts him, he is lying very
near his end, curiously imagining that
he and his bed-clothes are turning to
stone, and he is becoming his own ef-
figy ; and as fitful recollections of his
past life blend with the thought of death
and the presentiment of monumental
state, all the luxurious materialism that
is in him becomes centred in the details
of his tomb ; the gorgeous aggregation
of basalt and jasper, and warmly tinted
marbles, beneath which he shall lie
through coming ages, in a semi-carnal
repose, nourished by low sounds and
heavy perfumes, and quickened by the
triumphant sense that the "Gandolf"
who envied him his Love in life, lies en-
vying his magnificence in death. There
is something grotesquely pathetic in his
petulant entreaties to the sons who in-
herit his wealth, to impose no stint on that
magnificence ; above all, not to defraud
it of the lump of lapis-lazuli of which
he robbed the Church for that very pur-
pose, and in the final surrender to the in-
evitable : —
Well go ! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there ;
But in a row ; and going turn your backs
— Ay, like departing altar ministrants,
And leave me in my Church, the Church for
peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers —
Old Gandolf at me, from his onion stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was !
Cleon's lament for the largeness of hu-
man aspirations, and the limitations of hu-
man existence so eloquently resumed in
the one line, " It skills not, life's inade-
quate to joy," conveys the whole image
of the pagan artist and philosopher, the
man eager for knowledge, but more eager
for happiness — who rejects the immor-
tality of his works as consolation for his
own mortality, and deprecates all fame
and power and learning that cannot con-
tribute to the conscious fulness of life.
Andrea del Sarto's whole life and charac-
ter are embodied in the address to his
wife, " You beautiful Lucrezia, that are
mine." In the exquisite and mournful
tenderness which at once acknowledces
and deplores his degrading love for an
unworthy woman, the letter of Karshish,
the Arab physician, represents the most
interesting phase of the scientific mind,
with a moral individuality peculiar to the
man. Karshish is travelling through
Palestine and discovering new physical
products, new diseases, and new cures,
but he has also seen Lazarus after his re-
ported raising from the dead, and his im-
agination is haunted by the mental trans-
figuration of the man, who in his own
belief has brought back into time eyes
that have looked upon eternity. He con-
demns the Legend with scientific convic-
tion, and yet dwells on it with a mysteri-
ous awe ; then suddenly checks himself
in words which contain the very climax
of the idea of the poem : —
Why write of trivial matters, things of price,
Calling at every moment for remark ?
I noticed on the margin of a pool
Blue-flowering Borage, the Aleppo sort
Aboundeth, very nitrous.
Mr. Browning has felt kindly towards
the earnest seeker for truth, or he would
more distinctly have satirized this in-
verted reflection of the relative greatness
of things.
Caliban, in his musings upon Setebos,
is an inimitable portrait of the sly, greedy,
cowardly, imperturbably practical mon-
ster he is supposed to be. He is pictur-
esquely introduced as saying to him-
self:—
Will sprawl now that the heat of day is best
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire
With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his
chin.
And being thus both comfortable and
secluded, he betakes himself to specula-
tion on the nature and origin of things.
The system which he evolves combines
the heretical idea of a secondary creator
or demi-urgos with a perfectly Christian
anthropomorphism ; but he is too great a
philosopher to accept the common teleo-
logical alternative of a divinity who is in
his large way an entirely good man, or
an entirely bad one ; his system is, in
fact, quite ci priori 2ind unencumbered by
evidence of any definite creative purpose
whatsoever. He imagines that Setebos
being by his nature excluded from bodily
pains and pleasures, may have liked to
give himself the spectacle of things which
felt them, may alternately be moved to
satisfaction at his work, and to jealousy
of those reflected powers in which his
creatures, by reason of their very limita-
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
78
tions, surpass himself, and will make or
mar, help or hinder, according to the mood
which is upon him. If he is ever acces-
sible to a motive beyond the natural im-
pulse to do anything that you happen to
have strength for, it will probably be
jealousy, and Caliban reminds himself
that, with an instinctive appreciation of
this condition of the creative mind, he
habitually suppresses in his own life all
appearance of prosperity ; only dances on
dark nights, and howls and groans when
he is in the sun. He tests these various
propositions by references to his own
experience, and finds them borne out.
Nevertheless, he votes Setebos a nui-
sance, and hopes that some day he may
fall asieep for good, or be absorbed into
those colder and more inactive regions of
existence which constitute the atmosphere
of the Moon.
Mr. Browning has no Caliban amongst
his women, but his female studies are
almost as various as his studies of men.
Pompilia, in her exquisite combination of
guileless girlhood and perfect maternity
— the queen, in the poem entitled " In a
Balcony," dragging through a hopeless
existence the full-grown burden of a
passionate and lonely heart — the South-
ern-blooded heroine of the " Laboratory,"
watching the preparation of the poison
which is to aestroy her rival with a fierce,
eager delight, half-childish, half-demoni-
acal— the sensitive, intellectual intro-
spective "James Lee's Wife," are all so
many palpable and distinct creations.
Amongst the Dramas, we find two
which detach themselves from the rest as
possessing remarkable dramatic qualities,
but failing, more or less definably, to real-
ize the exact conditions of a Drama. The
earlier of these — " Pippa Passes" — is
rather a philosophic romance, since its
various scenes are imagined in illustra-
tion of a given idea and have scarcely any
connection beyond their common relation
to it. It wants the coherent interest of a
play. We have, however, the full benefit
of this loose adjustment of parts in the
latitude which it gives to the author's im-
agination ; and except in his poem of
" Women and Roses," its realism has no-
where so nearly assumed the fantastic
richness and haunting intensity of a
dream. The slight extravagance of
genius which characterizes "Pippa Pass-
es " might mark it, if Mr. Browning's
works admitted of being so marked, as one
of his earlier productions ; but there is
full-grown dramatic power in its vivid-
ness of personation, depth of humour,
and the sense of contrast which is with
him so unfailing an element of expressive
force, and which could scarcely be more
forcibly expressed than in the approxima-
tion of Pippa's sparkling innocence to the
lurid flashings of Ottima's impassioned
soul. The idea of the poem is the de-
pendence of the greatest events on the
minutest causes, or the most prominent
on the most obscure, and it would have
been sufficient to sustain a larger and
more complicated work, because its value
is essentially dramatic. The philosophic
importance of the fact which it represents
lies in the force of predisposing condi-
tions ; and for this reason the objection
which has been raised to the effect of
Pippa's songs, that they are too insignifi-
cant to justify it, appears to us of all ob-
jections the most unfounded. This com-
parative insignificance was needed to
show at how slight or indirect a touch a
long train of feeling will occasionally cul-
minate or collapse. The little singer her-
self, in her happy combination of gentle
birth and plebeian breeding, of sturdy in-
dependence and innocent trust, possesses
quite enough individuality to exercise a
more direct influence, if such were re-
quired. Pippa's day is an idyll in itself,
and its picturesque distinctness gives at
least an artistic unity to its straggling
events. We see it stride in, in trium-
phant joyousness, in the lines : —
Day!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last.
And we hear the little holiday-maker
bemoan its gloomy close as she lies down
to rest sighing out a vague mental weari-
ness, which appears to us at once a natu-
ral result of the unaccustomed idleness
and a mysterious reflection of the unseen
shadows that have encompassed her.
The entire poem is written in alternate
prose and verse, and is as fitful in ex-
pression as in fancy, but there is a play-
ful grace in parts of Pippa's soliloquy
which Mr. Browning has nowhere sur-
passed. And magnificence of imagery
can rise no higher than in Ottima's words
to her lover : —
Buried in woods we lay, you recollect ;
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ;
And ever and anon some bright white shaft
Burned thro' the pine-tree roof, here burned
and there,
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood
screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a ven-
ture,
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
79
Feeling for guilty thee and me ; then broke
The thunder like a whole sea overhead —
" The Soul's T'"^gedy," composed five
years later than " Pippa Passes," is more
strictly dramatic in form, and its princi-
pal personage, the Legate Ogniben, who
trots into the insurgent town humming
" Cur fremuere gentes," with the evident
feeling of having a nursery full of chil-
dren to slap and put to bed, is one of Mr.
Browning's most delightful creations,
both as an individual and a type ; but it is
no less intellectual in motive, and in its
own way no less fantastic in conception.
Its two acts entitled, one "The Prose,"
the other " The Poetry," of " Chiappino's
Life," exhibit with great force and sub-
tlety, two opposite moral states and their
natural connection with each other — a
sudden inspiration to virtue, and a grad-
ual relapse from it. But the second
phase becomes chiefly known to us
through the interposition of the Legate,
who humours and then exposes Chiap-
pino's weakness, in order to make him
the more ashamed ; and his discussing of
the question tends to merge it so entirely
in a comic philosophy of life, that all its
seriousness disappears. It turns out that
no real harm has been done, every one
slips into his right place, Chiappino is in-
vited to seclude himself for a short time,
and as the Legate and his mule trot out
again we ask ourselves whether we are
intended to recognize in this double epi-
sode the lasting tragedy or the mere tem-
porary mishap of a human soul. We
think Mr. Browning meant to be tragical,
but as all extremes of feeling are nearly
allied, the spirit of fun got the better of
him, and if we dared look for anything
like internal significance in the caprices
of dramatic inspiration, there would be
considerable significance in the fact, that
the keenest satire of this play is directed
against casuistry, though perhaps of a
coarser kind than that which its author
has elsewhere displayed.
The exclusion of these two irregular
compositions from the list of Mr. Brown-
ing's dramas, reduces their number to
six ; a number too small to be in itself a
proof of any decided impulse towards that
kind of production ; and knowing as we
do that in his later studies of life the in-
terest of action is entirely subordinated
to the importance of thought, we are
tempted to attach a perhaps undue sig-
nificance to the deep reflectiveness of
" Luria," and to the fact that the " Soul's
Tragedy," which is full of intention^ ap-
peared immediately before it. Purely ex-
ternal circumstances may, however, have
induced Mr. Browning to leave off writ-
ing for the stage, and the question to be
determined is, not w.hy he produced no
greater number of plays, but whether
those which he did produce bear witness
to a depth and breadth of dramatic in-
spiration sufficient for a larger result. It
appears to us that they do. The one de-
fect which may possibly be urged against
them is that their action is occasionally
hurried — insufficiently prepared by those
minor developments of purpose and inci-
dent which break the shock of a catas-
trophe, and yet add to its power. We
notice this in some degree in " Strafford,"
more still in " The Blot in the Scutcheon,"
most of all in " King Victor and King
Charles," where for want of this kind of
padding the main outlines of the situation
are sometimes indistinct ; but in this par-
ticular case the author may have been
hampered by the scantiness of historic
material. In no case have we reason to
attribute the sketchiness of execution to
any haste or immaturity of design. Ma-
turity of design is in fact the primary
characteristic of Mr. Browning's Plays.
Every actor in them reveals his character
as far as this is possible in his first
words ; their action is invariably fore-
shadowed in the first scene ; and we may
add that, however intricate it may be-
come, and in " The Return of the
Druses " it is notably so, its dramatic
unity remains unbroken.
Next to the vividness of Mr. Brown-
ing's dramatic conception, we remark its
pathos ; a pathos equally removed from
sentimentality and from passion, and
which is never morbid nor excessive, but
always penetrating and profound. We
find this tenderness of emotion in the
very earliest of his dramatic works ; and
the time of its appearance makes it the
more striking. Mere passion or senti-
ment is not unnatural to youth, because
either may be the assertion of a still un-
disciplined self ; but tenderness is the
finer essence which is only crushed out
of it by the continued bruisings of life.
Mr. Browning must have known passion,
but he cannot have known tenderness at
the age at which he wrote " Strafford."
Barely, perhaps, when he wrote the " Blot
on the Scutcheon." That he has con-
ceived as a poet what he cannot have ex-
perienced as a man creates for his writ-
ings an indisputable claim to the high
places of dramatic art.* Lastly, his half-
* It has been said on a former occasion that Mr.
96
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
dozen tragedies are all distinctly unlike
each other, as a slight sketch of them
may be sufficient to prove.
The first of them, " Strafford," is his-
torical in the full sense of the word,
though its best known incidents are so
vividly conceived that they have almost
the force of novelty. Its main interest is
centred in the character of Strafford and
his relation to the King, and the young
poet has displayed a peculiar sympathy
for this proud, sensitive, and impatient
man, who recoiled from every proof of
his master's treachery to himself, and yet
anticipated its worst results in a scarcely
interrupted flow of tender, self-sacrificing
pity. The scene in the prison affords the
strongest illustration of the nature and
extent of this devotion. Charles, in dis-
guise, accompanies Holies to the pres-
ence of Strafford to announce to him the
judgment for which a lingering belief in
the King's sincerity had left him unpre-
pared. He refuses at first to believe in
it, but as the King's emotion gradually
reveals his identity, and as Holies com-
pletes the avowal by the solemn adjura-
tion " to him about to die " —
Be merciful to this most wretched man !
the deep spring of pitying love wells up
again, and he forgets his own grievous
wrong in the yearning to comfort and
protect the weakness that could inflict it.
His whole affection for the man is in the
words which so powerfully attest his
utter worthlessness.
Strafford. You'll be good to those children,
sir .-* I know
You'll not believe her, even should the Queen
Think they take after one they rarely saw.
I had intended that my son should live
A stranger to these matters : but you are
So utterly deprived of friends ! He too
Must serve you — will you not be good to him ?
Or stay, sir, do not promise — do not swear !
The transformation of opinion which
converts Strafford's early friends into in-
exorable foes, and the rhetorical denun-
ciations of the rival courtiers into an indig-
nant protest against his attainder, are
displayed in all the force of contrast ;
and the words of the unnamed Puritan
who breaks upon the excitement of the
small Council-chamber, and the bustle
of the Ante-room of the House of Lords,
in the portentous language of Bibli-
cal prophecy and condemnation, though
Browning's manner was picturesque rather than pa-
thetic, and this remark holds good whenever his work
is a narration, not an impersonation.
somewhat automatic in their recurrence,
give a heightened colouring to the scenes
into which they are introduced, and ap-
pear to herald the catastrophe with the
intermittent tolling of some solemn bell.
The love which renounces life is not
more forcibly interpreted than the love
which can slay, than the dark enthusiasm
by which Pym is driven to cause the
death of his early friend, believing that
this one condition of England's safety is
also the salvation of Wentworth's soul.
Unutterably tender and solemn is the
meeting of the judge and the condemned
at that gloomy gate through which there
was yet hope of escape, but which opened
in fulfilment of a fatal dream, not on the
friendly boat and its protecting crew, on
silence and on flight, but on dark figures
of executioners, and on the roar of dis-
tant voices howling for blood. There
Pym tells of the early affection which
might come to no better end, and bids
the friend whom he is sending on before
await him there, whither he hopes soon
to follow. But Strafford's soul is rapt
away from all thought of self. He has
suddenly become conscious that his own
fate foreshadows that of the King.
Sinking on his knees he implores immu-
nity for him : —
No, not for England now, not for Heaven
now —
See, Pym, for my sake, mine who kneel to
you !
There, I will thank you for the death, my
friend !
This is the meeting ; let me love you well !
And when Pym replies : —
England — I am thine own ! Dost thou exact
That service ? I obey thee to the end,
he sends forth a cry which resumes all
the anguish of the thought, and the
thankfulness that he need not live to
bear it : —
O God, I shall die first— I shall die first !
The love a outrance. love without re-
ward and without hope, which is so
strongly illustrated by the friendship of
Strafford, and subsequently by the de-
votion of Luria, appears as the ideal con-
ception of the attachment of man to
woman in one of the "Dramatis Perso-
nze," entitled " The Worst of it." " The
Worst of it " is the lament of a husband
forsaken by his wife, not for his suffer-
ing, but for her dishonour. A cry of bit-
terness, not against her by whom he has
been wronged, but against himself, who
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
8i
has been to her an occasion of wrong.
A cry of sorrow, not for his own life
bh'ghted on earth, but for hers excluded
from heaven. It is the outpouring of a
love that would sacrifice time and eternity
to secure the salvation of the object, but
would shield her even from remorse, if
salvation could be effected without it.
The utter pathos of this appeal is scarcely
apparent on the first reading, as its verse
has a monotonous abruptness which is
more suggestive of agitated reflection
than of impassioned feeling, but when
once the emotion is understood it be-
comes the more vivid from this mode of
rendering. It gains all the force of com-
pression.
" King Victor and King Charles " is
the reproduction of a little-known episode
in Piedmontese history, and has all the
curious interest which attaches to it, but
its poetic merit is greatest there where it
departs from strict historical truth. Vic-
tor Amadeus I. had involved himself in
danger and perplexity by the many in-
iquities of his reign, and when the dan-
ger had reached its climax, he cast it
upon his son Charles, a youth whom he
had always ill-used and depreciated, by
a solemn transfer of the crown. The
young king prospered beyond his hopes.
In the course of a year, his justice and
humanity had gained for him the alle-
giance of his subjects and placed them
in a position to encounter their foreign
foes ; and Victor then emerged from his
seclusion, and attempted to repossess
himself of the throne. The historic
Charles caused his father to be arrested
and confined for the remainder of his
life. Mr. Browning's hero gratifies the
old king's desire to recover the resfal
honours in a pious impulse to withdraw
him from the intrigues by which he is
seeking to attain that end, and the old
man dies, recrowned in his son's palace
after two scenes of alternate command
and entreaty, in which he himself depre-
cates his craving for the symbols of roy-
alty as a senile mania created by the dis-
turbing shadows of death. The pathetic
strangeness of this termination casts a
glamour of romance about the whole
drama, whilst the author skilfully retains
the historical version of the king's end
by causing him in the penitent dreami-
ness of the last scene to sugSfest such a
story as the one best calculated to pre-
serve his son's dignity against the out-
rage by which he is threatening it.
Something of remorse and gratitude
steals over the dying soul, and the trans-
LIVING AGE. vol.. VII. 318
formation is rendered the more striking
by the leap in the socket of the old wick-
edness and fury which appear in his last
words.
You lied, D'Ormea ! I do not repent !
In the " Return of the Druses " we
have the large outlines, the vivid action,
the strong local colour of a semi-histori-
cal drama combined with all the special
interest which a sympathetic conception
of the Eastern nature could impart to it.
The Druses were a peaceful Syrian sect,
associated by tradition with the name
and sovereignty of a Breton Count de
Dreux, and which once sought refuge
against the Turks in a small island ad-
jacent to Rhodes. They here placed
themselves under the protection of the
Knights, and after enduring many wrongs
at the hands of a Prefect of the Order
found themselves on the point of being
transferred to the authority of Rome.
According to Mr. Brov/ning's story, a
child saved from the murder of the
Druse Sheiks and their families, by
which the new reign of the White Cross
had been signalized, had fled into Brit-
tany to spend his youth in concealment,
and to reappear amongst his people as
the mysterious Saviour who would lead
them back to Lebanon, and who, on the
day of their return, would fulfil the an-
cient prophecy, which restored to the
flesh their long-dead Caliph and Founder
Hakeem. The scene opens with the
morning of the day on which the '* Re-
turn of the Druses " is to take place. Iqi
a few hours the Papal Nuncio will have-
arrived to take possession of the island,
and Venice, to whom, on their side, the
Druse occupants have surrendered it,
will have sent her ships to cover their
retreat. The Prefect will have expired
by Djabal's hands, and Hakeem's reign
will have begun. Initiated Druses are
assembled in the Hall of the Prefect's-
palace, quarrelling for its expected spoils
with that eagerness of the Eastern mind
to which no subject of contention is too
small ; whilst the vivid Eastern fancy
flashes forth from each in the rapid re-
membrance of some grievous domestic
wrong, or some glorious vision of the
coming deliverance. The second act
presents the reverse of the picture, the
shame and remorse of Djabal, the self-
defined Frank schemer and Arab mystic
in whom the love for a Druse maiden
first awakened the thought of accom-
plishing a daring human deed, under the
semblance of superhuman power.. Anael.
82
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
had sworn only to give her love to the
saviour of her race ; to her, an initiated
Druse, the Saviour, and Hakeem were
one ; and Djabal, enthusiast as much as
deceiver, feigned himself Hakeem that he
might win that love, and vaguely hoped
that its possession would transform him
to the reality of what he pretended to be ;
but the hope has proved fitful, and the
desire of confession weighs heavily upon
him, quickened no less than repelled by
the glowing veneration of Anael, now his
promised wife, and by the simple wor-
ship of Khalil her brother. Anael, too,
has her struggles ; her reverence for
Djabal the saviour is inextricably bound
up with her passion for Djabal the man,
and in the clairvoyance of her highly
strung nature she doubts the belief which
can thus appeal to her in the tumult of an
earthly love. An interview with the man
vv^hom but for Djabal she probably would
have loved, proves to her that her feel-
ing for Djabal differs from her feeling for
other men much less in kind than in de-
gree, and in her desire to expiate the im-
perfectness of a faith which possesses
her intelligence but cannot transform her
life, she herself murders the common
enemy, the Prefect. The moment of
this deed was to be that of Djabal's
transfiguration. It prostrates him at her
feet in agonized confession of his fraud.
She cannot at once disbelieve, she clings
:to him for refuge against the newly
.awakened sense of crime, she entreats
.him to "exalt" himself, and let her share
'in the exaltation ; but at length the
rknowledge of his helpless humanity is
iborne irrevocably in upon her ; she gives
•utterance to one brief passionate burst of
•scorn, and then the liberated earthly love
wells up triumphant through the ruins of
■her faith, and she gathers the shamed
■existertce the more absolutely into her
own.
Side by side with this fierce conspiracy
runs a friendly plot which we have not
■space to describe, strongly illustrative of
the manner in which the natural course
of events often tends towards a result
which fraud or violence are made to
bring about. In the last act the living;
personages of the drama are assembled
'in the same Hall of the Prefect's palace,
brought together by the news of his
death. The Nuncio denounces, the
Druses waver, the finer nature in Djabal
triumphs. A solemn and sorrowful con-
fession cast round him a sudden halo
of redeeming glory. With a cry of
*' Hakeem ! " the overstrained life of
Anael passes away, and Djabal, still
vaguely adored by the astonished people,
whose future he entrusts to the true heart
and unswerving will of Khalil, falls,
stabbed by his own hand, thus complet-
ing the atonement for his guilt and the
union with her, whom her love, not his
deed, has exalted.
Of the many fine passages in this tra-
gedy the last lines, spoken by Djabal, are
perhaps the finest ; they are addressed to
a young knight of the Order of Rhodes,
the son of his protector in exile and his
constant friend.
Djabal. [raises Loys.] Then to thee, Loys I
How I wronged thee, Loys !
— Yet wronged, no less thou shalt have full
revenge
Fit for thy noble self, revenge — and thus,
Thou, loaded with such wrongs, the princely
soul,
The first sword of Christ's sepulchre — thou
shalt
Guard Khalil and my Druses home again !
Justice, no less — God's justice and no more,
For those I leave ! — to seeking this, devote
Some few days out of thy knight's brilhant
life :
And, this obtained them, leave their Lebanon,
My Druses' blessing in thine ears — (they shall
Bless thee with blessing sure to have its way).
— One cedar blossom in thy ducal cap,
One thought of Anael in thy heart, — per-
chance
One thought of him who thus, to bid thee
speed.
His last word to the living speaks ! This
done
Resume thy course, and, first amid the first
In Europe take my heart along with thee !
Go boldly, go serenely, go augustly —
What shall withstand thee then .?
" A Blot on the Scutcheon " is a do-
mestic tragedy, but of almost historic
magnitude. It stands alone amongst Mr.
Browning's dramatic works, as conveying
tragic impressions under that purely ob-
jective form, which is derived from no
subtle, individual, slowly ripening fatality,
but from the rapid and distinct collision
of the elemental forces of the human
soul. Three out of five of its principal
actors fall victims to love, revenge, or re-
morse, and it is characteristic of the
author's manner that whilst this work
gives so much scope to the more violent
emotions, its tone seldom exceeds the
expression of a profound and concen-
trated sorrow. We notice this especially^
in the case of the heroine Mildred, a very
young girl, whose self-condemning grief
has something of the introspectiveness
wrongly imputed to all Mr. Browning's
MR. BROWNING S PLACE IN LITERATURE.
^3
characters, and we think detracts a little
from the tragic simplicity with which the
story is otherwise conceived. Her death,
which is immediately caused by the mur-
der of her lover, is perhaps also an over-
straining of natural possibilities ; but this
event was necessary to carry out the dra-
matic idea of a short fierce tempest and a
sudden calm. The tender brotherly love
so terrible in its revulsion but so truly
asserted in the Earl's self-inflicted death,
is expressed with great delicacy and
pov/er in the passage in which he himself
defines this form of affection. It is un-
fortunately too long to be quoted. Mer-
toun's words of comfort to his grieving
child-love are also very touching and
heartfelt.
Have I gained at last
Your brother, the one scarer of your dreams,
And waking thought's sole apprehension too }
Does a new life, like a young sunrise, break
On the strange unrest of our night, confused
With rain and stormy flaw — and will you see
No dripping blossoms, no fire-tinted drops
On each live spray, no vapour steaming up
And no expressless glory in the East ?
W^hen I am by you, to be ever by you,
When I have won you and may worship you,
Oh, Mildred, can you say this will not be ?
" Columbe's Birthday " is the slightest
in conception of Mr. Browning's plays,
and the only one which is somewhat
theatrical in its effects, but it contains
much genuine poetry and some genuinely
dramatic scenes. The reputed heiress of
two duchies finds herself suddenly called
upon to surrender her honours or to re-
tain them by marriage with the rightful
heir, who, on coming to dispossess her, is
struck by her beauty and dignity, and be-
thinks himself of this compromise as
likely to be advantageous to both. He
opens his negotiations through Valence,
an advocate, a devoted adherent of the
young Duchess and her unconfessed
lover, and Valence is so conscientiously
afraid of disposing her against his rival
that he says everything he can in his be-
half. He cannot plead the ardour of the
Prince's attachment, for the young aspi-
rant to a possible empire imagines himself
a cynic, and has not included his heart in
the offer of his hand ; but he sets forth,
in a glowing discourse, the mystical
glories of a career of prosperous ambi-
tion as the prize which she is invited to
share ; and though this exordium is a trib-
ute not to merit but to success, and
therefore its very solemnity a satire, it is
one of the finest passages in Mr. Brown-
ing's collective works.
He gathers earth's whole good into his arms ;
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and
wise,
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.
One great aim, like a guiding star, above —
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to
lift
His manhood to the height that takes the
prize ;
A prize not near — lest overlooking earth
He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote.
So that he rest upon his path content :
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine,
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb,
He sees so much as, just evolving these,
The stateliness, the wisdom, and the strength,
To due completion will suffice this life.
And lead him at his grandest to the grave,
After this star, out of a night he springs ;
A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones
He quits ; so, mounting, feels each step he
mounts,
Nor, as from each to each exultingly
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy.
This, for his own good: — with the world,
each gift
Of God and man, — reality, tradition,
Fancy and fact — so well environ him.
That as a mystic panoply they serve —
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind.
And work his purpose out with half the world,
While he, their master, dexterously slipt
From some encumbrance is meantime em-
ployed
With his own prowess on the other half.
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding to what is he, a solid strength —
An aery might to what encircles him.
Till at the last so fife's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comport or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance, —
Till even his power shall cease to be most
power
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor
dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best.
Its typified invincibility.
Thus shall he go on greatening, till he ends —
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh,
The fiery centre of an earthly world !
Such a speech stands in admirable
contra.•^t to the business-like simplicity
evinced by the hero himself, when he ac-
cepts the title-deeds to the Duchy and
resigns Colombe to her obscure admirer,
at the same time admitting that though he
has himself no tendency to romaiice, a
life in which it has no place appears to
him rather more dreary than before.
Lady, well rewarded ! Sir, as well deserved
I could not imitate — I hardly envy —
I do admire you ! All is for the best !
Too costly a flower were this, I see it now,
To pluck and set upon my barren helm
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
«4
To wither — any garish plume will do !
I'll not insult you and refuse your Duchy —
You can so well afford to yield it me,
And I were left, without it, sadly off !
As it IS for me — if that will flatter you,
A somewhat wearier life seems to remain
Than I thought possible where . . . faith,
their life
Begins already — they're too occupied
To listen — and few words content me best !
The play is also enlivened by a continu-
ous flow of good-humoured satire on the
morality of court-life andsits rewards.
The tragic interest of Luria is entirely
psychological, though its external ele-
ments are derived from history. It is
the latest of Mr. Browning's tragedies,
the most pathetic, and perhaps the finest
in the impression it conveys of deliberate
creative power. Its protracted action
has all the excitement of suspense, whilst
the lengthened monologues which char-
acterize the last act form a fitting prelude
to the quiet mournfulness of the catas-
trophe. The central figure is Luria, a
Moorish condottiere, who has led the
Florentine army against that of Pisa, and
whose noble qualities have won for him
the admiration of both. Luria has served
Florence not only faithfully but lovingly.
Her aesthetic refinement appeals to every
aspiration of his soul, and he believes, as
men so often believe of women, that the
outward charm is the sign of an inward
grace. He is convinced that '• his Flor-
entines " are good, and though the deli-
cate instincts of his race warn him that
whatever friendship they may profess,
their nature has no sympathy with his,
his large heart rejects all suspicion of
their gratitude. He has yet to learn that
Florence knows gratitude only in the
form of fear, only knows a protector as a
potential tyrant and foe ; and whilst his
devotion is, day by day, deepening his
mistrust, his guilelessness is as con-
stantly sending forth some careless word
to bear witness against him. The hostile
General Tiburzio, in whom he has gained
a friend, becomes the means of warning
him that the day of his expected victory
is also to be that of his trial and condem-
nation. Luria probes his situation sadly
but deliberately. He sees that his judg-
ment is fixed. The Florentine army is
in his hands ; the Pisan troops are of-
fered to his command ; he has no natural
alternative but to perish at the hands of
Florence, or to save himself through her
destruction, and true to the end, he swal-
lows poison, the one refuge against possi-
ble misfortune, which he has brought
from his native East. He dies, sur-
rounded by the repentant captain, com-
missary, and other citizens of Florence,
aroused too late by the fervent testimony
of Tiburzio, combined with their own
latent belief in the nature they could so
little understand, each tendering in his
own way, love, gratitude, and obedience
to the friend whom they have in one su-
preme moment found and lost.
The restless intriguings of Florentine
life are powerfully symbolized by Husein,
the condottiere's one Moorish friend, in
words of warning to him.
Say or not say,
So thou but go, so they but let thee go !
This hating people, that hate each the other,
And in one blandness to us Moors unite —
Locked each to each like slippery snakes, I
say
Which still in all their tangles, hissing tongue
And threatening tail, ne'er do each other
harm ;
While any creature of a better blood,
They seem to fight for, while they circle safe
And never touch it, — pines without a wound,
Withers away beside their eyes and breath.
See thou, if Puccio come not safely out
Of Braccio's grasp, this Braccio sworn his foe,
As Braccio's safely from Domizia's toils
Who hates him most ! But thou, the friend
of all,
. . . Come out of them !
Against its shifting background of craft
and hatred and mistrust, the image of
Luria, living as it is, assumes an almost
monumental character ; it dwells upon
the mind as a great conception of all last-
ing greatness and purity.
To the testimony of the Dramas we
may add this fact, that at the age of
twenty-two, Mr. Browning conceived from
slender historic materials the character
and career of Paracelsus — the apostle of
natural truth, still hampered by the tra-
ditions of a metaphysical and mystical
age ; his high hopes and crushing disap-
pointment ; the lapse into more doubtful
striving and more anomalous result; and
the death-bed vision which blended the
old, fitful gleamings of the secret of uni-
versal life into the larger sense of a divine
presence throughout creation in which
every abortive human endeavour is alike
anticipated and subsumed. " Paracelsus "
is considered the most transcendental of
Mr. Browning's poems. It certainly com-
bines the individuality which with him
has so often the effect of abstruseness
with a sustained loftiness of poetic con-
ception, and we find in it a faithful reflex
of the desire of absolute knowledge and
MR. BROWNINGS PLACE IN LITERATURE.
the belief in the possibility of its attain-
ment. But it is no less remarkable for
its humanity ; for the sympathy it evinces
with the complex, struggling, misguided
soul, which begins by spurning all human
aids and breathes out its last and finest
essence under the fostering warmth of af-
fection ; and its appreciation of the crav-
ing for unbounded intellectual life is even
less abnormal as expressed by so young a
poet, than the tribute it contains to the
ideal of human existence which rests
upon limitation.
Power — neither put forth blindly, nor con-
trolled
Calmly by perfect knowledge ; to be used
At risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear :
Knowledge — not intuition, but the slow
Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil,
Strengthened by love : love — not serenely
pure
But strong from weakness like a chance-sown
plant
Which, cast on stubborn soil, puts forth
changed buds
And softer strains, unknown in happier climes ;
Love which endures and doubts, and is op-
pressed
And cherished, suffering much and much sus-
tained,
And blind, oft failing, yet believing love,
A half-enHghtened, often chequered trust.
These lines form part of the dying con-
fession which is probably so well known
that we need not regret being unable to
quote it at length.
The one peculiarity of Mr. Browning's
verse through which his character of poet
is most generally impugned is its fre-
quent want of melody, and his known
contempt for melody as distinct from
meaning would be sufficient to account
for the occasional choice of subjects that
excluded it. But he thus admits the
more fully the essential unity of matter
and form ; and the unmusical character
of so much of his poetry is in some de-
gree justified by the fact, that its subjects
are in themselves unmusical.
So I will sing on fast as fancies come;
Rudely, the verse being as the mood it paints.*
His actual ruggedness lies far more in
the organic conception of his ideas than
in the manner of rendering them, whilst
his rapid alternations and successions of
thought often give the appearance of
ruggedness where none is. In beauty or
* Pauline.
8s
the reverse his style is essentially ex-
pressive, and when, as in "• Pauline,"
" Paracelsus," almost all the Dramas, and
most of the minor poems, there is an in-
ward harmony to be expressed, it is ex-
pressed the more completely for the re-
jection of all such assistance as mere
sound could afford. He has even given
to so satirical a poem as " The Bishop
orders his Tomb in St. Praxed's Church,"
a completely melodious rhythm, its satire
being borrowed from the simple misap-
plication of an earnest and pathetic emo-
tion. If he ever appears gratuitously to
rebel against the laws of sound it is in
his rhymed and not in his blank verse ;
and there might be truth in the idea that
his contempt for the music of mere itera-
tion is excited by the very act of employ-
ing it, but that so many of his grandest
and sweetest inspirations have been ap-
propriately clothed in rhyme.
There is a passage in " Pauline " in
which the speaker describes himself,
which accords to so great an extent with
the varying impressions produced by Mr.
Browning's mind as to present itself as a
possible explanation of them. He has
deprecated, perhaps unnecessarily, the
execution of this poem in an explanatory
preface to it, and if he admitted it to con-
tain so much of permanent truth he might
more justly deprecate the manner in
which it was conceived. But the lines to
which we refer have a deliberate empha-
sis which impresses us with the idea that
the young poet was speaking of himself,
and that what he said may in some
measure have remained true.
I am made up of an intensest life,
Of a most clear idea of consciousness
Of self, distinct from all its quaHties,
P>om all affections, passions, feelings, powers j
And thus far it exists, if tracked in all :
But linked in me, to self -supremacy
Existing, as a centre to all things,
Most potent to create and rule and call
Upon all things to minister to it;
And to a principle of restlessness
Which would be all, have, see, know, taste,
feel, all —
This is myself, and I should thus have been
Though gifted lower than the meanest soul.
Whatever this passage may or may not
mean, it can only confirm the one sig-
nificant fact that a life-long reputation
for self-conscious poetic power might
have rested unassailed on this the au-
thor's very earliest work.
S6
ALICE LORRAINE.
must the greatest man ever "developed"
have desired a million-fold, because he
lived in each one of the million.
However, there were but two to whom
Sir Roland Lorraine ever yielded a peep
of his deeply treasured anxieties. One
was Sir Remnant ; and the other (in vir-
tue of office, and against the grain) was
the Rev. Struan Hales, his own highly
respected brother-in-law.
Struan Hales was a man of mark all
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.
A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.
CHAPTER XIX.
The excellent people of Coombe Lor-
raine as yet were in happy ignorance of
all these fine doings on Hilary's part.
Sir Roland knew only too well, of course,
that his son and heir was of a highly ro-
mantic, chivalrous, and adventurous turn.
At Eton and Oxford many little scrapes ; about that neighbourhood. Everybody
(which seemed terrible at the time) knew him, and almost everybody liked
showed that he was sure to do his best to him. Because he was a genial, open-
get into grand scrapes, as the occasion of ; hearted, and sometimes even noisy man ;
his youthful world enlarged. full of life — in his own form of thatmat-
" Happen what will, I can always trust Iter — and full of the love of life, whenever
my boy to be a gentleman," his father ' he found other people lively. He hated
used to say to himself, and to his only : every kind of humbug, all revolutionary
real counsellor, old Sir Remnant Chap- | ideas, methodism, asceticism, enthusiastic
man. Sir Remnant always shook his humanity, and exceedingly tine language.
head ; and then (for fear of having meant I And though, like every one else, he re-
too much) said, "Ah, that is the one spected Sir Roland Lorraine for his up-
thing after all. People begin to talk a j right character, lofty honour, and clear-
I ness of mind ; while he liked him for his
] generosity, kindness of heart, and gen-
tleness ; on the other hand, he despised
him a little for his shyness and quietude
(of life. For the rector of West Lorraine
great deal too much about Christianity."
At any rate, the last thing they thought
of was the most likely thing of all —
that Hilary should fall in love with a
good, and sweet, and simple girl, who.
for his own sake, would love him, and ! loved nothing better than a good day with
the hounds, and a roaring dinner-party
afterwards. Nothing in the way of sport
ever came amiss to him ; even though it
did — as no true sport does — depend
for its joy upon cruelty.
Here, in his snug house on the glebe,
under the battlement of the hills, with
trees and a garden of comfort, and snug
places to smoke a pipe in, Mr. Hales was
grow to him with all the growth of love.
"Morality" — whereby we mean now,
truth, and right, and purity — was then
despised in public, even more than now
in private life. Sir Remnant thought it a
question of shillings, how many maids
his son led astray ; and he pitied Sir
Roland for having a son so much hand-
somer than his own.
Little as now he meddled with it. Sir well content to live and do his duty. He
Roland knew that the world was so ; and
the more he saw of it, the less he found
such things go down well with him. The
broad low stories, and practical jokes,
and babyish finesse of oaths, invented for
the ladies — many of which still survive
in the hypocrisy of our good tongue —
these had a great deal to do with Sir
Roland's love of his own quiet dinner-
table, and shelter of his pet child, Alice.
And nothing, perhaps, except old custom
and the traditions of friendship, could
have induced him to bear, as he did, with
Sir Remnant'-s far lower standard. Let a
a week, and he
every Sunday,
and
liked to hunt twice in
liked to preach twice
Still he could not do either always
no good people blamed him.
Mrs. Hales was the sweetest creature
ever seen almost anywhere. She had
plenty to say for herself, and a great deal
more to say for others ; and if perfection
were to be found, she would have been
perfection to every mind, except her
own, and perhaps her husband's.
The rector used to- say that his
wife was an angel, if ever one there
were ; and in his heart he felt that truth.
man be what he will, he must be moved ; Still he did not speak to her always as if
one way or another by the folk he deals ; he were fully aware of being in colloquy
with. Even Sir Roland (though so differ- I with an angel. He liad lived with her
ent from the people around him) felt {"ever so long," and he knew that she
their feelings move here and there, and ; was a great deal better than himself; but
very often come touching him. And he he had the wisdom not to let her know
never could altogether help wanting to it; and she often thought that he
know what they thought about him. So preached at her. Such a thing he never
ALICE LORRAINE.
did. No honest parson would ever do it ;
of all mean acts it would be the mean-
est. Yet there are very few parsons'
wives who are not prepared for the chance
of it. And Mrs. Hales knew that she
"had her faults," and that Mr. Hales was
quite up to them. At any rate, here they
were, and here they meant to live their
lives out, havinj^ a pretty old place to see
to, and kind old neighbours to see to
them. Also they had a much better
thing, three good children of their own ;
enough to make work and pleasure for
them, but not to be a perpetual worry, in-
asmuch as they all were girls — three
very good girls, of their sort — thinking
as they were told to think, and sure to
make excellent women.
Alice Lorraine liked all these girls.
They were so kind, and sweet, and sim-
ple ; and when they had nothing what-
ever to say, they always said it so pretti-
ly. And they never pretended to inter-
fere with any of her opinions, or to come
into competition with her, or to talk to
her father, when she was present, more
than she well could put up with. For she
was a very jealous child ; and they were
well aware of it. And they might let
their father be her mother's brother ten
times over, before she would hear of any
" Halesy element" — as she once had
called it — coming into her family more
than it had already entered. And they
knew right well, while they thought it too
bad, that this young Alice had sadly
quenched any hopes any one of them
might have cherished of being a Lady
Lorraine some day. She had made her
poor brother laugh over their tricks, when
they were sure that they had no tricks ;
and she always seemed to put a wrong
construction upon any little harmless
thing they did. Still they could afford
to forget all that ; and they did forget it,
especially now when Hilary would soon
be at home again.
It was now July, and no one had heard
for weeks from that same Hilary ; but
this m.ade no one anxious, because it was
the well-known manner of the youth.
Sometimes they would hear from him by
every post, although the post now came
thrice in a week ; and then again for weeks
together, not a line would he vouchsafe.
And as a general rule, he was getting on
better when he kept strict silence.
Therefore Alice had no load on her
mind at all worth speaking of, while she
worked in her sloping flower-garden,
early of a summer afternoon. It was
now getting on for St. Svvithin's day;
87
and the sun was beginning to curtail
those brief attentions which he paid to
Coombe Lorraine. He still looked fairly
at it, as often as clouds allowed in the
morning, almost up to eight o'clock ; and
after that he could still see down it, over
the shoulder of the hill. But he felt that
his rays made no impression (the land so
fell away from him), they seemed to do
nothing but dance away downward, like
a lasher of glittering water.
Therefore, in this garden grew soft and
gently natured plants, and flowers of del-
icate tint, that sink in the exhaustion of
the sun-glare. The sun, in almost every
garden,.sucks the beauty out of all the
flowers ; he stains the sweet violet even
in March ; he spots the primrose and
the periwinkle ; he takes the down off
the heartsease blossom ; he browns the
pure lily of the valley in May ; and, after
that, he dims the tint of every rose that
he opens : and yet, in spite of all his mis-
chief, which of them does not rejoice in
him ?
The bold chase, cut in the body of the
hill, has rugged sides, and a steep de-
scent for a quarter of a mile below the
house — the cleft of the chalk on either
side growing deeper towards the mouth
of the coombe. The main road to the
house goes up the coombe, passing under
the eastern scarp, but winding away from
it here and there to obtain a better foot-
ing. The old house, facing down the
Bill, stands so close to the head of the
coombe, that there is not more than an
acre or so of land behind and between it
and the crest, and this is partly laid out
as a courtyard, partly occupied by out-
buildings, stables, and so on, and the
ruinous keep, ingloriously used as a lime-
kiln ; while the rest of the space is
planted in and out with spruce and birch
trees, and anything that will grow there.
Among them winds a narrow outlet to
the upper and open Downs — too steep a
way for carriage-wheels, but something
in appearance betwixt a bridle-path and
a timber-track, such as is known in those
parts by the old English name, a " bos-
tall."
As this led to no dwelling-house for
miles and miles away, but only to the
crown of the hills and the desolate trJict
of sheep-walks, ninety-nine visitors oiit
of a hundred to the house came up the
coombe, so that Alice from her flower-
garden commanding the course of the:
drive from the plains, could nearly always,
foresee the approach of any interruption..
Here she had pretty seats under labur-
ss
ALICE LORRAINE.
nums, and even a bower of jessamine,
and a noble view all across the weald,
even to the range of the North Downs ;
so that it was a pleasant place for all who
love soft sward and silence, and have
time to enjoy that very rare romance of
the seasons — a hot English summer.
Only there was one sad drawback.
Lady Valeria's windows straightly over-
looked this pleasant spot, and Lady Va-
leria never could see why she should not
overlook everything. Beyond and above
all other things, she took it as her own
special duty to watch her dear grand-
daughter Alice ; and now in her eighty-
second year she was proud of her eye-
sight, and liked to prove its power.
" Here they come again ! " cried Alice,
talking to herself or her rake and trowel ;
"will they never be content? I told
them on Monday that I knew nothing,
and they will not believe it. I have a
great mind to hide myself in my hole,
like that poor rag and bone boy. It goes
beyond my patience quite to be cross-
examined and not believed."
Those whom she saw coming up the
steep road at struggling and panting in-
tervals, were her three good cousins
from the Rectory — Caroline, Margaret,
and Cecil Hales ; rather nice-looking and
active girls, resembling their father in
face and frame, and their excellent moth-
er in their spiritual parts. The decorat-
ed period of young ladies, the time of
wearing great crosses and starving, anfl
sticking as a thorn in the flesh of man-
kind, lay as yet in the happy future. A
parson's daughters were as yet content
to leave the parish to their father, help-
ing him only in the Sunday-school, and
for the rest of the week minding their
own dresses, or some delicate jobs of
pastry, or gossip.
Though Alice had talked so of running
away, she' knew quite well that she never
could do it, unless it were for a childish
joke ; and swiftly she was leaving now
the pretty and petty world of childhood,
sinking into that distance whence the
failing years recover it. Therefore, in-
stead of running away, she ran down the
hill to meet her cousins, for truly she
liked them decently.
" Oh, you dear, how are you ? How
wonderfully good to come to meet us !
Madge, I shall be jealous in a moment if
jou kiss my Alice so. Cecil — what are
jou thinking of ? Why, you never
ikissed your cousin Alice ! "
" Oh yes, you have all done it very
nicely. What more could I wish ? "
said Alice ; " but what could have made
you come up the hill, so early in the day,
dears ? "
" Well, you know what dear mamma
is. She really fancied that we might
seem (now there is so much going on)
really unkind and heartless, unless we
came up to see how you were. Papa
would have come ; but he feels it so
steep, unless he is coming up to dinner ;
and the pony, you know Oh she did
such a thing ! The wicked little dear,
she got into the garden, and devoured
;^io worth of the grand new flower, just
introduced by the Duchess ' Dallia,' or
' Dellia,' I can't spell the name. And
mamma was so upset that both of them
have been unwell ever since."
*' Oh, Dahlias ! " answered Alice,
whose grapes were rather sour, because
her father had refused to buy any ;
"flaunty things in my opinion. But
Caroline, Madge, and Cecil, have you
ever set eyes on my new rose ? "
Of course they all ran to behold the
new rose ; which was no other than the
" Persian yellow," a beautiful stranger,
not yet at home. The countless petals of
brilliant yellow folding inward full of
light, and the dimple in the centre, shy of
yielding inlet to its virgin gold, and then
the delicious fragrance, too refined for
random sniffers, — these and other de-
lights found entry into the careless be-
holder's mind.
" It makes one think of astrologers,"
cried Caroline Hales ; " I declare it does !
Look at all the little stars ! It is quite
like a celestial globe."
"So it is, I do declare ! " said Madge.
But Cecil shook her head. She was the
youngest, and much the prettiest, and by
many degrees the most elegant of the
daughters of the Rectory. Cecil had her
own opinion about many things ; but
waited till it should be valuable.
" It is much more like a cowslip-ball,"
Alice answered, carelessly. " Come into
my bower now. And then we can all of
us go to sleep."
The three girls were a little hot and
thirsty, after their climb of the chalky
road ; and a bright spring ran through
the bower, as they knew, ready to harmo-
nize with sherbet, sherry-wine, or even
shrub itself, as had once been proved by
Hilary.
" How delicious this is ! How truly
sweet ! " cried the eldest and perhaps
most loquacious Miss Hales ; " and how
nice of you always to keep a glass ! A
spring is such a rarity on these hills j
ALICE LORRAINE.
papa says it comes from a different
stratum. What a stratum is, I have no
idea. It ought to be straight, one may
safely say that ; but it always seems to be
crooked. Now, can you explain that,
darling Alice ? You are so highly taught,
and so clever !"
" Now, we don't want a lecture," said
Madge, the blunt one; "the hill is too
steep to have that at the top. Alice
knows everything, no doubt, in the way
of science, and all that. But what we
are dying to know is what became of that
grand old astrologer's business."
"This is the seventh or eighth time
now," Alice answered, hard at bay ;
"that you will keep on about some little
thing that the servants are making moun-
tains of. My father best knows what it
is. Let us go to his room and ask him."
" Oh no, dear ! oh no, dear ! How
could we do that ? What would dear
uncle say to us } But come, now tell us.
You do know something. Why are you
so mysterious ? Mystery is a thing alto-
gether belonging to the dark ages, now.
We have heard such beautiful stories
that we cannot manage to sleep at night
without knowing what they are all about.
Now, do tell us everything. You may
just as well tell us every single thing.
We are sure to find it all out, you know :
and then we shall all be down on you.
Among near relations, dear mamma says,
there is nothing to compare with candour."
" Don't you see, Alice," Madge broke
in, " we are sure to know sooner or later ;
and how can it matter which it is ? "
" To be sure," answered Alice, " it
cannot matter. And so you shall all
know, later."
This made the three sisters look a lit-
tle at one another, quietly. And then,
as a desperate resource, Madge, the
rough one, laid eyes upon Alice, and,
with a piercing look, exclaimed, "You
don't even understand what it means
yourself ! "
" Of course, I do not,'^ answered
Alice ; " how many times have I told
you so, yet you always want further par-
ticulars ! Dear cousins, now you must
be satisfied with a conclusion of your
own."
" I cannot at all see that," said Caro-
line.
" Really, you are too bad," cried Marga-
ret.
" Do you think that this is quite fair ? "
asked Cecil.
" You are too many for me, all of you,"
Alice answered, steadfastly. " Suppose
89
I came to your house and pried into some
piece of gossip about you that I had
picked up in the village. Would you
think that I had a right to do it ? "
" No, dear, of course not. But nobody
dares to gossip about us, you know.
Papa would very soon stop all that."
" Of course he would. And because
my father is too high-minded to meddle
with it, am I to be questioned perpetu-
ally ? Come in, Caroline, come in, Mar-
garet, come in, dear Cecil ; I know where
papa is, and then you can ask him all
about it."
" I have three little girls at their first
sampler, such little sweets ! " said Caro-
line ; " I only left them for half an hour,
because we felt sure you must want us,
darling. It now seems as if you could
hold your own in a cross-stitch we must
not penetrate. It is nothing to us.
What could it be ? Only don't come, for
goodness' sake, don't come rushing down
the hill, dear creature, to implore our
confidence suddenly."
" Dear creature ! " cried Alice, for the
moment borne beyond her young self-pos-
session — "I am not quite accustomed to
old women's words. Nobody shall call
me a ' dear creature ' except my father
(who knows better) and poor old Nancy
Stilgoe."
" Now, don't be vexed with them,"
Cecil stopped to say in a quiet manner,
while the two other maidens tucked
up their skirts, and down the hill went,
rapidly ; " they never meant to vex you,
Alice ; only you yourself must feel how
dreadfully tantalizing it is to hear such
sweet things as really made us afraid of
our own shadows ; and then to be told
not to ask any questions ! "
" I am sorry if I have been rude to
your sisters," the placable Alice an-
swered ; " but it is so vexatious of them
that they doubt my word so. Now, tell
me what you have heard. It is wonder-
ful how any foolish story spreads."
" We heard, on the very best authority,
that the old astrologer appeared to you,
descending from the comet in a fire-bal-
loon, and warned you to prepare for the
judgment-day, because the black-death
would destroy in one night every soul in
Coombe Lorraine ; and as soon as you
heard it you fainted away, and Sir Roland
ran up and found you lying, as white as
wax, in a shroud made out of the ancient
gentleman's long foreign cloak."
"Then, beg cousin Caroline's pardon
for me. No wonder she wanted to hear
more. And I must not be touchy about
90
ALICE LORRAINE.
my veracity, after lying in my shroud so
long. But truly I cannot tell you a word
to surpass what you have heard already ;
nor even to come up to it. There was
not one single wonderful thing — not
enough to keep up the interest. I was
bitterly disappointed ; and so, of course,
was every one."
" Cousin Alice," Cecil answered, look-
ing at her pleasantly, "you are different
from us, or, at any rate, from my sisters.
You scarcely seem to know the way to tell
the very smallest of small white lies. I
am very sorry always ; still I must tell
some of tliem."
" No, Cecil, no. You need tell none ;
if you only miike up your mind not to do
it. You are but a very little older than I
am, and surely you might begin afresh.
Suppose you say at your prayers in the
morning, 'Lord, let me tell no lie to-
day ! ' "
" Now, Alice, you know that I never
could do it. When I know that I mean
to tell ever so many ; how could I hope
to be answered ? No doubt I am a story-
teller— just the same as the rest of us ;
and to pray against it, when I mean to do
it, would be a very double-faced thing."
" To be sure it would. It never struck
me in that particular way before. But
Uncle Struan must know best what
ought to be done in your case."
" We must not make a fuss of trifles,"
Cecil answered, prudently; "papa can
always speak for himself ; and he means
to come up the hill to do it, if Mr. Gate's
pony is at home. And now I must run
after them, or Madge will call me a little
traitor. Oh, here papa comes, I do de-
clare. Good-bye, darling, and don't be
vexed."
"It does seem a little too bad," thought
Alice, as the " portly form of the rector,
mounted on a borrowed pony, came round
the corner at the bottom of the coombe,
near poor Bonny's hermitage — "a little
too bad that nothing can be done without
its being chattered about. And I know
how annoyed papa will be, if Uncle Struan
comes plaguing him again. We cannot
even tell what it means ourselves ; and
whatever it means, it concerns us only.
I do think curiosity is the worst, though
it may be the smallest vice. He expects
to catch me, of course, and get it all out of
me as he declared he would. But sharp as
his eyes are, I don't believe he can have
managed to spy me yet. I will off to my
rockwork, and hide myself, till I see the
heels of his pony going sedately down the
hill ajrain."
With these words, she disappeared ;
and when the good rector had mounted
the hill, " Alice, Alice ! " resounded
vainly from the drive among the shrubs
and flowers, and echoed from the ram-
parts of the coombe.
CHAPTER XX.
One part of Coombe Lorraine is fa-
mous for a seven-fold echo, connected
by tradition with a tale of gloom and ter-
ror. Mr. Hales, being proud of his voice,
put this echo through all its peals, or
chime of waning resonance. It could not
quite answer, "How do you do ?" with
" Very well, Pat, and the same to you " —
and its tone was rather melancholy than
sprightly, as some echoes are. But of
course a great deal depended on the
weather, as well as on the time of day.
Echo, for the most part, sleeps by day-
light, and strikes her gong as the sun
goes down.
Failing of any satisfaction here, the
Rev. Struan Hales rode on. " Ride on,
ride on ! " was his motto always ; and he
seldom found it fail. Nevertheless, as
he rang the bell (which he was at last
compelled to do), he felt in the crannies
of his heart some wavers as to the job he
was come upon. A coarse nature often
despises a fine one, and yet is most truly
afraid of it. Mr. Hales believed that in
knowledge of the world he was entitled
to teach Sir Roland ; and yet he could
not help feeling how calmly any imperti-
nence would be stopped.
The clergyman found his brother-in-
law sitting alone, as he was too fond of
doing, in his little favourite book-room,
walled off from the larger and less com-
fortable library. Sir Roland was begin-
ning to yield more and more to the gen-
tle allurements of solitude. Some few
months back he had lost the only friend
with whom he had ever cared to inter-
change opinions, a learned parson of the
neighbourhood, an antiquary, and an ele-
gant scholar. And ever since that he
had been sinking deeper and deeper into
the slough of isolation and privac^^ For
hours he now would sit alone, with books
before him, yet seldom heeded, while he
mused and meditated, or indulged in
visions mingled of the world he read of
and the world he had to deal with. As
no less an authority than Dr. Johnson
has it — " This invisible riot of the mind,
this secret prodigality of being, is secure
from detection, and fearless of reproach.
The dreamer retires to his apartment,
shuts out the cares and interruptions of
ALICE LORRAINE.
91
mankind, and abandons himself to his
own fancy." And again — " This cap-
tivity it is necessary for every man to
break, who has ady desire to be wise or
useful. To regain liberty, he must find
the means of flying from himself ; he
must, in opposition to the Stoic precept,
teach his desires to fix upon external
things ; he must adopt the joys and the
pains of others, and excite in his mind
the want of social pleasures and amicable
communication."
Sir Roland Lorraine was not quite so
bad as the gentleman above depicted ;
still he was growing so like him that he
was truly sorry to see the jovial face of
his brother-in-law. For his mind was
set out upon a track of thought, which it
might have pursued until dinner-time.
But, of course, he was much too courteous
to show any token of interruption.
"Roland, I must have you out of this.
My dear fellow, what are you coming to ?
Books, books, books ! As if you did not
know twice too much already ! Even I
find my flesh falling away from me, the
very next day after I begin to punish it
with reading."
" That very remark occurs in the book
which I have just put down. Struan, let
me read it to you."
" I thank you greatly, but would rather
not. It is in Latin or Greek, of course.
I could not do my duty as I do, if I did
it in those dead languages. But I have
the rarest treat for you ; and I borrowed
a pony to come and fetch you. Such a
badger you never saw ! Sir Remnant is
coming to see it, and so is old General
Jakes, and a dozen more. We allow an
hour for that, and then we have a late
dinner at six o'clock. My daughters
came up the hill to fetch your young
Alice to see the sport. But they had
some blaze-up about some trifle, as the
chittish creatures are always doing. And
so pretty Alice perhaps- will lose it.
Leave them to their own ways, say I ;
leave them to their own ways, Sir Ro-
land. They are sure to cheat us, either
way ; and they may just as well cheat us
pleasantly."
'' You take a sensible view of it, ac-
cording to what your daughters are,"
Sir Roland answered, more sharply than
he either meant or could maintain ; and
immediately he was ashamed of himself.
But Mr. Hales was not thin of skin ; and
he knew that his daughters were true to
him. "Well, well," he replied; "as I
said before, they are full of tricks. At
their age and sex it must be so. But a
better and kinder team of maids is not to
be found in thirteen parishes. Speak to
the contrary who will."
" I know that they are very good girls,"
Sir Roland answered kindly ; " Alice
likes them very much ; and so does
everybody."
" That is enough to show what they
are. Nobody ever likes anybody, without
a great deal of cause for it. They must
have their faults of course, we know ;
and they may not be quite butter-lipped,
you know — still I should like to see a
better lot, take them in and out, and al-
together. Now you must come and see
Fox draw that badger. I have ten good
guineas upon it with Jakes ; Sir Rem-
nant was too shy to stake. And I want a
thoroughly impartial judge. You never
would refuse me, Roland, now ? "
" Yes, Struan, yes ; you know well that
I will. You know that I hate and despise
cruel sports. And it is no compliment
to invite me, when you know that I will
not come."
" I wish I had stayed at the bottom of
the hill, where that young scamp of a
boy lives. When will you draw that
badger, Sir Roland, the pest of the
Downs, and of all the county ? "
" Struan, the boy is not half so bad as
might be expected of him. I have
thought once or twice that I ought to
have him taught, and fed, and civilized."
" Send him to me, and I'll civilize him.
A born little poacher ! I have scared
all the other poachers with the comtat ;
but the little thief never comes to church.
Four pair of birds, to my knowledge,
nested in John Gate's veitches, and
hatched well, too, for I spoke to John —
where are they ? Can you tell me where
they are ? "
"Well, Struan, I give you the shoot-
ing, of course ; but I leave it to you to
look after it. But it does seem too cruel
to kill the birds, before they can fly, for
you to shoot them."
"Cruel! I call it much worse than
cruel. Such things would never be
dreamed of upon a properly managed
property."
" You are going a little too far," said
Sir Roland, with one of his very peculiar
looks ; and his brother-in-law drew back
at once, and changed the subject clum-
sily.
" The shooting will do well enough,
Sir Roland ; I think, however, that you
may be glad of my opinion upon other
matters. And that had something to do
with my coming."
92
ALICE LORRAINE.
" Oh, I thought that you came about
the badger, Struan. But what are these,
even more serious matters ? "
" Concerning your dealings with the
devil, Roland. Of course, I never listen
to anything foolish. Still, for the sake of
my parish, I am bound to know what your
explanation is. I have not much faith in
witchcraft, though in that perhaps I am
heterodox ; but we are bound to have
faith in the devil, I hope."
" Your hope does you credit," Sir Ro-
land answered ; " but for the moment I
fail to see how I am concerned with this
orthodoxy."
" Now, my dear fellow, my dear fellow,
you know as well as I do what I mean.
Of course there is a great deal of exag-
geration ; and knowing you so well, I
have taken on myself to deny a great part
of what people say. But you know the
old proverb, * No smoke without fire ; '
and I could defend you so much better,
if I knew what really has occurred. And
besides all that, you must feel, I am sure,
that you are not treating me with that
candour which our long friendship and
close connection entitle me to expect
from you."
"Your last argument is the only one
requiring any answer. Those based on
religious, social, and even parochial
grounds, do not apply to this case at all.
But I should be sorry to vex you, Struan,
or keep from you anything you claim to
know in right of your dear sister. This
matter, however, is so entirely confined
to those of our name only, at the same
time so likely to charm all the gossips
who have made such wild guesses about
it, and after all it is such a trifle except to
a superstitious mind ; that I may trust
your good sense to be well content to
hear no more about it, until it comes into
action — if it ever should do so."
" Vtry well, Sir Roland, of course you
know best. I am the last man in the
world to intrude into family mysteries.
And my very worst enemy (if I have one)
would never dream of charging me with
the vice of curiosity."
" Of course not. And therefore you
will be well pleased that we should drop
this subject. Will you take white wine,
or red wine, Struan ? Your kind and
good wife was quite ready to scold me,
for having forgotten my duty in that, the
last time you came up the hill."
" Ah, then I walked. But to-day I am
riding. I thank you, I thank you, Sir
Roland ; but the General and Sir Rem-
nant are waiting for me."
"And, most important of all, the
badger. Good-bye, Struan ; I shall see
you soon."
" I hardly know whether you will or
not," the rector answered testily ; " this
is the time when those cursed poachers
scarcely allow me a good night's rest.
And to come up this hill and hear noth-
ing at the top ! It is too bad at my time
of life ! After two services every Sun-
day, to have to be gamekeeper all the
week ! "
" At your time of life ! " said Sir Roland,
kindly : " why, you are the youngest man
in the parish, so far as life and spirits go.
To-day you are not yourself at all.
Struan, you have not sworn one good
round oath ! "
" Well, what can you expect, Roland,
with these confounded secrets held over
one ? I feel myself many pegs down to-
day. And that pony trips so abominably.
Perhaps, after all, I might take one glass
of red wine before I go down the hill."
" It is a duty you owe to the parish.
Now come, and let me try to find Alice
to wait upon you. Alice is always so
glad to see you."
" And I am always so glad to see her.
How narrow your doors are in these old
houses ! Those Normans must have been
a skewer-shouldered lot. Now, Roland,
if I have said anything harsh, you will
make all allowance for me, of course ; be-
cause you know the reason."
" You mean that you are a little disap-
pointed "
" Not a bit of it. Quite the contrary.
But after such weather as we have had,
and nothing but duty, duty, to do, one is
apt to get a little crotchety. What kind
of sport can be got anywhere ? The
landrail-shooting is over, of course, and
the rabbits are running in families ; the
fish are all sulky, and the water low, and
the sea-trout not come up yet. There
are no young hounds fit to handle yet ;
and the ground cracks the heels of a de-
cent hack. One's mouth only waters at
oiling a gun ; all the best of the cocks are
beginning to mute ; and if one gets up a
badger-bait, to lead to a dinner-party,
people will come, and look on, and make
bets, and then tell the women how cruel
it was ! And with all the week thus, I
am always expected to say something new
every Sunday morning ! "
" Nay, nay, Struan. Come now ; we
have never expected that of you. But
here comes Alice from her gardening
work ! Now, she does look well ; don't
you think she does ? "
ALICE LORRAINE.
93
"Not a rose in* June, but a rose in,
May ! " the rector answered gallantly,
kissins: his hand to his niece, and then
with his healthy bright lips saluting her :
"you grow more and more like your
mother, darling. Ah, when I think of
the bygone days, before I had any wife,
or daughters, things occur to me that
never "
" Go and bait your badger, Struan,
after one more glass of wine."
CHAPTER XXI.
Nature appears to have sternly willed
that no man shall keep a secret. There
is a monster here and there to be discov-
ered capable of not even whispering any-
thing; but he ought to expect to be
put aside in our estimate of humanity.
And lest he should be so, the powers
above provide him, for the most part,
with a wife of truly fecund loquacity.
A word is enough on such parlous
themes ; and the least said the soonest
mended. What one of us is not exceed-
ingly wise, in his own or his wife's
opinion ? What one of us does not pre-
tend to be as "reticent" as Minerva's
owl, and yet in his heart confess that a
secret is apt to fly out of his bosom ?
Nature is full of rules ; and if the
above should happen to be one of
them, it was illustrated in the third at-
tack upon Sir Roland's secrecy. For
scarcely had he succeeded in baffling,
without offending, his brother-in-law,
when a servant brought him a summons
from his mother, Lady Valeria.
According to all modern writers,
whether of poetry or prose, in our admir-
able language, the daughter of an earl is
always lovely, graceful, irresistible, al-
most to as great an extent as she is un-
attainable. This is but a natural homage
on the part of nature to a power so far
above her ; so that this daughter of an
Earl of Thanet had been, in every out-
ward point, whatever is delightful. Nei-
ther had she shown any slackness in
turning to the best account these nota-
ble things in her favour. In short, she
had been a very beautiful woman, and had
employed her beauty well, in having her
own will and way. She had not married
well, it is true, in the opinion of her
compeers ; but she had pleased herself,
and none could say that she had lowered
her family. The ancestors of Lord Tha-
net had held in villeinage of the Lor-
raines, some three or four hundred years
after the Conquest, until from being
under so gentle a race they managed to
get over them.
Lady Valeria knew all this ; and feel-
ing, as all women feel, the ownership of
her husband (active, or passiv^e, which-
ever it be), she threw herself into the
nest of Lorraine, and having no portion,
waived all other obligation to parental
ties. This was a noble act on her part,
as her husband always said. He, Sir
Roger Lorraine, lay under her thumb, as
calmly as need be ; yet was pleased as
the birth of children gave some distri-
bution of pressure. For the lady ruled
the house, and lands, and all that was
therein, as if she had brought them under
her settlement.
Although Sir Roger had now been
sleeping, for a good many years, with his
fathers, his widow. Lady Valeria, showed
no sign of any preparation for sleeping
with her mothers. Now in her eighty-
second year, this lady was as brisk and
active, at least in mind if not in body, as
half a century ago she had been. Many
good stories (and some even true) were
told concerning her doings and sayings
in the time of her youth and beauty. Do-
ings were always put first, because for
these she was more famous, having the
wit of ready action more than of rapid
words perhaps. And yet in the latter
she was not slack, when once she had
taken up the quiver of the winged poison.
She had seen so much of the world, and
of the loftiest people that dwell there-
in— so far at least as they were to be
found at the Court of George the Second
— that she sat in an upper stratum now
over all she had to deal with. And yet
she was not of a narrow mind, when un-
folded out of her creases. Her suite of
rooms was the best in the house, of all
above the ground-floor at least ; and now
she was waiting to receive her son, with
her usual little bit of state. For the last
five years she had ceased to appear at
the" table where once she ruled supreme ;
and the servants, who never had blessed
her before, blessed her and themselves
for that happy change. For she would
have her due, as firmly and fairly (if not
a trifle more so), as and than she gave
the same to others, if undemanded.
In her upright seat she was now be-
ginning— not to chafe, for such a thing
would have been below her — but rather
to feel her sense of right and duty (as
owing to herself) becoming more' and
more grievous to her the longer she was
kept waiting. She had learned long ago
94
ALICE LORRAINE.
that she could not govern her son as ab-
solutely as she was wont to rule his fa-
ther ; and having a clearer perception
of her own will than of any large princi-
ples, whenever she found him immova-
ble, she set the cause down as prejudice.
Yet by feeling her way among these pre-
judices carefully, and working filial duty
hard, and flying as a last resort to the
stronghold of her many years, she pretty
nearly always managed to get her own
way in everything.
But few of those who pride themselves
on their knowledge of the human face
would have perceived in this lady's fea-
tures any shape of steadfast will. Per-
haps the expression had passed away,
while the substance settled inwards ; but
however that may have been, her face
was pleasant, calm, and gentle. Her
manner also to all around her was cour-
teous, kind, and unpretending ; and peo-
ple believed her to have no fault, until
they began to deal with her. Her eyes,
not overhung with lid, but delicately set
and shaped, were still bright, and of a
pale blue tint ; her forehead was not re-
markably large, but straight and of beau-
tiful outline ; while the filaments of fine
wrinkles took, in some lights, a cast of
silver from snowy silkiness of hair. For
still she had abundant hair, that crown of
glory to old age ; and like a young girl,
she still took pleasure in having it drawn
through the hands, and done wisely, and
tired to the utmost vantage.
Sir Roland came into his mother's
room with his usual care and diligence.
She with ancient courtesy rose from her
straight-backed chair, and offered him
one little hand, and smiled at him ; and
from the manner of that smile he knew
that she was not by any means pleased,
but thought it as well to conciliate him.
" Roland, you know that I never pay
heed," she began, with a voice that
shook just a little, "to rumours that
reach me through servants, or even al-
low them to think of telling me."
" Dear mother, of course you never do.
Such a thing would be far beneath you."
" Well, well, you might wait till I have
spoken, Roland, before you begin to
judge me. If I listen to nothing I must
be quite unlike all the other women in
the world."
" And so you are. How well you ex-
press it ! At last you begin to perceive,
my dear mother, what I perpetually urge
in vain — your own superiority."
What man's mother can be expected
to endure mild irony, even half so well as
his wife would ?
" Roland, this manner of speech, — I
know not what to call it, but I have heard
of it among foreign people years ago, —
whatever it is, I beg you not to catch it
from that boy Hilary."
" Poetical justice 1 " Sir Roland ex-
claimed ; for his temper was always in
good control, by virtue of varied humour ;
"this is the self-same whip wherewith I
scourged little Alice quite lately ! Only
I feel that I was far more just."
" Roland, you are always just. You
may not be always wise, of course ; but
justice you have inherited from your dear
father, and from me. And this is the
reason why I wish to know what is the
meaning of the strange reports, which al-
most any one, except myself, would have
been sure to go into, or must have been
told of long ago. Your thorough truth-
fulness I know. And you have no chance
to mislead me now."
"I will imitate, though perhaps I can-
not equal, your candour, my dear mother,
by assuring you that I greatly prefer to
keep my own counsel in this matter."
" Roland, is that your answer ? You
admit that there is something important,
and you refuse to let your own mother
know it ! "
"Excuse me, but I do not remember
saying anything about 'importance.' I
am not superstitious enough to suppose
that the thing can have any importance."
" Then why should you make such a
fuss about it ? Really, Roland, you are
sometimes very hard to understand."
" I was not aware that I had made a
fuss," Sir Roland answered, gravely ;
" but if I have, I will make no more.
Now, my dear mother, what did you think
of that extraordinary bill of Bottler's ? "
" Bottler, the pigman, is a rogue," said
her ladyship, peremptorily ; " his father
was a rogue before him ; and those things
run in families. But surely 3'ou cannot
suppose that this is the proper way to
treat the subject."
" To my mind a most improper way —
to condemn a man's bill, on the ground
that his father transmitted the right to
overcharge ! "
" Now, my dear son," said Lady Va-
leria, who never called him her son at all,
unless she was put out with him, and her
" dear son " only when she was at the ex-
tremity of endurance — "my dear son,
these are sad attempts to disguise the
real truth from me. The truth I am en-
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
95
titled to know, and the truth I am re-
solved to know. And I think that you
might have paid me the compliment of
coming for my advice before."
Finding her in this state of mind, and
being unable to deny the justice of her
claim, Sir Roland was fain at last to
make a virtue of necessity, while he mar-
velled (as so many have done) at the craft
of people in spying things, and espying
them always wrongly.
" Is that all ? " said Lady Valeria, after
listening carefully ; " I thought there
must have been something a little better
than that to justify you in making it such
a mystery. Nothing but a dusty old
document, and a strange-looking packet,
or case like a squab ! However, I do
not blame you, my dear Roland, for mak-
ing so small a discovery. The old
astrologer appears to me to have grown
a little childish. Now, as I keep to the
old-fashioned hours, I will ask you to
ring the bell for my tea, and while it is
being prepared you can fetch me the case
itself and the document to examine."
" To be sure, my dear mother, if you
will only promise to obey the commands
of the document."
"Roland, I have lived too long ever to
promise anything. You shall read me
these orders, and then I can judge."
" I will make no fuss about such a
trifle," he answered, with a pleasant
smile ; " of course you will do what is
honourable."
Surely men, although they deny so
ferociously this impeachment, are open at
times to at least a little side-eddy of curi-
osity ; Sir Roland, no doubt, was desirous
to know what were the contents of that
old case, which Alice had taken for a
" dirty cushion," as it lay at the back of
the cupboard in the wall ; while his hon-
our would not allow him comfortably to
disobey the testator's wish. At the same
time he felt, every now and then, that to
treat such a matter in a serious light was
a proof of superstition, or even childish-
ness, on his part. And now, if his mother
should so regard it, he was not at all sure
that he ought to take the unpleasant
course of opposing her.
From Temple Bar.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
II.*
There is scarcely to be found in his-
tory so curious a contrast of civilized
manners and customs as between the
Chinese and the European.
In Europe itself nation differs from na-
tion rather by shades and degrees than
by contrast. The French affect onions,
the Spanish garlic, and the Welshmen
leeks ; offspring of the same family dif-
fering only in pungency. Other nations,
such as Arabs, Turks, Persians, &c., &c.,
offer no similitude in their habits, and
have little in common with ours. But
the Chinese run in a sort of parallel of
violent opposites. As an example, the
European has decided that ministers of
religion should wear a costume, and that
it should be black. Chinese also agree
that their priests shall wear a distinctive
habit, but it must be bright yellow.
Europeans signify their mourning for
their dead by putting on black raiments ;
Chinese lament their ancestors by don-
ning garments of white. The offices of
chamber-maid, cook, laundress, dr'ess-
maker, and, in fact, all servants' labour
where we employ women, are fulfilled by
men ; whereas sailors are for the most
part women ;. and almost everything else
might be traced as following the rule of
contrariety. In nothing is this more ex-
emplified than in the ceremonials attend-
ing death and burial. Like ourselves,
the Chinese make the one mighty fact of
death of stringent importance, but the in-
evitable act of dying they regard as of
little moment. The consequent funeral
operations outvie our own absurdities in
that line to a pitch which, to our mind,
approaches lunacy ; and, pluming our-
selves greatly upon our superior enlight-
enment, we are apt to overlook that it is
little more than contrast. They believe,
like Christians, in the resurrection of the
body, and they hold that belief in so de-
termined a manner that they absolutely
take more precautions for the preserva-
tion of the body when dead than when
alive ; and the money and care lavished
upon the inanimate clay, bones, or dust,
is frequently the result of the deprivation
of the living. Many a Chinese will ex-
pend his last farthing and go supperless
to his mat rather than not light the even-
ing joss-candle upon his little altar in
honour of his defunct relatives. In the
* Living Age, No. 1562.
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
96
method of the ceremonial of dying they
differ in toto from us. Whereas we feel
it incumbent to surround a death-bed
with weeping friends and relatives, law-
yers, doctors, and parson, the Chinese
most ruthlessly abandon their dying, de-
terminedly thrust them from their beds,
drag them from their houses into the
nearest open space they can find, where
they have to expire alone as best they
may, friends and neighbours keeping dis-
creetly aloof until the last breath has
been drawn. Thus an invalid can scarcely
obtain admission into any house for
fear he might die before he could be
ejected again. Women in the hour of
their direst need are often driven to
some outside shed or back slum alone.
No wonder that dead babes are so often
found.
A curious and comical incident oc-
curred at a European friend's where I
was stopping. Hearing that there was a
poor old sick woman living out in the
forest alone, my friend hired a man and
wagon to have her brought into the town,
where she could be attended to. The
driver declared he knew the place and
the old woman well, and set out with his
wagon well lined with paddi-straw. Even-
ing brought the return of the vehicle,
but no invalid therein.
"Why, where is the old woman ? " ex-
claimed my friend, angrily. " These con-
founded Coolies are such idiots. Where
is the old woman ? "
"Yah, master," exclaimed the driver,
holding up his hands deprecatingly.
" Old piecee woman ! muchee sick !
wantshee makee die ! "
" Very likely ; but that was exactly the
reason I sent you to bring her in."
" Ha yah 1 " screamed the Chinaman,
in utter despair at such an argument.
"Wantshee makee die in my wagon ! no
can do, putshee on the road ; makee die
there ; can do."
" Why, you brute ! " cried my friend,
"give me the whip," and he jumped into
the wagon and drove off, leaving the
owner wringing his hands and his tail in
anguish. And a Chinaman's sorrow is of
the most ludicrous kind. He bellows,
and blubbers, and contorts himself, mak-
ing the most grotesque grimaces, which
rather affect the risible than the lachry-
mal sympathies. Our driver's tribulation
arose from the idea that should the old
woman chance to die in his cart it would
be forever ruined and polluted, and it
was his only means of livelihood ; never-
theless, he would have sacrificed it
under the superstitious fear of the evil
which would attend him had such an
event taken place. Fortunately, the old
woman was brought in alive, and with
care recovered, I believe.
The dying old woman and the be-
reaved Coolie were merely a threatened
and small calamity in comparison with
the dismay and discomfiture in our es-
tablishment which took place when the
cook died. Old Aapong was a most
trustworthy and careful servant, and
could cooic a very fair European dinner.
My only prejudice against him arose
from a suspicion — nay, a conviction —
that he killed the fowls by scalding them
to death. It is customary to kill several
chickens in every establishment each
day for currie, &c., and it would be a
lengthy operation to pluck the birds, so
that they are supposed to be strangled,
and then dipped into boiling water until
the feathers drop off. But my impression
is that the strangling is considered a work
of supererogation, as the boiling water
would assuredly kill them, and the China-
man no doubt reasons like the Irishman,
and thinks, " What is the good of killing
him twice ? " On this particular morn-
ing Aapong came into the parlour to take
some orders about game which he was to
purchase from the boats coming from the
north of China. He was a wary old pur-
veyor, and always kept on the right side
of extravagance. Sometimes game was
very dear, and at others very cheap, and
he had repeatedly put the question,
" How much mississee give for game ? "
and I had left it to his discretion. Barely
time had elapsed for him to have reached
his kitchen when our door was violently
flung open, and in tumbled half a dozen
servants screaming with terrified ges-
tures, " Mississee ! mississee ! Aapong
have makee die in the cook-house ! " 1
sprang to my feet and ran across the
yard into the kitchen. There, stretched
on his back, lay poor Aapong, motionless
as in sleep. I thought he was in a fit,
and called for the servants to help to
raise him and administer to his revival.
Not one moved an inch, or by abuse or
entreaty could be induced to come near
him. They stood resolutely aloof, depre-
cating with voice and long spider-like
fingers my meddling with the corpse, and
lamenting that he had not got out into
the yard to die instead of dropping down
in the kitchen. The calamity appeared
to be, not his death, but his demise in
the cook-house. In spite of my utmost
unassisted efforts there came no motion
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
97
in the body, no quiver of the eyelids, no
pulsation through the veins ; the vital
spark had indeed fled, and Aapong was
gathered to his ancestors. He had left
behind him a scene of confusion, muddle,
and dismay indescribable. The scene
was powerfully serio-comic. Like all
Chinese affairs, it was a jumble of the
horrible and the absurd. The sublime or
the pathetic are never prominent. There
lay the corpse, with nothing of the awe-
someness of death about it, just with the
expression upon his funny square face
which it wore a few minutes ago when he
was inquiring what he should pay for the
game. Around were the whole house-
hold assembled, expressing in their
quaint groiesque manner their disappoint-
ment and astonishment, and discovering
with wonderful fertility the various com-
plications and misfortunes of the case.
Who was to move the body ? suggested
one. What a pity he had not stepped
into the yard, said another. Who was to
cook the dinner ? It was a sad thing he
had not waited to die until after dinner !
Here the cook's boy stole away and hid
himself, lest he should be required to go
into the kitchen to prepare the dinner in
the same room with the dead cook. Who
was to get his coffin ? and they lamented
his want of prudence in not procuring his
own coffin, as many Chinese do. Who
was his nearest relative ? They dis-
cussed that point with great vehemence,
jerking and twisting of their bodies, and
digging the air with their long fork-like
nails. It seemed to me it would be quite
dangerous to go within reach of them.
If he was interfered with by any one,
they said, except his nearest relative, he
would certainly haunt that audacious in-
truder, and perhaps torment him during
the rest of his life. The servants, one
and all, entreated, conjured me not to
touch him ; and I believe they resolved
never to set foot in that kitchen again.
At this period of affairs the cook's boy
having, I presume, peeped from his hid-
ing, beheld his new badjou thrown over
the face of the deceased. I had wished
to cover the face, and this cloth had fal-
len first to my hand. He uttered a yowl
which startled us all, and went into hys-
terical lamentations. It was no relief
that I took it off again. The article was
ruined, and must be burnt. But still
above all rose the pressing difficulty
about the dinner — for whatever hap-
pens, English people must dine. Finally,
I cancelled their oblijration on that point
by saying we would dine out, which
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 319
lieved them extremely, as they all re-
solved to rush out of the house directly
my back was turned, and leave Aapong
in solitary possession. One suggested
that he should immediately go and search
for the nearest relative, without whom
the funeral ceremonies could not com-
mence ; others begged off on various
pretexts. It was in vain I sent out to
hire Coolies to come and remove the
body to a more suitable position. The
news had flown like wildfire. They
scampered off in the opposite direction,
or declared they were engaged. A few
of the servants lingered out of respect
for my presence, much wondering what
spell bound me to stay near the dead
while they were being drawn irresistibly
in the opposite direction. This feeling
does not arise from fear of death or the
awe which this inscrutable phase of his-
tory inspires in us. The Chinese are al-
most indifferent to the phenomenon of
dissolution, and frequently compass their
own end when life becomes wearisome.
A wife sometimes elects to follow her
husband on the starlit road of death ;
and parents will destroy their offspring
in times of famine and great distress
rather than allow them to suffer. Still
more remarkable is the custom of selling
their lives in order that they may pur-
chase the superior advantage of obse-
quies, which are considered to insure the
body in safety for the future resurrec-^
tion.
A wealthy man condemned to deathi
will arrange with his gaoler to buy him a
substitute for a certain sum of money to
be spent upon the poor wretch's inter-
ment and preservation of his body.
Should he have parents, so much is
usually paid to them in compensation for
their son's life. Chinamen invariably
help to support their parents ; filial re-
spect and devotion is the great Chinese
virtue and religious precept, in which
they rarely fail. Regarding death as in-
evitable, he makes the best of a bad bar-
gain, and cunningly and comically gets
paid for dying. The wholesale destruc-
tion of life in this country is greatly the
result of indifference. Hence the mas-
sacre of Europeans, so terrible to us,
seems to them a matter of little moment,
and they cannot comprehend why we
should make such a fuss about it. They
regard our indignant protestation very
much as we might treat our irate
bour whose dog we had shot.
Well, well, be pacified ; if it was such.
neigh-
re- a favourite, I am sorry, but it is only a
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
98
dog, and there are plenty more. How
much do you want to be paid for it ? "
"You English think so much of a life,"
argues the Chinese ; " have you not
plenty of people at home ? " Nor do
they in the least estimate the devotion of
the Sisters of Charity, who go about
seeking to save souls by the preserva-
tion of infant life. If the child has been
born under an evil star as they think, and
is doomed to misery through bodily ail-
ment or stress of circumstances, they
think that the sooner death comes to their
relief the better. In cases of mere want
of food the Chinese woman will bring her
babe and lay it at the door of the Sisters'
hospital, as in any other country, know-
ing it will be taken in and cared for. The
wanton destruction of infants I believe to
be greatly exaggerated and misunder-
stood, and even where the destruction of
life has been an ascertained fact it would
appear to be less the effect of cruelty
than of the small account made of death
— failing to regard that event as a calam-
ity or the worst of misfortunes as we do.
I particularly noticed that Chinese wo-
men were as fond of their children as any
other mothers, and were remarkable for
their tenderness and patience as nurses.
In the lower classes it is quite common
to see a woman toiling with a baby tied
on to her back, and it is the regular cus-
tom to nurse the child very much longer
•than in Europe — two years or more;
but with their peculiar notions about
'death they prefer to lose the child rather
than see it suffer. Death in China is
awarded as the punishment for the most
-trivial offences, and frequently for none
at all, except being in somebody's way.
A story was told to me as a fact, that dur-
ing the visit of one of our royal princes a
theft was committed of a chain or watch
•belonging to the royal guest. The un-
fortunate attendant was caught with the
property upon him, and, without further
ceremony, his head was chopped off.
The mandarin in attendance immediately
announced the tidings to the prince as a
little delicate attention, showing how de-
voted he was in his service. To his as-
tonishment the Prince expressed his
great regret that the man's head had been
taken off. " Your Highness," cried the
obsequious mandarin, bowing to the
ground, "it shall be immediately put on
again ! " so little did he understand that
the regret was for the life taken, and not
the severed head.
In times of insurrection or famine the
mowing down of human life is like corn-
stalks at harvest time, appalling to Euro-
pean ideas. I must confess to a nervous
shuddering when I stood upon the exe-
cution ground at Canton — a narrow lane
or potter's field — where so many hun-
dreds had been butchered per die?n dur-
ing weeks together, the executioner re-
quiring the aid of two smiths to sharpen
his swords, for many of the wretched
victims were not allowed to be destroyed
at one fell swoop, but sentenced to be
"hacked to pieces" by twenty to fifty
blows. I was informed by a European
who had travelled much and seen most of
the frightful side of life, that witnessing
Chinese executions was more than his
iron nerves could stand ; and in some of
the details which he was narrating I was
obliged to beg him to desist. And yet
he said there was nothing solemn about
it, and the spectators looked on amused.
It was the horrible and the grotesque
combined.
To return from this digression to our
own special dilemma. We reached home
just in time to see the servants who had to
be in attendance make a precipitous rush
in at the gate ; and subsequently, when I
signified my intention of retiring to rest,
they accomplished quite as hasty an exit,
so that I knew that I was alone in the
place with poor Aapong. As I passed up
to my room I looked out at the open ve-
randah ; the moon was shining brightly, as
a Chinese moon seems to feel it incum-
bent upon her to shine, for she is regu-
larly feted and made much of ; but now
her beams fell full upon the cook-house,
which is always divided from the main
building by a square or yard, and in that
detachment all tiie domestics have their
rooms. But not a living individual was
within. The silvery light fell on the livid,
quaint face of Aapong, still bearing the
inquirendo expression of "How much
missessee give for the game "i " I could
not turn my gaze away from its anxious
questioning, and I felt that sleep was out
of the possible until dawn, when the ser-
vants would come stealing in. The fol-
lowing day a sufficiently near relative ap-
peared, a coffin was brought, and our ex-
cook, duly inducted into all the wearables
he possessed, including six badjous and
unmentionables, was placed, or I should
say, crammed therein. All his valuables
and property were put along wiih him,
but his purse being considered too scanty,
a number of paper coins, made to repre-
sent real ones, an innocent forgery upon
the next world, were added, so as to make
a handsome display of wealth, just as a
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
99
lady supplements her real diamonds with
paste. Chinese pickled ducks, a livinoj
white cock, tea, and samshoo were taken
out to the grave. A number of howlers
and wailers were brought in, but in con-
sideration for my feelings they con-
strained their lamentations and praise of
Aapong to a sotto voce until they got to
somf*. distance. Our last difficulty arose
as to the manner of getting defunct out
of the house, as it is considered most in-
auspicious to bring a corpse through a
doorway, and when a person dies in a
house it is usual to erect a scaffolding
outside the window, from whence the
coffin slides down. Unfortunately, all
the windows of the servants' quarters were
upon the yard, from whence there was no
exit except through the house. We nat-
urally objected to allow the drawing-room
windows to be made the medium of
transit of Aapong into the regions of bliss,
therefore with an infinity of precautions
he was carried out vid the door. We had
much difficulty in procuring a new cook
to occupy his place, and then only by sac-
rificing the kitchen and turning it into a
lumber room. No great matter, for the
Chinese cook over a few embers in small
earthenware pots, each dish having a little
fire of its own. The cook sets up his ap-
paratus anywhere in a few minutes.
Even this compromise did not satisfy the
cook's boy, who laboured under the pain-
ful conviction that Aapong, having been
taken out by the door, would assuredly,
on some moonlight night, be seen re-en-
tering by it, and having just received his
wages he absconded, abandoning the de-
filed badjou, and was heard of no more.
Not less contrasting with ours are their
mortuary processions and mausoleums.-
The former, like all Chinese marches, are
a heterogeneous gathering of incongruous
objects. Ragged, semi-clad Coolies stag-
gering along without order or precision,
bearing the most singular burdens ; the
dead person with the white fowl fluttering
ahead, trays with baked meats, perhaps a
whole pig, and ducks, heaps of paper
money in baskets, clothes, shoes, both
real and made of paper, trays of cakes,
umbrellas, fans, &c. The friends, car-
ried in chairs, wrapped in white cloths,
only their eyes and nose appearing, look
like so many corpses going to their own
funerals ; and it would be too tedious to
enumerate the objects which do go to a
Chinese interment. The general effect
is comic rather than solemn, lively rather
than sad, disorderly rather than methodi-
cal. Their sepultures differ from ours in
form and size. Whilst, on the one hand,
our tombs, graves, monuments, &c., are
formed in angles, squares, and oblongs,
the Chinese last resting-places are built in
curves, semi-circles, horse-shoes. Whilst
we usually consider that eight feet by four
of earth is enough for any one when he is
dead, the Chinese needs a freehold of an
acre or two for his post-mortem habita-
tion, which is built into a series of round
yards, horse-shoe chambers, according to
his rank and wealth. *
A stranger finding himself outside
Canton walls, and following one of the
pathways, for there are no roads, as there
is nothing but Coolie traffic, would be
perfectly mystified as to the probable
use of the six or eight miles of build-
ings which he sees glittering white in
the sunshine on the side of the moun-
tain. They could scarcely be fortifica-
tions, for they are the wrong way about ;
neither could they be houses, for they
present the remarkable difference that
Chinese houses are all outside and no in-
side ; these are all inside and no outside,
being built on the slope of the hill. The
masonry is very solid, and a great deal of
marble is used, so that the general effect
is very curious. Whilst we are fond of
shrouding our graveyards with weeping
willow, cypress, and the crape-like ti-
lentia, and selecting damp, shady spots,
the Celestials are most fastidious in their
choice of a locale. It must be a bright
sunny site, where no shadow ever falls,
which rises up so as to catch the first
kiss of Aurora, and the breath of some
zephyr blowing from a certain quarter.
They have a regular professional tester,
diviner, or seer, whose business it is to
search out these specially favoured spots
for a dead Chinaman's abode. When any
great mandarin is to be the occupant,
months frequently elapse before a suf-
ficiently salubrious position can be fixed
upon. We often used to meet these
species of wizards wandering over the
hills, or standing stock-still until some
inspiration visited them, or probing the
earth with a wand like mineral-seekers
for ore. One of the most striking and
interesting parts of this lugubrious sub-
ject-is the death cities inhabited by the
dead only. They are usually situated a
few miles from the living ones, and have
no parallel that I know of anywhere. I
shall essay to convey an idea of the one
outside of Canton, which I visited in
company of a friend thoroughly versed in
Chinese matters. We set out in cha'rs,
or rather oblong boxes with a seai 'i.
100
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
borne on the shoulders of two or four
Coolies who trip away with their burden
at a sort of trot. It was a. bright, beau-
tiful morning, the weather being just suf-
ficiently cool to be enjoyable. As I have
remarked, there are no roads around
Canton, and no need for any, as there are
neither carriages nor horses. Thus the
pathway is only made wide enough for
one foot-passenger. Chinese always walk
like Red Indians in single file. Some-
times this track is a mere ridge between
two paddi fields lying under water, some-
times skirting the side of the hill, or on
the border of one of the innumerable
streams of water which intersect Canton
like a tangle of silver braid ; but every
scrap of land is cultivated to its utmost
capacity. It is laid out principally in
kitchen-gardens, well kept, neat, and
flourishing. It has often been a subject
of speculation to me, when leaving Lon-
don by the Clapham Junction, who could
possibly eat all the cabbages which I
saw growing. I believe there are more
cabbages consumed in Canton than in
London ; for although the population is
probably about the same, I do not sup-
pose that every one in London habitually
and inevitably eats cabbage, whereas in
Canton I believe it is the rule without ex-
ception ; but even the cabbages are in
direct opposition to ours, they grow long
instead of round. It was quite a refresh-
ing sight, all these flourishing gardens,
with the patient, industrious labourers
weeding and watering — the latter in the
most primitive fashion. The waterman
carried two buckets slung on a pole
across his shoulders with wickerwork
tops, and by jerking himself first on one
foot, and then on the other, he contrived
to slop out the water pretty equally on
either side as he walked along. Strings
of Coolies, all with poles across their
shoulders, were carrying baskets laden
with green ginger, cabbages, onions, and
turnips, which persistently grow long in-
stead of round, spinage, and a great variety
of herbs and vegetables unknown in this
country. They all moved respectfully
into the ditch to allow us to pass, with a
polite salutation or the pleasant wish that
our grandmothers might live forever.
Traversing this smiling pasture for some
miles, we came in sight of a fortified
walled city with a moat around, over
which was a drawbridge. The yell by
which our Coolies announced our arrival
and desire to have the bridge lowered
and gate opened, sounded weird and hol-
low, and the echo from within sepulchral.
It startled a number of white cranes,
shrouded in the sombre foliage which
overhung the dank and dismal moat, and
who seemed to regard with amazement
the advent of two living creatures into
the city of the dead. The gate was
opened and a plank put down by a thing
as near a skeleton as I should think
could be found to perform such necessary
and useful labour. I have no experience
of living skeletons in England. I have
heard of persons said to be "only a bag
of bones;" but in China any one de-
sirous of studying anatomy might do so
with great facility, especially upon the
habitual opium-smokers. Our Coolies
declined to enter the gate, so we stepped
across the plank alone, and entered the
city of death. The skeleton guardian
vanished as soon as he had performed his
office, and we walked in.
It presented at first sight the appear-
ance of any other Chinese city, with the
exception of the dead silence, dearth of
movement, and a sort of atmosphere
which felt vapid and stagnant. There
were the same narrow streets paved with
the cobble-stones, the same quaint little
square houses with the elaborate screen
in the doorway instead of a door, the
little latticed Venetian window-frames
whence the Chinese woman satisfies her
curiosity as to what is going on in the
outer world. But here no eyes peeped
through, no figures glided in and out
from behind the screen, no pattering feet
of bearer Coolies smoothed the cobble-
stones, no cry of vendor of fruit and fish
broke the dull monotony. The streets
intersected each other and ran in crooked
zigzags, as most Chinese streets do.
Here and there were patches of garden
ground planted with cadaverous sapless
flowers, looking as though they had been
struck with paralysis. A few dwarfed
shrubs stood languidly up, seeming as
though they could not put forth more
than one leaf in a century. There was
no hum of insects or flies, not even the
ubiquitous mosquito. Not so much as a
rat ran across the silent streets, which
we traversed for some time, experiencing
with terrible acuteness the irksome jar of
our own footfall. My companion sug-
gested that we should enter one of the
houses, we therefore stepped behind the
screen and found ourselves in an ordinary
Chinese parlour or receiving room, fur-
nished with the usual black ebony chairs
and teapoys, with the quaint gaudy pic-
tures lacking perspective, which one
might fancy are hung in sheer perversity
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
lOI
perpendicularly instead of horizontally,
commencing at the ceiling and extending
to the floor in a narrow strip, the figures
appearing on various stages as upon a
ladder. At one end of the room was the
altar, which adorns the principal apart-
ment of every Chinese house, sustaining
some ferocious-looking joss, which repre-
sents either saint or demigod. On either
side were brass urns containing smoul-
dering incense, and in the front cups of
tea and samshoo. I do not know if the
tea was hot. I did not taste it, for if it is
ill to step in dead men's shoes, it must
be worse to drink dead men's tea ! In
the centre of the room was a bulky arti-
cle which looked like an ottoman or
divan covered with a quilted silk counter-
pane or mastoyd, such as is used on Chi-
nese beds, and it might have passed for
one of those most uncomfortable arti-
cles of furniture. But it was hollow,
and within it lay the inhabitant of the
dwelling, sleeping his last long sleep ;
never more to rise ; never more to sip
his tea or samshoo, though it waited
there prepared for him ; never to sit
on his ebony chairs ; never to light
any more joss-stick to his ancestors, but
have them lit for him by his posterity.
Tiiere were other chambers in the house
similarly furnished, except that the mas-
t03-d was thrown back, and displayed an
empty coffin, which lay ready lined with
sandal-wood, its owner not being yet
dead. The verandah was furnished with
the usual green porcelain seats and vases
in which seemed to stagnate the blood-
less flowers. We stole softly out into
the street, chilled, and painfully yet not
mournfully impressed. We went into tlie
next door ; that house was " To Let Un-
furnished." A third was rich in gilding
and vermilion, and mirrors reflected and
glittered through the rooms. The ebony
and ivory furniture was most beautifully
carved. The tea and samshoo cup were
of exquisite egg-shell china ; objets de
vertu lay about on the altar emblazoned
with real jewels. The bed was covered
with a magnificent crimson velvet quilt,
richly embroidered in gold and seed
pearls, with a deep bullion fringe worth
its weight in gold. Under the quilt lay a
high mandarin, who had amassed an
enormous fortune by the very simple
process of chopping off the heads of all
such as he discovered to be possessed of
money. His method was simplicity in it-
self. He would first seek a small quar- 1
rel, cast the owner of the wealth into
prison, take possession of the property |
in the name of the crown pendente lite.
After wasting in prison for a year or so
the prisoner would be adjudged to lose
half his property. He would probably
resist, for a Chinese hates to have his
money taken from him above all things.
You may beat him, starve him, punish
him in any way, but if you stop his wages
he goes into despair and howls to make
himself heard a mile off. Thus, refusing
to pay, the unfortunate moneyed man is
sent back to prison, and ere long is
found guilty enough to merit death ; his
property forfeited to the Imperial de-
scendant of the Sun, first, however, pass-
ing through the sticky fingers of the
mandarin. The one who lay stretched
before us under the crimson and gold
mastoyd was said to have been quite an
adept in this nefarious system of plun-
dering his victims by compassing their
death — literally " bleeding them." Who
knows but perhaps we have got this pain-
ful expression from the Chinese .''
I was informed that he had immense
wealth with him in his coffin, and was
adorned with all his jewels and costly
mandarin dress. The coffin or state-bed
on which he lay had cost one thousand
pounds. The outer one was of ebony,
beautifully inlaid with gold, silver, ivory,
and mother-of-pearl. The inner one was
of the famous ironwood, from Borneo or
Burmah, considered more invulnerable
than metal, as it neither rusts nor decays,
and defies the white ant. Within that
there was a sandal-wood shell lined with
velvet, the body being highly spiced to
preserve it. The furniture of the house
might well exceed a thousand pounds.
The altar-cloth and hangings were of rich
embroidered silk with a profusion of gold
fringe, and the lattice filigree which the
Chinese are so fond of introducing every-
where, was gilt and vermilion. The floor
was inlaid marble. Such was the gor-
geous house the Mandarin Shang Yung
had raised for himself on the bones of
his victims to live in when he was dead,
if I may be excused the bull. There is a
very common reflection made in England
as regards misers amassing wealth. " Ah,
well, he cannot take it with him." Not
so in China, for he does take it with him,
at least part of the way, and is more par-
ticular about his entourage when dead
than when living ; whether they have
some notion of remunerating old Charon
to supply a better craft, or to bribe the
officials of purgatory ; for the Chinese
believe fully in that expiatory region, and,
no doubt, shrewdly guess that the author-
I02
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
ities there might be susceptible to filthy
lucre, as they have found them to be in
China Proper. Also, according to the
thrifty view they take of most things,
they might consider that it was safer to
buy themselves out of purgatory than to
leave the money with priests or relatives
for that purpose, as some Christians have
thought meet to do. For instance, Fer-
dinand and Isabella, having, it might be
assumed, a deep-rooted conviction of
their own wickedness, left a large fortune
to endow a chapel, where mass was to be
said every day d perpetuiU for the ben-
fit of their souls in purgatory. But the
Chinese are curiously prosaic and mat-
ter-of-fact in all their dealings, and in
none more so than their arrangements as
to their future state.
Recurring to the death city, my readers
must not suppose that it was a Lirge
cemetery like that of New Orleans, built
above ground, where the dead are placed
in monuments erected for the purpose,
and for the reason that the Mississippi is
constantly overflowing and would wash
any underground grave away. This cem-
etery also presents a curious ensemble of
miniature villas and tiny churches, for
many families have mass said in their
mausoleums once a year upon All Souls'
festival, the corpses ranged around on
shelves forming the congregation. Some
of the monuments are several storeys
high ; all detached, with beautiful gar-
dens around them. This is really a cem-
eter3% a graveyard above ground ; whereas
the Chinese death city is nothing of the
kind. The dead are not interred, and
never intended to be. They are merely
lodgers pro tem.^ in a sort of luxurious
morgue, until their own final resting-place
shall have been decided upon by the
professional diviner, or that it shall be
convenient to move them to their own
homes and ancestral funeral pyres. The
grand Chinese idea is that the whole
family should be gathered together in
death for generations and generations ;
and they carry it out practically further
than any other people. Though, strange
to say, the Americans — the newest na-
tion — have actually adopted this old-
world idea, and though of course they
have no remote ancestors to lie beside,
yet they object to be buried in the place
where they die. Being a strangely gre-
garious people when alive, they seem
^ven indisposed to rest when dead, and
the travelling about of corpses is a
unique feature in the manners and cus-
toms of the United States.
The death city near Canton was said to
contain several thousand inhabitants.
The houses were rented by the year or
month. There were some very old inhab-
itants, judging from the dilapidated ap-
pearance of the furniture and drapery.
In one house there was a large family,
one coffin in each room, and the father
and mother in the grand chamber.
They were all waiting to go to Pekin,
their native city, waiting until the then
head of the family, holding a government
appointment, should be recalled. Wan-
dering about in this oddly dreary place,
which was neither mirth nor woe, the
painful stillness and the heavy atmos-
phere being the only elements which in-
spired awe, my nerves, nevertheless, re-
ceived a sudden shock, when, just as I
was examining the decorations of an ap-
parently new visitor, speaking in whis-
pers and raising the mastoyd, a shrill
shriek made me start, drop the mastoyd,
and clutch my companion by the arm, and
for a minute I could scarcely control my
fright. He laughed, for it was only the
crowing of a cock ; but I declare St.
Peter was never more startled. Thus,
when the nerves, like an instrument, are
tuned to a certain pitch, a sudden con-
trast creates a jar and breaks the string.
I had become so in unison with silence
that even a rooster had the power to ter-
rify me. But this was a proof that the
corpse was a fresh one, as the white
cock, without a coloured feather, which
accompanies the coffin is usu :lly left
there when the body merelv goes into
lodgings. If really interred, I believe he
is killed and eaten. In another portion
of the city we saw several of them, though
I think they were past crowing. Some
of the interior walls of the houses were
decorated with portraits supposed to rep-
resent the defunct ; on the toilet tables
were the brass basins used for ablutions ;
and in one, where there was a portrait of
a lady, who must have been a Chinese
beauty, there was a large pot ot red
paint and another of white, which the
Chinese use unsparin'j:ly ; by the siJe of
that lay her jade comb, and silver pins,
and the gum which is used to stilTen the
hair. Something in this amalgamation
of life in death recalled to me a similar
day spent in the dead cities of Hjrcula-
neum and Pompeii, where tlie ladies'
toilet stood just as she had left it centu-
ries ago ; the bread seemed still biking
in the ovens; and although the bj.iies
had been removed as soon as found to
the museum, yet the evidence of their
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS IN CHINA.
103
presence seemed so fresh that they
might have left but yesterday.
We quitted the city, nothing loth. We
seemed to breathe more freely when fairly
outside the pent air of the death city. The
skeleton was hovering about the entrance
gate, with a view to coppers, for if he
could not eat he certainly required to
smoke opium, which was in truth the se-
cret of his extreme leanness ; and surely
he might be excused if, whilst his living
bones were doomed to remain in this
dreary sepulchre, he should endeavour
to transport his spirit into blissful dream-
land by means of the opium pipe. Again
we startled the lonely heron steadfastly
regarding the dark green moat, no doubt
in solemn contemplation of some knotty
problem of heron life. We backed our-
selves between the poles into our boxes,
like horses into the shafts of a cart, were
hoisted on to the shoulders of our
Coolies, and departed.
We did not return the same way we
had come, through the flower-beds and
gardens, but, making a detour, we re-
solved to take all the horrors on the
same day and visit the grave-ground of
the rebels. This is a piece of dreary
waste land, without boundary or any sign
which the imagination could dwell upon
to suggest the land of horror which it
really is. For the very earth has been
saturated with human gore, the very soil
is composed of human flesh, and the
rucks and heaps that look so arid and un-
sightly are mounds of human bones. It
was here that the bleeding bodies of the
rebels, butchered upon the execution-
ground before alluded to, were carried to
be buried. Finally, the ground became
so full that there was no earth left to
cover them ; yet they were still cast
down in heaps for the vultures to serve
as undertakers to, at least as regarded
the flesh. Rebellion being the greatest
crime a Chinese can commit, it is pun-
nished in the severest manner, not only
in this worldy as they think, but in the
next, by not allowing him a proper burial.
Cutting off the head on earth is a trivial
mishap in comparison with depriving
him of it in purgatory. In a representa-
tion of that mythical Botany Bay, I ob-
served a number of headless figures.
They had been decapitated, and a bound-
less gulf placed between their capital and
their trunk. They had been waiting in
Limbo for centuries to recover this essen-
tial part of a man. Thus these poor
rebels, having revolted against the su-
preme head and regal descendant of the
Sun, were to be punished for time and
eternity ; for there can be no resurrec-
tion of the body without its head. Di-
rectly the executioner had severed it
from the body, the latter was thrust into
a wooden box, slung over the Coolies'
shoulders, and carried to this field, a real
Haceldama, the blood dripping the whole
way, marking the path to the field of
blood. It may be fairly inferred that a
shell coffin was intended for each victim,
but the cupidity of the mandarin who
had charge to furnish them made one
box serve for a hundred or two victims,
until the wood became spongy with gore.
Moreover, the Coolies who were charged
to bury them, following the example of
their superiors, instead of going to the
trouble of digging graves, tossed the mu-
tilated bodies on to the bare earth like so
much offal, and ran off for another load.
In spite of the vultures and birds of prey
which came in flocks for twenty miles
round Canton, and hovered like a dark
cloud over the bloody graves of the
rebels, the putrefaction soon produced a
pestilence in the city itself, though sev-
eral miles distant. The fearful carnage
continued for weeks and the headsman's
sword laboured from dawn until sunset.
The prisoners were generally in a semi-
state of syncope. Having been taken as
rebels, whether guilty or no, they were
driven like cattle to the shambles. And
here again the covetousness of the man-
darins in charge would consider that, as
they had to die when their turn came, it
was useless to provide them with food,
and he might as well put the money in
his pocket. One hundred thousand are
said to have manured that horrible piece
of ground, so dry and arid, and for
months and months it was impossible for
the living to pass that way.
And yet, in spite of this atrocious pun-
ishment, the Chinese are the most tur-
bulent nation under the sun, at home or
abroad ; they plot to overthrow the rul-
ing power ; their secret societies are
universal ; and every few years they
must have an outbreak.
We returned home sad and weary with
this long day, spent under the shadow of
death on the dark side of humanity.
104
A ROSE IN JUNE.
From The Comhill Magazine.
a rose in june,
chapter xi.
(continued.)
The bustle of dinner was all over and
the house still again in the dreary after-
noon quiet, when Agatha, once more,
with many precautions, stole into the
room. " Are you awake ? " she said ; " I
hope your head is better. Mr. Incledon
is in the drawing-room, and mamma says,
please, if you are better will you go down,
for she is busy ; and you are to thank
him for the grapes and for the flowers.
What does Mr. Incledon want, coming so
often ? He was here only yesterday, and
sat for hours with mamma. Oh ! what a
ghost you look. Rose ! Shall I bring you
some tea ? "
" It is too early for tea. Never mind ;
my head is better."
"But you have had no dinner," said
practical Agatha ; " it is not much won-
der that you are pale."
Rose did not know what she answered,
or if she said anything. Her head
seemed to swim more than ever. Not
only was it all true about Mr, Incledon,
but she was going to talk to him to de-
cide her own fate finally one way or
other. What a good thing the drawing-
room was so dark in the afternoon that
he could not remark how woebegone she
looked, how miserable and pale !
He got up when she came in, and went
up to her eagerly, putting out his hands.
I suppose he took her appearance as a
proof that his suit was progressing well ;
and, indeed, he had come to-day with the
determination to see Rose, whatever
might happen. He took her hand into
both of his, and for one second pressed
it fervently and close. " It is very kind
of you to see me. How can I thank you
forgiving me this opportunity ? " he said.
" Oh, no ! not kind ; I wished it," said
Rose, breathlessly, withdrawing her hand
as hastily as he had taken it; and then,
fearing her strength, she sat down in the
nearest chair, and said, falteringly, "Mr.
Incledon, I wanted very much to speak
to you myself."
"And I, too," he said — her simplicity
and eagerness thus opened the way for
him and saved him all embarrassment —
" I, too, was most anxious to see you.
I did not venture to speak of this yester-
day, when I met you. I was afraid to
frighten and distress • you ; but I have
wished ever since that I had dared "
" Oh, please do not speak so ! " she
cried. In his presence Rose felt so
young and childish, it seemed impossi-
ble to believe in the extraordinary change
of positions which his words implied.
"But I must speak so. Miss Damerel,
I am very conscious of my deficiencies
by your side — of the disparity between
us in point of age and in many other
ways ; you, so fresh and untouched by
the world, I affected by it, as every man
is more or less ; but if you will commit
your happiness to my hands, don't think,
because I am not so young as you, that I
will watch over it less carefully — that it
will be less precious in my eyes."
" Ah ! I was not thinking of my hap-
piness," said Rose ; " I suppose I have
no more right to be happy than other
people — but oh! if you would let me
speak to you ! Mr. Incledon, oh ! why
should you want me } There are so
many girls better, more like you, that
would be glad. Oh! what is there in me ?
I am silly ; I am not well educated,
though you may think so. I am nut
clever enough to be a companion you
would care for. I think it is because you
don't know."
Mr. Incledon was so much taken by
surprise that he could do nothing but
laugh faintly at this strange address. " I
was not thinking either of education or
of wisdom, but of you — only you," he
said.
" But you know so little about me ;
you think I must be nice because of papa ;
but papa himself was never satisfied with
me. I have not read very much. I
know very little. I am not good for any-
where but home. Mr. Incledon, I am
sure you are deceived in me. This is
what I wanted to say. Mamma does not
see it in the same light ; but I feel sure
that you are deceived, and take me for
something very different from what I
am," said Rose, totally unconscious that
every word she said made Mr. Incledon
more and more sure that he had done the
very thing he ought to have done, and
that he was not deceived.
" Indeed, you mistake me altogether,"
he said. " It is not merely because you
are a piece of excellence — it is because
I love you, Rose."
" Love me ! Do you love me } " she
said, looking at him with wondering eyes ;
then drooping with a deep blush" under
his gaze — " but I — I do not love you."
" I did not expect it ; it would have
been too much to expect ; but if you will
let me love you, and show you how I love
you, dear ! " said Mr. Incledon, going up
A ROSE IN JUNE.
lOS
to her softly, with something of the ten-
derness of a father to a child, subduing
the eagerness of a lover. " I don't want
to frighten you ; I will not hurry nor
tease ; but some time you might learn to
love me."
" That is what mamma says," said Rose,
with a heavy sigh.
Now this was scarcely flattering to a
lover. Mr. Incledon felt for the moment
as if he had received a downright and
tolerably heavy blow ; but he was in
earnest, and prepared to meet with a re-
buff or two. "She says truly," he
answered, with much gravity. " Rose —
may I call you Rose ? — do not think I
will persecute or pain you; only do not
reject me hastily. What I have to say
for myself is very simple. I love you —
that is all ; and I will put up with all a
man may for the chance of winning you,
when you know me better, to love me in
return."
These were almost the same as those
Mrs. Damerel had employed ; but how
differently they sounded ! They had not
touched Rose's heart at all before ; but
they did now with a curious mixture of
agitation and terror, and almost pleasure.
She was sorry for him, more than she
could have thought possible, and some-
how felt more confidence in him, and
freedom to tell him what was in her heart.
"Do not answer me now, unless you
please," said Mr. Incledon. " If you
will give me the right to think your fam-
ily mine, I know I can be of use to them.
The boys would become my charge, and
there is much that has been lost which I
could make up had I the right to speak
to your mother as a son. It is absurd,
I know," he said, with a half smile ; " I am
about as old as she is ; but all these are
secondary questions. The main thing is
— you. ' Dear Rose, dear child, you
don't know what love is-: "
" Ah ! " the girl looked up at him sud-
denly, her countenance changing. " Mr.
Incledon, I have not said all to you that
I wanted to say. Oh, do not ask me any
more ! Tell mamma that you have given
it up ! or I must tell you something that
will break my heart."
" I will not give it up so long as there is
any hope," he said; "tell me — what is
it ? I will do nothing to break your
heart."
She made a pause. It was hard to say
it, and yet, perhaps, easier to him than it
would be to face her mother and make
this tremendous confession. She twist-
ed her poor little fingers together in her
bewilderment and misery, and fixed her
eyes upon them as if their interlacing
were the chief matter in hand. " Mr.
Incledon," she said, very low, " there
was some one else — oh, how can I say
it! — someone — whom I cared for
whom I can't help thinking about."
" Tell me," said Mr. Incledon, bravely
quenching in his own mind a not very
amiable sentiment ; for it seemed to him
that if he could but secure her confidence
all would be well. He took her hand
with caressing gentleness, and spoke low,
almost as low as she did. " Tell me, my
darling ; I am your friend, confide in me.
Who was it .? May I know ? "
" I cannot tell you who it was," said
Rose, with her eyes still cast down, " be-
cause he has never said anything to me
— perhaps he does not care for me ; but
this has happened : without his ever
asking me, or perhaps wishing it, I cared
for him. I know a girl should not do so,
and that is why I cannot — cannot!
But," said Rose, raising her head with
more confidence, though still reluctant to
meet his eye, " now that you know this
you will not think of me any more, Mr.
Incledon. I am so sorry if it makes you
at all unhappy ; but I am of very little
consequence ; you cannot be long un-
happy about me."
" Pardon me if I see it in quite a differ-
ent light," he said. " My mind is not at
all changed. This is but a fancy. Sure-
ly a man who loves you and says so,
should be of more weight than one of
whose feelings you know nothing."
" I know about my own," said Rose,
with a little sigh ; "and oh, don't think,
as mamma does, that I am selfish ! It is
not selfishness ; it is because I know, if
you saw into my heart, you would not ask
me. Oh, Mr. Incledon, I would die for
them all if I could ! but how could I say
one thing to you, and mean another?
How could I let you be deceived ?"
"Then, Rose, answer me truly; is
your consideration solely for me ? "
She gave him an alarmed, appealing
look, but did not reply.
" I am willing to run the risk," he said,
with a smile, " if all your fear is for me ;
and I think you might run the risk too.
The other is an imagination ; I am real,
very real," he added, " very constant,
very patient. So long as you do not re-
fuse me absolutely, I will wait and hope."
Poor Rose, all her little art was ex-
hausted. She dared not, with her mother's
words ringing in her ears, and with all
the consequences so clearly before her,
io6
A ROSE IN JUNE.
refuse him absolutely, as he said. She
had appealed to him to withdraw, and he
would not withdraw. She looked at him
as if he were the embodiment of Fate,
against which no man can strive.
" Mr. Incledon," she said, gravely and
calmly, " you would not marry any one
who did not love you ? "
" I will marry you. Rose, if you will
have me, whether you love me or not,"
he said ; " I will wait for the love, and
hope."
" Oh, be kind ! " she said, driven to
her wits' end. " You are free, you can
do what you please, and there are so
many girls in the world besides me.
And I cannot do what I please," she
added, low, with a piteous tone, looking at
him. Perhaps he did not hear these last
words. He turned from her with I know
not what mingling of love, and impa-
tience, and wounded pride, and walked
up and down the darkling room, making
an effort to command himself. She
thought she had moved him at last, and
sat with her hands clasped together ex-
pecting the words which would be de-
liverance to her. It was almost dark, and
the firelight glimmered through the low
room, and the dim green glimmer of the
twilight crossed its ruddy rays, not more
unlike than the two who thus stood so
strangely opposed to each other. At
last, Mr. Incledon returned to where
Rose sat in the shadow, touched by nei-
ther one illumination nor the other, and
eagerly watching him as he approached
her through the uncertain gleams of the
ruddy light.
"There is but one girl in the world for
me," he said, somewhat hoarsely. " I do
not pretend to judge for any one but my-
self. So long as you do not reject me, I
will hope."
And thus their interview closed. When
he had got over the disagreeable shock
of encountering that indifference on the
part of the woman he loves which is the
greatest blow that can be given to a
man's vanity, Mr. Incledon was not at all
downheiirted about the result. He went
away with half-a-dozen words to Mrs.
Damerel, begging her not to press his
suit. I*iu to let the matter take its course.
" All will go well if we are patient," he
said, with a composure which, perhaps,
surprised her ; for women are apt to pre-
fer the hot-headed in such points, and
Mrs. Damerel did not reflect that, having
waited so long, it was not so hard on the
middle-aged lover to wait a little longer.
But his forbearance at least was of im-
mediate service to Rose, who was al-
lowed time to recover herself after her
agitation, and had no more exciting ap-
peals addressed to her for some time.
But Mr. Incledon went and came, and a
soft, continued pressure, which no one
could take decided objection to, began to
make itself felt.
CHAPTER XII.
Mr. Incledon went and came ; he
did not accept his dismissal, nor, indeed,
had any dismissal been given to him. A
young lover, like Edward Wodehouse,
would have been at once crushed and
rendered furious by the appeal Rose had
made so ineffectually to the man of ex-
perience who knew what he was about.
If she was worth having at all, she was
worth a struggle ; and Mr. Incledon, in
the calm exercise of his judgment, knew
that at the last every good thing falls
into the arms of the patient man who
can wait. He had not much difficulty in
penetrating the thin veil which she had
cast over the "some one" for whom she
cared, but who, so far as she knew, did
not care for her. It could be but one
person, and the elder lover was glad be-
yond description to know that his rival
had not spoken, and that he was absent,
and likely to be absent. Edward Wode-
house being thus disposed of, there was
no one else in Mr. Incledon's way, and
with but a little patience he was sure to
win.
As for Rose, though she felt that her
appeal had been unsuccessful, she, too,
was less discouraged by it than she could
have heri>elf supposed. In the first place
she was let alone ; nothing was pressed
upon her ; she had time allowed her to
calm down, and with tiine everything was
possible. Some miracle would happen
to save her ; or, if not a miracle, some
ordinary turn of affairs would take the
shape of miracle, and answer the same
purpose. What is Providence, but a di-
vine agency to get us out of trouble, to
restore happiness, to make things pleas-
ant for us ? so, at least, one thinks when
one is young ; older, we begin to learn
that Providence has to watch over many
whose interests are counter to ours as
well as our own ; but at twenty, all that
is good and necessary in life seems al-
ways on our side, and there seems no
choice for Heaven but to clear the obsta-
cles out of our way. Something would
happen, and all would be well again ; and
Rose's benevolent fancy even exercised
itself in finding for "poor Mr. Incledon"
A ROSE IN JUNE.
107
some one who would suit him better than
herself. He was very wary, very judi-
cious, in his treatment of her. He ig-
nored that one scene when he had re-
fused to give up his proposal, and con-
ducted himself for some time as if he
had sincerely given up his proposal, and
was no more than the family friend, the
most kind and sympathizing of neigh-
bours. It was only by the slowest de-
grees that Rose found out that he had
given up nothing, that his constant visits
and constant attentions were so many
meshes of the net in which her simple feet
■ were being caught. For the first few weeks,
as I have said, she was relieved altogether
from everything that looked like perse-
cution. She heard of him, indeed, con-
stantly, but only in the pleasantest way.
Fresh flowers came, filling the dim old
rooms with brightness ; and the garden-
er from Whitton came to look after the
flowers and to suggest to Mrs. Damerel
improvements in her garden, and how to
turn the hall, which was large in propor-
tion to the house, into a kind of conser-
vatory ; and baskets of fruit came, over
which the children rejoiced ; and Mr. In-
cledon himself came, and talked to Mrs.
Damerel and played with them, and left
books, new books all fragrant from the
printing, of which he sometimes asked
Rose's opinion casually. None of all
these good things was for her, and yet
she had the unexpressed consciousness,
which was pleasant enough so long as no
one else remarked it and no recompense
was asked, that but for her those pleas-
ant additions to the family life would not
have been. Then it was extraordinary
how often he would meet them by acci-
dent in their walks, and how much
trouble he would take to adapt his con-
versation to theirs, finding out (but this
Rose did not discover till long after) all
her tastes and likings. I suppose that
having once made up his mind to take
so much trouble, the pursuit of this shy
creature, who would only betray what
was in her by intervals, who shut herself
up like the mimosa whenever she was
too boldly touched, but who opened se-
cretly with an almost childlike confidence
when her fears were lulled to rest, be-
came more interesting to Mr. Incledon
than a more ordinary wooing, with a
straightforward "yes" to his proposal at
the end of it, would have been. His van-
ity got many wounds both by Rose's un-
consciousness and by her shrinking ; but
he pursued his plan undaunted by either,
having made up his mind to win her and 1
no other ; and the more difficult the
fight was, the more triumphant would be
the success.
This state of affairs lasted for some
time ; indeed, everything went on quietly,
with no apparent break in the gentle
monotony of existence at the White
House, until the spring was so far ad-
vanced as to have pranked itself out in a
flood of primroses. It was something
quite insignificant and incidental which
for the first time reawakened Rose's
fears. He had looked at her with some-
thing in his eyes which betrayed him, or
some word had dropped from his lips
which startled her ; but the first direct
attack upon her peace of mind did not
come from Mr. Incledon. It came from
two ladies on the Green, one of whom at
least was very innocent of evil meaning.
Rose was walking with her mother on an
April afternoon, when they met Mrs.
Wodehouse and Mrs. Musgrove, like-
wise taking their afternoon walk. Mrs.
Musgrove was a very quiet person, who
interfered with nobody, yet who was
mixed up with everything that went on
on the Green, by right of being the most
sympathetic of souls, ready to hear
everybody's grievance and to help in
everybody's trouble. Mrs. Wodehouse
struck straight across the Green to meet
Mrs. Damerel and Rose, when she saw
them, so that it was by no ordinary
chance meeting, but an encounter sought
eagerly on one side at least, that this
revelation came. Mrs. Wodehouse was
full of her subject, vibrating with it to
the very flowers on her bonnet, which
thrilled and nodded against the blue dis-
tance like a soldier's plumes. She came
forward with a forced exuberance of cor-
diality, holding out both her hands.
" Now tell me ! " she said ; " may we
congratulate you ? Is the embargo re-
moved ? Quantities of people have as-
sured me that we need not hold our
tongues any longer, but that it is all
settled at last."
"What is all settled at last?" asked
Mrs. Damerel, with sudden stiffness and
coldness. " I beg your pardon, but I
really don't in the least know what you
mean."
" I said I was afraid you were too
hasty," said Mrs. Musgrove.
"Well, if one can't believe the evi-
dence of one's senses, what is one to be-
lieve ? " cried Mrs. Wodehouse. "It is
not kind, Rose, to keep all your old friends
so long in suspense. Of course, it is
very easy to see on which side the hesi-
io8
A ROSE IN JUNE.
tation is ; and I am sure I am very sorry
if I have been premature."
" You are more than premature," said
Mrs. Damerel, with a little laugh, and
an uneasy colour on her cheek, " for you
are speaking a language neither Rose nor
I understand. I hope, Mrs. Wodehouse,
you have good news from your son."
*' Oh, very good news indeed ! " said
the mother, whose indignation on her
son's behalf made the rose on her bonnet
quiver : and then there were a few further
interchanges of volleys in the shape of
questions and answers of the most civil
description, and the ladies shook hands
and parted. Rose had been struck dumb
altogether by the dialogue, in which,
trembling and speechless, she had taken
no part. When they had gone on for a
few 5^ards in silence, she broke down in
her effort at self-restraint.
" Mamma, what does she mean ?"
"Oh, Rose, do not drive me wild with
your folly ! " said Mrs. Damerel. " What
could she mean but one thing ? If you
think for one moment, you will have no
difficulty in understanding what she
means."
Rose woke up, as a sick man wakes
after a narcotic, feverish and trembling.
*' I thought," she said, slowly, her heart
beginning to throb, and her head to ache
in a moment — "I thought it was all
given up."
"How could you think anything so
foolish ? What symptom can you see of
its having been given up ? Has he
ceased coming? Has he ceased trying
to please you, ungrateful girl that you
are ? Indeed you go too far for ordinary
patience; for it cannot be stupidity —
you are not stupid," said Mrs. Damerel,
excitedly; "you have not even that ex-
cuse."
" Oh, mamma, do not be angry ! " said
poor Rose; "I thought — it seemed so
natural that, as he saw more of me he
would give it up. Why should he care
for me .'* I am not like him, nor fit to be
a great lady ; he must see that."
"This is f.ilse humility, and it is very
ill-timed," said Mrs. Damerel. " Strange
though it may seem, seeing more of you
does not make him give it up ; and if you
are too simple or too foolish to see how
much he is devoted to you, no one else is.
Mrs. Wodehouse had a spiteful meaning,
but she is not the first who has spoken
to me. All our friends on the Green be-
lieve, like her, that everything is settled
between you ; that it is only some hesi-
tation about — about our recent sorrow
which keeps it from being announced."
Rose turned upon her mother for the
first time with reproach in her eyes.
" You should have told me ! " she said,
with momentary passion ; " you ought to
have told me, — for how was I to know ? "
" Rose, I will not allow such ques-
tions ; you are not a fool nor a child.
Did you think Mr. Incledon came for me ?
or Agatha, perhaps ? He told you he
would not give you up. You were
warned what his object was — more than
warned. Was I to defeat my own wishes
by keeping you constantly on your
guard ? You knew what he wanted, and
you have encouraged him and accepted
his attentions."
" I — encouraged him ? "
"Whenever a girl permits, she en-
courages," said Mrs. Damerel, with orac-
ular solemnity. " In matters of this
kind. Rose, if you do not refuse at once,
you commit yourself, and sooner or later
you must accept."
"You never told me so before. Oh,
mamma ! how was I to know ? you never
said this to me before."
" There are things that one knows by
intuition," said Mrs. Damerel; "and.
Rose, you know what my opinion has
been all along. You have no right to
refuse. On the one side, there is every-
thing that heart can desire ; on the other,
nothing but a foolish, childish disinclina-
tion. I don't know if it goes so far as
disinclination ; you seem now to like
him well enough."
" Do you not know the difference ? "
said Rose, turning wistful eyes upon her
mother. " Oh, mamma, you who ought
to know so much better than I do ! I
/ike him very well — what does that
matter?"
"It matters everything;
first step to love. You can
son, absolutely no reason
him if you like him. Rose, oh, how iool-
ish this is, and what a small, what a very
small, place there seems to be in your
mind for the thought of duty ! You tell
us you are ready to die for us — which is
absurd — and yet you cannot make up
your mind to this ? "
" It is different," said Rose ; "oh, it is
different ! Mamma, listen a moment :
you are a great deal better than I am ;
you love us better than we love each
other ; you are never tired of doing
things for us ; whether you are well or
whether you are ill it does not matter ;
liking is the
have no rea-
for refusinsf
A ROSE IN JUNE.
109
you are always ready when the children
want you. I am not blind," said the girl,
with tears. " I know all you do and all
you put up with ; but, mamma, you who
are good, you who know how to deny
yourself, would j<7« do this ? "
" Rose ! "
"Would you do it .-*" cried Rose, ex-
cited and breathless, pursuing her advan-
tage.
Mrs. Damerel was not old, nor was
life quenched in her either by her years
or her sorrows. Her face flushed under
her heavy widow's veil, all over, with a
violent overwhelming blush like a girl's.
" Rose," she said, passionately, " how
dare you — how dare you put such a
question to your mother ? I do it ! —
either you are heartless altogether, or you
are mad, and don't know what you say."
" Forgive me, mamma ; but, oh, let me
speak ! There is nothing else so hard,
nothing so disagreeable, but you would
do it for us ; but you would not do this.
There is a difference, then ? you do not
deny it now ? "
" You use a cruel argument," said Mrs.
Damerel, the blush still warm upon her
matron cheek, "and it is not a true one.
I am your father's wife. I am your
mother and Bertie's, who are almost man
and woman. All my life would be re-
versed, all my relations confused, if I
were to make such a sacrifice ; besides, it
is impossible," she said, suddenly ; " I
did not think that a child of mine would
ever have so insulted me."
" I do not mean it for insult, mamma.
Oh, forgive me ! I want you only to see
the difference. It is not like anything
else. You would do anything else, and so
would I ; but, oh, not this ! You see it
yourself — not this, mamma."
" It is foolish to attempt to argue with
you," said Mrs. Damerel ; and she hur-
ried in, and upstairs to her room, leaving
Rose, not less excited, to follow. Rose
had scarcely calculated upon the prodi-
gious force of her own argument. She
was half frightened by it, and half
ashamed of having used it, yet to some
extent triumphant in her success. There
was quite a bank of flowers in the hall as
she passed through — flowers which she
stopped to look at and caress, with little
touches of fondness as flower-lovers use,
before she recollected that they were Mr.
Incledon's flowers. She took up a book
which was on the hall table, and hurried
on to avoid that contemplation, and then
she remembered that it was Mr. Incle-
don's book. She was just entering the
drawing-room as she did so, and threw
it down pettishly on a chair by the door ;
and, lo ! Mr. Incledon himself rose, a
tall shadow against the window, where he
had been waiting for the ladies' return.
" Mamma has gone upstairs ; I will
call her," said Rose, with confusion, turn-
ing away.
" Nay, never mind ; it is a pity to dis-
turb Mrs. Damerel, and it is long, very
long, since you have allowed me a chance
of talking to you."
" Indeed, we see each other very often,"
said Rose, falteringly.
" Yes, I see you in a crowd, protected
by the children, or with your mother, who
is my friend, but who cannot help me — I
wanted to ask about the book you threw
down so impatiently as you came in.
Don't you like it?" said Mr. Incledon,
with a smile.
What a relief it was ! She was so
grateful to him for not making love to
her that I almost think she would have
consented to marry him had he asked her
before he left that evening. But he was
very cautious and very wise, and, though
he had come with no other intention, he
was warned by the excitement in her
looks, and stopped the very words on her
lips, for which Rose, shortsighted, like
all mortals, was very thankful to him, not
knowing how much the distinct refusal,
which it was in her heart to give, would
have simplified all their affairs.
This, however, was at once the first and
last of Rose's successes. When she saw
traces of tears about her mother's eyes,
and how pale she was, her heart smote
her, and she made abject submission of
herself, and poured out her very soul in
excuses, so that Mrs. Damerel, though
vanquished for the moment, took higher
ground after it. The mother, indeed,
was so much shaken by the practical ap-
plication of her doctrines, that she felt
there was no longer time for the gradual
undermining which was Mr. Incledon's
policy. Mrs. Damerel did not know
what reply she could make if Rose re-
peated her novel and strenuous argu-
ment, and felt that now safety lay in as
rapid a conclusion of the matter as possi-
ble ; so that from this moment every day
saw the closing of the net over poor
Rose. The lover became more close in
his attendance, the mother more urgent
in her appeals ; but so cleverly did he
manage the matter that his society was
always a relief to the girl when hard
driven, and she gradually got to feel her-
self safer with him, which was a great
I lO
A ROSE IN JUNE.
deal in his favour. Everything, however,
went against Rose. The ladies on the
Green made gentle criticisms upon her,
and called her a sly little puss. Some
hoped she would not forget her humble
friends when she came into her kingdom ;
some asked her what she meant by drag-
ging her captive so long at her chariot
wheels ; and the captive himself, though
a miracle of goodness, would cast pa-
thetic looks at her, and make little
speeches full of meaning. Rose began
to feel herself like a creature at bay ;
wherever she turned she could see no
way of escape ; even sharp-eyed Agatha,
in the wisdom of fifteen, turned against
her.
" Why don't you marry Mr. Incledon,
and have done with it.?" said Agatha.
" I would if I were you. What a good
thing it would be for you ! and I suppose
he would be kind to the rest of us too.
Why, you would have your carriage, two
or three carriages, and a horse to ride,
and you might go abroad if you liked, or
do anything you liked. How I should
like to have quantities of money, and a
beautiful house, and everything in the
world I wanted ! I should not shilly-
shally like you."
"No one has everything in the world
they want," said Rose, solemnly, think-
ing also — if Mr. Incledon had been
" some one else " how much easier her
decision would have been.
"You seem to think they do," said
Agatha, " or you would not make such a
fuss about Mr. Incledon. Why, what do
you object to ? I suppose it's because he
is not young enough. I think he is a
very nice man, and very good-looking. I
only wish he had asked me."
" Agatha, you are too young to talk of
such things," said Rose, with the dignity
of her seniority.
" Then I wish my eldest sister was too
young to put them into my head," said
Agatha.
This conversation drove Rose from her
last place of safety, the schoolroom,
where hitherto she had been left in quiet.
A kind of despair seized her. She dared
not encounter her mother in the drawing-
room, where probably Mr, Incledon also
would appear towards the twilight. She
put on her hat and wandered out, her
heart full of a subdued anguish, poignant
yet not unsweet, for the sense of intense
suffering is in its way a kind of excite-
ment and painful enjoyment to the very
young. It was a spring afternoon, soft
and sweet, full of promise of the summer,
and Rose quite unused to walking or in-
deed doing anything else alone, found a
certain pleasure in the loneliness and si-
lence. How tranquillizing it was to be
alone ; to have no one near who would
say anything to disturb her ; nobody
with reproachful eyes ; nothing around
or about but the soft sky, the trees grow-
ing green, the grass which waved its thin
blades in the soft air ! It seemed to
Rose that she was out for a long time,
and that the silence refreshed her, and
made her strong for her fate whatever it
might be. Before she returned home
she went in at the old familiar gate of the
Rectory, and skirted the lawn by a by-
path she knew well, and stole down the
slope to the little platform under the old
May-tree. By this time it had begun to
get dark ; and as Rose looked across the
soft undulations of the half visible coun-
try, every line of which was dear and
well known to her, her eyes fell suddenly
upon a gleam of light from among the
trees. What friendly sprite had lighted
the lights so early in the parlour of the
cottage at Ankermead I cannot tell, but
they glimmered out from the brown clump
of trees and took Rose so by surprise
that her eyes filled with sudden moisture,
and her heart beat with a muffled throb-
bing in her ears. So well she recollected
the warm summer evening long ago (and
yet it was not a year ago), and every word
that was said. " Imagination will play
me many a prank before I forget this
night ! " Did he mean that ? had he for-
gotten it? or was he perhaps leaning over
the ship's side somewhere while the big
vessel rustled through the soft broad sea,
thinking of home, as he had said, seeing
the lights upon the coast, and dreaming
of his mother's lighted windows, and of
that dim, dreamy, hazy landscape, so soft
and far inland, with the cottage lamp
shining out from that brown clump of
trees ? The tears fell softly from Rose's
eyes through the evening dimness which
hid them almost from herself ; she was
very sad, heartbroken — and yet not so
miserable as she thought. She did not
know how long she sat there, looking at
the cottage lights through her tears.
The new Rector and his wife sat down to
dinner all unaware of the forlorn young
visitor who had stolen into the domain
which was now theirs, and Rose's mother
began to get sadly uneasy about her ab-
sence, with a chill dread lest she should
■ have pressed her too far and driven her
to some scheme of desperation. Mr. In-
cledon came out to look for her, and
A ROSE IN JUNE.
Ill
met her just outside the Rectory gate,
and was very kind to her, making her
take his arm and leading her gently home
without asking a question.
" She has been calling at the Rectory,
and I fear it was too much for her," he
said ; an explanation which made the
quick tears start to Mrs. Damerel's own
eyes, who kissed her daughter and sent
her upstairs without further question. I
almost think Mr. Incledon was clever
enough to guess the true state of affairs ;
but he told this fib with an admirable air
of believing it, and made Rose grateful to
the very bottom of her heart.
Gratitude is a fine sentiment to culti-
vate in such circumstances. It is a bet-
ter and safer beginning than that pity
which is said to be akin to love. Rose
struggled no more after this. She sur-
rendered quietly, made no further re-
sistance, and finally yielded a submis-
sive assent to what was asked of her.
She became " engaged " to Mr. Incledon,
and the engagement was formally an-
nounced, and all the Green joined in
with congratulations, except, indeed, Mrs.
Wodehouse, who called in a marked man-
ner just after the ladies had been seen to
go out, and left a huge card, which was
all her contribution to the felicitations of
the neighbourhood. There was scarcely
a lady in the parish except this one who
did not take the trouble to walk or drive
to the White House and kiss Rose and
congratulate her mother. " Such a very
excellent match — everything that a moth-
er could desire ! " they said. " But you
must get a little more colour in your
cheeks, my dear," said old Lady Denvil.
" This is not like the dear Rector's Rose
in June. It is more like a pale China
rose in November."
What could Rose do but cry at this
allusion ? It was kind of the old lady (who
was always kind) to give her this excel-
lent reason and excuse for the tears in
her eyes.
And then there came, with a strange,
hollow, far-off sound, proposals of dates
and days to be fixed, and talk about the
wedding dresses and the wedding tour.
She listened to it all with an inward shiver ;
but, fortunately for Rose, Mrs. Damerel
would hear of no wedding until after the
anniversary of her husband's death, which
had taken place in July. The Green dis-
cussed the subject largely, and most
people blamed her for standing on this
punclilio ; for society in general, with a
wise sense of the uncertainty of all hu-
nian affairs, has a prejudice against the
postponement of marriages which it
never believes in thoroughly till they
have taken place. They thought it
ridiculous in a woman of Mrs. Damerel's
sense, and one, too, who ought to know
how many slips there are between the cup
and the lip ; but Mr. Incledon did not
seem to object, and of course, everybody
said, no one else had a right to interfere.
All this took place in April, when the
Damerels had been but three months in
their new house. Even that little time
had proved bitterly to them manv of the
evils of their impoverished condition, for
already Mr. Hunsdon had begun to write
of the long time Bertie had been at
school, and the necessity there was that
he should exert himself ; and even
Reginald's godfather, who had always
been so good, showed signs of a disposi-
tion to launch his charge, too, on the
world, suggesting that perhaps it might
be better, as he had now no prospect of
anything but working for himself, that
he should leave Eton. Mrs. Damerel
kept these humiliations to herself, but it
was only natural that they should give
fire to her words in her arguments with
Rose ; and it could not be denied that
the family had spent more than their in-
come permitted in the first three months.
There had been the mourning, and the
removal, and so many other expenses, to
begin with. It is hard enough to strug-
gle with bills as Mrs. Damerel had done
in her husband's lifetime, when by means
of the wisest art and never-failing atten-
tion it was always possible to pay them
as they became urgent ; but when there
is no money at all, either present or in
prospect, what is a poor woman to do ?
They made her sick many a time when
she opened a drawer in her desk and
looked at them. Even with all she could
accept from Mr. Incledon (and that was
limited by pride and delicacy in many
ways), and with one less to provide for,
Mrs. Damerel would still have care suffi-
cient to make her cup run over. Rose's
good fortune did not take her burden
away.
Thus things went on through the early
summer. The thought of Rose's trous-
seau nearly broke her mothers heart. It
must be to some degree in consonance
with her future position, and it must not
come from Mr. Incledon ; and wliere was
it to come from ? Mrs. Damerel had be-
gun to writ': a letter to her brother, ap-
pealing, which it was a bitter thing to do,
for his help, one evening early in May.
She had written after all her children had
112
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
left her, when she was alone in the old-
fashioned house, where all the old walls
and the old stairs uttered strange creaks
and jars in the midnight stillness, and
the branches of the creepers tapped
ghostly taps against the window. Her
nerves were overstrained, and her heart
was sore, notwithstanding her success in
the one matter which she had struggled
for so earnestly ; and after writing half
her letter Mrs. Damerel had given it up,
with a strange feeling that something op-
posed the writing of it, some influence
which she could not define, which seemed
to stop her words, and made her incapa-
ble of framing a sentence. She gave it
up with almost a superstitious thrill of
feeling, and a nervous tremor which
she tried in vain to master; and, leaving
it half written in her blotting-book, stole
upstairs to bed in the silence, as glad to
get out of the echoing, creaking room as
if it had been haunted. Rose heard her >
come upstairs, and thought with a little
bitterness as she lay awake, her pillow
wet with the tears which she never shed
in the daylight, of her mother's triumph
over her, and how all this revolution was
her work. She heard something like a
sigh as her mother passed her door, and
wondered almost contemptuously what
she could have to sigh about, for Rose
felt all the other burdens in the world to
be as nothing in comparison with her
burden ; as, indeed, we all do.
Next morning, however, before Rose
was awake, Mrs. Damerel came into her
room in her dressing-gown, with her hair,
which was still so pretty, curling about
her shoulders, and her face lit up with a
wonderful pale illumination like a north-
ern sky.
" What is it ? " cried Rose, springing
up from her bed.
'" Rose," said Mrs. Damerel, gasping
for breath, " we are rich again ! No ! it
is impossible — but it is true ; here it is
in this letter — my uncle Ernest is dead,
and he has left us all his money. We are
richer than ever I was in all my life."
Rose got up, and ran and kissed her
mother, and cried, with a great cry that
rang all over the house, "Then I am
free 1 "
From Fraser's Magazine.
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
BY SHIRLEY.
I AM writing in Scotland, but you
would hardly believe, if you had come
here under cloud of night, that only a
few meadows lie between us and a great
city with its two hundred and fifty thou-
sand inhabitants. Such utter seclusion
as we enjoy within ear-shot of the roar of
a mighty multitude is impossible in any
other country. But Scotland has deep
ravines and wooded hollows and ivied
nooks where you may hide yourself quietly
out of the way at any moment, and listen to
the murmur of the burns and the spring
chorus of the woodland. It is no won-
der that such a land should abound in
botanists and bird-fanciers, that it should
turn out poets and poachers, and that
"game" should form a standard dish at
every general election. Mr. Gray's elab-
orate volume on T/ie Birds of the West
of Scotland x?, a very good text to this
sermon. Mr. Gray lives in Glasgow,
which, of all places in the world, is, at
first sight, the most unpromising that a
naturalist could select ; yet one half-
hour takes him away on the one hand to
the muirland, and on the other to the
sea; and in the course of eight-and-
forty hours he can rifle the nest of the
black guillemot which builds on Ailsa
Craig, of the stalwart red-grouse which
struts on Goatfell, and of the shy ptarmi-
gan which haunts the comb of the Cobler.
I wish we could manage to teach our
boys Natural History, that is the history
of the laws of God as seen in the in-
stinctive ways of beasts, and birds, and
fishes — as well as Unnatural History,
that is the history of the laws of the
devil, as seen in the destructive ways of
kings, and priests, and men in general.
Years ago Mr. Disraeli, with his usual
long-sighted temerity, advised us to in-
clude music and drawing in our national
schools for the people, and was of course
ridiculed by Liberal journalists for his
pains. Couldn't we have a class for
Natural History as well ? * The business
* Since the text was written I rejoice to see that the
idea has been taken up, with a somewhat different ob-
ject indeed, by the Scottish Society for the Prevention
of CrueUy to Animals, who have resolved to adopt
measures for the purpose of providing such classes in
our public schools. In supporting the resolution, that
altogether admirable man and divine, Dr. Hanna, is
reported to have said: " It has been the growing con-
viction of the most enlightened friends of education
that among the physical sciences natural histon.', in one
or other of its departments, is the one that should be
first introduced into the common teaching of the school.
Nowhere can materials' be found more fitted to interest
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
113
of a true legislator is to give the work-
ing-classes interests; and it is not an
exago;eration to say that at the present
time the average laboring man, apart
from his trade and the public-house, is
incapable of rationall}' occupying, or even
irrationally amusing himself for a single
day. If Mr. Gray, instead of this stately
volume, would prepare a cheap treatise
on what a Glasgow working-man with eyes
in his head may see within half-an-hour's
ride of Glasgow — wild birds, and eggs,
and insects, and flowers, and forest trees
— he would earn a debt of gratitude from
a community which is beginning to find
that no amount of Reform Bills, Ballot
Boxes, and similar painful contrivances,
can teach it the secret of content, far less
of happiness. It is wonderful what a
deal of unsuspected wild life still lurks
about this densely populated country of
ours, known only to gamekeepers, gipsy
tramps, and the like. The corn fields
and hedge rows, which during the day
appear silent and deserted, are populous
at night with strange shy creatures, whose
sharp ears and bright eyes are ever on
the watch, and who disappear with the
morning mists, their places being taken
at dawn by others, scarcely less strange,
and scarcely less shy, who in turn make
themselves more or less invisible before
we are out of bed.
I once knew a man who told me seri-
ously that he considered the country dull,
and there are numbers of people who
frankly admit that it is dull in winter. I
do not believe that these persons are
positively untruthful, they are simply ig-
norant. Though many of them live in
youth. How easy to turn such fine materials to the
moral purpose of impressing upon the tender heart of
childhood the duty and the benefit and the exceeding
happiness of a wise and tender treatment of animals,
and birds, and insects! Their varied instincts, their
wonderful organic endowmentSj their singular method
of operation, the place they fill m the great economy of
nature, the services they render, and the ties so strong
and tender by which so many of them are bound to us,
their lords and masters — these teem with what could
be turned at once to good account. And there is this
specially to correspond, their being so timed. The
great difficulty that every right-hearted teacher feels in
impressing moral truths or precepts is, that when de-
livered in a mere abstract form they take but a slight
hold — make but a slight impression on the spirit of
childhood. It is when embodied in some attractive
piece of information, or illustrated by some lively or
pathetic story, that they get easiest reliance and sink
deepest into the heart. But where could happier
blendings of the informational, the scientific, the moral,
and the emotional be effected than here, where an
almost exhaustless fund of fact and incident and anec-
dote lies close at hand and all around to draw upon! I
cannot doubt that out of this limitless store a lesson-
book for schools upon the proper treatment of the in-
ferior creation could be drawn that in interest for the
scholars, as well as in power over them for good, would
outrival every lesson-book that is now in use."
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 320
the country all their lives, they get up
a distant bowing acquaintance with Na-
ture, and that is all.
Red-ploughed lands
O'er which a crow flies heavy in the rain —
leafless trees, muddy footpaths, a leaden
sky, a drooping barometer — what can be
more cheerless and uninviting? This is
the vague, general, outside aspect of
things: but if you will only take the
trouble to look a little closer, you will be
absolutely astonished by the multiplicity
of interests. No wonder that old-fash-
ioned naturalists like ourselves should
find the winter day too short ! I live, as
I have said, within hail of the city, and
am only one-half a rustic : but even
amid my suburban trees and flowers I
can realize the passion of the chase, and
understand the absorption of the pur-
suit. The little family of beggars who
assemble each morning at the breakfast-
room window — chaffinches, blue and
black tits, robins, sparrows, blackbirds,
thrushes, wrens — are a study in them-
selves. To say nothing of the sparrows
and the blackbirds — both voracious, but
voracity assuming in each a distinctive
character ; in the one perky and impu-
dent, in the other irascible, vehement
and domineering — the blue tits alone
are worth many more crusts than they
consume. It is the drollest little creature,
a mere joke of a bird. There is one par-
ticular tit I know by headmark — he is
the very image of the little man who
stares solemnly at him through the win-
dow. Then there is a mystery about
them that I can never quite solve. The
thick woods and mossy banks round
about us are admirably adapted for nests,
and might coax even a restless nomad of
a cuckoo into building, but the tits leave
us regularly in spring, and do not show
face again till the November days are
darkening. What puts it into their heads
to leave us ? and what brings them back ?
They are not migratory birds, observe, —
there is no general emigration law which
applies to them ; is it immemorial custom
and venerable tradition only that sends
them to the shady coverts where they
hide themselves through the summer-
tide .'* Of course, the robin is never very
far away ; and if it were only for the
poet's dainty lines, —
Robin, Robin Red-breast, O Robin dear !
Robin sings so sweetly in the falling of the
year —
not to speak of innumerable other rhyrae&
114
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
and roundelays going far back into the
antiquity of childliood, Robin is one of
those familiar figures which even a scien-
tific society will not willingly let die.
When after breakfast we smoke a medi-
tative pipe among the leafless gooseberry
bushes, he accompanies us in our peram-
bulations, looking at us sagely from the
corner of his eye, and wagging his head
with the gravity of a Burleigh. Then
there are a pair of water ousels, who fish
in the burn below the window, and walk
about on the bottom as if they were crabs,
or divers searching for pearls or ship-
wrecked gold. They built their nest last
year in the mouth of the waste-water pipe
directly under the waterfall, and in this
somewhat moist neighbourhood contrived
to hatch an incredible number of eggs —
not less than ten or a dozen, if I recollect
aright. A long-legged, long-necked heron
used to stalk down the burnside in the
dim winter twilight : but as he has not
been seen very lately in his accustomed
haunts, I am afraid he must have fallen a
victim to one of our amateur naturalists.*
The gaunt watchfulness of the solitary
heron, as he stands up to his knees in
some unfrequented pool, might be re-
garded as an almost maliciously grotesque
travestie of certain unlovely human traits
— the wary greed and covetousness of
the forlorn misers that Rembrandt and
Gustave Dord have painted — were it not
for a certain dignity and simplicity of
carriage which the featherless bipeds do
not possess.
The fox, however, is the central figure
of our play. He cantered past the house
the other morning right under the win-
dows : and I must confess that the rascal
was in splendid condition, and looked
every inch a gentleman. His condition, no
doubt, was easily accounted for — he had
been making free with our poultry for the
previous fortnight, and a permanent panic
had been established in the hen-house.
No weak scruples would have prevented
us from executing justice upon the rob-
ber ; but he was as crafty as a weasel,
and as difficult to catch asleep ; and he
has finally left us, I believe, without leav-
ing even the tip of his brush behind hira.f
* He has reappeared — January 5, 1874. Since then
three vvaier-hens have come to us, a pair and an odd
one ; and curiously enough the odd one (a very odd
one) has abandoned the water, /and taken to consorting
with the poultry, roosting with them in the hen-house
at night ; an altogether unprecedented arrangement, I
should fancy.
t It is all over with our sleek friend now. A neigh-
bouring farmer sent word to the Master that he would
feel obliged if he would give his pack a cast across the
hillside, and poor Reynard (who had somehow lost his
When you have bagged your fox, and
otherwise exhausted the more feverish
excitements of rural life, I would advise
you to turn to wood-cutting. There is no
fire like a wood-fire, and the manufacture
of logs may be made vastly entertaining
to a man whose tastes have not been en-
tirely corrupted by luxury. We cut our
logs in an open glade in the glen, where
the rabbits peep out of their holes at us,
where the cushat rises with a startled
flutter from the wood, and the bushy-
tailed squirrel leaps from branch to
branch among the trees overhead. The
solemn winter stillness would become al-
most unbearable if we were not hard at
work. Behold how the goodly pile rises
under our hand ! How many " back-log
studies " does tfiat stack contain ? What
a cheerful glow they will shed as the win-
ter days draw in — what grotesque fan-
cies will grow among the embers, what
weird figures will flash upon the wall !
The snow-drift may rise round the doors ;
the frost may harden the ponds into
granite and fringe the waterfall with
icicles ; the wind may howl among the
chimneys, and tear away the branches as
a cannon ball tears away the limbs of a
man ; but the cheery blaze and crackle of
our gallant logs will lighten the gloom,
and drive away the blue devils which it
raises for many a day to come.
Though one is always more or less
sorry when winter retires, the interests
of the spring are so engrossing that there
is little leisure for pensive regrets. No
spring day passes without an excitement
of its own. That wonderful awakening
of the earth touches the imagination of
the dullest clown, and drives those of us
who are more excitable into strange ec-
stasies of happiness. After all, the sleep
has not been unto death ! The first
morning that I hear the cuckoo is upon
the whole the most memorable day of the
year to me. There are some scattered
plantations along the base of the Pent-
lands (above Dreghorn) where this hap-
piness has been more than once vouch-
safed to me, and I have come to regard
these tangled thickets with a sort of re-
ligious reverence as the very temple and
sanctuary of the spirit of the spring.
Then the spring flowers — violets, celan-
dine, cowslips, periwinkle, campion,
wood-sorrel, saxifrage, primrose, hya-
cinth, woodroof, anemone! — this vestal
band, this sweet and fair procession of
head that morning — having been up all night, per-
haps) was worried by the hounds in a gorse covert
before he had run a dozen yards.
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
"5
virginal flowers, is invested with a charm
of simplicity and sacredness which is
peculiar to the dawning year. And there
are other young creatures who now begin
to open their eyes and look abroad.
Tiny rabbits venture out of their burrows.
In that overhanging bush of ivy a pair of
young cushats have sat as solemn and
silent and motionless as sphinxes ever
since they were born. Ridiculous little
morsels of owls tumble out of their nests,
and blink woefully in the unfamiliar sun-
light, while their parents scream at them
dubiously from neighbouring branches.
The starling is a blackbird who lost his
tail on some remote Darwinian anniver-
sary ; and, as they have come down upon
us in great force this year, their stumpy
figures are to be seen, and their shrill
remonstrances are to be heard, on every
hand, to the detriment of the woodland
music, but to the multiplication of the
woodland gaiety.
Such are the notes that a naturalist
may make "within a mile o' Edinboro'
town " (as the old ballad says) : and they
are very pleasant in their way. But
every naturalist is instinctively a rover,
and ever and again the Bohemian spirit
takes possession of him, and carries him
off, like John the Baptist, to the wilder-
ness. Society may fancy that he has been
reclaimed from his savage ways ; he may
be made a husband, a father, a ruling
elder, a deacon, a bishop (and our bishop
is the most preternaturally respectable
man I ever beheld — in his broad-
brimmed beaver and grandmotherly
apron not a bit like John the Baptist) ;
but the gipsy nature is ineradicable, and
breaks out in spite of the straitest en-
vironment. Though the vie de Boheme
may be perilous and unproductive, it has
a gay, sportive, unmechanical charm of
its own which is terribly seductive.
There is all the difference in the world
between the sleek decorum of the domes-
tic pigeon and the joyful freedom of the
cushat ; and (according to the poet's
judgment at least) the difference is all in
favour of the latter.
The white domestic pigeon pairs secure ;
Nay, does mere duty by bestowing eggs
In authorized compartments, warm and safe,
Boarding about, and gilded spire above.
Hoisted on pole, to dogs' and cats' despair ;
But I have spied a veriest trap of twigs
On tree top, every straw a thievery.
Where the wild dove — despite the fowler's
snare.
The sportsman's shot, the urchin's stone —
crooned gay,
And solely gave her heart to what she hatched,
Nor minded a malignant world below.
The evil spirit asserts itself often at
the most unlikely moment. The merest
trifle may rouse the dormant caving. Till
the other day I had been grinding steadily
for months at my statutory work without
experiencing the least desire to run away.
For anything I cared there might not
have been moor, nor mere, nor grouse,
nor sea-trout in broad Scotland. But
one November evening, returning from
the city while the radiance of the winter
sunset still lingered in the west, I heard
the rapid beat of wings through the clear
frosty air overhead, and looking up saw
a wedge-like column of wild fowl bearing
down upon the Pentland mosses. It was
all over with me from that hour. Alex-
ander Smith's rather fanciful lines —
On midnights blue and cold,
Long strings of geese come clanging from the
stars —
came back upon me with something of
the old fascination ; and I knew that
there would be no rest for me thereafter
until I had stalked a cock-grouse upon
the stubbles, or sent a brace of cartridges
into a flock of pintails. So I yielded to
fate, and here I am in my own particular
corner of the wilderness.
A railway passes within a dozen miles ;
but hardly a passenger, I believe, ex-
cept myself, alights at the rotten plat-
form and rickety shed where the mail-
bags for Ury are deposited. It is quite
dark by the time the train arrives at the
wayside station ; and I have some diffi-
culty in discovering the musty old omni-
bus, with its lean and lanky white horse,
into which the station-master has already
bundled, along with her Majesty's mails,
my gun-case and portmanteau. We stag-
ger away at the rate of four miles an
hour, Jehu descending occasionally at
casual public-houses to " water his horse,''
as he informs me (he himself takes his
tipple undiluted), and to exchange a gruff
good night with the rustics, who still
lounge about the doors. The stars are
sparkling vigorously, and a faint tinge of
aurora suffuses the northern sky. The
thermometer being some ten degrees be-
low the freezing point, a continuous sup-
ply of tobacco is required to preserve the
circulation ; and I am not sorry when,
after rattling through the main street of
the old-fashioned village, I find myself
deposited, in a blaze of warm light, at my
landlady's hospitable door. '' The Mer-
maid " is much resorted to by anglers
ii6
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
during the season ; but rod-fishing
ceased a month ago, and there are no
guests except myself ; and I gladly agree
to the good-natured proposal that I
should sup In the kitchen along with the
mistress and her daughter, the kitchen
being the cosiest room in the house, and
Alice Ross (who is to be married in May)
the prettiest lass in all the country-side.
The next morning is Sunday ; the
frost is sharp as a diamond ; its filagree
work on the window-panes is wonderfully
perfect; as I look out the pictures begin
to fade, and I see the brown pier, and
the while sandhills, and the blue water
sparkling in a blaze of winter sunshine.
I like to arrive at Ury on a Saturday
night ; for one needs a day's rest to
steady the hand and to drive away the cob-
webs ; and Sandy and Donald and John
and the rest of thera are sure to be at
morning service, and after the sermon is
concluded the arrangements for the week
can be discussed and determined upon.
So it is decided that Sandy Steeven and
John Park will accompany me in my ex-
cursions after sea fowl, and that Donald
Cameron, Alice's smart young lover, will
drive me up to the moor, which marches
with his moorland farm, and help me to
circumvent some of the grouse, black
cock, and wild duck which are to be
found thereabouts in fair numbers for
what is truly a low country shooting.
Then I wander away for a solitary stroll
among the great sandhills through which
the river winds. Our village, you com-
prehend, stands, not on the sea-shore,
but upon the banks of a tidal river, which
rises and falls with the tide.
The salt sea water passes by,
And makes a silence in the hills,
and covers the whole intervening space
with what at high water might readily be
mistaken for a great fresh-water lake.
After a pleasant scramble, I reach the
top of the highest of the sandhills (a whole
village is underneath it, they say), from
which a noble view, landward and sea-
ward, is to be had, and seat myself
among the prickly grass. The Past re-
news its visionary life as I sit there in
the silence of the winter Sabbath. How
many years have come and gone since
we first shot rabbits among these bents ?
O, Posthumus, Posthumus, the fleeting
years slip noiselessly away, and carry
us along with them to oblivion. The
men I knew have undergone the earth,
have gone down to darkness, down even
unto Hades, and the dark dominion of
Pluto. If I ask about X or Y or Z, I get
the same monotonous reply ; yet, perched
on this coigne of vantage, I can see as
on a map the places where we shot and
fished and talked together, and it does
not somehow seem credible that they
are dead, and quite removed from me for-
ever. That is the spire of the church
where Dr. Goodman, who might have
been a bishop had he chosen, preached
his harmless old sermons for half a cen-
tury. The dear old man was not given
to millinery, either in his church or out
of it ; the pastoral simplicity of his dress
indeed, savouring more of the Puritan
Methodist than of the High Church
Doctor. Yet he looked the gentleman
through it all, and, better still, the kindly,
abstruse, big-hearted enthusiast that he
was. He was succeeded by Dean Gom-
merill, a foreign dandified ecclesiastic
with silver buckles in his shoes, and a
silk apron (I won't swear to the apron) ;
but the church does not flourish now as
it did in old Goodman's day. Dr. Good-
man was the lineal legitimate representa-
tive of the Episcopalian divines who had
suffered along with their flocks for what
they held to be the truth of God. Thus
he knew all the traditions of the country-
side. He was the local historian. His
rusty, thread-bare, black suit was to be
seen in the peasant's cottage and in the
peer's castle, and in both its owner was
equally at home and equally welcome.
He was too poor to keep a horse (they
gave him 50/. a year, I think, which for
his fifty years' service would amount alto-
gether to 2,500/. — his total money value
in this world), but he was a sturdy walker,
who could manage his ten miles before
breakfast ; and the stalwart figure of the
stout old man was familiar on every road
and by-road in the country. There is no
doubt that, in spite of poverty and hard
trials, his simple, homely, unostentatious,
innocent life was a happy one ; and when
it was over, and he had finished his own
and his Master's work, he fell asleep like
a little child. I don't believe that many
tears are shed by grown-up men ; but
when 1 think to-day of all the grotesque
goodness in my old friend's heart, I am
vastly more inclined, I confess, to weep
than to laugh.
Do you see that ring of yellow sand to
the south, which encloses the blue bay of
Ury ? I have good reason to remember
it, I can assure you. We went down to
bathe there one stormy autumn afternoon
— my friend Alexander and myself. He
was the prince of swimmers, and I was
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
117
fairly good. The waves were breaking
in long lines along the beach, while the
centre of the bay was white with driven
foam. It was not exactly the sea which
a great gale brings in, but it was a highly
respectable storm. A friendly fisherman
who was cutting rushes among the bents,
when he saw us begin to undress, dis-
suaded us from going in. But we were
wilful. We ran down the sloping beach
into the waves, and were off our legs in a
moment. It was great fun at first,
though the necessity of diving like ducks
into the waves that had burst before they
reached us, and which came rushing at us
like cavalry at the gallop, soon rendered
us breathless. We had no time to re-
cover before the next breaker was upon
us. And so it went on till we found our-
selves beside an old mast (it is still
standing, I can see) which had been
driven into a rock some thirty or forty
yards from the shore. The fishermen
moor their boats to it in calm weather.
We threw our arms round it, and tried to
steady ourselves against it. Then we
learned the truth. We were dragged
from it instantaneously as by a mighty
arm, but not towards the land. The back
run of the tide was taking us out to sea.
Then we turned our faces, and swam
with all the strength of desperation
towards the land. But we made no way
— we were powerless to return — the
waves broke over us, and choked and
blinded us as we struggled. I shall never
forget the helpless agony of that moment.
Still we struggled on, and at length, of a
sudden, we discovered that there was
after all a chance of escape. It was no
use trying to regain the shore by the line
we had come, but we found that the tide
was running to the north, and it seemed
just possible if our strength held out,
that by making a sort of side-long ad-
vance with the current, we might gain
the beach before we were carried past
the northern headland of the bay. Our
spirits revived, and after ten minutes of
steady, silent, intense exertion, our feet
touched the bottom, and we were safe
again on terra firma.
Mine old companion in many a pleas-
ant ramble, how fares it with thee on that
wider sea on which thou hast adven-
tured } Hast thou rejoined that bright
and pure intelligence whose loss we to-
gether deplored, or, in the dim and shore-
less immensity that stretches away into
remotest night, does no favouring gale
waft the wandering souls together.?
So the hours of the brief winter day
wore noiselessly away, and when I
reached the ferry on my way back the
tide had risen, and I was obliged to have
recourse to the ferryman — another
weather-beaten old friend — who paddled
me across. Duncan assured me that the
sea-trout fishing is not what it used to be.
It used to be very good certainly — one
was fairly certain of filling one's basket
with white salmon trout, running from
half a pound to four or five — comely
creatures in their gleaming silver armour,
racy with the raciness of the sea from
which they had newly come. It was
necessary to wade, as the river was wide,
and even at ebb-tide the choice spots
could not be otherwise reached. The
water in the bigger pools, before the tide
was fairly out, often reached our arm-
pits, and I recollect how on one occa-
sion, in very wantonness of enjoyment,
we all took to swimming — rod in hand
and baskets floating behind us. No won-
der that some of us who remain (•' the
gleanings of hostile spears ") have grown
rheumatic in old age, and that a twinge
in the back as I write reminds me that
youthful folly (if it was folly — perhaps
the neuralgia would have come all the
same) must be paid for sooner or later.
There is a noble fire burning in the
parlour when I return : the table-cloth
and napkins are snowy and aromatic ;
the fish is fried to a turn ; the pancake
might have been made by a French-
woman ; the whisky is " undeniable," as
they say hereabouts, meaning, I suppose,
'• not to be denied ; " the arm-chair is
wheeled close to the hearth-rug ; my
half-dozen books are piled on the table
beside me. Gray's book of birds,* the
* Mr. Gray's book is one that will take a permanent
place in the naturalist's library. There is in it a great
deal of thoroughly good work, both by himself and
others (especially by a Mr. Graham, on the birds of lona
and Mull) ; and besides its more strictly technical ex-
cellence, there is evidence of much loving observation
of nature, and delight in natural beauty : as, for in-
stance, in this description of the Grey-lag goose among
the Western Lochs:
" Nothing can be more desolate-looking than some of
the haunts of the Grey-lag in the Outer Hebrides. In
North Uist especially, where it breeds away from the
cultivated tracts on the west side of the island, the nests
are usually found on the most barren part of the moor,
out of sight and hearing of all that tells of civilized life.
In Benbecula and South Uist there is perhaps less of
that feeling of desolation to picture ; in one or two
spots, indeed, such as the neighbourhood of Nunton in
the one island, and Howmore and Grogary in the
other, the nursery scenes are comparatively bright and
fair; still the very cries of the birds as they cross the
path of the wearied traveller on the Hebridean high-
ways are so full of lament and discjuietude that when,
at the close of day especially, the disturbed groups rise
one after another in alarm from their dreary repose,
the blending of voices becomes, perhaps, one of the
most memorable sounds that the ornithologist can listen
to. ... I recollect some years ago experiencing a
ii8
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
laborious and faithful record of a life de-
voted to the pursuit ; that last and great-
est of the funny little volumes which are
occupied with the fortunes of Middle-
march ; Mrs. Oliphant's charming May j
and one of those extraordinary jumbles
of sense and nonsense, philosophy and
fiddling, Shakespeare and the musical
glasses, through which the fire of an in-
comparable imagination still burns with
virgin force :
The Idalian shape,
The undeposed, erectly Victrix still !
The stars were still shining next morn-
ing when I sallied out of the inn, and
found Cameron's White-chapel cart in
readiness at the door. We had a stiff
eight or ten miles to cover, and it was
necessary to start with the first glimpse
of dawn. The tide was out, and we were
able to cross at the ford. The spaces of
yellow sand and brown sea-weed and
tangle on either side of the channel were
populous with birds, whose wild cries
sounded with piercing shrillness through
the keen morning air. We could only
dimly discern them in the twilight as
they stalked about the sand, or wheeled
in troops along the bends of the river.
There were one or two great black-backed
gulls, a whole flock of herons, a few mag-
nificent shell-drakes, multitudes of sand-
pipers, curlew, and oyster-catchers — a
dish for a king. On leaving the river-
side the road lies through the bents, and
then again by the sea, near which it is
somewhat rough passage of three days and nights to
Lochmaddy, during which but little bodily rest could
be obtained, and finding on my arrival that in order to
save a delay of some hours I should be compelled, in-
stead of enjoying a night's sleep at the inn, to face the
darkness and travel twenty miles southwards. On the
road I found myself exposed to a succession of showers
of rain like split peas, which even at this distance of
time force the conviction upon me that the most
amiable temper could not long survive the full blast of
a Hebridean storm. * Does it always rain in this
furious fashion?' I asked of the guide who accom-
panied me. ' Oh no, sir,' he promptly answered, ' it
was warse yesterday.' On we travelled, and as we
neared the ford — three miles in breadth — which
separated the islands of North Uist and Benbecula, we
found a comparatively clear track indicated by stone
beacons, just becoming visible in the morning light.
About lialf-way across, where the sand was dry and
firm, we came upon a large flock of Grey-lags resting
themselves. There were altogether from eighty to a
hundred birds, and they took but little notice of us as
we wheeled round a rocky point in full view of the
assemblage. Wishing to know how near we could ap-
proach without exciting their suspicions, we diverged
from our course, and bore noiselessly down upon them,
the little Highland pony pricking his ears in wonder-
ment at the apparent obstruction of stones in the way ;
and when at last the gander in chief sounded his warn-
ing and rose, followed by the entire gang, we were near
enough to tempt me to take from my pocket a lump of
granite, which I had picked up as a cabinet specimen,
and hurl it into their midst."
carried for many miles. The rabbits
were scurrying about the sandhills ; but
there is always a great silence in these
great solitudes, which is never broken at
this season, save by the melancholy wail
of the curlew. It is a positive relief to
us when we once more reach the sea, on
whose gently rippled surface the first
beams of sunlight are just breaking. We
skirt two or three sleepy-looking, se-
cluded fishing villages, the ruins of an
old keep crowning a precipitous bluff,
and see far off on the opposite side of the
bay a long line of towers and turrets, —
the modern mansion which fills the place
of the grand old castle which was wrecked
by King Robert when he "harried" the
country of the Comyns. You will hardly
find a Comyn in this country now — such
of them as escaped dropped the famous
and fatal patronymic, and became ob-
scure Browns and Smiths (or whatever
was the commonest surname in those
days) to avoid recognition. That pretty
mansion house among the trees yonder
belongs to a pleasant, kindly, elderly
gentleman, whose charters take him and
his kin back, without a break in the de-
scent, to the days of the great king who
planted the first of them on this North-
ern seaboard. The long stretch of sand is
succeeded by a noble range of rocks, —
the breeding place of innumerable razor-
bills, and marrots, and sea-parrots, and
cormorants, and hawks, and hooded crows,
and ravens. I knew every foot of these
rocks once on a time, having scrambled
and sketched and shot among them ever
since I can remember. A grand school
in which to be bred ! How solemn is the
life of Nature in these her sanctuaries !
— only the dirge of the wave or the com-
plaint of the sea-mew disturbing the tre-
mendous solitariness. On the dizzy ledge
at the mouth of the Bloody Hole, a pair
of peregrines have built since (let us say)
the invasion of the Danes. The oldest
inhabitant, at least, can only affirm that
they were there when he was a boy, and
that they were as fiercely petulant, when
driven from their nest, then as now. So
likewise with these ancient ravens, who
have croaked at all intruders year after
year from that smooth inaccessible
pinnacle of granite, which has never
been scaled by mortal man or boy or
anything heavier than a bird. But we
must not linger by the way ; for the days
are short at this season, and we have a
long tramp before us.
I The farm-house where we stable our
'steed is built on the edge of the muir-
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
119
land, and may be looked upon as one of
the outposts of that agricultural army
which is gradually taking possession of
the wilderness. Donald's father was a
simple crofter, who sat rent free for many
years, on condition that he would devote
his spare hours to clearing away the
heather round his cottage, and bringing
the land into some sort of cultivation.
The oats were terribly scrubby at first,
and the turnips were hardly bigger than
indifferent potatoes. How these crofters,
living on the borders of agricultural civ-
ilization, contrived to keep body and soul
together on their patches of oats and
turnips, has often been to me a matter
for wonderment. Yet they struggle on
in an obstinate tenacious way — the bare
stony patches being gradually transformed
into rich fields and smiling pastures ; the
sons go out into the world, and grow into
lawyers, doctors, and merchants, Austra-
lian sheep farmers and Presbyterian
ministers — Robertson of Ellon, lor in-
stance, one of the most massive and ro-
bust intellectual forces in the Church of
Scotland in our time, coming, I think, of
such parentage ; and the old people stick
like limpets to the land which they have
reclaimed, and discourse largely of the
patriarchal times, when the heather came
down to the sea, and it was possible any
day to stalk a black cock on the very
spot where Keelboro' town-house stands.
Shouldering the game-bag, I leave
Donald to attend to certain farming oper-
ations which demand attention, and start
over gfound well known to myself.
Even here, close to the sea-shore, the
frost has lasted for some days, and the
open ditches are swarming with snipe
which have been driven down from the
interior. I bag one or two couple as they
rise at my feet — Oscar, who has a taste
for snipe unusual in a pointer, always
giving me fair warning of their proximity.
Then a covey or two of partridges make
off the moment I reach the bare stubble
where they are feeding, wild as hawks.
As I enter the moor, a couple of splen-
did old cocks, who have been sunning
themselves on the gravelly hill-side, give
me a chance, and I am lucky enough to
secure one. He won't need his wraps
any more, poor fellow! — but see how
provident he has been, how thick and
warm his socks are, and how he is furred
and feathered up to the eyes. The
whaups^ whose wail is heard from the
other side of the moss, are sure to keep
at a respectful distance ; yet we may,
perhaps, stalk one or two before the day
j is over. That is the teal-moss which lies
between us — a sure find for wild ducks
of various kinds. It is nasty walking —
only one or two slippery paths, known to
poachers and ourselves, running through
it. If you miss one or other of these nar-
row little "dykes," the chance is that
you find yourself up to the shoulders in
bog and water, with no very firm footing
even at that depth. You must make up
your mind to fire neither at snipe, nor
teal, nor grouse, although they should
rise under your nose, for, if you have pa-
tience, you are sure, among the warm
springs about the centre, to surprise a
flock of wild duck. On the present occa-
sion, I follow a well-known path, and, at
the very place where I look for them,
half a dozen noble birds rise out of the
bog, and a brace of glossy purple-brown
mallards are added to the contents of the
bag. Farther up I come upon some
pretty little teal that are sporting inno-
cently in a piece of open water ; then I
get a long cartridge shot at another old
cock grouse ; and finally, in the little
glen fringed with alder and birch that
runs from the moss up the hill-side, first
a woodcock, and then a black cock, are
knocked over upon the heather. The
black cock mounts higher and higher
after the shot is fired, until suddenly his
flight is arrested in mid-air, and he falls
like an arrow to the ground. What a
fall was there ! There is no worthier
bird in this world than an old black cock
early in December, and the ecstasy one
experiences over one's first black cock is
never forgotten. One forgets much in
this world — early friends, first love, the
Greek and Latin grammars, and many
other good things ; but the remembrance
of that moment of pure enjoyment never
quits us.
And now I have reached at last the
highest comb of the low ridge of main-
land hill (a notable landmark to sailors at
sea), beside the sparkling spring where,
in the old days, we invariably ate our
frugal lunch and smoked our meditative
pipe — a custom which this day shall be
religiously observed by Oscar and myself.
There is a wide bird's-eye view of blue
sea and white sail, and the long line of
coast indented with sunny bays. Yonder
to the right is Keelboro', a port renowned
for its fresh herrings and kippered
salmon ; the light veil of smoke along the
southern horizon hangs over Aberhaddy,
the grey capital of the northern counties.
Ai I ai 1 (After all that has been said
against it, "Alas ! " remains a convenient
I20
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
interjection.) How many a time have I
sat here with other companions than
Oscar ! Does Frank, I wonder, yet re-
member, as he listens to the long wash
of Australian seas, and breathes in con-
verse seasons, how we parted beside this
very stone (enormous boulder deposited
by the Deluge or other primeval force),
and how he repeated to me the words of
St. John {yajie Eyre had been newly pub-
lished), in which an austere patriot's pas-
sion for his fatherland finds memorable
utterance? "And I shall see it again,"
he said, aloud, "■ in dreams, when I sleep
by the Ganges ; and again, in a more re-
mote hour, when another slumber over-
comes me, on the shore of a darker
stream." But with even more tragic
directness is thine honest, kindly, saga-
cious face — trustiest of servants, and
steadiest of friends — revived by the asso-
ciations of the spot. In all my wander-
ings in this world I have never met a
man so finely simple, so utterly unselfish,
so unostentatious in the manifestation,
yet so constant in the fidelity of his
friendship. The old family servant is
now rarely met with ; the nervous anx-
iety to " move on " has affected those
who serve as well as those they serve,
and the old feudal relationship, with its
kindly pieties, has given place to the
fierce jealousies between employers and
employed, which are growing every day
more bitter and less capable of peaceful
appeasement. Charles came to us when
a boy, and left us only when death took
him away. During these thirty years he
had passed into our life and grown one
of ourselves. He had taught us lads to
ride, and shoot, and tell the truth ; he had
helped to send us away into the great
world that lay behind his peaceful hills ;
he had been the first to welcome us back
when we returned in triumph or defeat, as
the case might be ; and he was always
the same — homely, upright, ingenuous,
candid, incorruptible. When I think of
him now I involuntarily recall some an-
tique heroic model ; the petty tumults of
modern life, the complex passions of
modern civilization, had not affected the
large simplicity of his nature. There
was that lofty repose about this plain,
honest, homely, awkward, parish -bred
man which makes statues of the Apollo
and the Antinous inimitable. He was
one of nature's noblemen — one of the
men in whom she has secretly implanted
the fine instinct of good-breeding, and
which even culture does not always se-
cure. For it is an art beyond art —
The art itself is nature.
The winter sun had set before my last
shot was fired, and by the time I reached
my friend's farm the crescent moon was
up, and the stars were strewn thickly
across the blue-black vault. I have ever
prized that walk home through the win-
ter twilight. Shooting, as presently pur-
sued, is, it must be confessed, a some-
what barbarous sport, though to say
gravely that all who practise it are as vile
as the vilest of Roman emperors is a little
bit of an exaggeration. To assist at a
battue of pheasants is hardly so criminal
as to assist at a battue of Christians :
but, even when practised moderately and
wisely, the excitement of the chase is apt
to render one insensible for the time be-
ing to the finer influences of nature.
The walk home puts all this right. As
you stroll quietly back, you have leisure
to note whatever is going on around you,
at an hour well suited for observation.
Though it is too dark to shoot, the frosty
brightness of the air reflects itself upon the
heather. A hare starts from a furrow
over which you had walked in the morn-
ing. The partridges you had scattered
are calling to each other before they settle
to roost. A pack of grouse whirr past on
their way from the stubbles, and num-
berless ducks whistle overhead. In the
frosty stillness the faintest sound be-
comes distinct, so that you can l^ear the
voices of the fishermen among the cot-
tages at the foot of the rocks, and even
of sailors out at sea. And as in your
lonely walk you look up at those mighty
constellations which march across the
heaven, thoughts of a wider compass can-
not fail to visit you. Whither are they,
whither are we, bound } Who has sent
us out upon this unknown tract .? What
does it all mean ? Is it indeed true that
incalculable myriads of men similar to
ourselves have already passed out of
this life in which we find ourselves, and
that we are destined to follow them }
But the stars will not answer our be-
wildered "whithers" and "wherefores"
— their steely diamond-like glitter only
mocking our curiosity. To me at least
that sharp cold light discloses no sym-
pathy and discovers no comp ission ; and
the cheerful sights and sounds of this
eligible piece of solid land on which we
have been cast by Supreme Wisdom or
the native sweetness and gentleness, i Supreme Caprice are far more reassuring
which cannot be bought with money, and 1 than any amount of star-gazing. We may
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
121
trust ourselves — may we not ? — with
reasonable confidence to the power which
has taught children to laugh and prattle
and win their way to the flintiest hearts
among us ?
As next day was market day at Peel-
boro', Donald proposed that I should ac-
company him to that odoriferous burgh,
which was then — to add to its other at-
tractions — vehemently engaged in select-
ing a Member to represent it in the Par-
liament of the country. Good old Sir
Andrew, whose convivial qualities had
recommended him for half a century to
the continued confidence of the electors,
had gone over to a majority greater even
than that which supports Mr. Gladstone.*
Young Sir Andrew was in the field ; but
he was not to be allowed to walk the
course ; a middle-aged Radical Profess-
or, addicted to snuff and spectacles, had
come down from the Metropolis, and
gone to the front in really gallant style.
He was ready to introduce any number
of Bills into the House : a Bill to assist
the consumption of excisable liquors ; a
Bill to permit the tenant of land to break
any contract into which he might have
entered, if he found it convenient or prof-
itable to do so ; a Bill for the abolition
of the game laws and the extinction of
game ; a Bill to compel landlords to turn
sheep-runs into arable farms, and deer-
forests into parks for the people ; and so
on. These revolutionary propositions
had excited much enthusiasm in the com-
munity, and Duncan informed me that
his brother farmers had actually adopted
the Professor as an eminently eligible
candidate before it was accidentally dis-
covered that he had never heard of
" hypothec." The fall of an explosive
rocket could not have caused more panic
among his supporters than when, in an-
swer to Dirty Davie's familiar enquiry
(Dirty Davie was a local politician of
note), " Fat think ye of hypothec, man ? "
the candidate incautiously admitted that
he had no thoughts whatever. An effort
was made to silence Davie, who was ad-
vised to "go to bed," " to wash his face,"
and to undertake various other unusual
and unpalatable operations ; but Davie
stuck to his text, and by-and-by the meet-
ing came round to Davie's stand-point,
and then adjourned amid profound agita-
tion, as they do in France.
Donald was on his way to attend a
gathering of farmers which had been
specially convened to meet that morning
* This was written before the General Election.
in the Exchange at Peelboro'. Donald
in his heart was in favour of the young
Laird. A bit of a sportsman himself, he
had no notion of allowing grouse and par-
tridges to be cleared out of the country.
But the rest, he admitted, were mad as
March hares. Their was a good deal of
method in their madness, however. I
could not help being struck by the com-
plete and profound selfishness which ap-
peared to animate a class which had been
newly roused to the value of its politi-
cal privileges, — no imperial interest, no
conceptions of national duty, seeming to
have any place in the minds of electors,
who were ready to return any candidate,
whatever his politics might be, who would
promise to vote against hypothec and the
game laws. A somewhat portentous po-
litical phenomenon truly.
But on all that happened at Peelboro'
on that day and on many other days be-
fore the election came oft, this is not the
place to enlarge. Suffice it to say that
we witnessed some very lively scenes,
that we dined with my genial friend the
Provost, who had with characteristic im-
partiality presided at the meetings of both
candidates with the electors, and can-
didly admitted that a great deal could be
said for either ; and that on our way
home we arrived at the opinion that it
was unnecessary to encourage by artifi-
cial means the consumption of excisable
liquors in Peelboro' and its vicinity.
Donald was anxious that I should stay
another day with him. There was a hill-
loch haunted by wild geese and swans,
where a shot might be got of a moonlight
night ; but my fisher-friends had engaged
to meet me on the Thursday, and I had
undertaken to secure some skins of sea-
birds for old Tom Purdie, the taxidermist,
so I drove back to my comfortable quar-
ters at " The Mermaid," where I was
welcomed by my comely landlady and her
comelier daughter — ;/^ater pulchra, filia
pulchrior. John and Peter came up to
the inn in the course of the evening to
tell me that the boat was in readiness for
our expedition, and to get some charges
of powder and shot for Peter's old duck-
gun, a tremendously " hard-hitter," as I
once learned from painful experience.
It nearly knocked me down, and my
shoulder was blue for a month. But
Peter knows how to humour the monster,
and in his hands it has killed its bird at a
hundred yards.
I Peter and John are waiting for me at
j the pier, and we push off, and row lei-
I surely down the middle channel of the
122
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
stream. Nothing can rival the clear crisp
transparent charm of the atmosphere on
such a morning. The thermometer was
a great many degrees below the freezing
point during the night, and even now it
marks two or three degrees of frost. But
there is not the faintest breath of wind;
every twig, every blade of grass might
have been cut out of stone ; they are all as
statuesque as the inmates of the enchant-
ed palace before the prince came. That
speechless, motionless, spell-bound crea-
tion lighted up with such a flood of win-
ter sunshine, might become really " un-
canny " to us, were it not for the birds,
who, in spite of the cold, are as lively as
ever. As we drift down the stream we
hear the sparrows chirping boisterously
in the leafless hedges along the banks ;
and quietly as we move, immense flocks
of ducks are constantly rising ahead of
us, out of shot ; rising and circling over-
head, and making the upper air vocal
with their wings. Now we reach the bar
of the river, where even on this preter-
naturally calm morning there is a line of
white breakers, among which black sco-
ters are diving with a zest which makes
us (or at least one of us, for my fisher-
friends, though sea-bred and seafaring
people, curiously enough cannot swim)
jealous of their thick feathers and water-
proof coats, and we have to steer the
boat with some caution through the surf.
This noble bay, whose grand curve, like
a bent bow at its utmost tension, attracts
the admiration of the dullest, is the hunt-
ing ground for which we are bound.
The day is too still to enable us to do
much among the ducks ; the numerous
parties of mallards, widgeon, teal, and
long-tailed ducks, which are scattered
about in every direction, invariably ris-
ing before we are within shot. The
prime weather for duck-shootmg is the
weather when, with a good stiff frost,
such as we have to-day, a strong breeze
blows from the land, rippling the surface
of the water, and whitening the ridges of
the swell. Then running back and for-
ward along the coast, under a mere scrap
of brown sail, we fall upon the ducks un-
expectedly, and as they commonly rise
into the wind (that is, in the direction of
the boat, which of course has the wind
more or less behind it), there is leisure
for a deliberate shot ; and I have often
seen a great number of various kinds
killed on such a morning. But it is no
use to complain ; and for most of the
birds I want (and no sportsman will kill
birds that he does not want) this is as
good a day as any.
The birds that I am seeking for my
taxidermist friend belong to the noble
and ancient family of divers. The Great
Auk, I presume, has been finally hunted
out of this evil world. Nothing is left of
him except his skin, and of skins it ap-
pears that only about seventy in all have
been preserved. Mr. Gray's really pa-
thetic account (pathetic on account of its
anxious exactness) of all that remains to
us of the Great Auk, will be found in a
foot-note.* The extermination of the
Red Indian of the sea, as we may call
him, is certainly a curious fact, and one
that perhaps justifies the almost exces-
sive interest that has been felt in the for-
tunes and misfortunes of this ungainly
bird by naturalists and others. But the
Black-throated, the Great Northern, and
the Red-throated Divers are still com-
mon on our coasts, although their num-
bers of late years have shown a sensible
diminution. The loon is beyond ques-
tion a noble bird. There is a magnificent
energy and force of movement about him
which impress the imagination. He
moves through the water as the eagle
moves through the air. I never tried to
eat one, but I fancy he must be nearly
all muscle. There is not an ounce of
superfluous fat upon him. He is an
athlete who is always in training. His
speed under water is almost incredible.
He sinks quite leisurely as you approach
within shot ; a minute elapses, and then
he reappears at the other side of the bay,
having changed his course, moreover,
Germany 20
Denmark 2
France .... 7 (or 8 ?)
Holland 2
Italy 5
Norway i
Sweden 2
United Kingdom . . 22
Russia I
Switzerland .... 3
Belgium a
Portugal I
United States .... 3
Total.
71 (or 72?)
Total 9
SKELETONS.
Germany i | United States .
France i
Italy I
United Kingdom ..41
DETACHED BONES.
Denmark 10 (or i r ?) individuals
Norway 8 (or 10 ?) "
United Kingdom .... 13 . "
United States 7 "
Total 33 (or 41?)
EGGS.
United Kingdom
Switzerland . . . .
United States . . .
Germany 8
Belgium 2
Denmark i
France 7
Holland 2
Total
41
2
3
65
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
123
when out of sight, with the view of put-
ting you off the scent. This is true more
particularly of the Great Northern Diver ;
the Red-throated is a less powerful bird,
and is more easily circumvented.*
The bay of Ury is a favourite resort of
the loon ; but to-day it does not seem at
first as if we were to succeed in sighting
him. As we row leisurely along the
coast, I scan the whole breadth of the
bay with my glass. That is a brown
skua in the midst of a shrieking assem-
blage of gulls ; that is a cormorant hard
at work among the whiting ; that is a
black guillemot in its winter plumage ;
these are parties of the graceful North-
ern Hareld who are feeding greedily
upon the tiny bivalves at the bottom ; f
* Mr. Gray picturesquely describes the peculiar cry
of the Red-throated Diver : —"Among rustic people,
the ordinary note of the Red-throated Diver is said to
portend rain ; in some districts, indeed, the bird is
known by the name of ram goose. I have of tener than
once had an opportunity of hearing the birds calling at
nightfall in the Outer Hebrides. On the ist of August,
1870, I witnessed a curious scene at Lochmaddy, in the
island of North Uist, about nine o'clock in the evening.
The air was remarkably still and sultry, and frequent
peals of thunder in the distance were the only sounds
that for a time broke upon the irksome quiet that other-
wise prevailed. At length the thunder, on becorning
louder, seemed to waken up the divers on various
lochs within sight of where I stood, and first one pair,
then another, rose high into the air, and flew round in
circles, until there must have been twenty or thirty in
all. After a time, they settled in one of the salt creeks
about half a mile to the eastward, and then there arose
a wild and unearthly noise from the birds, which I can-
not describe. It is, in fact, a sound which no one can
ever forget after once hearing itj especially in these
Hebridean solitudes, where it acquires its full emphasis.
Next morning, about four o'clock, while bowling along
towards the Sound of Benbecula in the face of a rain-
cloud such as I wish never to see again, several of the
birds passed us overhead at a considerable height,
uttering the same cries, which might be likened to a
person in despair making a last shout for help when no
help is near."
t Mr. Graham (he must really be got to print his
Birds of Io7ta and Mull; it would be as great a success
as St. John's Wild Sports 0/ tlie Highlands) has a
delightful account of the Northern Hareld at page 389
of Mr. Gray's volume : "The Long-tailed Duck comes
to lona in the early part of November, when there ap-
pears a small flock or a dozen or so which takes up its
station off the northern coast of the island. These are
generally reinforced during the frosts and severe
weather of December and jfanuary by fresh arrivals
which are driven in from the se.i, and from their more
unsheltered haunts, till at last very great numbers are
assembled in the bay. Towards the end of March this
large flock begins to break up into pairs and small par-
ties ; many go away ; and when the weather keeps fine
they make long excursions, and for days the bay is quite
deserted. A change of weather, however, will still
bring them back, and a smart gale would assemble a
considerable flock of them, and this as late as the
second week in April ; but after this time you see them
no more. Thus we have them with us about four
months : they arrive with the first frown of winter, and
depart with the earliest blink of summer sun. The
Northern Hareld brings ice and snow and storms upon
its wings ; but as soon as winter, with his tempestuous
rage, rolls unwillingly back before the smile of advan-
cing spring to his Polar dominions, the bird follows in
his train ; for no creature revels more amidst the gloom
and rage and horrors of winter than the ice duck. The
cry o£ this bird is very remarkable, and has obtained
and that is — why, that is an Eider drake,
and one of the birds that Tom has spe-
cially commissioned me to secure. He
is floating calmly and majestically on the
surface ; there are one or two attendant
grey-brown Eider ducks beside him ; he
has come from the far North, where it is
high treason to molest him, and it goes
against the grain to shoot the great
handsome simple bird now, when he has
trusted himself to our hospitality. So I
hand him over to Peter, who has no
scruples on the subject, and who quickly
gets him on board. Just as we are ex-
amining his plumage (lying quietly on our
oars), a long shapely neck rises out of
the water beside the boat, and a grave,
steady eye is fixed enquiringly upon us.
Before the guns can be pointed at him, he
has disappeared as silently as he had risen,
and then John and Peter set themselves
to their oars, for they know that they
have work enough cut out for them. It
is the Great Northern Diver himself, and
it takes us well-nigh an hour before we
for it the Gaelic name of Lack Bhinn, or the musical
duck, which is most appj^opriate : for when the voices of
a number are heard in concert, rising and falling, borne
along upon the breeze between the rollings of tlie surf,
the effect is musical, wild, and startling. The united
cry of a large flock sounds very like bagpipes at a dis-
tance^ but the note of a single bird when heard very
near is certainly not so agreeable. On one occasion I
took great pains to learn the note, and the foUowinjg
words a>e the nearest approach that can be given of it
in writing : it articulates them very distinctly, though in
a musicaJ bugle-like tone : — * Our, o, u, ah I our, o,
u, ah /' Sometimes the note seems to break down in
the middle, and the bird gets no further than our, or
ower, which it runs over several times, but then, as
with an effort, the whole cry is completed loud and
clear, and repeated several times, as if in triumph. At
this time they were busily feeding, diving in very deep
water on a sand bottom, and calling to one another
when they rose to the surface. I never saw these
ducks come very near the shore ; perhaps this is partly
owing to the bay which they frequent having shores
which they could not approach easily, as "there is
usually a heavy surf breaking upon them. I have fre-
quently watched them at night, to see if they would
come into any of the creeks, but they never did ; on the
contrary, after dusk they would often leave the bay ;
the whole of them would fly off simultaneously in the
direction of the mainland of Mull, as if they were bound
for some well-known feeding ground. I have often
seen them actively feeding in the day-time, though
more generally they are floating about at rest or divert-
ing themselves. They are of a very lively and restless
disposition, continually rising on the winc', flying round
and round in circles, chasing one another, hurrying
along the surface, half-flying, half-swlramine, and ac-
companying all these gambols with their curTous cries.
When the storms are at their loudest, and the waves
running mountains high, then their glee seems to reach
its highest pitch, and they appear thoroughly to enjoy
the confusion. When watching them on one of these
occasions, I had to take shelter under a rock from a
dreadful blast, accompanied by very heavy snow, which
in a moment blotted out the whole landscape ; every-
thing was enveloped in a shroud of mist and driving
sleet ; but from the midst of the intense gloom there
arose the triumphant song of these wild creatures rising
above the uproar of the elements ; and when the mist
lifted, I beheld the whole flock careering about the bay
as il mad with delight."
124
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
again succeed in getting him within shot.
Later on, we are fortunate enough to se-
cure another Great Northern, besides
two or three of the Red-throated variety ;
and then we hoist our sail, and running
rapidly home before the evening breeze
which is rippling the water, reach the pier
from which we had started in the morn-
ing, just in time to see the stars come
out. Our bag is not a large one ; it
might indeed have been indefinitely in-
creased, had we chosen to slaughter use-
less, innocent birds, as I have known
Christian gentlemen do ; but a bag which
contains a Northern Diver and an Eider
drake will not be sneered at by any hon-
est naturalist.
The post-bag has arrived during my
absence, and the table is littered with the
accumulated letters and papers of the
past week. Having recovered from the
pleasant drowsiness which after a winter
day spent on the sea is apt to overtake
one at an early period of the evening, I
read my letters, glance at the newspapers,
and finally settle myself to the perusal of
a privately printed translation of the
recently discovered or recently recon-
structed Lap epic, Peivash Pa?-neh,
which the author has forwarded to me
through that unique institution of our
age — the book-post.* As a rule the
Sagas are rather dry reading ; but this
episode of the wooing and winning of
Kalla is as seductive as a romance.
Whether it is the merit of the story itself,
or of the peculiar metre which Mr.
Weatherly has adopted, or of the cir-
cumstances in which I am privileged to
read it, I do not exactly know ; but the
fascination of the narrative is undeniable.
The environment certainly may have
something to do with it. The book is
keen with the keenness of that Northern
Sea from which I have newly returned,
and which at this moment is lying in a
flood of moonlight outside the window.
It is all about the north wind, and the
aurora, and the long-haired Vikings, who
came down upon these shores in their
handy little craft, and helped to make us
the hardy sailors we have grown. It
belongs characteristically to the Mare
Te7iebrosiim, and yet it is reminiscent (if
there be such a word in the dictionary)
of earlier story — of stories that wander-
ing tribes had listened to as they sat
round the watch-fires they had kindled
on the shores of the Hellespont and the
* Peivash Parneh: the Sons of the Stin'God.
Translated by Frederick E. Weatherly, B.A., Author
of " Muriel, and other Poems," 1873.
i^gean. How the hero seeks his bride ;
how he finds her, like Niusicaa, at the
washing-tub ; how he woos her with soft
speeches and honeyed words ; how she,
till that moment fancy free, blushes and
falters, and will not bid him to leave her;
how the craft of love proves stronger
than the craft of age ; — all this we had
heard before, in language which none of
us, the busiest or the laziest, ever quite
forget. But somehow the narrative of the
old story-teller does not lose its charm
when transplanted to a more barren soil,
and translated into a harsher tongue.
Nay, it is brought even nearer to us when
we find that it has all happened over
again in that " North countrie " to which
we belong, and to that race which is akin
to our own. Have you time (ere I put
away my pen) to listen to some lines
from Mr. Weatherly's really admirable
version of the wooing of Kalla by the
Son of the Sun-god 1 This is how it
happened.
Peiwar, the Son of the Sun-god, while
following the reindeer and the white bear
to their haunts in the North, hears of
the land of Kalewala, and of the beauti-
ful maiden Kalla :
A tale is told of the maiden,
A saga is sung in his ears :
That far from the Waal-star, westward,
Apart from the sun's orb eastward,
There lies the glittering glimmer
Of sea-shores silverly shining ;
And peaks that gleam as with gold,
Cliffs that sparkle with copper,
Heavenward rising, their edges
» Twinkling with tin.
And friendly is Kalewa's fireside,
Fishful is Kalewa's sea-stream ;
Never, in vain, to the sea depth
Sinketh the netstone.
And bright in the mirror-like sea waves,
The lighted sea cliffs glow,
With the fiery flames of the sunlight.
With the coloured rain of the sun-rays,
Gleaming above and below;
— A second world in the waters,
A reflex of joy and of light ;
And the maiden in wimpling fountains
Seeth her image.
So he summons the chivalry of the
Sunland around him, and sails away to
the North :
And the voyagers watch the hours
Move up, pass on, go by,
Till a year is marked to the dead ;
While ever with tidings hie
Birds to the southland.
At length thev arrive at Kalewala:
ORNITHOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES.
125
What see the Sons of the Sunland ?
They behold the beautiful maiden
On shore ; on a lovely height
She stands in the sleeping forest,
Mighty, gentle, divine,
A mystic beautiful maiden.
Nearer they sail and nearer ;
Full two heads taller they found her,
Than all the many fair daughters
Of man's generations.
Through the glare of a crackling fire
She stept with one foot in the tide,
And yonder, a flaming pine-tree
Blazed on a rock beside ;
While on sticks and staves the maiden
Spread out white flaxen raiment.
Stood wringing the dripping raiment,
Stood swinging the heavy beater.
While the echo ran round the sea-marge
To the sounding ends of the land.
The Son of the Sun-god speeds in his
wooing :
Down to the shore he leapt.
Stretching his lissom limbs
With the mighty leap, and stept
To the maiden full lightly.
And taking her hands he claspt her
And prest her close to his bosom,
Claspt her in gladness and glee,
And in noble and masterful accents.
Spake as she trembled :
" O be gentle and kind to me, maiden !
I am not made out of cloud-mists,
I am no watery phantom.
But a man with life and with love.
Hark ! how beneath my bosom
Beateth a mortal heart !
Lay thy head on my bosom.
Listen, love, without fear."
Gently she leant upon him.
Scarce daring, in tender dismay :
And sudden the woman is won !
There streams from the Son of the Sun-god,
From the beaming face of the hero,
Joy, like the light of the sun.
As, in the Northern-lights' glimmer,
Clustering columns and pillars
Shake in the flickering sheen,
And in her soul's mighty emotion
The maiden knew life and love.
The young people are not long of un-
derstanding each other, and settling the
matter ; but the consent of her monstrous
old father —
Kalew, blinded in battle.
Moveless, a giant shape,
Clad in a white-bear's skin ;
A monster to see,
A sight of grief and of terror, —
has to be obtained before she can leave ;
and the ferocious old gentleman is
naturally unwilling to be left alone in
his blindness. However, between wine
and guile, his consent is extorted, and he
joins the hands of the lovers, and gives
them permission to depart. This is the
nuptial song :
Lo ! in the northern sky.
The sign of the gods' protection ;
Lo ! with broad arch of crimson
The great crown set in the sky.
Hark ! the clashing of lances I
Hark ! the murmur of armies.
Now low, now high.
Lo ! the glory of gods, that befriend us.
Beams o'er the bridals.
Luminous armies of clouds
Cover the sky.
And with gleaming and glance
On in the dance
The armed warriors sweep by.
The bright cloud-warriors, the angels
Of heavenly, sweet sanctification.
Of faith that will not lie !
Nor does the generous giant permit
them to depart empty-handed :
He gave of the booty and plunder,
Won when a Viking of old.
As gifts for the Son of the Sunland,
Woollen raiment, and girdles of gold.
And swansdown, and soft snowy linen ;
But chiefest and best of the treasures
Was a cord most cunningly fashioned
With knots threefold and fine ;
A charmed gift from a Wuote,
To win such a wind as might aid them.
Gentle or stormy.
There is a touch of pathos in the pic-
ture of the blind old father standing on
the strand, while the song of the sailors
dies away in the distance :
He spake : and she passed from her father,
Parted, for grief and for gladness,
The wife of the Son of the Sun-god.
Away from the great red cliffs
Sailed the gold-ship through bright blowing
breezes ;
Lonely, lonely, on shore
Lingered the blind one I
Stood, and gazed, without seeing.
At the silver sand of the shore.
While ever long while he listened.
To the song that sounded from far.
The knotted cord (the most valuable of
the giant's gifts) occupies an important
place in the last part of the poem, which
relates how Kalla's brothers, finding their
father on their return in a state of pro-
found intoxication, and discovering the
deception that Kalla had practised upon
him, take to their boats and pursue the
Son of the Sun-god. The pursuit is of
course disastrously unsuccessful, and
126
THE NAM
Peiwar carries home in safety the tall and
comely bride :
And the tale is still told on the Kolens,
Still sung is the Saga in Lapland ;
Though long ago Peiwar and Kalla
Have passed from their homes in the South-
land
Unto Walhalla !
THE
From The Saturday Journal.
NAMES OF PLANTS.
The titles given by our ancestors to
distinguish one plant from another, before
they were marshalled by Linnaeus into
battalions of orders and species, distin-
guished by the number of their stamens,
and construction of pistils — or arranged
into more natural families by Lindley and
the later botanists, are often extremely
poetic. There is a wealth of imagery
and of fanciful allusions, "playing with
words and idle similes," in them, which is
sometimes very interesting to trace out.
Some plants are named, like the "Eye-
bright," according to the " doctrine of
Signatures," — i.e.^ the notion that the
appearance of a plant indicated the dis-
ease which it was intended to cure —
"the black purple spot on the corolla
proved it to be good for the eyes," said
the medical science of the day.
Next come the similitudes.
The " Day's eye," whose leaves spread,
Shuts when Titan goes to bed.
The " Hell's weed," (the dodder) which
strangles the plant to which it attaches
itself.
The Columbine, so called because in
reversing the flower the curved nectaries
look like the heads of doves {colombes)
sitting close together in a nest.
There is a whole garden full of plants
sacred to the Virgin Mary, generally be-
cause they flower at some period con-
nected with "Our Lady's" Days, the
Visitation, the Assumption, the Birth,
the Baptism, Purification, — such as the
" Lady's Smock," " Lady's Mantle,"
" Lady's Fingers," " Lady Slipper,"
" Lady's Tresses," the pretty little green
Ophrys with a twisted stem. The " Vir-
gin's Bower" begins to blossom in July,
when the Feast of Visitation occurs, and
is in fullest flower at the Assumption in
August.
The " Lady's Bedstraw " belongs to no
particular month, but has a very particu-
lar story for its name. The different
PLANTS.
plants were summoned to come and form
a litter for the Virgin and Child in the
Stable at Bethlehem. They all made ex-
cuses one after the other ; some were too
busy, some declared themselves too in-
significant, some too great, or it was too
early or too late for appearing. At last
this pretty little white star offered herself
humbly for the place, and she was after-
wards rewarded for her virtue by her
flowers being turned to a golden yellow.
St. John's Wort, St. Peter's Wort, flow-
er about the time of their respective
Saint's Days. The Star of Bethlehem,
Rose of Sharon, Joseph's Walking-stick,
Jacob's Ladder (the beautiful Solomon's
Seal), are apparently accidental fancies.
The Holy Ghost flower, the Peony,
flowers of course at Whitsuntide.
A series of traditions connects some
peculiarity in a plant* with an event in
Bible history. The knotgrass. Polyg-
onum persicum, has a large black spot
on its smooth leaves, caused by a drop
of blood falling from our Saviour, at the
time of the Crucifixion, on one of the
plants which grew at the foot of the
Cross.
The "Judas tree" is that on which
the wretched traitor hanged himself in
his misery — rather an unsafe stem to
choose, but then it broke under his
weight, as we are told.
The Cross was made of the wood of
the Aspen or trembling Poplar, and its
leaves have been smitten by the curse of
perpetual quivering restlessness ever
since.
The " Virgin's Pinch " is the black
mark on the Persicary.
"Job's Tears," so called "for that
every graine resembleth the drops that
falleth from the eye."
The Passion-flower, in which all the
five emblems of the Passion are to be
found by the faithful, the nails, crown of
thorns, hammer, cross, and spear.
"Christ's Thorn," the Gleditchia, from
which the Crown of Thorns was supposed
to have been made.
Cruciform plants are all wholesome,
" the very sign of the Cross making all
good things to dwell in its neighbour-
hood."
* Or a bird or beast, as in the owl's note. "They
say the owl was a baker's daughter," sings poor Ophe-
lia. The legend declares that our Saviour went into a
baker's shop and asked for some bread ; the mistress
put a piece of dough into the oven for him, but her
daughter said it was too big and took away all but a
little bit. It immediately swelled to an immense siz«.
The girl began to cry " Heugh, heugh," and was trans-
formed into an owl, to cry so all her life for her wicked*
I ness.
THE NAMES OF PLANTS.
127
Evergreens have always been held em-
blematical of the hope of eternal life.
They were carried with a corpse and
deposited on the grave by the early
Christians, to show that the soul was
ever living. An earlier pagan use was
when the Druids caused " all dwellings
to be decked with evergreen-boughs in
winter, that the wood spirits might take
refuge there against the cold, till they
could return to their own homes in the
forests, when spring came back again."
There is one group of plants named from
human virtues and graces, quite inde-
pendent of any qualities of their own.
Honesty, heartsease, thrift, true love,
old man's friend, herb-o'-grace. Others
from some resemblance to bird or beast,
larkspur, crowfoot, cranesbill, coltsfoot,
the devil's bit, where the root seems to
have been bitten off ; adder's tongue,
cat's tail, pheasant's eye, mare's tail.
Others owe their names to their virtues
as simples, All-heal, " feverfeu " (fugis),
the "blessed thistle, carduus benedictus,
good for giddinesse of the head, it
strengtheneth memorie, and is a singular
remedie against deafnesse," we are told
in old Gerarde's herbal. " Get you some
of the carduus benedictus, and' lay it to
your heart ; it is the only thing for a
qualm," says Margaret, in " Much Ado
About Nothing," quizzing Beatrice about
Benedict. " Benedictus, why Benedictus ?
You have some moral in this Benedictus,"
answers Beatrice, testily.
Each month had its own particular
flower — the " Christmas rose," the pretty
green hellibore, snowdrops, "fair maids
of February," the " May flower," that
covers the hedges with beauty, the " June
rose."
The " Poor man's weather-glass," the
pimpernel, closes when there is rain in
the air ; the " Shepherd's hour glass," by
which he knows the time of the day. The
extreme regularity, indeed with which
many flowers open and close at particular
hour's, is such that Linnaeus made a dial
of plants, by which a man might time
himself as with a clock, by watching
their petals unclose.
The merely pretty allusions are many
— " Venus' looking-glass. Love lies bleed-
ing, Queen of the meadows (the beautiful
spiraea), Crown imperial, Monkshood,
Marvel of Peru, Sundew, Silver weed,
Goldie-lockes, "a moss found in marish
places and shadie dry ditches, where the
sun never sheweth his face."
Why the insignificant vervain, or " holy-
herbe," is "cheerful and placid," and
why she was so much valued in ancient
days, seems not known. " If the dining-
room," says Pliny, "be sprinkled with it,
the guests will be the merrier." " Many
odde old wives* fables are written of it,
tending to witchcraft and sorcerie, which
honest eares abhorre to heare."
Little bits of historical allusions, and
national loves and hatreds crop up
amongst the flowers. The striped red
and white rose, " York and Lancaster,'*
symbolizing the union of the Ro5'al
Houses, has a pedigree of nearly four
hundred years to shew.
The early willow catkins are called
"palms," as they were used as a substi-
tute in Northern counties for the real
leaves, and carried on Palm Sunday in
procession, — the name is, therefore,
probably coeval with the Roman Catholic
faith in England. " Wolf's bane " points
to the time when the beast was still alive
and dreaded in the English forests.
" Dane's Blood," the dwarf Elder, has
peculiarly red berries, and shows the fear
and hatred left behind them by our grim
invaders.
The English are accused by the Scotch
of having introduced the Ragwort into
Scotland, and they call it there by a very
evil name.
" Good King Henry " is a very inconspic-
uous ordinary wild plant, but as no King
Henry, bad or good, has existed in Eng-
land since the time of the eighth, the
name is certainly very old. Other Chris-
tian names have been given, apparently
merely from sentimental reasons. Sweet
Cecily, Herb Robert, Basil, Sweet Wil-
liam, Lettuce, Robin run i' th' hedge,
Sweet Marjoram, Lords and Ladies.
The fairies have their share in plant
nomenclature. Pixy pears, the rosy rose
hips, which form the fairies' dessert, the
"foxes" glove, which the "good folk"
wear, the " pixy stools," or mushrooms,
which form "the green sour circlets,
whereof the ewe not bites." The grass
is made green by the fairies dancing, and
the stools are set ready for them to sit on
when they are tired.
There remain a number of names,
which have accidentally been chosen to
express particular ideas. " Lad's Love,"
given to your flame in the country, when
the swain's words are scanty :
Violet is for faithfulness,
Which in me doth abide.
Sonnet, 1584.
The" Pansy" ("that's for thought "),
or " Heartsease," still called in country
128
THE NAMES OF PLANTS.
places " Love in Idless," as in the Shake-
spearean compliment to Elizabeth in the
" Midsummer Night's Dream : " —
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell,
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's
shaft,
And maidens call it Love in Idleness !
"Rosemary" ("that's for remem-
brance "). " I pray you, love, remember,"
says Ophelia in her madness. It was
carried at funerals :
Marygold that goes to bed with the sun
And with him rises weeping.
and the marsh edition of it, "all aflame,"
as Tennvson describes it.
" Speedwell," said the little blue Ve-
ronica in the hedge to the old folk who
went before us. " Forget-me-not," called
the turquoise blue Myosotis from the
water as they passed by.
"Bloody Warriors," the dark way-
flower, and bright blue " Canterbury
Bells," filled their gardens.
We pay for the convenience of our
present nomenclature, by the piling up of
Greek and Latin words on each other,
the barbarous compounds, and almost
unpronounceable words, such as •' Habro-
thamnus," " Ortiospermum," " Intyba-
ceum," and the like. While the utterly
irrelevant proper names, such as the
" Wellingtonia," for a pine-tree, belonging
to the far west American mountains,
scarcely even heard of while the " Duke "
was still alive — the Roses dedicated to
French marshals, most unfloral men, are
symptoms of our present poverty of
language-making.
The hosts of new shrubs and plants
now continually introduced, require a
more systematic kind of name-making
than of old ; but we cannot help some-
times regretting the poetry of invention
which has passed away from us, the lov-
ing transfer of our human thoughts and
feelings to the inanimate things around
us, the beautiful religious symbols into
which our ancestors translated the nature
about them, and which so often must
have helped them to "rise from Nature
up to Nature's God."
The Source of Nitrogen in the Food
OF Plants. — A somewhat strange series of
opinions are those that have been started by
M. Deherain in his recent paper in the " An-
nales des Sciences Naturelles." While adopt-
ing the conclusions of Lawes and Gilbert,
Ville and Boussingault, that plants have no
power of absorbing nitrogen directly from the
air, he still holds that the atmospheric nitro-
gen is the source of that which enters into the
composition of the tissues of the plant. The
results of a series of investigations which M.
Deherain has carried out tend to show that
atmospheric nitrogen is fixed and retained in
the soil through the medium of the hydrocar-
bons, such as humus, in conjunction with
alkalies, and that this fixation is favoured by
the absence of oxygen. In other words, the
fixation of atmospheric nitrogen occurs when
organic materials are in process of decomposi-
tion in an atmosphere either deprived of oxy-
gen or in which that element is deficient.
Under these circumstances carbonic acid and
hydrogen are both given off, the latter uniting
with nitrogen to form ammonia. According
to the earlier researches of Thenard there are
in soil two strata exposed to the action of the
atmosphere — an upper oxidizing and a lower
deoxidizing stratum. In the first stratum the
nitrogen is obtained from the atmosphere, and
impregnates the subjacent soil around the
roots ; in the second the nitrogenous com-
pounds are converted into insoluble humates.
The air of the soil is therefore at a certain
depth deprived of oxygen; hydrogen is pro-
duced as the result of the decomposition of
organic substances ; and this hydrogen unites
with the nitrogen to form ammonia. If these
views are correct, they will have a considerable
practical importance in agriculture, the value
of a manure depending not so much on the
actual amount of nitrogen present in it as on
the quantity of carbonaceous substances which
possess the power of taking up nitrogen from
the atmosphere.
American Plants in France. — Dr. Asa
Gray states, in " Silliman's Journal " for Feb-
ruary, that Ilysanthes gratioloideSy a rather in-
significant plant of the American flora, has
recently been found in abundance in France,
in the neighbourhood of Nantes. It is thought
to have appeared there between the years 1853
and 1858, and to have been in some way re-
ceived from the United States, but the manner
of its coming eludes enquiry.
LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.
rifth Series, \ ^q. 1571.— Julv 18, 1874. J^^7,2^egmnmg,
Volume VII. ) J } ( Yol. CXXTI.
CONTENTS.
I. Authors and Publishers Quarterly RevieWy , . , 131
II. The Story of Valentine; and his
Brother. Part IX., Blackwood's Magazine^ . . 147
III. Mr. Ruskin's Recent Writings. By
Leslie Stephen, Preiser's Magazine, • • •154
IV. Far from the Madding Crowd. By
Thomas Hardy, author of " Under the
Greenwood Tree," " A Pair of Blue Eyes,"
etc Part VIL, Cornhill Magazine, . . . 165
V. Assyrian Discoveries. A Lecture Deliv-
ered at the London Institution, January 28,
1874, Eraser's Magazine, , . . 177
VL Whitby Jet, All The Year Round, . . .185
VII. A Letter of Laurence Sterne, . . Academy, . . . . . i88
POETRY.
Hymn of the Ascension, . . .130
Thames Valley Sonnets. By Dante
G. Rossetti.
I. — Winter, 130
IL — Spring 130
King Fritz. [Found among the papers
of the late Wm. M. Thackeray], . 130
To a Friend Leaving England in
September, ... • 190
Miscellany, . • . . . • 191, 192
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
LITTELL & G-AY, BOSTON
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
For Eight Dollars, remitted directly to the Publishers, the Living Age will be punctually forwarded for a
year,yr^^ of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission
for forwarding the money; nor when we club the Living Age with another periodical.
An extra copy of The Living Age is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers.
Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of
these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register
letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of
LiTTELL & Gay.
130
HYMN OF THE ASCENSION, ETC.
HYMN OF THE ASCENSION.
Bright portals of the sky,
Embossed with sparkling stars,
Doors of eternity,
With diamantine bars,
Your arras rich uphold,
Loose all your bolts and springs,
Ope wide your leaves of gold,
That in your roofs may come the King of
Kings.
Scarfed in a rosy cloud,
He doth ascend the air ;
Straight doth the moon Him shroud
With her resplendent hair ;
The next encrystalled light
Submits to Him its beams ;
And He doth trace the height
Of that fair lamp which flames of beauty
streams.
He towers those golden bounds
He did to the sun bequeath ;
The 'higher wandering rounds
Are found His feet beneath ;
The milky way comes near ;
Heaven's axle seems to bend
Above each burning sphere.
That robed in glory heaven's King may ascend.
O well-spring of this All,
Thy Father's image live.
Word, that from nought did call
What is, doth reason, live,
The soul's eternal food,
Earth's joy, delight of heaven, ••
All Truth, Love, Beauty, Good,
To Thee, to Thee, be praises ever given !
Drummond of Hawthornden.
KING FRITZ.
(found among the papers of the late
w. m. thackeray.)
King Fritz at his palace of Berlin
I saw at a royal carouse.
In a periwig powdered and curling
He sat with his hat on his brows.
The handsome young princes were present,
Uncovered they stood in the hall ;
And oh ! it was wholesome and pleasant
To see how he treated them all !
Reclined on the softest of cushions
His Majesty sits to his meats.
The princes, like loyal young Prussians,
Have never a back to their seats.
Off salmon and venison and pheasants
He dines like a monarch august ;
His sons, if they eat in his presence,
Put up with a bone or a crust.
He quaffs his bold bumpers of Rhenish,
It can't be too good or too dear ;
The princes are made to replenish
Their cups with the smallest of beer.
And if ever, by words or grimaces.
Their highnesses dare to complain,
The King flings a dish in their faces.
Or batters their bones with his cane.
'Tis thus that the chief of our nation
The minds of his children. improves ;
And teaches polite education
By boxing the ears that he loves.
I warrant they vex him but seldom.
And so if we dealt with our sons.
If we up with our cudgels and felled 'em.
We'd teach 'em good manners at once.
Cornhill Magazine.
THAMES VALLEY SONNETS.
I. — WINTER.
How large that thrush looks on the bare
thorn-tree !
A swarm of such, three little months ago.
Had hidden in the leaves and let none know
Save by the outburst of their minstrelsy.
A white flake here and there — a snow-lily
Of last night's frost — our naked flower-
beds hold ;
And for a rose-flower on the darkling mould
The hungry redbreast gleams. No bloom, no
bee.
The current shuddersto its ice-bound sedge :
Nipped in their bath, the stark reeds one by
one
Flash each its clinging diamond in the sun :
'Neath winds which for this Winter's sov-
ereign pledge
Shall curb great king-masts to the ocean's
edge
And leave memorial forest-kings o'erthrown.
II. — spring.
Soft-littered is the new-year's lambing-fold,
And in the hollowed haystack at its side
The shepherd lies o' nights now, wakeful-
eyed
At the ewes' travailing call through the dark
cold.
The young rooks cheep 'mid the thick caw o'
the old :
And near unpeopled stream-sides, on the
ground.
By her spring-cry the moorhen's nest is
found.
Where the drained flood-lands flaunt their
marigold.
Chill are the gusts to which the pastures
cower,
And chill the current where the young reeds
stand
As green and close as the young wheat on
land :
Yet here the cuckoo and the cuckoo-flower
Plight to the heart Spring's perfect imminent
hour
Whose breath shall soothe you like your dear
one's hand.
Athenaeum. DanTE G. RosSETTI.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
13*
From The Quarterly Review.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.*
The publication of the literary corre-
spondence of Archibald Constable, the
great Edinburgh bookseller — "Hanni-
bal Constable," as Leyden called him
with pride ; " the grand Napoleon of the
realms of print," as Scott dubbed him in
jest ; " the prince of booksellers," as
James Mill saluted him in all sincerity —
reopens an interesting chapter in the
literary history of the last generation.
Constable's career was closely connected
with the starting of a new era in our lit-
erature, regarded both as a profession
and as a trade. Of the chief men who
took part in this movement, either as au-
thors or as publishers, these volumes af-
ford many interesting notices — of some
only tantalizing glimpses, of others full
and satisfying details. The work owes
its value in this respect, not merely to
Constable's position as a leading publish-
er, with a wide connection among the
foremost literary men and women of his
time, but also to Constable's character as
a man, which was such as to command
confidence and provoke friendship, far
beyond the ordinary range of business
relations.
Before going further, we are bound to
acknowledge the fairness, delicacy, and
tact, as well as to commend the literary
skill, with which, in these volumes, Con-
stable's son has discharged a difficult
and, in some respects, a painful task.
He has nothing extenuated, nor aught
set down in malice, though the provoca-
tion to transgress in both directions,
when we remember Lockhart's gross mis-
representations and rude ridicule, to say
nothing of Campbell's sneers, was by no
means small. In connection with the
history of the Scott-Ballantyne failure in
particular, the biographer might fairly
have claimed for himself considerable
license of vituperation. But he has, as
wisely as courageously, resisted this temp-
tation, and has confined himself almost
exclusively to stating facts and quoting
documents, leaving it to his readers to
* Archibald Constable and his Literary Corre-
spondents: A Memorial. By his Son, Thomas Con-
stable. Three vols. Edinburgh. 1873.
make the legitimate deductions and ani-
madversions. The result is such a por-
trait of Archibald Constable, the man and
the publisher, as does justice at once to the
integrity of the father and to the fidelity
of the son, and as satisfies the expecta-
tions both of the student of literary his-
tory and of the student of human nature.
Indirectly, literature owes this man a
very great debt of gratitude. Sir James
Mackintosh, writing to him in sympa-
thetic terms after the great crash of 1826,
says, "You have done more to promote
the interest of literature than any man
who has been engaged in the commerce
of books." (vol. ii. p. 378). He first set
the fashion of enlightened liberality
towards authors, a fashion which his
rivals were forced to follow. He stimu-
lated the public taste for pure and sound
literature ; and he was the first to show
how works of the highest class might be
brought within the reach of the masses,
without fear or risk of failure. Then, in
order to realize the extent of his direct
services to literature, and to freedom of
thought, we have only to remember that
he was the first publisher of the Edin-
burgh Review, that he infused new life
into the Encyclop<2dia Briiannica, that
through him Scott's poems, most of his
novels, and the best of his miscellaneous
works, were given to the world, and that
his Miscellany was, as his biographer
says, "undoubtedly the pioneer and sug-
gester of all the various 'libraries*
which sprang up in its wake." It is in-
teresting to find in the memoir abundant
proof that the great bookseller was also a
good and estimable man — good in all
the relations of life — a loving husband,
an affectionate and judicious parent, a
fast and trusted friend.
In one respect the plan of Constable's
memoir is open to objection. It carries
us repeatedly over the same period of
time, and forces us to traverse, over and
over again, though in different company,
the same ground. The third volume,
which is devoted to his connection with
Sir Walter Scott, is to a great extent
self-contained and self-explanatory. But,
in the first and second volumes, each
chapter deals with his connection with
132
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
one correspondent, or at most with three
or four. Thus, in company with his part-
ner A. G. Hunter, we traverse the years
from 1803 to 181 1. In the next chapter
we return to 1802, and go on with Tom
Campbell to 1810. John Leyden brings
us back again to 1800, and we advance in
his pleasant company to 1808. The ac-
count of Alexander Murray, the Oriental-
ist,— a monograph, let it be said in pass-
ing, of rare literary and personal interest,
a portrait of a sterling, hard-headed, in-
dependent, and withal modest Scot —
carries us back to 1794, ^'^^ forward to
1812. Nor is this all; the same topics
turn up again and again in different con-
nections. To take but one example.
Constable's quarrel with Longman is
mentioned first in the general account of
the Edinburgh Review (vol. i. p. 55). It
comes up again in the chapter on
A. G. Hunter (vol. i. p. 79) ; once more,
in treating of his dealings with John
Murray (vol. i. p. 338) ; and yet again in
describing his competition with Murray,
and with Longman, for the patronage of
Sir Walter Scott (vol. iii. p. 32) : and so
with not a few other important items.
The method of the work has no doubt
some advantages. In particular, it gives
completeness and individuality to the
descriptions of the separate correspond-
ents ; but this completeness of the parts
is gained at a sacrifice of the unity and
harmony of the whole. It makes the
work analytic instead of synthetic, which
such a work ought expressly to be. It
presents us with a series of cabinet por-
traits, instead of with a historical picture.
It furnishes the materials for such a pic-
ture in abundance ; but it leaves the
grouping and arrangmg — in a word the
synthesis — to be done by the reader,
and that at a considerable expenditure of
trouble, and with no little risk of error
and misconstruction. But when every
deduction has been made, on this or on
any score, the work must be admitted to
be a sterling one ; and, as memoires pottr
servir, it cannot fail to be of the highest
value to the student of modern literature
and of modern society.
The work, however, has much wider
bearings than those on the literature of
the present century to which we have
referred. It suggests a comparative in-
quiry, of great interest and value, into the
relations which have subsisted, at differ-
ent periods in the history of literature,
between authors and publishers, or rather
between authors on the one hand, and
publishers and the public on the other.
Sir Walter Scott says in his " Life of
Dryden," " That literature is ill-recom-
pensed is usually rather the fault of the
public than of the booksellers, whose
trade can only exist by buying that
which can be sold to advantage. The
trader who purchased the ' Paradise
Lost ' for ^10 had probably no very good
bargain."* Curiously enough, this quo-
tation enables us to bring together ex-
tremes of literary remuneration which
are "wide as the poles asunder ; " for in
the same year in which Scott wrote these
words, he himself received from Consta-
ble ;^i,ooo for the coypright of " Mar-
mion," a price which, we believe, did not
turn out to the disadvantage of the book-
seller. We may therefore safely con-
clude, that when Scott alluded as above
to " Paradise Lost," he did not refer to
the intrinsic merit of Milton's immortal
epic, but only to the condition of the pop-
ular taste, and commercial demand, under
which it was produced. Scott's words
make it plain that three factors have to
be taken into account in apprising lite-
rary property — the labour of the author
in producing his work, the desire of the
public to possess it, and the risk of the
publisher as a go-between in bringing
the author and the public into contact.
In the earliest stages of literature there
were no publishers in the modern sense,
and there was scarcely any public. Be-
fore the introduction of printing the man-
ner of publishing a book was to have it
read on three days successiv.ly before
one of the universities or some other
recognized authority. If it met with ap-
probation, copies of it were then permit-
ted to be made by monks, scribes, illu-
minators, and readers, — men who were
specially trained in the art, and who de-
* " The Works of John Dryden, with Notes, &c.,
and a Life of the Author." By Walter Scott, Esq.
Vol. i., p. 392. Edinburgh: 1S08.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
^33
rived from it their maintenance. It does
not appear that any portion of their gains
was transferred to the author. He did
not look for remuneration in money for
his literary labour. He found it, partly
in fame, but chiefly in his appointment to
some post, more or less lucrative, in
Church or State. Frequently authors
became simply the pensioners of the
great and noble, by whom no official ser-
vices were expected. Chaucer appears
to have been rewarded in both ways ; at
one time he was a pensioner-yeoman of
Edward III., at another he was employed
to hire ships for the king's service. At
various times in his career he held offices
in the customs. A modern poet,* who
specially claims to call Chaucer " mas-
ter," pictures for us —
The clear Thames bordered by its gardens
green ;
While, nigh the thronged wharf, Geoffrey
Chaucer's pen
Moves over bills of lading.
In the very year in which he is believed to
have written the " Canterbury Tales " he
was appointed clerk of the king's works
at Windsor. Yet towards the close of
his life he seems to have been wholly
dependent on his royal pensions and
grants of wine. Thus there sprang, al-
most necessarily we may say, out of the
primary condition of authors, that vile
system of patronage which kept men of
letters in a position of bondage for up-
wards of three centuries after our regu-
lar literature began.
The introduction of printing made but
little difference to authors. It ere long
did away with the university censorship ;
but books were so dear that they were
within reach of the means only of the
very wealthy, on whose bounty, there-
fore, authors were still dependent ; and
very wretched was their lot. " Rheto-
ric," says Burton, in his " Anatomy of
Melancholic," "only serves them to
curse their bad fortunes ; and many of
them, for want of means, are driven to
hard shifts. From grasshoppers they
turn humble bees and wasps — plain par-
asites— and make the muses mules, to
♦ William Morris, in " The Earthly Paradise."
satisfy their hunger-starved families, and
get a meal's meat." (a.d. 1621).
Spenser also has put on record his bit-
ter feelings on the same subject with
special reference to the misery of hang-
ers-on at court. It is said that Queen
Elizabeth designed an annuity for Spen-
ser, but that it was withheld by Burleigh.
He received, however, from the queen a
grant of Kilcolman Castle when he was
secretary to Lord Grey in Ireland ; but
evidently this complaint is wrung from
him by his own bitter experience —
Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What hell it is, in suing long to bide :
To lose good days that might be better spent ;
To waste long nights in pensive discontent ;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow,
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow ;
To have thy princess' grace, yet want her
Peers' ;
To have thy asking, yet wait many yeares ;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with care ;
To eat thy heart with comfortless despair ;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run ;
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.*
Authorship could scarcely be subject-
ed to a greater humiliation than that of
John Stowe, the historian, in whose fa-
vour James I. granted letters patent
under the great seal, permitting him "to
ask, gather, and take the alms of all our
loving subjects." Yet Stowe's case dif-
fered from that of hundreds of his con-
temporaries and successors only in that
he was more honest than they. For,
while they were beggars in disguise, he
was an avowed and properly licensed
mendicant. His letters patent were read
by the clergy from the pulpit in each
parish which he visited. Other authors
prefixed their begging letters to their
works, in the shape of fulsome and lying
dedications.
The dedication system naturally ac-
companied that of patronage. It very
soon underwent those wonderful devel-
opments of which it was evident from
the first that it was capable. In the
time of Queen Elizabeth the practice had
come into fashion of dedicating a work,
not to one patron, but to a number.
* From *' Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubbard's Tale."
134
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
Spenser, in spite of his horror of fawn-
ing, has prefixed to the " Faerie Queene "
seventeen dedicatory sonnets, the last of
which opened a wide door to volunteer
patronesses, being inscribed " To all the
gratious and beautifuU ladies in the
court." Over and above these outer ded-
ications, be it remembered, the invocation
with which the poem opens is addressed to
Queen Elizabeth herself, along with the
sacred Muse, Venus, Cupid, and Mars.
The queen is further typified in the
Faerie Queen herself ; and to her the
whole work is dedicated, presented, and
consecrated, "to live with the eternitie of
her fame."
- Fuller has introduced in his " Church
History " twelve special title-pages be-
sides the general one, each with a partic-
ular dedication attached to it ; and he
has added upwards of fifty inscriptions
to as many different benefactors. Joshua
Sylvester, the translator of Du Bartas,
carried the vice of dedication to a still
more ludicrous excess. In the collected
edition of his works,* there are seventy
separate dedications, in prose and verse,
addressed to eighty-five separate indi-
viduals. Sometimes one short poem is
dedicated to half-a-dozen patrons. If
the poet received the usual dedication
fee from each, the speculation must have
been as profitable as it was ingenious.f
The second book of the " Divine Works "
contains fifteen separate dedications.
One instance of his flattery is unique in
its barefaced comprehensiveness. An
"elegiac epistle consolatorie " on the
death of Sir William Sydney, is addressed
to Lord and Lady Lisle (Sydney's par-
ents), to Sir Robert Sydney their son, to
Lady Worth their daughter, " and to all
the noble Sydneys and semi-Sydneys."
Surely the power of fawning could no
further go ! It is only to be hoped that
it paid.
Nothing, certainly, could be more de-
grading to authors than that their suc-
cess should depend, not on their merit,
but on their powers of sycophancy ; for
it is unquestionable that the amount
which a patron bestowed varied with the
amount of flattery publicly awarded to
him. The terms of adulation became
most extravagant in the period after the
Restoration, when, according to Disraeli,
* Folio, pp. 657, printed by R. Young in 1633.
t Even Sylvestei^s ingenuity was surpassed by that
of an Italian physician, of whom Disraeli tells us.
Having written " Commentaries on the Aphorisms of
Hippocrates," he dedicated each book of his com-
mentaries to one of his friends, and the index to an-
other.
the patron was often compared with, or
even placed above, the Deity. Then the
common price of a dedication varied from
£20 to £\Q) ; sometimes it was even
more. After the Revolution the price
fell to sums varying from five to ten
guineas ; in the reign of George I. it rose
again to twenty, but from that time the
practice gradually declined, as the book-
sellers became more and more recognized
as the patrons of letters.
The fall of patronage, and of its con-
comitant, dedication, was hastened by the
general adoption in the latter part of the
seventeenth century of the method of
publication by subscription. Before that,
the booksellers were in the background.
They were mere dealers in books. No
opportunity was afforded them for enter-
prise. As soon, however, as subscrip-
tion was introduced, the booksellers be-
gan to show themselves in the front.
Subscribers represented to some extent
the public — a limited and adventitious
public, doubtless — but still a much
wider public than was possible under the
patronage regime. Now with the public
thus introduced we have present the
most important of the three factors which
go to make a free and prosperous na-
tional literature. There was then an in-
ducement for authors to do their best,
and for publishers to aid them in advan-
cing their interests. Authorship then be-
came possible as a liberal profession, and
publishing became possible as an organ-
ized trade. It was a timid method of
business, certainly, but it was a vast im-
provement on the method which it came
to supersede. It was long before it ac-
complished much good, but it did accom-
plish lasting good in the end. In short, it
was the transition stage from the system
of patronage to the system of free and
unfettered publication.
In truth, however, subscription was, in
the first instance, only a more extended
kind of patronage ; and for a long time
the two methods continued to exist side
by side. Of this a remarkable example
is afforded in the case of Dryden, who
seems, however, to have had a wonderful
aptitude for combining in his own experi-
ence all the methods of remunerating
authorship in vogue in remote as well as
in later times — official appointments,
royal pensions, dedication fees, subscrip-
tions, and copy money. He was poet
laureate and historiographer royal ; * he
♦ Both offices still exist; but it is surely time that
such questionable and often invidious distinctions should
be abolished, or at least that they should be deprived
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
135
was, besides, a special annuitant of
Charles II. — to whom the whilom eulo-
gist of Cromwell justifies his submission
in the sorry couplet —
The poets who must live by courts, or starve,
Were proud so good a government to serve, —
and he was collector of customs in the
port of London, as Chaucer had been
three hundred years before.
As regards dedication fees, it is notori-
ous that no flattery was too fulsome, no
depth of self-abasement too profound,
for Dryden's mendicant spirit. If the
pay was proportionate to the degree of
adulation, he was certainly entitled to the
maximum. He dedicated his translation
of Virgil to three noblemen, with what
Johnson calls "an economy of flattery at
once lavish and discreet." What this in-
vestment of praise yielded him we do
not know ; but in his letter of thanks to
one patron (Lord Chesterfield), he char-
acterizes his lordship's donation as a
"noble present." The extraordinary
feature in this case, however, is, that in
addition to dedication fees, Uryden re-
ceived for his Virgil both subscriptions
and copy money. The copy money con-
sisted certainly of £$0 for every two
books of the " ^^neid," and probably of
the same sum for the " Georgics " and
the " Pastorals." The plan of subscrip-
tion was ingeniously contrived so as to
create a supplementary galaxy of patrons,
each of whom was propitiated by what
was in effect a special dedication. There
were two classes of subscribers. Those
in the first class paid five guineas each ;
those in the second class, two guineas.
The inducement offered to the five
guinea subscribers was that in honour of
each of them there should be inserted in
the work an engraving embellished at the
foot with his coat of arms. The bait
took wonderfully. There were in the
end one hundred and two subscribers of
five guineas, representing the sum of
510 guineas, which, calculating the guinea,
as Dryden did, at twenty-nine shillings,
amounted to ^739 los. Indeed, Dryden
was a cunning speculator as well as a
shrewd bargain-driver, as his publisher
found to his cost. According to Pope's
of their eleemosynary character. Thanks to such men
as Archibald Constable, the men who deserve such
honours no longer need the paltry salaries attached to
them. Mr. Tennyson has effected the reductio ad
absnrdv.ru of the laureateship. His salary is ^200 a
year; yet, if report speaks truly, his contract with his
publishers yields him an annual return to be estimated
in thousands.
estimate, Dryden netted from his Virgil
the sum of ^1,200.
The publication of that work was the
occasion of frequent bickerings, and the
interchange of much strong language, be-
tween Dryden and his publisher, the fa-
mous Jacob Tonson (Jacob I., for there
were three of that name and dynasty).
Dryden's standing complaint against
Tonson is, that he pays him in bad coin.
"You know," he says, in one letter,
" money is now very scrupulously re-
ceived ; in the last^hich you did me the
favour to change for my wife, besides the
clip'd money, there were at least forty
shillings brass." In another he says that,
when the eighth " ^Eneid " is finished, he
expects "^50 in good silver, not such as
I have had formerly. I am not obliged
to take gold, neither will I ; nor stay for
it four-aad-twenty hours after it is due."
In another, " I lost thirty shillings, or
more, b)i the last payment of ^50 which
you made at Mr. Knight's." Through-
out the correspondence, Dryden treats
Tonson in the rudest and most bearish
manner possible. He usually addresses
him abruptly as " Mr. Tonson, " much as a
gentlemai might address his tailor.* In
what ScQtt calls a " wrathful letter,"
which, hovever, made no impression "on
the mercsntile obstinacy of Tonson," he
says, " Sqne kind of intercourse must be
carried on betwixt us while I am translat-
ing Virgiv . . . You always intended I
should get nothing by the second sub-
scriptions,as I found from first to last.
. . . I thei told Mr. Congreve that I
knew you 100 well to believe you meant
me any kinflness." In yet another grum-
bling epistb, Dryden says, " Upon trial I
find all of lyour trade are sharpers, and
you not m)re than others ; therefore I
have not wllolly left you ; " from all which
it is evidert that, in Dryden's time, the
relations of publisher and author were
still on a ve:y unsatisfactory footing.
Dryden dH in the last year of the sev-
enteenth ceitury ; but, although at that
very time the publishers, led by such men
as the TonsQis and Lintot, were consoli-
dating the lublishing trade, they were
still in the eading-strings of subscrip-
tion ; and du'ing the greater part of the
eighteenth cmtury, patronage, with its
correlative ddication, continued rampant.
* But this was not peculiar to Dryden. Twenty
yearslater we find Steele addressing Lmtot and Pope
addressing Motte k precisely the same style. See Car-
ruther's "Life of pope," pp. 96-251. By way of con-
trast, it is notewothy that Sir Walter Scott usually-
Constable.**
addresses his pu'lisher as "My
Such trifles are noinsignificant.
dear
136
The world of lettters was still dominated
by such princely patrons as Somers,
Harley, and Halifax, who were
Fed with soft dedication all day long.
This is all the more remarkable, since, at
that very time, literature was making vig-
orous efforts to emancipate itself. Then
popular literature took its rise in Defoe's
Review and Steele's Tatler, and Steele
and Addison's Spectator. No man ever
stood out more determinedly as the
enemy of patronage than Richard Steele,
and all honour be to him for his powerful
testimony. But Steele could afford to be
independent ; for he derived from his
first wife a comfortable income o: £6yo a
year. In the Tatler, he had boldly pro-
claimed his ambition " to make our lucu-
brations come to some price in money,
for our more convenient support in the
public service." Yet Steele had. in 1707,
accepted the office of Gazetteer, with a
salary raised by Harley from £60 to ^300
a year ; and in 1715, he was made Sur-
veyor of the Royal Stables at Hampton
Court. Steele ridiculed patrorage as a
" monstrous " institution in the Specta-
tor,* yet the first and second collected
volumes of that serial were dedicated
respectively to the arch -patrons, Lord
Somers and Lord Hahfax. This, how-
ever, may have been Addisoi's doing,
who was the special foster-chile of these
noblemen, and who lived fron first to
last by his official employment. John
Locke, according to Lord Macaulay,
" owed opulence to Somers ; " and it was
at Locke's death that Addison, in reward
of writing the " Campaign,' obtained,
through Halifax, the post cf Commis-
sioner of Appeal in the Ex:ise, which
Locke had vacated. He receved for the
post ^200 a year, a sum wlich enabled
him, no doubt, to leave his garret in the
Haymarket. Every step he gained be-
tween that garret and Hollard House, he
owed to the same kind of irfluence. He
was Under-Secretary of Stite, his chief
being the Earl of Sunderlind, to whom
vol. vi. of the Spectator \^as dedicated,
vol. iv. having previously ben dedicated
to Marlborough, Sunderlaid's father-in-
law. Addison's next post was Chief
Secretary for Ireland, duing the vice-
royalty of the notorious lord Wharton,
to whom vol. V. of the Spedator\v2.s dedi-
cated, in terms which ext'lled his busi-
ness capacity, but which vere judiciously
silent regarding his moralcharacter. On
* See No. clxxxiii.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
the death of Queen Anne, Addison was
made Secretary to the provisional Re-
gency, and two years later he became
Secretary of State. Addison was un-
doubtedly the first literary man of his
time ; yet, throughout his career, he was
paid in political advancement for his lit-
erary labours ; for it is well known that
his business capacity was of the poorest
order. No man ever had a better oppor-
tunity than Addison had of asserting the
independence of literature, yet he was
always willing to use it as his ladder,
rather than as his stagey"^
In this Addison was ^y no means sin-
gular in his day. The chief of his con-
temporaries lived, or tried to live, by the
same means ; though few were so fortu-
nate as he was. Defoe was secretary to
the joint commission which drew up the
Articles of Union, and was afterwards
sent to Scotland on a special mission to
advance its interests ; but Defoe was
twice fined and imprisoned for political
libel, and on the earlier occasion at least
was pilloried as well. Men of letters
who lived by politics, had to take their
share, not only of political profit, but also
of political suffering. Prior, who was
twice secretary to a foreign embassy
(thanks to his patron Lord Dorset), and
twice virtually an ambassador, was
charged with high treason, in connection
with the Treaty of Utrecht, and was im-
prisoned for two years. This sent him
back to his fellowship and his books.
He then published his poems by sub-
scription, and realized ^10,000. The
Earl of Oxford played the grand patron
and added other _^io,ooo ; and thus the
poet's last days were comfortably pro-
vided for. Congreve was more fortunate.
He received from Halifax (Addison's
patron) different posts in the customs,
which yielded him ^6oo a year ; and
after the accession of the house of Han-
over, he was made Secretary to the Island
of Jamaica, which nearly doubled his in-
come. Gay was the most unlucky of all
literary place-hunters. In 1714 he quitted
his post of private secretary to the Duch-
ess of Monmouth, to accompany Lord
Clarendon, Envoy Extraordinary to Han-
over, in the capacity of secretary. Gay
wrote to Pope in great glee about his
good fortune. But he kept the post only
for a month or two. He made several
attempts, subsequently, to enlist Court
favor on his behalf, but without success.
Once he was offered a humble post,
which he declined with indignation.
That made his reputation ; for to that
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
137
disappointment, in all probability, we
owe '-The Beggar's Opera."* By the
publication and performance of that play,
and by the publication (by subscription of
course) of "Polly," a sequel to it, the
performance of which was prohibited,
Gay realized nearly ;^3,ooo. ^'^V
These details serve to show us" how
o-reat authors lived and were remunerated
during the period that conn^\s the reign
of Dryden with the reign of Pope. Two
things seem to be clearly demonstrated
— that authors wer^ not yet free from
their bondage to ''personal and political
patrons ; and thSt publishers had not yet
learned to rely on the patronage of the
public. The latter were still, as Dryden
called them, mere "chapmen " of books ;
and- their gains depended mainly on the
amount of patronage, represented by sub-
scriptions, which the influence of authors
could bring them. In fact their interest
lay, as Dryden hinted very plainly to
Tonson, in intercepting as large a share
as possible of the subscriptions which
passed through their hands.
The connecting link between Dryden
and Pope, for our present purpose at
least, was Jacob Tonson — "left-legged
Jacob," as Pope wickedly called him, re-
ferring to a personal deformity. In truth,
however, the whole of Pope's satirical
allusions to Tonson were somewhat un-
generous— though they were not the less
Pope-ish on that account — for Tonson
was the first bookseller who recognized
Pope's merit. In 1706 he wrote to Pope
in flattering terms, offering to publish, in
his forthcoming Miscellany, Pope's
" Pastorals," which he had seen in manu-
script— an offer which Pope was too
shrewd a man of business to reject ; and
the publication at once placed Pope in
the front rank of the authors of his time.
It was this transaction that suggested
Wycherley's profane remark, that
"Jacob's ladder had raised Pope to im-
mortality." Yet, not long afterwards, we
find Pope writing thus of his patron :
" Jacob creates poets as kings do knights ;
not for their honour, but for their money.
Certainly he ought to be esteemed a
worker of miracles who is grown rich
by poetry." The extent of Tonson's
wealth is uncertain ; but we know that
when his nephew, Jacob II., died in 1735,
— a year before the uncle closed his
* Gay' s theatre receipts from the opera amounted to
jCiiqi 13s. 6d. The name of the manager who shared
the proiits with Gay, was Rich ; which suggested the
viot that " ' The Beggar's Opera' made Gay rich, and
Rich gay."
ledger forever, — he left a fortune of
^100,000, the greater part of which old
Jacob inherifed.
P^pe, however, like Scott at a later
|}^j*iod, found it advantageous to extend
his publishing connections. Besides
Tonson, he had dealings of one kind or
another with Lintot, Curll, Dodsley, Gil-
liver, and Motte, to mention no others.
With Curll, the supposed surreptitious
publisher of his letters, his relations were
anything but friendly. A ridiculous turn
is given to these relations by an apocry-
phal story circulated by Curll, of an at-
tempt which he believed or pretended to
believe, that Pope had made to poison
him in a tavern, at their first and only
meeting, in consequence of his having
ascribed to Pope the authorship of " The
Court Poems," three of Lady Mary
Wortley Montague's " Town Eclogues."
The publisher with whom Pope's name is
chiefly associated, however, was Bernard
Lintot. In one of his most biting and
humorous prose sketches, Pope describes
a journey to Oxford, performed in com-
pany with Lintot, whom he holds up to
the most unmitigated ridicule. Yet Lintot
was the publisher of Pope's Homer, a
speculation from which he derived be-
tween ^8,000 and ^9,000, and which
enabled him to set up his villa at Twicken-
ham. This success allowed Pope to tri-
umph over the slavery of patronage in a
memorable couplet : —
And thanks to Homer, since I live and thrive,
Indebted to no prince or peer alive.*
It was quite characteristic of Pope, how-
ever, that he should take credit for his
emancipation to himself, and forget his
obligations to the booksellers. He never
was thin-skinned in these matters, or
indeed in any matters affecting the rep-
utation of others. His feelings towards
Lintot, his undoubted benefactor, were
not more grateful or generous than those
with which he regarded Tonson and Curll.
In the race described in the second book
of the " Dunciad," in honour of the god-
dess of Dulness, Lintot and Curll are
entered as rival candidates.
But lofty Lintot in the circle rose :
"This prize is mine; who tempt it are my
foes ;
With me began this genius, and shall end."
He spoke : and who with Lintot shall con-
tend ?
* Vain boast ; for when he was offered ;^iooo to
suppress his attack on the Duchess of Marlborough, in
the character of Atossa, he took the money, and never-
theless allowed the libel to be printed.
138
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
Fear held them mute. Alone untaught to
fear
Stood dauntless Curll : " Behold that rival
here !
The race by vigour, not by vaunts, is won ;
So take the hindmost, H ! " (he said)
**and run."
Swift as a bard the bailiff leaves behind,
He left huge Lintot and outstripped the wind.
As when a dab-chick waddles through the
copse
On feet and wings, and flies, and wades, and
hops ;
So labouring on, with shoulders, hands, and
head,
Wide as a windmill all his fingers spread,
With arms expanded Bernard rows his state
And left -legged Jacob seems to emulate.*
Pope did not stand alone in his day in
his contempt for the booksellers. It is
told of Young, that when Tonson and
Lintot both offered for one of his works,
he answered both at a sitting. In his
letter to Lintot, he called Tonson "an
old rascal." In his letter to Tonson, he
called Lintot " a great scoundrel." After
folding the letters, he transposed their
addresses, and each had the advantage of
learning Young's true opinion of him
without Young being aware of it.
The position of authors was at its
worst when Samuel Johnson began his
career in London. Macaulay compares
the epoch to " a dark night betwe.en two
sunny days. The age of patronage had
passed away. The age of general curi-
osity and intelligence had not arrived."
The political patronage of men of letters
was extinguished by Walpole, who found
probably that he could employ the civil
list to better purpose in securing parlia-
mentary support, than in buying the ser-
vices of needy scribblers and miserable
Grub-street hacks. This fact is gener-
erally quoted to Walpole's disadvantage ;
but it is very questionable whether he is
really to be blamed for it. The imme-
diate effects of his policy were very de-
plorable. In the end, however, it threw
authors on their own resources ; and it
led to a complete change of policy on
the part of booksellers. Johnson came
upon the scene in a time of literary fam-
ine, but he lived to see the change to
which his own labours had in no small
degree contributed. He was on very
friendly terms with the booksellers. It
is true that, in his lodgings, he once
thrashed Tom Osborne for impertinence ;
but he was accustomed to dine with Ton-
son, then a rich man and a great power,
* The *• Dunciad," ii. 53-68.
on terms of equality. During the period
of his early struggles, when he had often
to go without a dinner, Cave, the pub-
lisher of The Gentleman' s Magazine was
his hardest taskmaster ; yet he esteemed
Cave highly, and wrote his life, in which
he gave a generous estimate of his char-
acter. Of the booksellers as a class he,
a bookseller's son, always spoke in terms
of respectful gratitude. " The book-
sellers," he said, " are generous, liberal-
minded men ; " and he dignified them as
" the patrons of literature." Johnson
spoke thus from his own experience of
them, and not without reason. He con-
tracted with them for " The Lives of the
Poets " at ;^2oo. They spontaneously
gave him ;!^3oo ; and they added another
^100 when the " Lives " were issued as a
separate publication. Of course it should
be added that they could well afford to
do so, as they cleared ;^5,ooo by the
work ; but publishers, even in these days,
are not always generous in proportion to
their gains.
One important service which Johnson
rendered to men of letters can never be
forgotten. By his famous letter to Lord
Chesterfield, the self-constituted patron
of his "Dictionary" — whether Chester-
field deserved his strictures or not — he
gave its death-blow to the system of per-
sonal patronage.* Of Chesterfield's gra-
tuitously complimentary essays in the
Worlds he said to Garrick and other
friends — "I have sailed a long and diffi-
cult voyage round the world of the Eng-
lish language ; and does he now send out
his cock-boat to tow me into harbour t "
A slight incident shows the estimate
Johnson had formed of the struggle in
which he had engaged. In the tenth
satire of his " Imitations of Juvenal " a
couplet on the vanity of authors' hopes
originally stood thus : —
Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail, —
Toil, envy, want, \}!\q. garret and the jail.
After his encounter with Chesterfield, the
second line was altered to
Toil, envy, want, tho^ patron and the jail.
Evidently Johnson considered " the pa-
tron " entitled to the place nearest "the
jail" in the descending scale of authors'
miseries.
There is a bookseller of Johnson's I
time, who stands out prominently from
his contemporaries for liberality and;
* But not to that of official patronage. Johnson'
himself, in 1762, accepted, through Lord Bute, a royal
pension of ;^3oo a year.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
139
kindliness of heart. We refer to An-
drew Millar, especially in his relations
with Fielding. When James Thomson
learned that Fielding had sold the copy-
right of " Tom Jones " to a bookseller for
£25, he advised him to break the con-
tract. This he did. Thomson then in-
troduced him to Millar, to whom he had
himself been introduced by Mallet.
They met at a tavern ; and when Millar
offered ;i{^2oo for the MS., Fielding ex-
hibited his delight by ordering two bot-
tles of wine. Subsequently, Millar gave
Fielding ;^i,ooo for "Amelia" — the
same sum which, with what was thought
startling and reckless liberality, Consta-
ble more than half a century later gave
Scott for " Marmion." To the exertions
of the same publisher. Dr. Burton attrib-
utes the success of Hume's " History ; "
and Hume boasted that the copy-money
he received "much exceeded anything
formerly known in England." Well
might Johnson say, " I respect Millar,
sir ; he has raised the price of literature."
Millar's, however, was unfortunately
an exceptional case. Literature, as a
trade, was at that time increasingly re-
munerative ; but the men who fattened
on it were the printers and booksellers,
not the authors. Think of Goldsmith
grinding as a domestic slave for Griffiths
— to say nothing of Mrs. Griffiths — on
the Monthly Review. His position was
but little improved when he became a
bondman to Newbery, living as tenant of
a relation of Newbery's in Wine Office-
court, Fleet-street, and doing an occa-
sional stroke of business on his own ac-
count for Dodsley, Wilkie, and others.
It is true that, towards the end of his ca-
reer, he was rather run after by the book-
sellers. But poor Goldy was not the
man to profit by such an unlooked-for
turn of fortune. He had been trained in
a bad school. His personal vanity and
his gambling habits always kept him
poor ; and when he died ;^2,ooo in debt,
Johnson exclaimed, "Was ever poet so
treated before ! " So matters continued
till the end of the century. Gibbon,
after the completion of his immortal
work, was driven to reside permanently
at Lausanne, not so much by taste, as by
his straitened circumstances.* On the
other hand, we may gather some idea of
the prosperity enjoyed by the mechanical
and material artificers in books from a
* Yet Charles Knight thinks that, under the half-
profit system, Gibbon's share would have been less
than half of what he actually received. — " Shadows of
the O^d Booksellers," pp. 227-8.
"valued file," prepared by Timperley,*
of the printers, booksellers, and sta-
tioners of the eighteenth century, in
which we find seven members of parlia-
ment, five lord mayors of London, twenty
authors, and twenty-two men of wealth
and substance. ■^■■
It was in the last decade of the eigh-
teenth century — the point at which, in
our retrospect of the relations of pub-
lishers and authors we have now arrived
— that Archibald Constable — then a
young man of 21 years — began business
as a dealer in "scarce old books " —
"scarce o' books," the wags read it — at
the Cross of Edinburgh, on the very spot
which had been occupied by Andro Hart,
who published for Drummond of Haw-
thornden there, nearly two centuries be-
fore. It is evident that, before his time,
what Macaulay calls " the age of general
curiosity and intelligence," had begun to
dawn. The fact that publishers and
printers were realizing large fortunes
cannot otherwise be accounted for.
And no doubt the curious and intelligent
public, whose patronage ultimately eman-
cipated authors from their thraldom, was
greatly increased in the general ferment,
which is typified historically by the
French Revolution. But the great and
distinguishing service which Constable
rendered to literature was, that he was
the first publisher of modern times who
systematically gave authors the benefit of
the public patronage of letters. For in
all his transactions the patron was not
Archibald Constable himself, but the
book-buying public which he represented,
and which he relied on his power to com-
mand. It is far from complimentary to
Constable, it is indeed unmeaning flat-
tery, to speak of his liberality as if it were
the same as that of a literary patron of
the former age — to compare it with the
liberality of Charles I. to Ben Jonson or
of Lord Chesterfield to Dryden, or of
Somers and Halifax to Addison. In
these cases the patronage was partly a
species of charity, and partly a payment
for adulation. But in Constable's case it
was purely a matter of business. His
principles of business, no doubt, differed
very widely in their enlightened breadth
and liberality from those acted on by
even his immediate predecessors, and
continued by most of his contemporaries.
Yet they were strict business principles,
which he carried into practice on a syste-
* "A Dictionary of Printers and Printing, with the
Progress of Literature, Ancient and Modem." By C.
H. Timperley. London : 1839.
140
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
matic plan. He was resolved to be the
first publisher of his time, not only for
dignity's sake, but also for that of profit.
He knew that, to achieve that position, he
must make a bold venture. He knew
that he had to compete with powerful ri-
vals, such as Longman and William Miller
in London, and John Miller, his neigh-
bour, in Edinburgh ; and he saw at once,
shrewd man as he was, that his only
chance of success lay in outbidding them
in the literary market, and thereby in se-
curing to himself at first hand the fore-
most talent of the day.
Plainly, however. Constable never could
have assumed this attitude if he had not
felt a corresponding degree of confidence
in the public, on whose appreciation of
literary work the success of literary en-
terprises ultimately depends. In other
words, he could not afford to pay the
producer more than, according to his esti-
mate, the consumers might be expected,
with the addition of a fair margin of profit,
to repay him. And it was at this point
that Constable's real strength sliowed
itself. He had the utmost confidence in
his own judgment — judgment, which
was aided by remarkable literary insight,
and which, in matters strictly profes-
sional, scarcely ever misled him. This
enabled him to gauge by anticipation,
with striking accuracy, the acceptability
and success of the works he published.
In short, he possessed a business in-
stinct which told him how far a book
would take, and he paid for it accordingly.
It was only natural that the stories of his
unusual liberality to authors, when
bruited abroad, should have excited a de-
gree of interest and expectancy, which
would materially increase the demand for
his works. Probably Constable reckoned
on this. If he did, it was only another
instance of that shrewdness which en-
abled him to grasp firmly, and to con-
template calmly, the whole state of the
book trade at the time when he began to
publish. He believed that the reading
public was greater than was supposed ;
and, further, that it might be largely, al-
most indefinitely, increased. On this
conviction all his enterprises were based.
He made it his business, therefore, to
command the confidence of the public.
This he could do only by providing the
public with the best possible article. To
secure that article he must pay the best
authors a higher price than his rivals. He
paid it ; and he succeeded.
It was necessary, however, that they
should be the best authors ; for nothing
shows more clearly that Constable's lib-
erality was matter of business, and not of
sentiment or caprice, than his dealings
with such authors as failed to secure
his entire confidence. Thus Campbell
proved too keen a bargain-maker, and
too dilatory a writer for Constable to
have much to do with him ; and Camp-
bell, to his deep disgust, received from
Constable the cold shoulder, for which he
revenged himself by swearing at pub-
lishers in general as " ravens," and at
Constable in particular as a "deep draw-
well." James Hogg made persistent
efforts, in spite of repeated rebuffs, to se-
cure Constable as his publisher — an hon-
our which Constable, evidently for good
commercial reasons, as persistently de-
clined. William Godwin, — the author
of " Caleb Williams " and Shelley's fa-
ther-in-law,— declared his inability to
write his new novel unless he was paid
beforehand, and modestly proposed " to
be put upon a footing with the author of
' Waverley ' and ' Guy Mannering.' " He
accompanied his proposal with some tre-
mendous strokes of flattery ; yet Con-
stable insisted on publishing " Mande-
ville " on the principle of division of
profits. Sir John Leslie made a proposal
apropos of Barrow's Arctic book ; but he
complains to Constable that he "seemed
to listen to it coldly, as I find you gener-
ally do to all projects which do not origi-
nate with yourself ; " and his request
to be made Jeffrey's colleague in the
Edinburgh, as scientific editor, was not
more warmly received. The only infer-
ence that can be drawn from these facts
is, that while Constable was ready to in-
cur risk, and to make sacrifices, to secure
authors whom he courted, he did not feel
called on to do so to oblige authors who
courted him.
That, however, which we have pointed
out as constituting Constable's strenjrth
as a publisher, was also, sad to say, the
undoubted source of his weakness ; so
true is it that
Great wits are sure to madness near allied.
The efforts he made to win Scott are in-
stances of enlightened enterprise. The
sacrifices he made to retain Scott
are evidences of a morbid jealousy,
which amounted to positive infatuation.
Through his whole career, after 1807, he
was haunted by a constant dread that one
or other of his principal rivals — Murray
or Longman — would wile Scott away from
him by more tempting offers than he had
made. That apprehension was the bug-
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
141
bear which he could never bring himself
boldly to throw off ; and to our thinking,
it proved in the end the main cause of
his ruin. It was that, and nothing else,
that led him to concede Scott's ever-in-
creasing demands for higher terms. But
for that, he would never have agreed to
make Scott advances, amounting in one in-
stance to ^10,000 at a time, for works still
in embryo, the very titles of which had
not been determined even by the author.
That induced him to grant almost limit-
less accommodation to the Ballantynes,
Scott's partners in his printing and pub-
lishing concerns ; and to take over at a
tremendous loss the dead stock of John
Billantyne and Co., amounting in value
to thousands of pounds.
To make good these assertions, it is
only necessary to review briefly Consta-
ble's dealing with Scott, and in connec-
tion therewith his alliances and ruptures
with the rival houses of Murray and Long-
man. The whole business, it must be
premised, often assumes the form of in-
tricate and even dangerous diplomacy.
The task of a skilful publisher, in such
cases, is not less difficult or hazardous
than that of a secretary of state or an
ambassador at a foreign court, who is
often driven to adopt expedients, in
order to accomplish his purpose, which
his cooler judgment does not approve.
In this view, Constable was a consum-
mate literary diplomatist. But the best
diplomatists are sometimes overreached.
And though Constable appeared to be
eminently successful during the greater
part of his career, we hold very decided-
ly that his ultimate failure had its root
and origin in transactions which were
rather the unwelcome expedients of di-
plomacy than the natural occurrences of
legitimate business.
The Longman alliance began in 1802,
when Constable was admitted to a fourth
share in the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish
Border," published by Longman in Lon-
don. In the autumn of that year Mr.
Longman visited Edinburgh. He went
back to London, proud of his Scottish
reception, delighted especially with his
Edinburgh representative, and satisfied
that none of his jealous rivals in the me-
tropolis could dream of contending with
his interests in the north. This confi-
dence was somewhat misplaced. For,
only a few months later, we find John
Murray throwing out ingenious feelers
in tiie very qu.irter in which Longman
congratuhited himself on his triumphant
success. Murray was so far successful
that " friendly relations were speedily es-
tablished " between him and Constable's
house. At this point a Murray alliance
begins to loom in the future. Not im-
mediately, however ; for in 1803 Long-
man obtained the London agency of the
Edinbu7'gh Review. In the following
year Longman again visited Scotland,
when he was conducted on a provincial
tour by Constable's convivial partner, A.
G. Hunter, the records of which, with its
deplorable drinking experiences, fill some
of the raciest pages in the memoir.
In 1805, the convivial Hunter met
Murray at York, and their genial friend-
ship, prompted no doubt by interest as
well as by community of tastes, seems to
have drawn still closer the bond of union
between their respective houses. At the
same time an unpleasant correspondence
was going on between Messrs. Constable
and Co. and the Longmans, on various
subjects which had led to a painful dis-
pute between the two houses. This dif-
ference reached its climax in November,
1805, when Messrs. Longman intimated
their wish to break the connection. This
rupture involved much more serious con-
sequences than appear on the surface.
Mr. Thomas Constable says with reference
to it, " It had been well for Archibald
Constable had it been otherwise. The
unfortunate experiment of the establish-
ment of a London house in 1809 would
thereby have been averted, and the catas-
trophe of 1826 might never have oc-
curred." (vol. i. p. 44,) What were the
causes of the rupture we are not express-
ly told ; but in a memorandum written
by Constable at a later date, he says it
was caused by Hunter's " warm temper "
more than by anything else. The truth
appears to be that Hunter, acting for Con-
stable and Co., rashly provoked the
quarrel with Longman, knowing that he
had his friend Murray to fall back on,
and believing that a league with the lat-
ter would be more pleasant, if not also
more profitable, than that with the former.
Accordingly, Murray visited Scotland in
1806, and Hunter confirmed the new al-
liance by putting him through experien-
ces of Forfarshire conviviality similar to
those from which Longman had suffered
so sharply two years previously. Mur-
ray also "paid for it dearly" according
to his host ; but he returned to London,
the "faithful ally" of the house of Con-
stable.
Murray's letters to Constable at this
time overflow with sentiments of friend-
ship. A few weeks after his return to
142
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
London, he addressed the Edinburgh
firm as " My dearest friends " ! There-
after the same exuberant style is con-
tinued. " Every moment, my dear Con-
stable," he writes, in concluding one of
these gushing epistles, *' I feel more
grateful to you, and I trust that you will
ever find me your faithful friend."
Hunter's " trust " was somewhat differ-
ent. Writing to Constable from London
a few weeks later he says, " I trust Mur-
ray is now fairly noosed." Noosed in-
deed he was, until his interests made it
expedient for him to escape. Then his
ardent addresses proved to have been
the too much protesting of the faithless
lover.
Before that discovery was made, how-
ever, there was much confidential inter-
course between the houses. In one of
Murray's letters (written in 1807) he
raises the curtain a little bit, and lets us
see how the diplomatic game was carried
on. Referring to Constable's quarrel
with Longman regarding the copyright
of the Edinburgh Review^ Murray insists
on the necessity of Constable "fixing Mr.
Jeffrey irrevocably to yourself; for, as in
all hazardous and important cases, we
must take in extremes and possibilities."
The extreme possibility hinted at, evi-
dently was that Jeffrey might be bought
over by the Longmans to edit a rival
Review. This is a clear proof of the as-
cendancy which authorship was acquir-
ing in the commerce of literature.
Though jealousy does not always imply
warmth of affection on the one side, it
generally implies power on the other.
When rival authors compete for the same
publisher, the publisher has the game in
his own hands ; but when rival publishers
compete for the same author, the author
is master of the situation. Into the latter
condition, evidently, the book trade had
now been brought, thanks to the spread
of enlightenment, and the enterprise of
Archibald Constable.
In due time a rival Review did come,
— not, however, from the dreaded house
of Longman, but from the friendly house
of Murray. Before the end of 1807, John
Murray found cause of offence in some
of Constable's transactions — what, does
not precisely appear ; and what does ap-
pear is trivial enough, — but the upshot
was, a rupture with Murray early in 1808,
as complete as that with Longman had
been three years before. By a curious,
if not suspicious, coincidence, there oc-
curred about the same time a serious
breach between Constable and Scott.
The causes of this, in so far as they ap-
pear, were partly literary, partly political,
and partly, if not chiefly, neither. Scott
was hurt by the unsparing severity of
the notice of " Marmion " in the Edin-
burgh Review, though, on this score, the
publisher, who had given ;;/^i,ooo for the
copyright of the poem, had quite as
weighty grounds of complaint as the
author. Scott was still further incensed
by what he calls "certain impertinences
which, in the vehemence of their Whig-
gery, Messrs. Constable and Co. have
dared to indulge in towards me." But
probably in this, as in similar cases, the
real reason was neither of those which
were alleged. In short, it is evident that
Scott, who had become his own printer
in 1805 (James Ballantyne and Co.), was
bent also on becoming his own publisher,
if not with the view to acquiring for him-
self the whole of the profits which had
previously been divided between himself
and his booksellers, at least with the
view of having free scope to indulge his
craze for literary speculation. " He had,
long before this," says Lockhart, " cast a
shrewd and penetrating eye on the field
of literary enterprise, and developed in
his own mind the outlines of many ex-
tensive plans, which wanted nothing but
the command of a sufficient body of able
subalterns to be carried into execution
with splendid success." *
Several important consequences quick-
ly followed. Scott and Murray, having
both quarrelled with Constable, were nat-
urally drawn together by that " fellow-
feeling" which makes men "wondrous
kind." In October, 1808, "an alliance,
offensive and defensive," was formed be-
tween them at Ashestiel, where Murray
happened to be a visitor. At the same
time it was resolved to establish a new
publishing house in Edinburgh, as a rival
to Constable and Co. The issue of these j
negotiations was that the Quarterly Re- \
view\y2LS established in 1809, and that in \
the same year the publishing house of \
John Ballantyne and Co. was founded in
Edinburgh, with Scott as chief partner
and ruling spirit.
The consequences to Constable were
of the most serious nature. He was
thereby led to engage in what proved not
only the first mistake in his professional
career, but the beginning of fatal disas-
ters— viz., the establishment of a Lon-
don branch. Constable himself says that
he was driven to this step by the " folly
* " Life of Scott," vol. ii. p. 42.
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
143
of certain booksellers ; " and certainly
his unfortunate experiences with Long-
man and with Murray warranted the ex-
periment, especially as the condition of
the Edinburgh house at the time was
thoroughly sound, and full of promise.
His alliances with two of the first houses
in London having failed, he was not in-
clined to risk a third attempt of the same
kind. He may also have felt that, as
Murray was encouraging a rival house in
Edinburgh, the law of retaliation entitled
him to carry the war into the enemy's
country. However this may have been,
the London house was opened early in
1809. Before it had been a year in ex-
istence Mr. Park, the managing partner,
died ; and as no satisfactory arrangement
could be made for carrying it on, it was
soon afterwards dissolved. The Edin-
burgh Review was once more transferred
to agents (Messrs. White, Cochrane, and
Co.), with whom it remained until it went
home again to the Longmans, in 1814.
Changes followed in the Edinburgh
house. A. G. Hunter retired in iSii.
Mr. Cathcart, one of his successors in
the firm, died in 1812, and from that date
till the failure in 1826, Constable's sole
partner was Robert Cadell, his future
son-in-law.
Other events, having a momentous
bearing on Constable's future, had mean-
time been transpiring. In 181 1 Scott
had gratified his pride by the purchase of
Abbotsford — then a small estate of 150
acres, afterwards increased by Scott's
successive purchases to upwards of
1,000 acres. Thus Scott completed his
tale of " Four P's " — printer, publisher,
proprietor, and poet — and entered on
that career, which, however brilliant out-
wardly, was in some respects a mere
"game of speculation." His foolish am-
bition to make Abbotsford a big place,
and himself a "country gentleman all of
the olden time," led him into endless ex-
travagance, in the building and furnish-
ing of his house, as well as in the purchase
of land. Nor did he always buy land on
the most advantageous terms. His desire
to widen his borders soon became known.
And when it appeared that Scott had set
his heart on a neighbouring patch, the
owner thereof set his price on it accord-
ingly. His grand schemes always re-
quired more ready money than he could
command, even when his income was at
its largest. With that view his printing
business had to be pushed, sometimes
even at the expense of his vantage ground
as the most popular author of his time,
Thus in negotiating with Constable for
the publication of "The Lord of the
Isles," in 1814, he suggests that the
Longmans should have " half of the
whole bargain, that is, half of the agency
as well as the property." He fears that
they will not be contented with less, and
he adds, " You know I have powerful
reasons (besides their uniform hand-
some conduct) for not disobliging
them," — in other words, he could not
afford to sacrifice their patronage of James
Ballantyne and Co., as printers.
Another shift to which Sco'.t was
driven, in order to provide ways and
means for realizing his extravagant ideas
was, as we have already said, contracting
and receiving payment for works after-
wards to be written. In a paper, pre-
pared in 1826, by Mr. Alexander Co\^an,
the trustee appointed by the creditors of
Constable and Co., "nine distinct claims
are broug^ht against Sir Walter Scott's
estate, on account of contracts pending
or unfulfilled." (iii. 442.) From a letter of
Cadell's written in January, 1826, on the
eve of the failure, it appears that the ad-
vances made on three of these hypotheti-
cal works — fictions, in a double sense —
amounted to ;^7,6oo. The negotiations
were still further complicated by these
payments being made in bills.
The embroilment did not stop here.
The trade in legitimate bills — if bills for
value not received, not even in existence,
can be called legitimate — having been
found insufficient, recourse, was had to
accommodation bills — wind-bills, pure
and simple. In 1848 Mr. Thomas Con-
stable asked Sir James Gibson-Craig, a
man of sterling worth, who had been the
agent and adviser of Messrs. Constable
and Co. before and during the crisis, to
state in writing his recollection of the
origin of the system of accommodation-
bills which had proved so disastrous to
his father and to Sir Walter Scott. The
following is the material part of Sir
James's reply : —
I remember perfectly your father showing
me a letter [18 13] from Sir Walter Scott,
written in great distress, informing him that
his affairs were in such a state that he must
call a meeting of his creditors, and requesting
your father to do so.
After consulting with me, your father wrote
Sir Walter that he hoped it would be un-
necessary to call a meeting, and that if he
would come to Edinburgh he thought he
could devise means for avoiding so disagreea-
ble a measure.
Sir Walter came, and by your father's ad-
144
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
vice, he applied to the Duke of Buccleuch to
assist him in raising money by annuity, which
he did to the amount, I think, of ^^4,000.
Your father proposed that Sir Walter
should engage to write works for the press ;
on the faith of which your father agreed to
give him bills to a very considerable extent,
and he accordingly did so.
I believe this was the first transaction in
bills Sir Walter and your father had. These
transactions afterwards gradually extended to
a large amount, and it became their practice
that Constable and Co. should give bills to
Sir Walter, which he discounted; and, as a
counter-security. Sir Walter gave similar sums
[in bills] to the company, of which the com-
pany made no use.
After this had gone on for some time, your
father became very uneasy, and wished to put
an end to the dangerous system in which he
had embarked ; and he told me that he had
gone'to Sir Walter [in 1825], taking with him
all the bills he had received, and proposed to
Sir Walter to give up these bills, on Sir
Walter returning those Constable and Co. had
given him.
Sir Walter said he could not possibly do so
[having already discounted them] ; on which
your father told [him] that in that case he
could not meet the engagements for Sir
Walter without discounting the bills granted
by him. This was accordingly done, and led
to discounting to an immense amount a double
set of bills, which could not fail to produce,
and did actually produce, the ruin of both
parties, (iii. 456, 457.)
In coming now to review these events
in their more direct bearing on Consta-
ble's career, the opening paragraph of the
above letter carries us back to the year
1813, and to circumstances which had a
momentous influence on the subsequent
history of Constable's house. In that
year, Scott's publishing concern (John
Ballantyne and Co.), started in 1809 in
connection v^^ith the Murray alliance, was
involved in difficulties so great that Scott,
as we have just seen, thought it would be
necessary to call a meeting of his credi-
tors. In less than a year the Murray
connection had been dissolved ; and
Scott in his extremity bethought him of
his old friend Constable, of whose sa-
gacity and prudence he had always, in
spite of political differences, entertained
and expressed the highest opinion. To
Constable accordingly he appealed,
thou^fh there had been a coldness between
them since the rupture in 1809; and the
charmer charmed so wisely that Con-
stable could not resist the temptation.
Well had it been for him if he had re-
sisted. Never did conscience or prudence
whisper to any man the warning, obsta
principiis^ more reasonably, than when
on this occasion we may suppose it to
have hinted caution to the ambitious
publisher. But the "still small voice "
was disregarded. Constable was flat-
tered and captivated by the thought of
the "darling wizard of the north" return-
ing to his embraces. He at once took
over stock to the amount of ;^2,ooo,
which he resold to the trade at a loss of
50 per cent., and " by his sagacious ad-
vice," Lockhart says, " enabled the dis-
tressed partners to procure similar
assistance at the hands of others, who
did not partake his own feelings of per-
sonal kindness and sympathy." It is not
to be denied that Constable did much at
this time out of the goodness of his
heart. When Lockhart gives him credit
for " personal kindness and sympathy,"
we may be sure that there was warrant
for it. At the same time it is difficult to
believe that he would have incurred posi-
tive pecuniary loss for these consider-
ations. He might have given advice, he
might have helped them in many ways ;
but we cannot see that he would have
been warranted in sacrificing ;^i,ooo (and
for aught he knew it might have been
more), unless he could calculate on de-
riving from the transaction some ultimate
gain. And the gain on which he reck-
oned evidently was, bringing Scott under
obligations which would attach him to
Constable's house. Writing to his part-
ner on 17th June,i8i3, Constable says he
has " no sort of wish to be rapid in being
either off or on " with Scott's proposals.
Writing again on the 21st June, he thus
summarizes a new letter from Scott,
"which rather perplexes" him. "He
(Scott) makes two distinct propositions,
and adds that in the event of neither
being accepted, he must apply to Long-
man and Co. and Murray." Scott knew
full well how to "govern the ventages "
of his " recorder."
Constable's services did not end here.
A few months later, a further advance
became necessary ; the publishing house
was still " a labouring concern." Scott
had recorded but a short time previously
his decided repugnance to a renewal of
his alliance with Constable, saying that
his objections would yield only "to ab-
solute necessity, or to very strong
grounds of advantage," and he added,
" I am persuaded nothing ultimatelv good
can be exoected from any connection
with that house, unless for those who
have a mind to be hewers of wood and
drawers of water." Yet he has again
recourse to Constable, and by his aid and
I
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
145
counsel Scott is enabled to open a credit
account with Constable's London bank-
ers, the Duke of Buccleuch being his
security.
This was in the meantime a great tri-
umph for Constable's diplomacy. Once
more Scott was his friend, bound to him
by the strong tie of obligation ; and as
the Longman alliance had been renewed
a short time previously, Constable's po-
sition seemed to be at its strongest. In
the following year " Waverley " was pub-
lished, and a new and prosperous career
opened up before both author and pub-
lishers. I3ut a dark shadow clouded
their bright prospects ; that was " ac-
commodation." Constable and Ballan-
tyne had been accustomed to deal in ac-
commodation bills for small sums before
the breach in 1808. The practice was
resumed very soon after the reconcilia-
tion in 1813 ; and before the end of 1814,
Constable's house had become " serious-
ly embarrassed by the extent of accom-
modation afforded to Mr. Scott." Their
bankers remonstrate with Cadell, and
Cadell remonstrates with Constable, ex-
pressing his wish to pay them off and
get rid of the connection. Constable
acquiesces so far. " We must cut all
connection that is possible with the Bal-
lantynes and Mr. Scott ; " but he is evi-
dently chary of offending the latter, by
whom he thinks " we are this next half-
year to be benefited greatly." At the
same time his situation is "certainly de-
plorable," and he would give anything
to escape from it. By-and-by, however,
he comes to take a more hopeful view of
matters. He has not the same horror of
"assisting credit "as his partner. "If
the thing [their business] is still going
on prosperously, why should we expe-
rience GREATLY LIMITED ACCOMMODA-
TION ? "
Constable, however, was not to have it
all his own way. The circumstances at-
tending the publication of " Guy Manner-
ing," in 1815, exhibit Scott in a sorry
light, and show that the whole affair was
a complicated game of chess, from which
"dodging" was not excluded, "Guy
Mannering " was published, not in Ed-
inburgh, but in London. The reasons
which led to this are bluntly expressed
by Scott in a letter to John Ballantyne.
It was necessary, he said, " to propiti-
ate the Leviathans of Paternoster-row ; "
and he added, " my reason for letting
them have this scent of roast meat is in
case it should be necessary for us to
apply to them to renew bills in Decem-
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 322
ber." Thus did Scott prostitute his great
intellect to suit the exigencies of his bill-
book. The only condition he made was
that Constable should have the Scottish
sale.
This plan of "extending the sphere of
his publishing relations" having suc-
ceeded so well, Scott resolved to adopt
the general principle of making new and
good stock carry off old and heavy.
Lockhart condemns the practice as unfair
to Constable, gives John Ballantyne the
credit of proposing it, and blames him
for concealing from Scott the extent of
his obligation to Constable in enabling
the house to carry on. But it is only
too plain from the correspondence that
the idea originated with Scott himself,
and that it was at his instance that the
plan was extended. Longman having
been " propitiated " with " Guy Manner-
ing," it was resolved to attack Murray
next. Accordingly in 1816, the first se-
ries of " The Tales of My Landlord " was
offered to Murray and Blackwood, v^rho
agreed to all the author's conditions, and
also relieved John Ballantyne and Co. of
stock to the value of ;^5oo.
These lessons were not thrown away
on Constable, who, when the second se-
ries of " The Tales of My Landlord "
was about to be published, expressed a
hope that they might be produced under
the same auspices with " Rob Roy,"
which had been published by him in the
interval. Taking advantage of his eager-
ness, Ballantyne told him that it would
only be given " to publishers who should
agree to take with it the whole of the re-
maining stock of ' John Ballantyne and
Co.' " Constable, Lockhart says, was " so
worked upon by his jealous feelings,"
that he at once agreed to the extravagant
terms, " and at one sweep cleared the
Augean stable in Hanover-street of un-
salable rubbish to the amount of ;^5,27o."
According to Lockhart, this transaction
was concluded in November, 1817. Mr.
Thomas Constable, proceeding on a let-
ter of Cadell's in January, 1818, is of
opinion that the clearance was not made
till a later period. There is no doubt,
however, that it was made, and that it
was prompted by the considerations
above referred to ; for in the conclusion
of his letter Mr. Cadell says, " We will
thus lay a strong claim on the author of
the novels to prefer us to all others in
time coming."
Constable and Co. were now fairly in
the toils. Scott's " dodges " had entirely
succeeded ; and they had sold themselves,
146
AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS.
soul and body, to the author of " Waver-
ley." So matters continued till the end ;
but our space will not allow us to go into
details.
'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace,
The path from glory to disgrace.
One thing is plain, that Scott's publishers
always had present to their minds the
fear of his being carried off by rival pub-
lishers, as he had been in 1815 and in
1816, Thus Robinson, Constable's Lon-
don agent, writing to him in 1822, says :
" Nothing is so clear as that the author
of ' Waverley ' should hold his hand for
a year or two ; but this fancy can't be
attempted without great danger that he
might be induced to offer some new work
to Murray or Longman." It is now suf-
ficiently plain, surely, that this inordinate
fear of rivalry was the bugbear which
haunted Constable through his whole life,
and which led him into the extravagances
and indiscreet speculations which ulti-
mately ruined him. In the end of 1822,
the dilBculties of the firm seemed to Mr.
Cadell to be insuperable, and he proposed
to save himself by a dissolution of part-
nership. His scruples were, however,
overcome; and "despite all difficulties,
their vessel, under skilful steerage, moved
gallantly forward, amid shoals of bills,
and quicksands of accommodation — the
anticipated profits of contracts unfulfilled.
But for the wreck of another craft, with
whose crew they had unhappily become
too closely connected, their ship might
ere long have glided into smoother wa-
ter," This is, at the least, doubtful ; but
it is a case in which few will be inclined
to deny the plaintiff the benefit of the
doubt.
The " craft " referred to is that of
Hurst, Robinson, and Co., Constable's
London agents. The speculative mania
of 1824, and the commercial crisis of
1825, are matters of history. Robinson
had embarked largely in the bubble
schemes of the day. He lost heavily, and
appealed to Constable for help. Consta-
ble was so entirely dependent on wind-
credit, that he could render no substan-
tial assistance. Scott was appealed to,
to give his name for a large sum, which
might have prevented the immediate
crash ; but Scott refused. The crash
came. Robinson fell. He brought down
Constable ; and with him fell Ballantyne,
and of course Scott.
No one, surely, can say that the result
was surprising. It was the natural con-
sequence of the game which the chief
parties concerned had been playing dur-
ing the previous fifteen years. The won-
der is that it lasted so long. It is not
difficult now to see — and the publication
of Constable's memoir enables us to see
more clearly than before — wherein each
of the unfortunate sufferers erred, and to
apportion the blame accordingly. No one
will be inclined to judge Scott harshly.
Love of the man, appreciation of his
splendid genius, and admiration of the
noble heroism which led him, at the sac-
rifice of his life, to make a stupendous
effort to redeem his credit, alike prevent
this. But the truth must be spoken.
And the truth is that Scott the man of
business, as distino:uished from Scott the
author of " Waverley," allowed himself to
be driven, by his pecuniary necessities —
all of which had their origin in his ambi-
tion to become a great Border laird —
into a system of shifts, and feints, and
dodges, which were barely consistent
with commercial morality. No doubt he
received yeoman service in these pro-
ceedings from the Ballantynes, both of
whom — but John in particular — were
quite as reckless as he was. Scott is as
much to be blamed for having allowed
himself to be played upon, as for playing,
as he did. The fact, however, is that
Scott dominated the literary market, and
used the power which that position gave
him with his eyes open ; and it is truly
pitiable to see, as we have seen, a man of
Scott's genius condescending to the trick
of playing off first Murray, and then
Longman, against Constable — giving
them, as he coarsely expressed it, "a
smell of the roast meat" — for the
avowed purpose of securing an extension
of accommodation.
Such being the forces with which Con-
stable had to contend, his position be-
comes quite intelligible. His great and
consuming weakness was his determina-
tion, at all hazards, to keep fast hold of
Scott. In his infatuated desire to keep
his adversary's king in perpetual check,
he sacrificed all his men, and exposed his
own position beyond hope of reclaim.
This, and nothing else, led him to clear
John Ballantyne's Augean stable, and to
grant to the Ballantynes, and to Scott
himself, unlimited accommodation. This
induced him to contract with Scott for
works which were so entirely in nubibus,
that some of them had not been entered
on when the final crash came. This was
the absorbing idea which led him to dis-
regard alike the remonstrances of his
bankers, and the apprehensions of his
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
147
astute but selfish partner, Robert Cadell.
It was this charmed bond, moreover, that
chained him to his London agents, with
whom at the last he found that he must
either stand or fall.
Well had it been for Archibald Con-
stable had he acted on the principles
which, profiting perhaps by his sad ex-
perience, the brothers Chambers adopted
for their guidance. " At the outset,"
says William Chambers, in his interest-
ing and instructive memoir* of his
brother, " we laid down these rules, which
were inflexibly maintained. Never to
take credit, but to pay for all the great
elements of trade in ready money ; never
to give a bill, and never to discount one ;
and never to undertake any enterprise
for which means were not prepared.
Obviously by no other plan of operations
could we have been freed from anxiety,
and at liberty to make use of the leisure
at our disposal." And when a great and
trying crisis in their London agency
came in 1852, it was their recollection of
the calamity "of Scott and the Ballan-
tynes " that led them at once, though at
tremendous loss, remorselessly to cut
away the diseased member.
Constable's misfortunes, however,
should not blind us to the services which
he rendered to literature. Great inno-
vators have generally been great martyrs.
And though Constable fell a martyr to an
idea, that idea, in his struggle to attain it,
went far to establish the glorious free-
dom of authorship, which is a marked
feature of our time. More than this,
even Lockhart was forced to admit, be-
fore he died, that Constable's dream of a
popular literature which should count its
supporters, not by hundreds but by thou-
sands, not by thousands but by millions,
had already begun to be realized. How
fully that dream has been realized since
his day, in spite of the " chaff" and ridi-
cule with which Lockhart, and, if we are
to believe him, Scott also, at first re-
ceived its narration, no man living prob-
ably knows better than WiUiam Cham-
bers.
* "Memoir of Robert Chambers, with Autobio-
graphical Reminiscences of William Chambers," p.
298. ^Edinburgh, 1872.)
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS
BROTHER.
CHAPTER XVIII.
When Dick saw his friend and patron
come down to the rafts that evening in
company with another of the "gentle-
men," bigger, stronger, and older than
himself, at whom everybody looked with
respect and admiration, the state of his
mind may be supposed. He had been
hanging about all day, as I have said,
making himself useful — a handy fellow,
ready to push a boat into the water, to
run and fetch an oar, to tie on the sheep-
skin on a rower's seat, without standing
on ceremony as to who told him to do so.
The master himself, in the hurry of oper-
ations, had given him various orders with-
out perceiving, so willing and ready was
Dick, that it was a stranger, and not one of
his own men, whom he addressed. Dick
contemplated the conversation which en-
sued with a beating heart. He saw the
lads look round, and that Valentine
pointed him out to the potentate of the
river-side ; and he saw one of the men
join in, saying something, he was sure,
in his favour ; and, after a terrible inter-
val of suspense, Val came towards him,
waving his hand to him in triumph.
" There," cried Val, " we've got you the
place. Go and talk to old Harry yourself '
about wages and things. And mind what
I said to you, Brown ; neither Lichen
nor I will stand any nonsense. We've
made all sorts of promises for you ; and
if you don't keep them. Lichen will kick
you — or if he don't, I will. You'd best
keep steady, for your own sake."
" I'll keep steady," said Dick, with a
grin on his face ; and it was all the boy
could do to keep himself from executing
a dance of triumph when he found himself
really engaged at reasonable wages, and
informed of the hour at which he was ex-
pected to present himself on the morrow.
" Give an eye to my boat. Brown," said
Val; "see she's taken care of. I'll ex-
pect you to look out for me, and have her
ready when you know I'm coming. I
hate waiting," said the lad, with impe-
rious good-humour. How Dick admired
him as he stood there in his flannels and
jersey — the handsomest, splendid, all-
commanding young prince, who had
stooped from his skies to interfere on
his (Dick's) behalf, for no reason in the
world except his will and pleasure.
"How lucky I am," thought Dick to
himself, " that he should have noticed
148
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
me last night ! " — and he made all man-
ner of enthusiastic promises on account
of the boat, and in general devotion to
Val's service. The young potentate took
all these protestations in the very best
part. He stepped into his outrigger with
lordly composure, while Dick, all glowing
and happy, knelt on the raft to hold it.
" You shan't want a friend, old fellow, as
long as you behave yourself," said Val,
with magnificent condescension which it
was fine to see. "I'll look after you,"
and he nodded at him as he shot along
over the gleaming water. As for Dick,
as his services were not required till next
day, he went across the river to Coffin
Lane, where his mother was waiting for
him, to tell his news. She did not say
very much, nor did he expect her to do
so, but she took him by the arm and led
him along the water-side to a house
which stood in a corner, half facing the
river, looking towards the sunset. She
took him in at the open door, and up-
stairs to the room in which she had al-
ready set out a homely and very scanty
table for their supper. Dick did not
know how to express the delight and
thanks in his heart. He turned round
and gave his mother a kiss in silent trans-
port — a rare caress, such as meant
more than words. The window of this
room looked up the river, and straight
into the " Brocas clump," behind which
the sunset was preparing all its splen-
dour. In the little room beyond, which
was to be Dick's bedroom — glorious
title ! — the window looked straight across
to the rafts. I do not think that any
young squire coming into a fine property
was ever more happy than the young
tramp finding himself for almost the first
time in his life in a place which he could
call home. He could not stop smiling,
so full of happiness was he, nor seat him-
self to his poor supper, but went round
and round the two rooms, planning where
he could put up a shelf or arrange a table.
" I'll make it so handy for you, mother ;
you'll not know you're born ! " cried
Dick, in the fulness of his delight.
And yet two barer little rooms perhaps
no human home ever was made in.
There was nothing there that was not in-
dispensable— a table, two chairs, and no
more ; and in Dick's room a small iron
bed. All that his mother possessed for
her own rest was a mattress, which could
be rolled up and put aside during the
day. She took her son's pleasure very
quietly, as was her wont, but smiled with
a sense of having made him happy, which
was pleasant to her, although to make
him happy had not been her only motive.
When she had put away the things from
their supper, she sat down at the open
window and looked out on the river.
The air was full of sound, so softened by
the summer that all rudeness and harsh-
ness were taken out of it: in the fore-
ground the ferry-boat was crossing and
recrossing, the man standing up with his
punt-pole against the glow of the western
sky ; just under the window lay the green
eyot, waving with young willows, and up
and down in a continual stream on the
sunny side of it went and came the boys
in their boats. " Show him to me, Dick,
when he comes," said the woman. Dick
did not require to be told whom she
meant, neither was he surprised at this
intensity of interest in Imn, which made
his young patron the only figure worth
identification in that crowded scene.
Had he not been, as it were, Dick's
guardian angel, who had suddenly ap-
peared for the boy's succour ? — and what
more natural than that Dick's mother
should desire before anything else to see
one who had been such a friend to her
boy .?
But I do not think she was much the
wiser when Val came down the river, ac-
companied by a group of backers on the
bank, who had made themselves hoarse
shrieking and shouting at him. He was
training for a race, and this was one of
his trial nights. Lichen himself had
agreed to come down to give Val his
advice and instructions — or, in more
familiar phraseology, was "coaching"
him for the important effort. Dick
rushed out at the sight, to cheer and
shriek too, in an effervescence of loyalty
which had nothing to do with the charac-
ter of Val's performance. The mother
sat at the window and looked out upon
them, longing and sickening with a de-
sire unsatisfied. Was this all she was
ever to see of him — a distant speck in a
flying boat .? But to know that this was
him — that he was there before her eyes
— that he had taken up Dick and es-
tablished him in his own train, as it were,
near to him, by a sudden fancy which tc
her, who knew what cause there was ioi
it, seemed something like a special inter]
ference of God, — filled her with a strange
confused rapture of mingled feelings
She let her tears fall quietly as she sal
all alone, gazing upon the scene. It
must be God's doing, she felt, since no
man had any hand in it. She had sep-
arated them in her wild justice, rending
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
149
her own heart while she did so, but God
had broufj:ht them together. She was to-
tally untaught, poor soul, in religious
matte'-s, as^'well as in everything else ;
but in her ignorance she had reached
that point \vhich our high philosophy
reaches struggling through the mist,
and which nowadays the unsatisfied
and over-instructed mind loves to go
back to, thinking itself happier with
one naked primary truth than with a
system however divine. No one could
have taken from this dweller in the
woods and wilds the sense of a God in
the world, — almost half visible, some-
times, to musing, silent souls like her
own ; a God always watchful, always
comprehensible to the simple mind, in
the mere fact of His perpetual watchful-
ness, fatherliness, yet severity, — sending
hunger and cold as well as warmth and
plenty, and guiding those revolutions of
the seasons and the outdoor facts of ex-
istence which impress the untaught yet
thoughtful being as nothing learnt by
books can ever do. To know as she did
that there was a God in the world, and
not believe at the same time that His in-
terference was the most natural of all
things, would have been impossible to this
primitive creature. Therefore, knowing
no agencies in the universe but that of
man direct and visible, and that of God,
which to her could scarcely be called in-
visible, she believed unhesitatingly that
God had done this — that He had balked
her, with a hand and power more great
than hers. What was to be the next
step she could not tell, — it was beyond
her : she could only sit and watch how
things would befall, having not only no
power but no wish to interfere.
Thus things went on for the remaining
portion of the "half," which lasted only
about six weeks more. Dick set himself to
the work of making everything " handy "
for her with enthusiasm in his odd hours,
which were few — for his services at the
rafts were demanded imperatively from
earliest morninor till the late evening after
sunset, when the river dropped into dark-
ness. " The gentlemen," it is true, were
all cleared off their favourite stream by
nine o'clock ; but the local lovers of the
Thames would linger on it during those
summer nights, especially when there
was a moon, till poor Dick, putting him-
self across in his boat when all at last
was silent — the last boating party dis-
posed of, and the small craft all ranged
'n their places ready for to-morrow —
would feel his arms scarcely able to pull
the light sculls, and his limbs trembling
under him. Even then, after his long
day's work, when he had eaten his sup-
per, he would set to work to put up the
shelves he had promised his mother, or
to fix upon his walls the pictures which
delighted himself. Dick began with the
lowest rudiments of art, the pictures in
the penny papers, with which he almost
papered his walls. Then his taste ad-
vanced as his pennies grew more plenti-
ful : the emotional prints of the " Police
News" ceased to charm him, and he rose
to the pictures of the " Illustrated," or
whatever might be the picture-pap2r of
the time. This advance — so quickly
does the mind work — took place in the
six weeks that remained of the half ; and
by the time "the gentlemen" left, and
work slackened, Dick's room was already
gorgeous, with here and there a mighty
chromo, strong in tint and simple in sub-
ject, surrounded with all manner of royal
progresses and shows of various kinds,
as represented in the columns uf the prints
aforesaid. He grew handy, too, in ama-
teur carpentering, having managed to
buy himself some simple tools ; and when
he had a spare moment he betook him-
self to the bits of simple carving which
Ross had handed over to him, and
worked at them with a real enjoyment
which proved his possession of some
germ at least of artistic feeling. The
boy never had a moment unemployed with
all these occupations, necessary and vol-
untary. He was as happy as the day was
long, always ready with a smile and pleas-
ant word, always sociable, not given to
calculating his time too nicely, or to
grumbling if some of his " mates " threw
upon his willing shoulders more than his
share of work. The boating people
about got to know him, and among the
boys he had already become highly pop-
ular. Very grand personages indeed —
Lichen himself, for instance, than whom
there could be no more exalted being —
would talk to him familiarly ; and some
kind lads, finding out his tastes, brought
him pictures of which they themselves
had got tired, and little carved brackets
from their walls, and much other rubbish
of this description, all of which was de-
lightful to Dick.
As for Valentine, the effect produced
upon him by the possession of -diProtigi
was very striking. He felt the respon-
sibility deeply, and at once began to
ponder as to the duties of a superior to
his inferiors, of which, of course, one
time or other, he had heard much. An
ISO
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
anxious desire to do his duty to this re-
tainer who had been so oddly thrown
upon his hands, and for whom he felt an
unaccountable warmth of patronizing
friendship, took possession of him. He
made many trite but admirable theories
on the subject — theories, however, not
at all trite to Val, who believed he had
invented them for his own good and that
of mankind. It was not enough, he
reasoned with himself, to have saved a
lad from the life of a tramp, and got him
regular employment, unless at the same
time you did something towards improv-
ing his mind, and training him for the
role of a respectable citizen. These
were very fine words, but Val (strictly
within himself) was not afraid of fine
words. No young soul of sixteen worth
anything ever is. To make a worthy cit-
izen of his waif seemed to him for some
time his mission. Having found out that
Dick could read, he pondered very deep-
ly and carefully what books to get for
him, and how to lead him upon the path
of knowledge. With a little sigh he
recognized the fact that there was no
marked literary turn in Dick's mind, and
that he preferred a bit of wood and a
knife as a means of relaxation to books.
Val hesitated long between the profitable
and the pleasant in literature as a means
of educating his protege. Whether to
rouse him to the practical by accounts of
machinery and manufactures, or to rouse
his imagination by romance, he could
not easily decide. I fear his decision was
biassed ultimately by the possession of a
number of books which he had himself
outgrown, but which he rightly judged
might do very well for his humble friend,
whose total want of education made him
younger than Val by a few years, and
therefore still within the range of the
" Headless Horseman," of Captain
Mayne Reid's vigorous productions, and
other schoolboy literature of- the same
class. These he brought down, a few
volumes at a time, to the rafts, and gave
them to his friend with injunctions to
read them. " You shall have something
better when you have gone through
these; but I daresay you'll like them —
I used to myself," said Val. Dick ac-
cepted them with devout respect ; but I
think the greatest pleasure he got out of
them was when he ranged them in a lit-
tle book-shelf he had himself made, and
felt as a bibliopole does when he arranges
his fine editions, that he too had a library.
Dick did not care much for the stories of
adventure with which Val fed him as a
kind of milk for babes. He knew of ad-
ventures on the road, of bivouacs out of
doors, quite enough in his own person.
But he dearly liked to see them ranged
in his book-shelf. All kinds of curious
instincts, half developed and unintelligi-
ble even to himself, were in Dick's mind,
— the habits of a race of which he knew
nothing — partially burnt out and effaced
by a course of life infinitely different, yet
still existing obstinately within him, and
prompting him to he knew not what. If
we could study human nature as we
study fossils and strata, how strange it
would be to trace the connection between
Dick's rude book-shelves, with the coarse
little ornament he had carved on them,
and the pleasure it gave him to range
Val's yellow volumes upon that rough
shelf — and the great glorious green
cabinets in Lady Eskside's drawing-
room ! Nobody was aware of this con-
nection, himself least of all. And Val,
who had an evident right to inherit so re-
fined a taste, cared as little for the Ver-
nis-Martin as though he had been born a
savage ; by such strange laws, unknown
to us poor gropers after scraps of infor-
mation, does inheritance go !
All this time, however, Dick's, mother
had not seen Val more than in his boat,
for which she looked through all the
sunny afternoons and long evenings,
spending half her silent intent life, so
different to the outward one, so full of
strange self-absorption and concentrated
feeling, in the watch. This something
out of herself, to attract her wandering
visionary thoughts and hold her passion-
ate heart fast, was what the woman had
wanted throughout the strange existence
which had been warped and twisted out
of all possibility at its very outset. Her
wild intolerance of confinement, her de-
sire for freedom, her instinct of constant
wandering, troubled her no more. She
did her few domestic duties in the
morning, made ready Dick's meals for
him (and they lived with Spartan simpli-
city, both having been trained to eat what
they could get, most often by the road-
side— cold scraps of food which re-
quired no preparation), and kept his
clothes and her own in order ; and all
the long afternoon would sit there watch-
ing for the skimming boat, the white
jersey, with the distinctive mark which
she soon came to recognize. I think;
Val's jersey had a little red cross on the
breast — an easy symbol to recollect.
When he came down the river at last,
and left his boat, she went in with a sigh,
A
THE STORY OF VALENTINE) AND HIS BROTHER.
151
half of relief, from her watch, half of pain
that it was over, and began to prepare
her boy's supper. They held her whole
existence thus in suspense between them ;
one utterly ignorant of it, the other not
much better informed. When Dick
came in, tired but cheery, he would show
her the books Mr. Ross had brought him,
or report to her the words he had said.
Dick adored him frankly, with a boy's
pride in all his escapades ; and there
were few facts in Val's existence which
were not known in that little house at the
corner, all unconscious as he was of his
importance there. One morning, how-
ever, Dick approached this unfailing
subject with a little embarrassment, look-
ing furtively at his mother to see how far
he might venture to speak.
" You don't ever touch the cards now,
mother ? " he said all at once, with a
guilty air, which she, absorbed in her
own thoughts, did not perceive.
" The cards ? — I never did when I
could help it, you know."
" I know," he said, " but I don't sup-
pose there's no harm in it ; it ain't you as
put them how they come. All you've got
to do with it is saying what it means.
Folks in the Bible did the same — Joseph,
for one, as was carried to the land of
Egypt."
The Bible vi^as all the lore Dick had.
He liked the Old Testament a great deal
better than the " Headless Horseman ; "
and, like other well-informed persons, he
was glad to let his knowledge appear
when there was an occasion for such ex-
hibitions. His mother shook her head.
" It's no harm, maybe, to them that
think no harm," she said; "no, it ain't
me that settles them — who is it? It
must be either God or the devil. And
God don't trouble Himself with the like
of that — He has more and better to do ;
so it must be the devil ; and I don't hold
with it, unless I'm forced for a living. I
can't think as it's laid to you then."
" I wish you'd just do it once to please
me, mother ; it couldn't do no harm."
She shook her head, but looked at him
with questioning eyes.
" Suppose it was to please a gentleman
as I am more in debt to than I can ever
pay — more than I want ever to pay,"
cried Dick, "except in doing everything
to please him as long as I live. You may
say it ain't me as can do this, and that
I'm taking it out of you ; but you're all I
have to help me, and it ain't to save my-
self. Mother, it's Mr. Ross as has heard
somehow how clever you are ; and if you
would do it just once to please him and
me !"
She did not answer for a few minutes.
Dick thought she was struggling with
herself to overcome her repugnance.
Then she replied, with an altered and
agitated voice, " For him I'll do it — you
can bring him to-morrow."
" How kind you are, mother ! " said
Dick, gratefully. " College breaks up
the day after to-morrow," he added in a
dolorous voice. " I don't know what I
shall do without him and all of them —
the place won't look the same, nor I
shan't feel the same. Mayn't he come
to-night."* I think he's going off to-mor-
row up to Scotland, as they're all talking
of. Half of 'em goes up to Scotland. I
wonder what kind of a place it is. Were
we ever there .'' "
" Once — when you were quite a child."
"'Twas there the tother little chap
died ? " said Dick, compassionately.
" Poor mammy, I didn't mean to vex you.
I wonder what he'd have been like now
if he'd lived. Look here, mother, mayn't
/le come to-n'ght .-* "
" If you like," she said, trying to seem
calm, but deeply agitated by this refer-
ence. He saw this, and set it down nat-
urally to the melancholy recollections he
had evoked.
" Poor mother," he said, rising from
his dinner, "you are a feelin' one! all
this time, and you've never forgotten.
I'll go away and leave you quiet ; and
just before lock-up, when it's getting
dark, him and me will come across. You
won't say nothing you can help that's
dreadful if the cards turn up bad ? — and
speak as kind to him as you can, mother
dear, he's been so kind to me."
Speak as kind to him as you can !
What words were these to be said to her
whose whole being was disturbed and ex-
cited by the idea of seeing this stranger !
Keep yourself from falling at his feet and
kissing them ; from falling on his neck
and weeping over him. If Dick had but
known, these were more likely things to
happen. She scarcely saw her boy go
out, or could distinguish vvhat were the
last words he said to her. Her heart was
full of the other — the other whose face
her hungry eyes had not been able to dis-
tinguish from her window, who had never
seen her, so far as he knew, and yet who
was hers, though she dared not say so,
dared not claim any share in him. Dared
not ! though she could not have told why.
To her there were barriers between them
impassible. She had given him up when
152
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
he was a child for the sake of justice, and
the wild natural virtue and honour in her
soul stood between her and the child she
had relinquished. It seemed to her that
in giving him up she had come under a
solemn tacit engagement never to make
herself known to him, and she was too
profoundly agitated now to be able to
think. Indeed I do not think that rea-
sonable sober thought, built upon just
foundations, was ever possible to her.
She could muse and brood, and did so,
and had done so,' — doing little else for
many a silent year ; and she could sit
still, mentally, and allow her imagination
and mind to be taken possession of by a
tumult of fancy and feeling, which drew
her now and then to a hasty decision, and
which, had she been questioned on the
subject, she would have called thinking
— as, indeed, it stands for thinking with
many of us. It had been this confused
working in her of recollection and of a
fanciful remorse which had determined
her to give up Valentine to his father ;
and now that old fever seemed to have
come back again, and to boil in her veins.
I don't know if she had seriously re-
gretted her decision then, or if she had
ever allowed herself to think of it as a
thing that could have been helped, or
that might still be remedied. But by
this time, at least, she had come to feel
that it never could be remedied, and that
Valentine Ross, Lord Eskside's heir,
could never be carried off to the woods
and fields as her son, as perhaps a- child
might have been. He was a gentleman
now, she felt with a forlorn pride, which
mingled strangely with the anguish of
absolute loss with which she realized the
distance between them, — the tremen-
dous and uncrossable gulf between his
state and hers. He was her son, yet
never could know her, never acknowledge
her, — and she was to speak with him
that night.
The sun had begun to sink, before,
starting up from her long and agitated
musing, the womanish idea struck her of
making some preparations for his recep-
tion, arranging her poor room and her
person to make as favourable an impres-
sion as possible upon the young prince
who was her own child. What was she
to do ? She had been a gentleman's wife
once, though for so short a time ; and
sometimes of late this recollection had
come strongly to her mind, with a sen-
sation of curious pride which was new to
her. Now she made an effort to recall
that strange chapter in her life, when she
had lived among beautiful things, and
worn beautiful dresses, and might have
learned what gentlemen like. She had
never seen Val sufficiently near to dis-
tinguish his features, and oddly enough,
ignoring the likeness of her husband which
was in Dick, expected to find in Valen-
tine another Richard, and instinctively
concluded that his tastes must be what
his father's were. After a short pause of
consideration she went to a trunk, which
she had lately sent for to the vagrant
headquarters, where it had been kept for
her for years — a trunk containing some
relics of that departed life in which she
had been " a lady." Out of this she
took a little shawl embroidered in silken
garlands, and which had faded into col-
ours even more tasteful and sweet than
they were in their newest glories — a
shawl for which Mr. Grinder, or any
other dilettante in Eton, would have
given her almost anything she liked to
ask. This she threw over a rough table
of Dick's making, and placed on it some
flowers in a homely little vase, of coarse
material yet graceful shape. Here, too,
she placed a book or two drawn from the
same repository of treasures — books in
rich faded binding, chiefly poetry, which
Richard had given her in his early folly.
The small table, with its rich cover, its
bright flowers and gilded books, looked
like a little altar of fancy and grace in
the bare room ; it was indeed an altar
dedicated to the memory of the past, to
the pleasure of the unknown.
When she had arranged this touching
and simple piece of incongruity, she pro-
ceeded to dress herself. She took off
her printed gown and put on a black one,
which also came out of her trunk. She
put aside the printed handkerchief which
she usually wore, tramp fashion, on her
head, and brushed out her long beauti-
ful black hair, in which there was not one
white thread. Why should there have
been ? She was not more than thirty-
five or thirty-six, though she looked old-
er. She twisted her hair in great coils
round her head — a kind of coiffure
which I think the poor creature remem-
bered Richard had liked. Her appear-
ance was strangely changed when she
had made this simple toilet. She looked
like some wild half-savage princess con-
demned to exile and penury, deprived of
her retinue and familiar pomp, but not of
her natural dignity. The form of her
fine head, the turn of her graceful shoul-
ders, had not been visible in her tramp
dress. When she had done everything
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
153
sne could think of to perfect the effect
which she prepared, poor soul, so care-
fully, she sat down, with what calm she
could muster, to wait for her boys. Her
boys, her children, the two who had come
into the world at one birth, had lain in
her arms together, but who now were as
unconscious of the relationship, and as
far divided, as if worlds had lain between
them ! Indeed she was quite calm and
still to outward appearance, having ac-
quired that power of perfect external
self-restraint which many passionate na-
tures possess, though her heart beat
loud in her head and ears, performing a
whole muffled orchestra of wild music.
Had any stranger spoken to her she
would not have heard ; had any one come
in, except the two she was expecting, I
do not think she would have seen them,
she was so utterly absorbed in one
thought.
At last she heard the sound of their
steps coming up-stairs. The light had
begun to wane in the west, and a purple
tone of half darkness had come into
the golden air of the evening. She stood
up mechanically, not knowing what she
was doing, and the next moment two fig-
ures stood before her — one well known,
her familiar boy,— the other! Was this
the other? A strange sensation, half
of pleasure, half of disappointment, shot
through her at sight of his face.
Val had come in carelessly enough,
taking off his hat, but with the ease of a
superior. He stopped short, however,
when he saw the altogether unexpected
appearance of the woman who was Dick's
mother. He felt a curious thrill come
into his veins — of surprise, he thought.
" I beg your pardon," he said ; " 1 —
hope you don't mind my coming ? Brown
said you wouldn't mind."
" You are very welcome, sir," she said,
her voice trembling in spite of her. '* If
there is anything 1 can do for you. You
have been so kind — to my boy."
" Oh," said Val, embarrassed, with a
shy laugh, " it pays to be kind to Brown.
He's done us credit. I say — what a
nice place you've got here ! "
He was looking almost with consterna-
tion at the beautiful embroidery and the
books.
tune sir ? " she said, recovering a little.
" I don't hold with it; but I'll do it if
you wish it. I'll do it — once — and for
you."
" Oh, thanks, awfully," cried Val, more
and more taken aback — "if you're sure
you don't mind : " and he held out his
hand with a certain timidity most un-
usual to him. She took it suddenly in
both hers by an uncontrollable move-
ment, held it fast, gazed at it earnestly,
and bent down her head, as if she would
have kissed it. Val felt her hands trem-
ble, and her agitation was so evident that
both the boys were moved to unutterable
wonder; somehow, I think the one of
them who wondered least was Valentine,
upon whom this trembling eager grasp
made the strongest impression. He felt
as if the tears were coming to his eyes,
but could not tell why.
" It is not the hand I thought to see,"
she said, as if speaking to herself — " not
the hand I thought." Then dropping it
suddenly, with an air of bewilderment,
she said hastily, " It is not by the hand I
do it, but by the cards."
" I ought to have crossed my hand
with silver, shouldn't I ? " said Val, try-
ing to laugh ; but he was excited too.
" No, no," she said tremulously ; "no,
no — my boy's mother can take none of
your silver. Are you as fond of him as
he is fond of you ? "
" Mother ! " cried Dick, amazed at the
presumption of this inquiry.
« Well —fond ? " said Val, doubtfully ;
" yes, really I think I am, after all, though
I'm sure I don't know why. He should
have been a gentleman. Mrs. Brown, I
am afraid it is getting near lock-up."
"My name is not Mrs. Brown," she
said, quickly.
" Oh, isn't it ? I beg your pardon,"
said Val. " I thought as he was Brown
_Mrs. -?"
" There's no Miss nor Missis among
my folks. They call me Myra — Forest
Myra," she said, hastily. " Dick, give
me the cards, and I will do my best."
But Dick was sadly distressed to see
that his mother was not doing her best.
She turned the cards about, and mur-
mured some of the usual jargon about
Where could they have picked i fair men and dark women, and news to
up such things ? He was half impressed
and half alarmed, he could not have told
why. He put out a furtive hand and
clutched at Dick's arm. " I say, do you
think she minds ?" Val had never been
so shy in his life.
" You want me to tell you your for-
receive, and journeys to go. But she
was not herself: either the fortune was
so very bad that she was afraid to re-
veal it, or else something strange must
have happened to her. She threw them
down at last impatiently, and fixed her in-
tent eyes upon Valentine's face.
154
MR. RUSKIN's recent WRITINGS.
" If you have all the good I wish you,
you'll be happy indeed," she said; "but
I can't do nothing to-night. Sometimes
the power leaves us." Then she put her
hand lightly on his shoulder, and gazed
at him beseechingly. "Will you come
again ? " she said.
"Oh, yes," said Val, relieved. He
drew a step back, with a sense of having
escaped. " I don't mind, you know, a*t
all,"»he said ; " it was nothing but a joke.
But I'll come again with pleasure. I say,
what have you done to that carving,
Brown ? "
How glad Val was to get away from
her touch, and from her intent eyes ! and
yet he did not want to go away. He has-
tened to the other end of the room with
Dick, who was glad also to find that the
perplexing interview was at an end, and
got out his bit of carving with great relief.
Val stood for a long time (as they all
thought) side by side with the other, lay-
ing their heads together, the light locks
and the dark — talking both together, as
boys do; and felt himself calm down,
but with a sense that something strange
had happened to him, something more
than he could understand. The mother
sat down on her chair, her limbs no
longer able to sustain her. She was glad,
too, that it was over — glad and sad, and
so shaken with conflicting emotions, that
she scarcely knew what was going on.
Her heart sounded in her ears like great
waves ; and through a strange mist in her
eyes, and the gathering twilight, she
saw vaguely, dimly, the two beside her.
Oh, if she could but have put her arms
round them and kissed them both to-
gether ! But she could not. She sat
down silent among the shadows, a shad-
ow herself, against the evening light, and
saw them in a mist, and held her peace.
" You did not tell me your mother was
a lady," said Val, as the two went back
together through the soft dusk to the
river-side. " I never knew it," said won-
dering Dick; " I never thought it — till
to-night."
" Ah, but I am sure of it," said Val.
" I thought you couldn't be a cad, Brown,
or I should not have taken to you like
this. She's a lady, sure enough ; and
what's more," he added, with an embar-
rassed laugh, " I feel as if I had known
her somewhere — before — I suppose,
before I was born ! "
From Eraser's Magazine.
MR. RUSKIN'S RECENT WRITINGS.
BY LESLIE STEPHEN.
The world is out of joint. The songs
of triumph over peace and progress which
were so popular a few years ago have
been quenched in gloomy silence. It is
difficult even to take up a newspaper
] without coming upon painful forebodino's
of the future. Peace has not come dovvn
upon the world, and there is more de-
mand for swords than for ploughshares.
The nations are glaring at each other
distrustfully, muttering ominous threats,
and arming themselves to the teeth.
Their mechanical skill is absorbed in de-
vising more efficient means of mutual
destruction, and the growth of material
wealth is scarcely able to support the
burden of warlike preparations. The in-
ternal politics of states are not much
more reassuring than their external re-
lations. If the republic triumphs in
France and Spain it is not because rea-
son has supplanted prejudice, but because
nobody, except a few Carlists or Com-
munists, believes enough in any prin-
ciples to fight for them. In the promised
land of political speculators, the govern-
ment of the country is more and more
becoming a mere branch of stockjobbing.
Everywhere the division between classes
widens instead of narrowing ; and the
most important phenomenon in recent
English politics is that the old social
bonds have snapped asunder amono-st
the classes least accessible to revolution-
ary impulses. Absorbed in such con-
tests, we fail to attend to matters of the
most vital importance. The health of
the population is lowered as greater
masses are daily collected in huge'^cities,
where all the laws of sanitary science
are studiously disregarded. Everywhere
we see a generation growing up sordid,
degraded, and void of self-respect. The
old beauty of life has departed. A la-
bourer is no longer a man who takes a
pride in his work and obeys a code of
manners appropriate to his station in life.
He restlessly aims at aping his superiors,
and loses his own solid merits without
acquiring their refinement. If the work-
man has no sense of dutv to his employ-
er, the employer forgets' in his turn that
he has any duty except to grow rich. He
complains of the exorbitant demands of
his subordinates, and tries to indemnifv
himself by cheating his equals. Wha't
can we expect in art or in literature from
such a social order except that which we
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
155
see ? The old spontaneous impulse has
departed. Our rising poets and artists
are a puny generation who either console
themselves for their impotence by mas-
querading in the clothes of their prede-
cessors or take refuge in a miserable
epicureanism which calls all pleasures
equally good and prefers those sensual
enjoyments which are most suited to
stimulate a jaded appetite. Religion is
corrupted at the core. With some it is
a mere homage to. the respectabilities ;
with others a mere superstition, which
claims to be pretty but scarcely dares
even to assert that it is true ; some re-
volt against all religious teaching, and
others almost openly advocate a belief in
lies ; everywhere the professed creeds of
men are divorced from their really serious
speculations.
Those who would apply a remedy to
these evils generally take one of two
lines : they propose that we should hum-
bly submit to outworn authority, or
preach the consoling gospel that if we
will let everything systematically alone
things will somehow all come right. As
if things had not been let alone ! When
we listen to the pedants and the preach-
ers of the day, can we not sympathize
with Shakespeare's weariness
Of art made tongue-tied by authority.
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple faith miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captive ill ?
" Tired of all these," where are we to
find consolation ? Most of us are con-
tent, and perhaps wisely, to work on in
our own little spheres, and put up with
such results as can fall to the share of a
solitary unit in this chaotic world. We
may reflect, if we please, that there never
was a time since the world began at
which evil was not rampant and wise
men in a small minority ; and that some-
how or other we have in the American
phrase " worried through " it, and rather
improved than otherwise. There are ad-
vantages to be set against all the trium-
phant mischiefs which make wise men
cry out, Vanitas vanitatum / and enthu-
siasts may find a bright side to the more
ominous phenomena and look forward to
that millennium which is always to begin
the day after to-morrow. We have culti-
vated statistics of late, and at least one
of our teachers has thought that the new
gospel lay in that direction ; but we have
not yet succeeded in presenting in a tab-
ular form all the good and all the evil
which is to be found in the world, and in
striking a balance between them. The
problem is too complex for most of us ;
and it may be as well to give it up, and,
without swaggering over progress, or
uselessly saddening ourselves over de-
cay, do our best to swell the right side of
the account. Most men, however, judge
according to temperament. The cheerful
philosopher sees in the difference be-
tween the actual state of the world and
the ideal which he can frame for himself,
a guarantee for the approach of a better
day. The melancholy philosopher sees
in the same contrast a proof of the nat-
ural corruption of mankind. He puts the
golden age behind instead of before ; and,
like his rival, attributes to the observa-
tion of external events what is merely the
expression of his own character.
No one, at any rate, will deny that the
clouds are thick enough to justify many
gloomy prognostications. Take a man of
unusual if not morbid sensibility, and
place him in the midst of the jostling,
struggling, unsavoury, and unreasonable
crowd ; suppose him to have a love of all
natural and artistic beauty, which is out-
raged at every moment by the prevailing
ugliness ; a sincere hatred for all the
meanness and imposture too character-
istic of modern life ; a determination to
see things for himself, which involves an
antipathy to all the established common-
places of contented respectability ; an
eloquence and imaginative force which
transfuses his prose with poetry, though
his mind is too discursive to express
itself in the poetical form ; and a keen
logical faculty hampered by a constitu-
tional irritability which prevents his
teaching from taking a systematic form ;
let him give free vent to all the annoy-
ance and the indignation naturally pro-
duced by his position, and you will have
a general impression of Mr. Ruskin's
later writings. One seems almost to be
listening to the cries of a man of genius,
placed in a pillory to be pelted by a thick-
skinned mob, and urged by a sense of his
helplessness to utter the bitterest taunts
that he can invent. Amongst the weak-
nesses natural to such a temperament is
the disposition to attach an undue value
to what other people would describe as
crotchets ; and amongst Mr. Ruskin's
crotchets are certain theories which in-
volve the publication of his works in
such a manner as to oppose the greatest
obstacles to their circulation.* It is due
* The monthly numbers of Mr. Ruskin's Fors Cla-
vigera are to be obtained for the sum of tenpence each
'S6
partly to this cause, and partly to the
fact that people do not like to be called
rogues, cheats, liars, and hypocrites, that
Mr, Ruskin's recent writings, and espe-
cially his Fors Clavigera^ the monthly
manifesto in which he denounces modern
society, have not received the notice
which they deserve. The British public
is content to ticket Mr. Ruskin as an
oddity, and to pass by with as little atten-
tion as possible. And yet the Fors Cla-
vigera (the meaning of the title may be
found in the second number) would be
worth reading if only as a literary curios-
ity. It is a strange mixture of autobi-
ographical sketches, of vehement denun-
ciation of modern crimes and follies, of
keen literary and artistic criticism, of eco-
nomical controversy, of fanciful etymolo-
gies, strained allegories, questionable in-
terpretations of history, and remarks
upon things in general, in which passages
of great force and beauty are curiously
blended with much that, to say the least,
is of inferior value, and in which digres-
sion is as much the rule as in Tristram
Shandy or Southey's Doctor. Even Mr.
Ruskin's disciples seem at times to be a
little puzzled by his utterances, and espe-
cially by a certain receipt for making a
" Yorkshire Goose Pie," which suddenly
intrudes itself into one of his numbers,
and may or may not cover a profound al-
legory. Nothing would be easier, and
nothing would be more superfluous, than
to ridicule many of the opinions which he
throws out, or to condemn them from the
point of view of orthodox science or po-
litical economy. It seems to be more
desirable to call attention to the strength
than to the weakness of teaching opposed
to all current opinions, and therefore
more sure to be refuted than to gain a
fair hearing. When a gentleman begins
by informing his readers that he would
like to destroy most of the railroads in
England and all the railroads in Wales,
the new town of Edinburgh, the north
suburb of Geneva, and the city of New
York, he places himself in a position
which is simply bewildering to the ordi-
nary British mind. Without claiming to
be an adequate interpreter, and still less
an adequate critic, of all his theories, I
may venture a few remarks upon some of
the characteristic qualities of Fors and
others of his recent writings.
Mr. Ruskin, as I have said, is at war
with modern society. He sometimes ex-
on application to Mr. George Allen, Orpington, Sun-
nyside, Kent.
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
presses himself in language which, but
for his own assurances to the contrary,
might be taken for the utterance of furi-
ous passion rather than calm reflection.
" It seems to be the appointed function
of the nineteenth century," he says, " to
exhibit in all things the elect pattern of
perfect folly, for a wirning to the fur-
thest future." The only hope for us is in
one of the " forms of ruin which neces-
sarily cut a nation down to the ground
and leave it, thence to sprout again, if
there be any life left for it in the earth,
or any lesson teachable to it by adver-
sity." And after informing his Oxford
hearers that we are, in the sphere of art
at any rate, " false and base," " abso-
lutely without imagination and without
virtue," he adds that his language is not,
as they may fancy, unjustifiably violent,
but "temperate and accurate — except in
shortcoming of blame." Indeed, if Mr.
Ruskin's habitual statements be well
founded, the world has become well nigh
uninhabitable by decent people. Lot
would be puzzled to discover a residue of
righteous men sufficient to redeem us
from speedy destruction. In the preface
to a collected edition of his works, he
tells us that in his natural temper he
has sympathy with Marmontel ; in his
'* enforced and accidental -temper, and
thoughts of things and people, with Dean
Swift." No man could make a sadder
avowal than is implied in a claim of sym-
pathy with the great man who now rests
where his heart is no longer lacerated by
scEva indignatio. Neither, if one may
correct a self-drawn portrait, can the
analogy be accepted without many de-
ductions. Swift's misanthropy is very
different in quality from Mr. Ruskin's.
It is less "accidental," and incomparably
deeper. Misanthropy, indeed, is alto-
gethei" the wrong word to express the
temper with which Mr. Ruskin regards
the world. He believes in the capacity
of men for happiness and purity, though
some strange perversity has jarred the
whole social order. He can believe in
heroes and in unsopliisticated human
beings, and does not hold that all virtue
is a sham, and selfishness and sensuality
the only moving forces of the world.
Swift's concentrated bitterness indicates
a mind in which the very roots of all il-
lusions have been extirpated. Mr. Rus-
kin can still cherish a fiint belief in a
possible Utopia, which to the Dean would
have appeared to be a silly dream, wor-
thy of the philosophers of Liputa. The
, more masculine character of Swift's
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
IS7
mind makes him capable of accepting a
view of the world which helped to drive
even him mad, and which would have
been simply intolerable to a man of more
delicate fibre. Some light must be ad-
mitted to the horizon, or refuge would
have to be sought in the cultivation of
sheer cynical insensibility. Mr. Ruskin
has not descended to those awful depths,
and we should have been more inclined
to compare his protest against modern
life with the protest of Rousseau. The
old-fashioned declamations against luxury
may be easily translated into Mr. Rus-
kin's language about the modern worship
of wealth ; and if he does not talk about
an ideal " state of nature," he is equally
anxious to meet corruption by returning
to a simpler order of society. Both
writers would oppose the simple and
healthy life of a primitive population of
peasants to the demoralized and disor-
ganized masses of our great towns. Mr.
Ruskin finds his " ideal of felicity actu-
ally produced in the Tyrol." There, a
few years ago, he met " as merry and
round a person " as he ever desires to
see : " he was tidily dressed, not in brown
rags, but in green velveteen ; he wore a
jaunty hat, with a feather in it, a little on
one side ; he was not drunk, but the
effervescence of his thorough good hu-
mour filled the room all about him ; and
he could sing like a robin." Many trav-
ellers who have seen such a phenomenon,
and mentally compared him with the
British agricultural labourer, whose griev-
ances are slowly becoming articulate,
must have had some search ings of heart
as to the advantages of the modern civili-
zation. Is the poor cramped population
of our fields, or the brutal population
which heaves half-bricks at strangers in
the mining districts, or the effete popu-
lation which skulks about back slums
and our casual wards, the kind of human
article naturally turned out by our manu-
facturing and commercial industry ?
The problem about which all manner
of Social Science Associations have been
puzzling themselves for a great many
years essentially comes to this ; and Mr.
Ruskin answers it passionately enough.
The sight and the sound of all the evils
which affect the world is too much for
him. " I am not," he says, "an unselfish
person nor an evangelical one ; I have
no particular pleasure in doing good, nor
do I dislike doing it so much as to expect
to be rewarded for it in another world.
But I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor
look at minerals, nor do anything else
that I like, and the very light of the
morning sky, when there is any — which
is seldom now-a-days near London — has
become hateful to me, because of the
misery which I know of and see signs of
when I know it not, which no imagination
can interpret too bitterly." There is
evil enough under the sun to justify any
fierceness of indignation ; and we should
be less disposed to quarrel with Mr.
Ruskin for cherishing his anger than for
squandering so valuable an article so
rashly. He suffers from a kind of men-
tal incontinence which weakens the force
of his writing. He strikes at evil too
fiercely and rapidly to strike effectually.
He wrote the Modern Painters, as he tells
us in a characteristic preface to the last
edition, not from love of fame, for then
he would have compressed his writing,
nor from love of immediate popularity,
for then he would have given fine words
instead of solid thought, but simply
because he could not help it. He saw an
injustice being done, and could not help
flying straight in the faces of the evil-
doers. It is easy to reply that he ought
to have helped it. In that case the book
might have become a symmetrical whole
instead of being only what it is — the
book which, in spite of incoherence and
utter absence of concentration, has done
more than any other of its kind to stimu-
late thought and disperse antiquated fal-
lacies. But we must take Mr. Ruskin as
he is. He might, perhaps, have been a
leader ; he is content to be a brilliant
partisan in a random guerilla warfare,
and therefore to win partial victories, to
disgust many people whom he might
have conciliated, and to consort with all
manner of superficial and untrained
schemers, instead of taking part in more
systematic operations. Nobody is more
sensible than Mr. Ruskin of the value
of discipline, order, and subordination.
Unfortunately the ideas of every existing
party happen to be fundamentally wrong,
and he is therefore obliged in spite of
himself to fight for his own hand.
Men who revolt against the world in
this unqualified fashion are generally sub-
ject to two imputations. They are eccen-
tric by definition ; and their eccentricity
is generally complicated by sentimental-
ism. They are, it is suggested, under
the dominion of an excessive sensibility
which bursts all restraints of logic and
common sense. The worst of all qualifi-
cations for fighting the world is to be so
thin-skinned as to be unable to accept
compromise or to submit contentedly to
iss
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
inevitable evils. In Mr. Ruskin's case,
it is suggested, the foundation of this ex-
aofgerated tone of feeling is to be found
in his exquisite sense of the beautiful.
He always looks upon the world more or
less from an artistic point of view. What-
ever may be our other claims to supe-
riority over our ancestors, nobody can
deny that the world has become ugly.
We may be more scientific than the
ancient Greeks ; but we are undoubtedly
mere children to them in art, or rather,
mere decrepit and effete old men. We
could no more build a Parthenon or make
a statue fit to be set by the Elgin marbles,
than they could build ironclads or solve
problems by modern methods of mathe-
matical analysis. Indeed, our superiority
in any case is not a superiority of faculty,
but simply of inherited results. And
thus, if the artistic capacities of a race
be the fair measure of its general excel-
lence, that which we call progress should
really be called decay. Our eyes have
grown dim, and our hands have lost their
cunning. Mere mechanical dexterity is
but a poor thing to set against the uner-
ring instinct which in old days guided
alike the humblest workman and the
most cultivated artist. The point at issue
appears in one of Mr. Ruskin's contro-
versies. According to the Spectator^ Mr.
Ruskin wished the country to become
poor in order that it might thrive in an
artistic sense. "If," it said, "we must
choose between a Titian and a Lancashire
cotton-mill, then in the name of manhood
and of morality give us the cotton-mill ; "
and it proceeded to add that only "the
dilettantism of the studio " would make a
different choice. Mr. Ruskin, that is, is
an effeminate person who has so fallen
in love with the glories of Venetian
colouring and Greek sculpture that he
would summarily sweep away all that
makes men comfortable to give them a
chance of recovering the lost power.
Let us burn our mills, close our coal-
mines, and tear up our railways, and
perhaps we may learn in time to paint a
few decently good pictures. Nobody in
whom the artistic faculties had not been
cultivated till the whole moral fibre was
softened would buy good art at such a
sacrifice.
Up to a certain point, I imagine that
Mr. Ruskin would accept the statement.
He does prefer Titians to cotton-mills,
and he does think that the possession of
cotton-mills is incompatible with the pro-
duction of Titians. He hates machinery
as an artist ; he hates the mechanical
repetition of vulgar forms, whether in
architecture or "dry goods," which takes
the place of the old work where every
form speaks of a living hand and eye be-
hind it. He hates steamboats because
they come puffing and screaming, and
sending their whistles through his head
like a knife when he is meditating on the
loveliness of a picture in the once silent
Venice. He hates railways because they
destroy all natural beauty. There was
once a rocky valley between Buxton and
Bakewell, where you might have seen
Apollo and the Muses " walking in fair
procession on the lawns of it, and to and
fro among the pinnacles of its crags."
But you — the stupid British public, to
wit — thought that you could make money
of it ; " you enterprized a railroad through
the valley — you blasted its rocks away,
heaped thousands of tons of shale into
its lovely stream. The valley is gone,
and the gods with it ; and now, every
fool in Buxton can be at Bakewell in half
an hour, and every fool in Bakewell at
Buxton ; which you think a lucrative
process of exchange ; you fools every-
where." The beauty of English land-
scape is everywhere defaced by coal-
smoke, and the purity of English streams
defiled by refuse. Meanwhile the per-
fection of the mechanical contrivance
which passes for art in England is typi-
fied by an ingenious performance ticket-
ed " No. I " in the South Kensington
Museum. It is a statue in black and
white marble of a Newfoundland dog,
which Mr. Ruskin pronounces to be, ac-
curately speaking, the "most perfectly
and roundly ill-done thing" which he has
ever seen produced in art. Its makers
had seen " Roman work and Florentine
work and Byzantine work and Gothic
work ; and misunderstanding of every-
thing had passed through them as the
mud does through earthworms, and here
at last was their wormcast of a produc-
tion." Mere mechanical dexterity has
absolutely supplanted artistic skill.
Well, you reply, we must take the good
with the bad. We give up the New-
foundland dog; but if steam-whistles go
through your head in Venice, and the
railway drives the gods from Derbyshire,
you must remember that a number of
poor Englishmen and Italians, who never
cared much for scenery or for pictures,
enjoy a common-place pleasure which
they must else have gone without. In-
creased command of the natural forces
means increased comfort to millions at
the cost of a little sentimental enjoyment
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
159
for thousands. But it is precisely here
that Mr. Ruskin would join issue with
the optimists. The lesson which he has
preached most industriously and most
eloquently is the essential connection be-
tween good art and sound morality. The
first condition of producing good pictures
or statues is to be pure, sincere, and in-
nocent. Milton's saying that a man who
would write a heroic poem must make
his life a heroic poem, is the secret of all
artistic excellence. A nation which is
content with shams in art will put up
with shams in its religious or political or
industrial life. We bedaub our flimsy
walls with stucco as our statesmen hide
their insincerity under platitude. If a
people is vile at heart, the persons who
minister to its taste will write degraded
poetry and perform demoralizing plays,
and paint pictures which would revolt the
pure-minded. The impudent avowal that
the spheres of art and morality should be
separate is simply an acceptance of a de-
based condition of art. And therefore
Mr. Ruskin's lectures upon art are apt to
pass into moral or religious discourses,
as in works professedly dealing with so-
cial questions he is apt to regard the ar-
tistic test as final. The fact that we can-
not produce Titians is a conclusive proof
that we must have lost the moral quali-
ties which made a Titian possible ; whilst
the fact that we can produce a cotton-
mill merely shows that we can cheat our
customers, and make rubbish on a gi-
gantic scale. An indefinite facility in
the multiplication of shoddy is not a mat-
ter for exulting self-congratulation. The
ugliness of modern life is not due to the
disarrangement of certain distinct aesthet-
ic faculties, but the necessary mark of
moral insensibility. Cruelty and covet-
ousness are the dominant vices of mod-
ern society ; and if they have ruined our
powers of expression, it is only because
they have first corrupted the sentiments
which should be expressed in noble art.
The problem is probably more com-
plex than Mr. Ruskin is apt to assume.
The attempt to divorce art from morality
is indeed as illogical and as mischievous
as he assumes. The greater the talent
which is prostituted to express base
thoughts and gratify prurient tastes, the
more it should excite our disgust ; and
the talent so misused will die out
amongst a race which neglects the laws
of morality, or, in other words, the pri-
mary conditions of physical and spiritual
health. The literature of a corrupt race
becomes not only immoral but stupid.
! And yet the art test is not quite so satis-
j factory as Mr. Ruskin seems at times to
[assume. Utter insensibility to beauty
and the calmest acquiescence in all man-
ner of ugliness is not incompatible with
morality amongst individuals ; or what
would become of the Dissenters ? Hymns
which torture a musical ear may express
very sincere religious emotion. Of
course, we are above the Puritan preju-
dice which regarded all art as more or
less the work of the Devil ; but perhaps
we are not, and even the really artistic
races were not, much better than the
Puritans. Indeed, we should take but a
sad view of the world if we held that its
artistic attainments always measured the
moral worth of a nation. No phenome-
non in history is more curious than the
shortness of the periods during which
art has attained any high degree of per-
fection. There have been only two brief
periods, says Mr. Ruskin, in which men
could really make first-rate statues, and
even then the knowledge was confined to
two very small districts. But if our in-
feriority in that direction to the Greek
and the Florentine artists proves that we
are equally inferior in a moral sense, we
must suppose that virtue is a plant which
flowers but once in a thousand years.
Probably students of history would agree
that virtue was more evenly, and artistic,
excellence more unevenly, distributed
than we should have conceived possible.
Many conditions, not hitherto determined
by social philosophers, go to producing
this rarest of qualities ; and Mr. Ruskin
seems often to exaggerate from a tacit
assumption that men who cannot paint
or carve must necessarily be incapable
of speaking the truth, or revering love
and purity.
Yet it is not to be denied that the test,
when applied with due precaution, may
reveal much of the moral character of a
nation. The imbecility of our artistic
efforts is the index of an unloveliness
which infects the national life. We can-
not make good music because there is a
want of harmony in our creeds, and a
constant jarring between the various ele-
ments of society. Mr. Ruskin's criti-
cisms of modern life are forcible, though
he reasons too much from single cases.
The shock which he receives from par-
ticular incidents seems to throw him off
his balance. He practises the art of
saying stinging things, of which the
essence is to make particular charges
which we feel to be true, whilst we are
convinced that the tacit generalization is
i6o
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
unfair. The whistle of the steamboat in
Venice sets up such a condition of ner-
vous irritability, that the whole world
seems to be filled with its discordant
strains. Mr. Ruskin saw one day a well-
dressed little boy leaning over Walling-
ford Bridge, and fancied that he was
looking at some pretty bird or insect.
Coming up to him, the little boy sudden-
ly crossed the bridge, and took up the
same attitude at the opposite parapet ;
his purpose was to spit from both sides
upon the heads of a pleasure party in a
passing boat. " The incident may seem
to you trivial," says Mr. Ruskin to his
hearers ; and, in fact, most persons
would have been content to box the little
boy's ears, and possibly would have con-
soled themselves with the reflection that,
at least, spitting upon Jewish gaberdines
is no longer permitted by the police.
Mr. Ruskin sees in it a proof of that ab-
sence of all due social subordination and
all grace of behaviour, which " leaves the
insolent spirit and degraded senses to
find their only occupation in mahce, and
their only satisfaction in shame." If the
moral be rather too wide for this living
fable, Mr. Ruskin has no difficulty in
proving from other cases how deeply the
ugliness of modern life is rooted in moral
insensibility. Here is another spitting
scene. As he is drawing the Duomo at
Pisa, Mr. Ruskin sees three fellows in
rags leaning against the Leaning Tower,
and " expectorating loudly and copiously,
at intervals of half a minute each, over
the white marble base of it, which they
evidently conceived to have been con-
structed only to be spit upon." Is their
brutality out of harmony with the lessons
taught by their superiors ? There is or
was a lovely little chapel at Pisa, built for
a shrine, seen by the boatmen as they
first rose on the surge of the open sea,
and bared their heads for a short prayer.
In 1840 Mr. Ruskin painted it, when six
hundred and ten years had left it perfect ;
only giving the marble a tempered glow,
or touching the sculpture with a softer
shade. In a quarter of a century the
Italians have grown wiser, and Mr. Rus-
kin watched a workman calmly striking
the old marble cross to pieces. Tourists
are supposed to be more appreciative,
and Mr. Ruskin travelled to Verona in a
railway carriage with two American girls,
specimens of the utmost result of the
training of the most progressive race in
the world. They were travelling through
exquisite midsummer sunshine, and the
range of Alps was clear from the Lake of
Garda to Cadore. But the two Ameri-
can girls had reduced themselves simply
to two " white pieces of putty that could
feel pain ; " from Venice to Verona tiiey
perceived nothing but flies' and dust.
They read French novels, sucked lemons
and sugar, and their whole conversation
as to scenery was at a station where the
blinds had been drawn up. " Don't those
snow-caps make you cool ? " " No ; I
wish they did." Meanwhile, at Rome,
the slope of the Aventine, where the
wall of Tullus has just been laid bare in
perfect preservation, is being sold on
building leases. New houses, that is,
will be run up by bad workmen, who
know nothing of art, and only care for
money-making ; and whilst " the last
vestiges of the heroic works of the Ro-
man monarchy are being destroyed, the
base fresco-painting of the worst times
of the Empire is being faithfully copied,
with perfectly true lascivious instinct, for
interior decoration." Lust and vanity
are the real moving powers in all this
Italian movement. Are we much better
in England ? Mr. Ruskin was waiting a
short time ago at the Furness station,
which is so tastefully placed as to be the
only object visible over the ruined altar
of the Abbey. To him entered a party
of workmen who had been refreshing
themselves at a tavern established by the
Abbot's Chapel. They were dresse'd in
brown rags, smoking pipes, all more or
less drunk, and taking very long steps to
keep their balance in the direction of
motion, whilst laterally securing them-
selves by hustling the wall or any
chance passengers. Such men, as Mr.
Ruskin's friend explained to him, would
get drunk and would not admire the
Abbey ; they were not only unmanage-
able, but implied " the existence of many
unmanageable persons before and after
them — nay, a long ancestral and filial
unmanageableness. They were a fallen
race, every way incapable, as I acutely
felt, of appreciating the beauty of Modern
Painters or fathoming the significance of
Fors Clavigera.''^ What are the amuse-
ments and thoughts of such a race, or
even of the superior social layers .? Go
to Margate, a place memorable to Mr.
Ruskin for the singular loveliness of its
skies ; and you may see — or newspaper
correspondents exaggerate — a ruffianly
crowd insulting the passengers who ar-
rive by steamboat in the most obscene
language or bathing with revolting in-
decency in a promiscuous crowd ; or to
Glasgow, and you will see the Clyde
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
i6i
turned into a loathsome and stagnant
ditch, whilst the poor Glaswegians fancy
that they can import learning into their
town in a Gothic case, costing 150,000/.,
which is about as wise as to "put a pyx
into a pigsty to make the pigs pious." Or
take a walk io the London suburbs. There
was once a secluded district with old
country houses, and neatly kept cottages
with tiled footpath? and porches covered
with honeysuckle. Now it is covered
with thousands of semi-detached villas
built of rotten brick, held together by
iron devices. What are the people who
inhabit them ? The men can write and
cast accounts ; they make their living by
it. The women read story books, dance
in a vulgar manner, and play vulgar tunes
on the piano ; they know nothing of any
fine art ; they read one magazine on Sun-
days and another on week days, and
know nothing of any other literature.
They never take a walk ; they cannot
garden ; the women wear false hair and
copy the fashions of Parisian prostitutes ;
the men have no intellects but for cheat-
ing, no pleasures except smoking and eat-
ing, and " no ideas or any capacity of
forming ideas of anything that has yet
been done of great or seen of good in
this world."
Truly, this is a lamentable picture,
which we may, if we please, set down as
a wanton caricature or as a proof that
poor Mr. Ruskin is but speaking the
truth when he tells us, pathetically
enough, of his constant sadness, and de-
clares that he is nearly always out of hu-
mour. The exaggeration is to be lament-
ed, because it lessens the force of his crit-
icism. The remark inevitably suggests it-
self that a fair estimate of modern civiliza-
tion is hardly to be obtained by the pro-
cess of cutting out of our newspapers every
instance of modern brutality which can
be found in police reports, and setting
them against the most heroic deeds or
thoughts of older times. Bill Sykes may
be a greater brute than the Black Prince ;
but there were Bill Sykeses in the days
of the Black Prince, and perhaps a piece
of one in the Black Prince himself. Mr.
Ruskin, to speak logically, is a little too
fond of the induction by simple enume-
ration in dealing with historical problems.
The sinking of the London does not
prove conclusively that Athenians built
more trustworthy ships than English-
men ; and his declamations against the
folly and wickedness of modern war,
true enough in themselves, cannot make
us forget all the massacres, the persecu-
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 323
tions, the kidnappings, the sellings into
slavery, the sacks of cities, and the lay-
ing waste of provinces, of good old times,
nor convince us that Grant or Moltke
are responsible for worse atrocities than
mediaeval or classical generals. The
complex question of the moral value of
different civilizations is not to be settled
off-hand by quoting all the striking in-
stances which an acute intellect com-
bined with a fervid imagination and dis-
turbed by an excessive irritability can ac-
cumulate in proof of human weakness.
The brute survives in us, it is tru?, but
isolated facts do not prove him to be
more rampant than of old.
To argue the question, however, would
take me far beyond my limits and my
knowledge. Rather let us admit at once
that Mr. Ruskin has laid his hand upon
ugly symptoms. We will not be angry
with the physician because he takes too
gloomy a view of them, but be grateful
to anybody who will expose the evil un-
sparingly. A pessimist is perhaps, in
the long run, more useful than an opti-
mist. The disease exists, whether we
think of it as a temporary disorder
caused by an unequal development, or as
a spreading cancer, threatening a com-
plete dissolution of the organism. Mod-
ern society may be passing through a
grave crisis to a higher condition, or may
be hastening to a catastrophe like that
which overwhelmed the ancient world.
It is in any case plain enough that the
old will not gradually melt into the new,
in spite of all the entreaties of epicurean
philosophers, but will have to pass
through spasms and dangerous convul-
sions. The incapacity to paint pretty
pictures, to which we might submit with
tolerable resignation, is indeed a proof of a
wide-spread discord, which sometimes
seems to threaten the abrupt dislocation
of the strongest bonds. Can we explain
the cause of the evil in order to apply
such remedies as are in our power .?
And here I come to that part of Mr.
Ruskin's teaching which, to my mind, is
the most unfortunate. There is a mod-
ern gospel which shows, as he thinks,
plain traces of diabolic origin. His gen-
eral view may be sufficiently indicated
by the statement that he utterly abjures
Mr. Mill's Liberty, and holds Mr. Carlyle
to be the one true teacher of modern
times. But Mr. Ruskin carries his teach-
ing further. The pet objects of his an-
tipathy are the political economists. He
believes that his own writings on politi-
cal economy are incomparably the great-
l62
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
est service which he has rendered to
mankind, and to establish his own sys-
tem is to annihilate Ricardo, Mill, and
Professor Fawcett. To give any fair ac-
count of his views would be to go too far
into a very profitless discussion. This
much, however, I must venture to say.
Mr. Ruskin"s polemics against the econ-
omists on their own ground appear to
me to imply a series of misconceptions.
He is, for example, very fond of attack-
ing a doctrine fully explained (as I should
say, demonstrated) by Mr. Mill, that de-
mand for commodities is not demand for
labour. I confess that I am unable to
understand the reasons of his indigna-
tion against this unfortunate theorem ;
and the more so because it seems to me
to be at once the most moral doctrine of
political economy, and that which Mr.
Ruskin should be most anxious to es-
tablish. It is simply the right answer
to that most enduring fallacy that a rich
man benefits his neighbours by profligate
luxury. Mandeville's sophistry reap-
pears in Protean shapes to the present
day. People still maintain in substance
that a man supports the poor as well as
pleases himself by spending money on
his own personal enjoyment. In this
form, indeed, Mr. Ruskin accepts the
sound doctrine ; but when clothed in the
technical language of economists, it
seems to act upon him like the prover-
bial red rag. He is always flying at it
and denouncing the palpable blunders of
men whose reputation for logical clear-
ness is certainly as good as his own.
jHis indignation seems to blind him and
iis the source of a series of questionable
;s4atements, which I cannot here attempt
to unravel. His attack upon the econo-
■mi-sts is thus diverted into an unfortu-
jiatfi direction. Political economy is, or
ou^t to be, an accurate description of
■.the:actual phenomena of the industrial
'Orgaaaization of society. It assumes that,
.as a matter of fact, the great moving
tforce ts competition ; and traces amongst
:men the various consequences of that
^struggle for existence of which Mr. Dar-
win has described certain results amongst
lanimals- The complex machinery of
-trade has been developed out of the sav-
.age simiplicity by internal pressure, much
as species on the Darwinian hypothesis
iave beea developed out of more homo-
;geneou« races. Now, it is perfectly open
ior anybody to say that the conditions
thus produced are unfavourable to mo-
rality at the present day, and that we
fihould look forward to organizing society
on different principles. If Mr. Ruskin
had said so much, he would have found
allies instead of enemies amongst the
best political economists. Mr. Mill
agrees, for instance, with Comte, and
therefore with Mr. Ruskin, that in a per-
fectly satisfactory social state capitalists
would consider themselves as trustees
for public benefit of the wealth at their
disposal. They would be captains in an
industrial army, and be no more gov-
erned by the desire of profit than a gen-
eral by a desire for prize-money. To
bring about such a state of things re-
quires a cultivation of the "altruistic"
impulses, which must be the work of
many generations to come. But Mr.
Ruskin in his wrath attributes to all
economists the vulgar interpretation of
their doctrines. He calmly assumes
that political economists regard their own
science as a body of " directions for the
gaining of wealth, irrespectively of the
consideration of its moral sources." He
supposes that they deny that wages can
be regulated otherwise than by compe-
tition, because they assert that wages are
so regulated at present ; and that they
consider all desires to be equally good
because they begin by studying the phe-
nomena of demand and supply without
at the same moment considering the moral
tendencies implied. He supposes that
because, for certain purposes, a thinker
abstracts from moral considerations, he
denies that moral considerations have any
weight. He might as well say that physi-
ology consists of directions for growing
fat, or that it is wrong to study the laws
of nutrition because they show how
poisons may be assimilated as well as
good food. Mr. Ruskin's wrath, indeed,
is not thrown away, for there are plenty
of popular doctrines about political
economy which deserve all that he can
say against them. I never read a pas-
sage in which reference is made to the
•' inexorable laws of supply and demand,"
or to " economic science," without pre-
paring myself to encounter a sophistry,
and probably an immoral sophistry. To
regard the existing order of things as
final, and as imposed by irresistible and
unalterable conditions, is foolish as well
as wrong. The shrewder the blows which
Mr. Ruskin can aim at the doctrines that
life is to be always a selfish struggle, that
adulteration is only a " form of competi-
tion," that the only remedy for dishon-
esty is to let people cheat each other till
they are tired of it, the better; and I only
regret the exaggeration which enables his
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
163
antagonist to charge him with unfairness.
But the misfortune is this. On that
which I take to be the right theory of
political economy, the supposed " inexo-
rable laws " do not, indeed, describe the
action of forces as eternal and unalterable
as gravitation ; but they do describe a
certain stage of social development
through which we must pass on our road
to the millennium. To cast aside the
whole existing organization as useless
and corrupt is, in the first place, to at-
tempt a Quixotic tilt against windmills,
and, in the next place, to deny the ex-
istence of the good elements which exist,
and are capable of healthy growth. The
problem is not to do without all our ma-
chinery, whether of the material or of the
human kind, but to assign to it its proper
place. Mr. Ruskin once said to a minis-
ter, who was lamenting the wickedness in
our great cities, " Well, then, you must
not have large cities." " That," replied
his friend, "is an utterly unpractical say-
ing,'"' and I confess that I think the min-
ister was in the right.
Mr. Ruskin. however, is too impatient
or too thoroughgoing to accept any com-
promise with the evil thing. Covetous-
ness, he thinks, is at the root of all mod-
ern evils ; our current political economy
is but the gospel of covetousness ; our
social forms are merely the external em-
bodiment of our spirit ; and our science
the servant of our grovelling materialism.
We have proved the sun to be a "splen-
didly permanent railroad accident," and
ourselves to be the descendants of mon-
keys ; but we have become blind to the
true light from heaven. Away with the
whole of the detestable fabric founded in
sin, and serving only to shelter misery
and cruelty ! Before Mr. Ruskin's im-
agination there has risen a picture of a
new society, which shall spring from the
ashes of the old, and for which he will do
his best to secure some partial realiza-
tion. He has begun to raise a fund,
chiefly by his own contributions, and has
already bought a piece of land. These
members of the St. George's Company —
that is to be the name of the future com-
munity— will lead pure and simple lives.
They will cultivate the land by manual
labour, instead of "buzzing and mazing
the blessed fields with the Devil's own
team ; " the workmen shall be paid fixed
wages ; the boys shall learn to ride and
sail ; the girls to spin, weave, sew, and
"cook all ordinary food exquisitely;"
they shall all know how to sing and be
taught mercy to brutes, courtesy to each
I other, rigid truth-speaking, and strict
! obedience. And they shall all learn
Latin, and the history of five cities,
Athens, Rome, Venice, Florence and
London. Leading "contented lives, in
pure air, out of the way of unsightly ob-
jects, and emancipated from unnecessary
mechanical occupation," the little com-
munity will possess the first conditions
for the cultivation of the great arts ; for
great art is the expression of a harmoni-
ous, noble, and simple society. Let us
wish Mr. Ruskin all success ; and yet the
path he is taking is strewed with too
many failures to suggest much hopeful-
ness — even, we fear, to himself. Utopia
is not to be gained at a bound ; and there
will be some trouble in finding appropri-
ate colonists, to say nothing of compe-
tent leaders. The ambition is honour-
able, but one who takes so melancholy a
view of modern society as Mr. Ruskin
must fear lest the sons of Belial should
be too strong for him. We say that truth
must prevail, and that all good work
lasts. Some of us may believe it, but
how can those believe it who see in all
past history nothing but a record of dis-
mal failures, of arts flourishing only to
decay, and religions rising to be corrupted
almost at their source ?
What Mr. Ruskin thinks of such mat-
ters is perhaps given most forcibly in a
singularly eloquent and pathetic lecture,
delivered at Dublin, and republished in
the first volume of his collected works.
The subject is the Mystery of Life and
its Arts, and it is a comment on the mel-
ancholy text, "What is your life? It is
even as a vapour that appeareth for a
little time and then vanisheth away."
That truth, which we all have to learn,
has been taught to Mr. Ruskin as to oth-
ers by bitter personal experience. He
speaks a little too mournfully, as it may
seem to his readers, of his own failures in
life. For ten years he tried to make his
countrymen understand Turner, and they
will not even look at the pictures exhib-
ited in the public galleries. He then
laboured more prudently at teaching
architecture, and found much sympathy ;
but the luxury, the mechanism, and the
squalid misery of English cities choked
the impulse ; and he turned from streets
of iron and palaces of crystal to the carv-
ing of the mountains and the colour of
the flower. And still, he says, he could
tell of repeated failures ; for, indeed, who
may not tell of failure who thinks that the
seeds sown upon stubborn and weed-
choked soil are at once to develop into
164
MR. RUSKIN S RECENT WRITINGS.
perfect plants ? The failure, however,
whether exaggerated or real, made the
mystery of life deeper. All enduring
success, he says, arises from a faith in
human nature or a belief in immortality ;
and his own failure was due to a want of
sufficiently earnest effort to understand
existence or of purpose to apply his
knowledge. But the reflection suggested
a stranger mystery. The arts prosper
only when endeavouring to proclaim Di-
vine truth ; and yet they have always
failed to proclaim it. Always at their
very culminating point they have become
"ministers to lust and pride." And we,
the hearers, are as apathetic as the teach-
ers. We listen as in a languid dream and
care nothing for the revelation that
comes. We profess to believe that men
are dropping into hell before our faces or
rising into heaven ; and we don't much
care about it, or quite make up our
minds one way or the other. Go to the
highest and most earnest of religious
poets. Milton evidently does not believe
his own fictions, consciously adapted
from heathen writers ; Dante sees a
vision of far more intensity ; but it is
still a vision only ; a vision full of gro-
tesque types and fancies, where the doc-
trines of the Christian Church become
subordinate to the praise, and are only to
be understood by the help, of a Floren-
tine maiden. Or take men still greater
because raised above controversy and
strife. What have Homer and Shake-
speare to tell us of the meaning of the
world ? Both of them think of men as
the playthings of a mad destiny, where the
noblest passions are the means of bring-
ing their heroes to helpless ruin. The
Christian poet differs from the heathen
chiefly in this, that he recognizes no gods
nigh at hand, and that by a petty chance
the strongest and most righteous perish
without a word of hope. And mean-
while, the wise men of the earth, the
statesmen and the merchants, can only
tell us to cut each other's throats, or to
spend our whole energies in heaping up
useless wealth. Turn from the wise men
to the humble workers, and we learn a
lesson of a kind. The lesson is mainly
the old and simple taught in various
forms by many men who have felt the
painful weight of the great riddle too
much for them, that we are to work and
hold our tongues. All art consists in the
effort to bring a little more order out of
chaos ; and the sense of failure and im-
perfection is necessary to stimulate us to
the work. Whatever happiness is to be
obtained is found in the struggle against
I disorder. And yet what has been ef-
* fected by all the past generations of man ?
The first of human arts is agriculture,
and yet there are unreclaimed deserts in
the Alps, the very centre of Europe,
which could be redeemed by a year's la-
bour, and which still blast their inhabi-
tants into idiocy. And in India (Mr.
Ruskin was referring to the Orissa fam-
ine) half a million of people died of hun-
ger, and we could not bring them a few
grains of rice. Clothing is the next of
the arts, and yet how many of us are even
decently clad .'* And of building, the art
which leaves the most enduring remains,
nothing is left of the greatest part of all
the skill and strength that have been em-
ployed but fallen stones to encumber the
fields and the streams.
" Must it be always thus } " asks Mr.
Ruskin ; "is our life forever to be with-
out profit, without possessioD ?" The
only answer to be given is a repetition of
the old advice, to do what good work we
can, and waste as little as possible. By all
means let us preach or practise that doc-
trine, and take such comfort as we can in
it ; but the mystery remains and presses
upon all sensitive minds. That Mr. Rus-
kin is inclined to deepen its shades, and
indeed to take a rather bilious view of
the universe, may be inferred from this
brief account of his sentiments. Indeed,
the common taunt against Calvinism
often occurs in a rather different form.
Why don't you go mad, it is said, if you
really believe that nine-tenths of man-
kind are destined to unutterable and
never-ending torments ? But no creed
known amongst men can quite remove
the burden. The futility of human ef-
fort, the rarity of excellence, the utter
helplessness of reason to reduce to order
the blindly struggling masses of mankind,
the waste and decay and confusion which
we see around us, are enough to make us
hesitate before answering the question,
What is the meaning of it all 1 A sensi-
tive nature, tortured and thrust aside by
pachydermatous and apathetic persons,
may well be driven to rash revolt and
hasty denunciations of society in general.
At worst, and granting him to be entirely
wrong, he has certainly more claims on
our pity than on our contempt. And for
a moral, if we must have a moral, we can
only remark, that on the whole Mr. Rus-
kin supplies a fresh illustration of the
truth, which has both a cynical and an
elevating side to it, that it is amongst
the greatest of all blessings to have a
thick skin and a sound digestion.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
'65
From The Cornhill Magazine.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
CHAPTER XXV.
THE NEW ACQUAINTANCE DESCRIBED.
Idiosyncrasy and vicissitude had
combined to stamp Sergeant Troy as an
exceptional being.
He was a man to whom memories were
an encumbrance, and anticipations a
superfluity. Simply feeling, considering,
and caring for what was before his eyes,
he was vulnerable only in the present.
His outlook upon time was as a transient
flash of the eye now and then : that pro-
jection of consciousness into days gone
by and to come, which makes the past a
synonym for the pathetic and the future a
word for circumspection, was foreign to
Troy. With htm the past was yesterday ;
the future, to-morrow ; never, the day
after.
On this account he might, in certain
lights, have been regarded as one of the
most fortunate of his order. For it may
be argued with great plausibility that
reminiscence is less an endowment than
a disease, and that expectation in its only
comfortable form — that of absolute faith
— is practically an impossibility; whilst
in the form of hope and the secondary
compounds, patience, impatience, resolve,
curiosity, it is a constant fluctuation be-
tween pleasure and pain.
Sergeant Troy, being entirely innocent
of the practice of expectation, was never
disappointed. To set against this nega-
tive gain there may have been some posi-
tive losses from a certain narrowing of
the higher tastes and sensations which it
entailed. But limitation of the capacity
is never recognized as a loss by the loser
therefrom : in this attribute moral or
aesthetic poverty contrasts plausibly with
material, since those who suffer do not
see it, whilst those who see it do not suf-
fer. It is not a denial of anything to
have been always without it, and what
Troy had never enjoyed he did not miss ;
but, being fully conscious that what sober
people missed he enjoyed, his capacity,
though really less, seemed greater than
theirs.
He was perfectly truthful towards men,
but to women lied like a Cretan — a sys-
tem of ethics, above all others, calculated
to win popularity at the first flush of ad-
mission into lively society ; and the
possibility of the favour gained being but
transient had reference only to the future.
He never passed the line which divides
the spruce vices from the ugly ; and
hence, though his morals had never been
applauded, disapproval of them had fre-
quently been tempered with a smile.
This treatment had led to his becoming
a sort of forestaller of other men's ex-
periences of the glorious class, to his
own aggrandizement as a Corinthian,
rather than to the moral profit of his
hearers.
His reason and his propensities had
seldom any reciprocating influence, hav-
ing separated by mutual consent long
ago : thence it sometimes happened that,
while his intentions were as honourable as
could be wished, any particular deed
formed a dark background which threw
them into fine relief. The Sergeant's
vicious phases being the offspring of im-
pulse, and his virtuous phases of cool
meditation, the latter had a modest ten-
dency to be oftener heard of than seen.
Troy was full of activity, but his ac-
tivities were less of a locomotive than a
vegetative nature ; and, never being
based upon any original choice of found-
ation or direction, they were exercised
on whatever object chance might place
in their way. Hence, whilst he some-
times reached the brilliant in speech,
because that was spontaneous, he fell
below the commonplace in action, from
inability to guide incipient effort. He
had a quick comprehension and consider-
able force of character; but, being with-
out the power to combine them, the
comprehension became engaged with
trivialities whilst waiting for the will to
direct it, and the force wasted itself in
useless grooves through unheeding the
comprehension.
He was a fairly well-educated man for
one of middle class — exceptionally well
educated for a common soldier. He
spoke fluently and unceasingly. He
could in this way be one thing and seem
another : for instance, he could speak of
love and think of dinner ; call on the
husband to look at the wife ; be eager to
pay and intend to owe.
The wondrous power of flattery in
passados at women is a perception so
universal as to be remarked upon by
many people almost as automatically as
they repeat a proverb, or say they are
Christians and the like, without thinking
much of the enormous corollaries which
spring from the proposition. Still less is
it acted upon for the good of the comple-
mental being alluded to. With the ma-
jority such an opinion is shelved with all
those trite aphorisms which require some
i66
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
catastrophe to bring their tremendous
meanings thoroughly home. When ex-
pressed with some amount of reflective-
ness it seems co-ordinate with a belief
that this flattery must be reasonable to
be effective. It is to the credit of men
that few attempt to settle the question
by experiment, and it is for their happi-
ness, perhaps, that accident has never
settled it for them. Nevertheless, that
the power of a male dissembler, who by
the simple process of deluging her with
untenable fictions charms the female
wisely, becomes limitless and absolute to
the extremity of perdition, is a truth
taught to many by unsought and wring-
ing occurrences. And some — frequently
those who are definable as middle-aged
youths, though not always — profess to
have attained the same knowledge by
other and converse experiences, and
jauntily continue their indulgence in such
experiences with terrible effect. Ser-
geant Troy was one. He had been
known to observe casually that in dealing
with womankind the only alternative to
flattery was cursing and swearing. There
was no third method. "Treat them fair-
ly, and you are a lost man," he would
say.
This person's public appearance in
Weatherbury promptly followed his arri-
val there. A week or two after the
shearing, Bathsheba, feeling a nameless
relief ofspirits on account of Boldwood's
absence, approached her hayfields and
looked over the hedge towards the hay-
makers. They consisted in about equal
proportions of gnarled and flexuous
forms, the former being the men, the lat-
ter the women, who wore tilt bonnets
covered with nankeen, which hung in a
curtain upon their shoulders. Coggan
and Mark Clark were mowing in a less
forward meadow, Clark humming a tune
to the strokes of his scythe, to which Jan
made no attempt to keep time with his.
In the first mead they were already load-
ing hay, the women raking it into cocks
and windrows, and the men tossing it
upon the waggon.
From behind the waggon a bright scar-
let spot emerged, and went on loading
unconcernedly with the rest. It was the
gallant Sergeant, who had come haymak-
ing for pleasure ; and nobody could deny
that he was doing the mistress of the
farm real knight-service by this voluntary
contribution of his labour at a busy time.
As soon as she had entered the field
Troy saw her, and sticking his pitchfork
into the ground and picking up his walk-
ing-cane, he came forward. Bathsheba
blushed with half-angry embarrassment,
and adjusted her eyes as well as her feet
to the direct line of her path.
CHAPTER XXVI.
SCENE ON THE VERGE OF THE HAY-
MEAD.
" Ah, Miss Everdene ! " said the Ser-
geant, lifting his diminutive cap. " Lit-
tle did I think it was you I was speaking
to the other night. And yet, if I had re-
flected, the ' Queen of the Corn-market '
(truth is truth at any hour of the day or
night, and I heard you so named in Cas-
terbridge yesterday), the ' Queen of the
Corn-market,' I say, could be no other
woman. I step across now to beg your
forgiveness a thousand times for having
been led by my feelings to express my-
self too strongly for a stranger. To be
sure I am no stranger to the place — I
am Sergeant Troy, as I told you, and I
have assisted your uncle in these fields
no end of times when I was a lad. I
have been doing the same for you to-
day."
" I suppose I must thank you for that,
Sergeant Troy," said the " Queen of the
Corn-market," in an indifferently grateful
tone.
The Sergeant looked hurt and sad.
" Indeed you must not. Miss Everdene,"
he said. " Why could you think such a
thing necessary ? "
" I am glad it is not."
" Why ? if I may ask without offence."
" Because I don't much want to thank
you for anything."
" I am afraid I have made a hole with
my tongue that my heart will never mend.
Oh these intolerable times : that ill-luck
should follow a man for honestly telling
a woman she is beautiful ! 'Tvvas the
most I said — you must own that; and
the least I could say — that I own my-
self."
" There is some talk I could do with-
out more easily than money."
" Indeed. That remark seems some-
what digressive."
" It means that I would rather have
your room than your company."
"And I would rather have curses from
you than kisses from any other woman ;
so I'll stay here."
Bathsheba was absolutely speechless.
And yet she could not help giving an in-
terested side-thought to the Sergeant's
ingenuity.
" Well," continued Troy, " I suppose
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
167
there is a praise which is rudeness, and
that may be mine. At the same time
there is a treatment which is injustice,
and that may be yours. Because a plain
blunt man, who has never been taught
concealment, speaks out his mind without
exactly intending it, he's to be snapped
off like the son of a sinner."
" Indeed, there's no such case between
us," she said, turning away. " I don't
allow strangers to be bold and impudent
— even in praise of me."
" Ah — it is not the fact but the method
which offends you," he said, sorrowfully.
" But I have the sad satisfaction of know-
ing that my words, whether pleasing or
offensive, are unmistakably true. Would
you have had me look at you, and tell my
acquaintance that you are quite a com-
monplace woman, to save you the em-
barrassment of being stared at if they
come near you ? Not I. I couldn't tell
any such ridiculous lie about a beauty to
encourage a single woman in England in
too excessive a modesty."
" It is all pretence — what you are say-
ing ! " exclaimed Bathsheba, laughing in
spite of herself at the Sergeant's palpable
method. "You have a rare invention.
Sergeant Troy. Why couldn't you have
passed by me that night, and said noth-
ing ? — that was all I meant to reproach
you for."
"Because I wasn't going to," he said,
smiling. " Half the pleasure of a feeling
lies in being able to express it on the
spur of the moment, and I let out mine.
It would have been just the same if you
had been the reverse person — ugly and
old — I should have exclaimed about it
in the same way."
" How long is it since you have been so
afflicted with strong feeling then ? "
" Oh, ever since I was big enough to
know loveliness from deformity."
" 'Tis to be hoped your sense of the
difference you speak of doesn't stop at
faces, but extends to morals as well."
" I won't speak of morals or religion
— my own or anybody else's. Though
perhaps I should have been a very good
Christian if you pretty women hadn't
made me an idolater."
Bathsheba moved on to hide the irre-
pressible dimplings of merriment. Troy
followed entreatingly.
"But — Miss Everdene — you do for-
give me ?"
" Hardly."
"Why?"
" You say such things."
" I said you were beautiful, and I'll
say so still, for, by — , so you are ! The
most beautiful ever I saw, or may I fall
dead this instant ! Why, upon my "
"Don't — don't! I won't listen to
you — you are so profane ! " she said, in
a restless state between distress at hear-
ing him and a penchant to hear more.
" I again say you are a most fasci-
nating woman. There's nothing remark-
able in my saying so, is there ? I'm
sure the fact is evident enough. Miss
Everdene, my opinion may be too for-
cibly let out to please you, and, for the
matter of that, too insignificant to con-
vince you, but surely it is honest, and
why can't it be excused ? "
"Because it — it isn't a correct one,"
she femininely murmured.
"Oh fie — fie! Am I any worse for
breaking the third of that Terrible Ten
than you for breaking the ninth ?"
"Well, it doesn't seem quite true to
me that I am fascinating," she replied
evasively.
" Not so to you : then I say with all
respect that, if so, it is owing to your
modesty. Miss Everdene. But surely
you must have been told by everybody
of what everybody notices ? and you
should take their words for it."
" They don't say so, exactly."
" Oh yes, they must ! "
" Well, I mean to my face, as you do,"
she went on, allowing herself to be fur-
ther lured into a conversation that in-
tention had rigorously forbidden.
" But you know they think so .? "
" No — that is — I certainly have heard
Liddy say they do, but ..." She
paused.
Capitulation — that was the purport of
the simple reply, guarded as it was — ca-
pitulation, unknown to herself. Never
did a fragile tailless sentence convey a
more perfect meaning. The careless
Sergeant smiled within himself, and prob-
ably the devil smiled too from a loop-
hole in Tophet, for the moment was the
turning-point of a career. Her tone and
mien signified beyond mistake that the
seed which was to lift the foundation had
taken root in the chink : the remainder
was a mere question of time and natural
seriate changes.
" There the truth comes out ! " said
the soldier, in reply. " Never tell me
that a young lady can live in a buzz of
admiration without knowing something
about it. Ah, well. Miss Everdene, you
are — pardon my blunt way — you are
rather an injury to our race than other-
wise."
1 68
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
"How — indeed?" she said, opening
her eyes.
" Oh, it is true enough. I may as well
be hung for a sheep as a lamb (an old
country saying, not of much account, but
it will do for a rough soldier), and so I
will speak my mind, regardless of your
pleasure, and without hope or intending
to get your pardon. Why, Miss Ever-
dene, it is in this manner that your good
looks may do more harm than good in
the world." [The Sergeant looked down
the mead in pained abstraction.] " Prob-
ably some one man on an average falls
in love with each ordinary woman. She
can marry him : he is content, and leads
a useful life. Such women as you a hun-
dred men always covet — your eyes will
bewitch scores on scores into an unavail-
ing fancy for you — you can only marry
one of that many. Out of these say
twenty will endeavour to drown the bit-
terness of despised love in drink : twenty
more will mope away their lives without
a wish or attempt to make a mark in the
world, because they have no ambition
apart from their attachment to you :
twenty more — the susceptible person
myself possibly among them — will be
always draggling after you, getting where
they may just see you, doing desperate
things. Men are such constant fools !
The rest may try to get over their pas-
sion with more or less success. But all
these men will be saddened. And not
only those ninety-nine men, but the nine-
ty-nine women they might have married
are saddened with them. There's my tale.
That's why I say that a woman so charm-
ing as yourself, Miss Everdene, is hardly
a blessing to her race."
The handsome Sergeant's features
were during this speech as rigid and
stern as John Knox's in addressing his
gay young queen.
Seeing she made no reply, he said,
" Do you read French } "
" No : I began, but when I got to the
verbs, father died," she said, simply.
" I do — when I have an opportunity,
which latterly has not been often (my
mother was a Parisian) — and there's a
proverb they have, Qui aime bien, chatie
bien — He chastens who loves well. Do
you understand me ?"
" Ah ! " she replied, and there was even
a little tremulousness in the usually cool
girl's voice ; " if you can only fight half
as winningly as you can talk, you are
able to make a pleasure of a bayonet
wound!" And then poor Bathsheba in-
stantly perceived her slip in making this
admission : in hastily trying to retrieve it,
she went from bad to worse. "Don't,
however, suppose that / derive any
pleasure from what you tell me."
" I know you do not — I know it per-
fectly," said Troy, with much hearty con-
viction on the exterior of his face : and
altering the expression to moodiness ;
" when a dozen men are ready to speak
tenderly to you, and give the admiration
you deserve without adding the warning
you need, it stands to reason that my
poor rough-and-ready mixture of praise
and blame cannot convey much pleasure.
Fool as I may be, I am not so conceited
as to suppose that."
"I think you — are conceited, never-
theless," said Bathsheba, hesitatingly,
and looking askance at a reed she was
fitfully pulling with one hand, having
lately grown feverish under the soldier's
system of procedure — not because the
nature of his cajolery was entirely unper-
ceived, but because its vigor was over-
whelminof.
" I would not own it to anybody else —
nor do I exactly to you. Still, there
might have been some self-conceit in my
foolish supposition the other night. I
knew that what I said in admiration
might be an opinion too often forced
upon you to give any pleasure, but I cer-
tainly did think that the kindness of
your nature might prevent you judging
an uncontrolled tongue harshly — which
you have'done — and thinking badly of
me, and wounding me this morning, when
I am working hard to save your hay."
" Well, you need not think more of
that : perhaps you did not mean to be
rude to me by speaking out your mind :
indeed, I believe you did not," said the
shrewd woman, in painfully innocent
earnest. "And I thank you for giving
help here. But — but mind you don't
speak to me again in that way, or in any
other, unless I speak to you."
" Oh, Miss Bathsheba ! That is too
hard ! "
" No, it isn't. Why is it ? "
" You will never speak to me ; for I
shall not be here long. I am soon going
back again to the miserable monotony of
drill — and perhaps our regiment will be
ordered out soon. And yet you take
away the one little ewe-lamb of pleasure
that I have in this dull life of mine.
Well, perhaps generosity is not a woman's
most marked characteristic."
"When are you going from here?"
she asked, with some interest.
" la a month."
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
" But how can it give you pleasure to
speak to me ? "
"Can you ask, Miss Everdene — know-
ino" as you do — what my offence is based
on
•> "
" If you do care so much for a silly trifle
of that kind, then, I don't mind doing it,"
she uncertainly and doubtingly answered.
" But you can't really care for a word
from me ? you only say so — I think you
only say so."
"That's unjust — but I won't repeat
the remark. I am too gratified to get
such a mark of your friendship at any
price to cavil at the tone. I do, Miss
Everdene, care for it. You may think a
man foolish to want a mere word — just a
good morning. Perhaps he is — I don't
know. But you have never been a man
looking upon a woman, and that woman
yourself."
" Well."
" Then you know nothing of what such
an experience is like — and Heaven for-
bid that you ever should."
" Nonsense, flatterer ! What is it like ?
I am interested in knowing."
"Put shortly, it is not being able to
think, hear, or look in any direction ex-
cept one without wretchedness, nor there
without torture."
"Ah, Sergeant, it won't do — you are
pretending," she said, shaking her head
dubiously. " Your words are too dash-
ing to be true."
" I am not, upon the honour of a
soldier."
"But why is it so ? — Of course I ask
for mere pastime."
" Because you are so distracting — and
I am so distracted."
"You look like it."
" I am indeed."
" Why you only saw me the other
night, you stupid man."
" That makes no difference. The
lightning works instantaneously. I loved
you then, at once — as I do now."
Bathsheba surveyed him curiously, from
the feet upward, as high as she liked to
venture her glance, which was not quite
so high as his eyes.
" You cannot and you don't," she said
demurely. " There is no such sudden
feeling in people. I won't listen to you
any longer. Dear me, I wish I knew
what o'clock it is — I am going — I have
wasted too much tkne here already."
The Sergeant looked at his watch and
told her. " What, haven't you a watch,
Miss ? " he enquired.
169
" I have not just at present — I am
about to get a new one."
" No. You shall be given one. Yes —
you shall. A gift, Miss Everdene — a
gift."
And before she knew what the young
man was intending, a heavy gold watch
was in her hand.
" It is an unusually good one for a
man like me to possess," he quietly said.
" That watch has a history. Press the
spring and open the back."
She did so.
" What do you see ? "
"A crest and a motto."
" A coronet with five points, and be-
neath, Cedit amor rebus — ' Love yields
to circumstance.' It's the motto of the
Earls of Severn. That watch belonged
to the last lord, and was given to my
mother's husband, a medical man, for his
use till I came of ag£, when it was to be
given to me. It was all the fortune that
ever I inherited. That watch has regu-
lated imperial interests in its time — the
stately ceremonial, the courtly assigna-
tion, pompous travels, and lordly sleeps.
Now it is yours."
" But, Sergeant Troy, I cannot take
this — I cannot!" she exclaimed, with
round-eyed wonder. " A gold watch !
What are you doing ? Don't be such a
dissembler ! "
The Sergeant retreated to avoid re-
ceiving back his gift, which she held
out persistently towards him. Bathsheba
followed as he retired.
" Keep it — do, Miss Everdene — keep
it ! " said the erratic child of impulse.
" The fact of your possessing it makes
it worth ten times as much to me. A
more plebeian one will answer my pur-
pose just as well, and the pleasure of
knowing whose heart my old one beats
against — well, I won't speak of that. It
is in far worthier hands than ever it has
been in before."
" But indeed I can't have it ! " she
said, in a perfect simmer of distress.
" Oh, how can you do such a thing ; that
is, if you really mean it ! Give me your
dead father's watch, and such a valuable
one ! You should not be so reckless,
indeed. Sergeant Troy."
" I loved my father : good ; but better,
I 'love you more. That's how I can do
it," said the Sergeant, with an intonation
of such exquisite fidelity to nature that it
was evidently not all acted now. Her
beauty, which, whilst it had been qui-
escent, he had praised in jest, had in its
170
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
animated phases moved him to earnest ;
and though his seriousness was less than
she imagined, it was probably more than
he imagined himself.
Bathsheba was brimming with agitated
bewilderment, and she said, in half-sus-
picious accents of feeling, " Can it be !
Oh, how can it be, that you care for me,
and so suddenly ! You have seen so
little of me : I may not be really so — so
nice-looking as I seem to you. Please,
do lake it ; oh, do ! I cannot and will
not have it. Believe me, your generosity
is too great. I have never done you a
single kindness, and why should you be
so kind to me ? "
A factitious reply had been again upon
his lips, but it was again suspended, and
he looked at her with an arrested eye.
The truth was, that as she now stood
excited, wild, and honest as the day, her
alluring beauty bore out so fully the
epithets he had bestowed upon it that he
was quite startled at his temerity in ad-
vancing them as false. He said mechani-
cally, *' Ah, why ? " and continued to look
at her.
" And my workfolk see me following
you about the field, and are wondering.
Oh, this is dreadful ! " she went on, un-
conscious of the transmutation she was
effecting.
" I did not quite mean you to accept it
at first, for it is my one poor patent of
nobility," he broke out bluntly ; " but,
upon my soul, I wish you would now.
Without any shamming, come ! Don't
deny me the happiness of wearing it for
my sake ? But you are too lovely even to
care to be kind as others are."
" No, no ; don't say so. I have
reasons for reserve which I cannot ex-
plain."
" Let it be, then, let it be," he said, re-
ceiving back the watch at last; " I must
be leaving you now. And will you speak
to me for these few weeks of my stay ? "
" Indeed I will. Yet, I don't know if
I will ! Oh, why did you come and dis-
turb me so ! "
" Perhaps in setting a gin, I have
caught myself. Such things have hap-
pened. Well, will you let me work in
your fields ? " he coaxed.
"Yes, I suppose so ; if it is any plea-
sure to you."
" Miss Everdene, I thank vou."
" No, no."
" Good-bye ! "
The Sergeant lifted the cap from the
slope of his head, bowed, replaced it,
and returned to the distant group of hay-
makers.
Bathsheba could not face the haymak-
ers now. Her heart erratically flitting
hither and thither from perplexed excite-
ment, hot, and almost tearful, she re-
treated homewards, murmuring, " Oh,
what have I done ! what does it mean !
I wish I knew how much of it was true ! "
CHAPTER XXVII.
HIVING THE BEES.
The Weatherbury bees were late in
their swarming this year. It was in the
latter part of June, and the day after the
interview with Troy in the hayfield, that
Bathsheba was standing in her garden,
watching a swarm in the air and guessing
their probable settling-place. Not only
were they late this year, but unruly.
Sometimes throughout a whole season all
the swarms would alight on the lowest
attainable bough — such as part of a
currant-bush or espalier apple-tree ; next
year they would, with just the same
unanimity, make straight off to the
uppermost member of some tall, gaunt
costard, or quarrington, and there defy
all invaders who did not come armed
with ladders and staves to take them.
This was the case at present. Bath-
sheba's eyes, shaded by one hand, were
following the ascending multitude against
the unexplored stretch of blue till they
ultimately halted by one of the unwieldy
trees spoken of. A process was ob-
servable somewhat analogous to that of
alleged formations of the universe, tim
and times ago. The bustling swarm had!
swept the sky in a scattered and uniform:
haze, which now thickened to a nebulous
centre : this glided on to a bough and
grew still denser, till it formed a solid
black spot upon the light.
The men and women being all busily
engaged in saving the hay — even Liddy
had left the house for the purpose of
lending a hand — Bathsheba resolved to
hive the bees herself, if possible. She_
had dressed the hive with herbs anc
honey, fetched a ladder, brush, and crook
made herself impregnable with an armoui
of leather gloves, straw hat, and large
gauze veil — once green but now faded tc
snuff colour — and ascended a dozet
rungs of the ladder. At once she heard
not ten yards off, a voice that was begin
ning to have a strange power in agitatin«
her.
" Miss Everdene, let me assist you
)f
i
I
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
171
you should not attempt such a feat
alone."
Troy was just opening the garden gate.
Bathsheba flung down the brush, crook,
and empty hive, pulled the skirt of her
dress tightly round her ankles in a tre-
mendous flurry, and as well as she could
slid down the ladder. By the time she
reached the bottom Troy was there also,
and he stooped to pick up the hive.
" How fortunate I am to have dropped
in at this moment ! " exclaimed the Ser-
geant.
She found her voice in a minute.
" What ! and will you shake them in for
me.^" she asked, in what, for a defiant
girl, was a faltering way; though, for a
timid girl, it would have seemed a brave
way enough.
" Will I ! " said Troy. « Why, of
course I will. How blooming you are
to-day ! " Troy flung down his cane and
put his foot on the ladder to ascend.
" But you must have on the veil and
gloves, or you'll be stung fearfully ! "
" Ah, yes. I must put on the veil and
gloves. Will you kindly show me how
to fix them properly ? "
"And you must have the broad -brim-
med hat, too ; for your cap has no brim
to keep the veil off, and they'd reach
your face."
" The broad-brimmed hat, too, by all
means."
So a whimsical fate ordered that her
hat should be taken off — veil and all at-
tached— and placed upon his head, Troy
tossing his own into a gooseberry bush.
Then the veil had to be tied at its lower
edge round his collar and the gloves put
on him.
He looked such an extraordinary object
in this guise that, flurried as she was, she
could not avoid laughing outright. It
was the removal of yet another stake
from the palisade of cold manners which
had kept him off.
Bathsheba looked on from the ground
whilst he was busy sweeping and shaking
the bees from the tree, holding up the hive
with the other hand for them to fall into.
She made use of an unobserved minute
whilst his attention was absorbed in the
operation to arrange her plumes a little.
He came down holding the hive at arm's
length, behind which trailed a cloud of
bees.
" Upon my life," said Troy, through the
veil, "holding up this hive makes one's
arm ache worse than a week of sword-
exercise." When the manoeuvre was
complete he approached her. "Would
you be good enough to untie me and let
me out ? I am nearly stifled inside this
silk cage."
To hide her embarrassment during the
j unwonted process of untying the string
about his neck, she said :
" I have never seen that you spoke
of."
" What ? "
" The sword-exercise."
" Ah ! would you like to ? " said Troy.
Bathsheba hesitated. She had heard
wondrous reports from time to time by
dwellers in Weatherbury, who had by
chance sojourned awhile in Casterbridge,
near the barracks, of this strange and
glorious performance, the sword-exercise.
Men and boys who had peeped through
chinks or over walls into the barrack-yard
returned with accounts of its being the
most flashing affair conceivable ; accou-
trements and weapons glistening like
stars — here, there, around — yet all by
rule and compass. So she said mildly
what she felt stronglv.
" Yes ; I should like to see it very
much."
" And so you shall ; you shall see me
go through it."
" No ! How .? "
" Let me consider."
"Not with a
care to see that. It
sword."
" Yes, I know ; and I have no sword
here ; but I think I could get one by the
evening. Now, will you do this ? "
Troy bent over her and murmured
some suggestion in a low voice.
"Oh, no, indeed!" said Bathsheba,
blushing. " Thank you very much, but I
couldn't on any account."
" Surely you might ? Nobody would
know."
She shook her head, but with a weak-
ened negation. " If I were to," she said,
" I must bring Liddy, too.
not?" ^ ^
Troy looked far away. " I don't see
why you want to bring her," he said
coldly.
An unconscious look of assent in Bath-
sheba's eyes betrayed that something
more than his coldness had made her also
feel that Liddy would be superfluous in
the suggested scene. She had felt it,
even whilst making the proposal.
"Well, I won't bring Liddy — and I'll
come. But only for a very short time,"
she added ; "a very short time."
" It will not take five minutes," said
Troy.
walking-stick — I
must be
don»t
a real
Might I
172
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HOLLOW AMID THE FERNS.
The hill opposite one end of Bath-
sheba's dwelling extended into an uncul-
tivated tract of land, covered at this sea-
son with tall thickets of brake fern,
plump and diaphanous from recent rapid
growth, and radiant in hues of clear and
untainted green.
At eight o'clock this midsummer even-
ing, whilst the bristling ball of gold in the
west still swept the tips of the ferns with
its long, luxuriant rays, a soft brushing-
by of garments might have been heard
among them, and Bathsheba appeared in
their midst, their soft, feathery arms ca-
ressing her up to her shoulders. She
paused, turned, went back over the hill
and down again to her own door, whence
she cast a farewell glance upon the spot
she had just left, having resolved not to
remain near the place after all.
She saw a dim spot of artificial red
moving round the shoulder of the rise.
It disappeared on the other side.
She waited one minute — two minutes
— thought of Troy's disappointment at
her non-fulfilment of a promised engage-
ment, tossed on her hat again, ran up the
garden, clambered over the bank, and fol-
lowed the original direction. She was
now literally trembling and panting at
this her temerity in such an errant under-
taking ; her breath came and went quick-
ly, and her eyes shone with an infrequent
light. Yet go she must. She reached
the verge of a pit in the middle of the
ferns. Troy stood in the bottom, look-
ing up towards her.
" I heard you rustling through the
fern before I saw you," he said, coming
up and giving her his hand to help her
down the slope.
The pit was a hemispherical concave,
naturally formed, with a top diameter of
about thirty feet, and shallow enough to
allow the sunshine to reach their heads.
Standing in the centre, the sky overhead
was met by a circular horizon of fern :
this grew nearly to the bottom of the
slope and then abruptly ceased. The
middle within the belt of verdure was
floored with a thick flossy carpet of moss
and grass intermingled, so yielding that
the foot was half buried within it.
" Now," said Troy, producing the
sword, which, as he raised it into the sun-
light, gleamed a sort of greeting, like a
living thing, "first, we have four right
and four left cuts ; four right and four
left thrusts. Infantry cuts and guards
are more interesting than ours, to my
mind ; but they are not so swashing.
They have seven cuts and three thrusts.
So much as a preliminary. Well, next,
our cut one is as if you were sowing your
corn — so." Bathsheba saw a sort of
rainbow, upside down in the air, and
Troy's arm was still again. " Cut two, as
if you were hedging — so. Three, as if
you were reaping — so. Four, as if you
were threshing — in that way. Then the
same on the left. The thrusts are these :
one, two, three, four, right ; one, two,
three, four, left." He repeated them.
" Have 'em again ? " he said. " One,
two "
She hurriedly interrupted : " I'd rather
not ; though I don't mind your twos and
fours ; but your ones and threes are terri-
ble ! "
" Very well. I'll let you off the ones
and threes. Next, cuts, points, and
guards altogether." Troy duly exhibited
them. "Then there's pursuing practice,
in this way." He gave the movements
as before. " There, those are the stereo-
typed forms. The infantry have two
most diabolical upward cuts, which we
are too humane to use. Like this —
three, four."
" How murderous and bloodthirsty ! "
"They are rather deathy. Now I'll be
more interesting, and let you see some
loose play — giving all the cuts and
points, infantry and cavalry, quicker than
lightning, and as promiscuously — with
just enough rule to regulate instinct and
yet not to fetter it. You are my antag-
onist, with this difference from real war-
fare, that I shall miss you every time by
one hair's breadth, or perhaps two. Mind
you don't flinch, whatever you do."
" I'll be sure not to ! " she said in-
vincibly.
He pointed to about a yard in front of
him.
Bathsheba's adventurous spirit was be-
ginning to find some grains of relish in
these highly novel proceedings. She
took up her position as directed, facing
Troy.
" Now just to learn whether you have
pluck enough to let me do what I wish,
ril give you a preliminary test."
He flourished the sword by way of
introduction number two, and the next
thing of which she was conscious was
that the point and blade of the sword
were darting with a gleam towards her
left side, just above her hip ; then o£
their reappearance on her right side
emerjrino: as it were from between het
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
173
ribs, having apparently passed through
her body. The third item of conscious-
ness was that of seeing the same sword,
perfectly clean and free from blood, held
vertically in Troy's hand (in the position
technically called " recover swords ").
All was as quick as electricity.
" Oh ! " she cried out in affright, press-
ing her hand to her side. " Have you
run me through.'' — no, you have not!
Whatever have you done ! "
" I have not touched you," said Troy
quietly. " It was mere sleight of hand.
The sword passed behind you. Now
you are not afraid, are you ? Because if
you are I can't perform. I give my
word that I will not only not hurt you,
but not once touch you."
" I don't think I am afraid. You are
quite sure you will not hurt me ? "
" Quite sure."
" Is the sword very sharp ?"
"Oh no — only stand as still as a
statue. Now ! "
In an instant the atmosphere was trans-
formed to Bathsheba's eyes. Beams of
light caught from the low sun's rays,
above, around, in front of her, well-nigh
shut out earth and heaven — all emitted
in the marvellous evolutions of Troy's re-
flecting blade, which seemed everywhere
at once, and yet nowhere specially.
These circumambient gleams were ac-
companied by a keen sibilation that was
almost a whistling — also springing from
all sides of her at once. In short, she
was enclosed in a firunament of light, and
of sharp hisses, resembling a sky-full of
meteors close at hand.
Never since the broad-sword became
the national weapon, had there been more
dexterity shown in its management than
by the hands of Sergeant Troy, and never
had he been in such splendid temper for
the performance as nowin the evening
sunshine among the ferns with Bathsheba.
It may safely be asserted with respect to
the closeness of his cuts, that had it been
possible for the edge of the sword to
leave in the air a permanent substance
wherever it flew past, the space left un-
touched would have been a complete
mould of Bathsheba's figure.
Behind the luminous streams. of this
aurora militarise she could see the hue
of Troy's sword-arm, spread in a scarlet
haze over the space covered by its mo-
tions, like a twanged bowstring, and be-
hind all Troy himself, mostly facing her ;
sometimes, to show the rear cuts, half
turned away, his eye nevertheless always
keenly measuring her breadth and out-
line, and his lips tightly closed in sus-
tained effort. Next, his movaments
lapsed slower, and she could see them
individually. The hissing of the sword
had ceased, and he stopped entirely.
" That outer loose lock of hair wants
tidying," he said, before she had moved
or spoken. "Wait: I'll do it for you."
An arc of silver shone on her right
side : the sword had descended. The
lock dropped to the ground.
" Bravely borne ! " said Troy. " You
didn't flinch a shade's thickness. Won-
derful in a woman ! "
" It was because I didn't expect it. O
you have spoilt my hair ! "
"Only once more."
"No — no! lam afraid of you — in-
deed I am ! " she cried.
" I won't touch you at all — not even
your hair. I am only going to kill that
caterpillar settling on you. Now: still ! "
It appeared that a caterpillar had come
from the fern and chosen the front of her
boddice as his resting place. She saw
the point glisten towards her bosom, and
seemingly enter it. Bathsheba closed
her eyes in the full persuasion that she
was killed at last. However, feeling just
as usual, she opened them again.
"There it is, look," said the Sergeant,
holding his sword before her eyes.
The caterpillar was spitted upon its
point.
" Why it is magic ! " said Bathsheba,
amazed.
" O ,no — dexterity. I merely gave
point to your bosom where the caterpillar
was, and instead of running you through
checked the extension a thousandth of
an inch short of your surface."
" But how could you chop off a curl of
my hair with a sword that has no edge ?"
" No edge ! This sword will shave
like a razor. Look here."
He touched the palm of his hand with
the blade, and then, lifting it, showed her
a thin shaving of scarf-skin dangling
therefrom.
" But you said before beginning that it
was blunt and couldn't cut me ! "
" That was to get you to stand still,
and so ensure your safety. The risk of
injuring you through your moving was
too great not to compel me to tell you an
untruth to obviate it."
She shuddered. " I have been within
an inch of my life, and didn't know it ! "
" More precisely speaking, you have
been within half an inch of being pared
alive two hundred and ninety-five times."
" Cruel, cruel, 'tis of you ! "
174
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
"You have been perfectly safe never-
theless. My sworj never errs." And
Troy returned the weapon to the scab-
bard.
Bathsheba, overcome by a hundred
tumultuous feelings resulting from the
scene, abstractedly sat down on a tuft of
heather.
" I must leave you now," said Troy
softly. "And I'll venture to take and
keep this in remembrance of you."
She saw him stoop to the grass, pick
up the winding lock which he had sev-
ered from her manifold tresses, twist it
round his fingers, unfasten a button in
the breast of his coat, and carefully put
it inside. She felt powerless to with-
stand or deny him. He was altogether
too much for her, and Bathsheba seemed
as one who, facing a reviving wind, finds
it to blow so strongly that it stops the
breath.
He drew near and said, " I must be
leaving you." He drew nearer still. A
minute later and she saw his scarlet form
disappear amid the ferny thicket, almost
in a flash, like a brand swiftly waved.
That minute's interval had' brought the
blood beating into her face, set her sting-
ing as if aflame to the very hollows of
her feet, and enlarged emotion to a com-
pass which quite swamped thought. It
had brought upon her a stroke resulting,
as did that of Moses in Horeb, in a liquid
stream — here a stream of tears. She
felt like one who has sinned a great sin.
The circumstance had been the gentle
dip of Troy's mouth downward upon her
own. He had kissed her.
CHAPTER XXIX.
PARTICULARS OF A TWILIGHT WALK.
We now see the element of folly dis-
tinctly mingling with the many varying
particulars which made up the character
of Bathsheba Everdene. It was almost
foreign to her intrinsic nature. It was
introduced as lymph on the dart of Eros,
and eventually permeated and coloured
her whole constitution. Bathsheba,
though she had too much understanding
to be entirely governed by her womanli-
ness, had too much womanliness to use
her understanding to the best advantage.
Perhaps in no minor point does woman
astonish her helpmate more than in the
strange power she possesses of believing
cajoleries that she knows to be false —
except, indeed, in that of being utterly
sceptical on strictures that she knows to
be true.
Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that
only self-reliant women love when they
abandon their self-reliance. When a
strong woman recklessly throws away
her strength she is worse than a weak
woman who has never had any strength
to throw away. One source of her inad-
equacy is the novelty of the occasion.
She has never had practice in making the
best of such a condition. Weakness is
doubly weak by being new.
Bathsheba was not conscious of guile
in this matter. Though in one sense a
woman of the world, it was, after all, that
world of day-light coteries, and green car-
pets, wherein cattle form the passing
crowd and winds the busy hum; where
a quiet family of rabbits or hares lives on
the other side of your party-wall, where
your neighbour is everybody in the tyth-
ing, and where calculation is confined to
market-days. Of the fabricated tastes of
good fashionable society she knew but
little, and of the formulated self-indul-
gence of bad, nothing at all. Had her
utmost thoughts in this direction been
distinctly worded (and by herself they
never were) they would only have amount-
ed to such a matter as that she felt her
impulses to be pleasanter guides than
her discretion. Her love was entire as a
child's, and though warm as summer it
was fresh as spring. Her culpability lay
in her making no attempt to control feel-
ing by subtle and careful inquiry into
consequences. She could show others
the steep and thorny way, but " reck'd
not her own rede."
And Troy's deformities lay deep down
from a woman's vision, whilst his em-
bellishments were upon the very surface ;
thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose
defects were patent to the blindest, and
whose virtues were as metals in a mine.
The difference between love and re-
spect was markedly shown in her con-
duct. Bathsheba had spoken of her in-
terest in Bold wood with the greatest free-
dom to Liddy, but she had only com-
muned with her own heart concerning
Troy.
All this infatuation Gabriel saw, and
was troubled thereby from the time of
his daily journey a-field to the time of his
return, and on to the small hours of many
a night. That he was not beloved had
hitherto been his great sorrow ; that
Bathsheba was getting into the toils was
now a sorrow greater than the first, and
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
175
one which nearly obscured it. It was
a result which paralleled the oft-quoted
observation of Hippocrates concerning
physical pains.
That is a noble though perhaps an
unpromising love which not even the
fear of breeding aversion in the bosom
of the one beloved can deter from com-
bating his or her errors. Oak deter-
mined to speak to his mistress. He
would base his appeal on what he con-
sidered her unfair treatment of Farmer
Boldwood, now absent from home.
An opportunity occurred one evening
when she had gone for a short walk
by a path through the neighbouring corn-
fields. It was dusk when Oak, who had
not been far a-field that day, took the
same path and met her returning, quite
pensively, as he thought.
The vvheat was now tall, and the path
was narrow ; thus the way was quite a
sunken groove between the embrowing
thicket on either side. Two persons
could not walk abreast without damaging
the crop, and Oak stood aside to let her
pass.
" Oh, is it Gabriel?" she said, "you
are taking a walk too. Good night."
" I thought I would come to meet you,
as it is rather late," said Oak, turning
and following at her heels when she had
brushed somewhat quickly by him.
" Thank you, indeed, but I am not
very fearful."
" Oh no ; but there are bad characters
about."
" I never meet them."
Now Oak, with marvellous ingenu-
ity, had been going to introduce the gal-
lant Sergeant through the channel of
"bad characters." But all at once the
scheme broke down, it suddenly occur-
ring to him that this was rather a clumsy
way, and too bare-faced to begin with.
He tried another preamble.
" And as the man who would naturally
come to meet you is away from home,
too — I mean Farmer Boldwood — why,
thinks I, I'll go," he said.
*' Ah, yes." She walked on without
turning her head, and for many steps
nothing further was heard from her quar-
ter than the rustle of her dress against
the heavy corn-ears. Then she resumed
rather tartly :
'• I don't quite understand what you
meant by saying that Mr. Boldwood
would naturally come to meet me."
" I meant on account of the wedding
which they say is likely to take place be-
tween you and him, Miss. Forgive my
speaking plainly."
"They say what is not true," she re-
turned quickly. " No marriage is likely
to take place between us."
Gabriel now put forth his unobscured
opinion, for the moment had come.
"Well, Miss Everdene," he said, " put-
ing aside what people say, I never in my
life saw any courting if his is not court-
ing of you."
Bathsheba would probably have termi-
nated the conversation there and then by
flatly forbidding the subject, had not a
conscious weakness of position allured
her to palter and argue in endeavours to
better it.
" Since this subject has been men-
tioned," she said very emphatically, ** I
am glad of the opportunity of clearing up a
mistake which is very common and very
provoking. I didn't definitely promise
Mr. Boldwood anything. I have never
cared for him. I respect him, and he has
urged me to marry him. But I have
given him no distinct answer. As soon
as he returns I shall do so ; and the an-
swer will be that I cannot think of marry-
ing him."
" People are full of mistakes, seeming-
ly."
" They are."
" The other day they said you were
trifling with him, and you almost proved
that you were not ; lately tiiey have said
that you are not, and you straightway be-
gin to show "
" That I am, I suppose you mean."
" Well I hope they speak the truth."
" They do, but wrongly applied. I
don't trifle with him, but then, I have
nothing to do with him."
Oak was unfortunately led on to speak
of Boldwood's rival in a wrong tone to
her after all. " I wish you had never
met that young Sergeant Troy, Miss,"
he sighed.
Bathsheba's steps became faintly
spasmodic. " Why ? " she asked.
" He is not good enough for you."
" Did any one tell you to speak to me
like this ? "
" Nobody at all."
" Then it appears to me that Sergeant
Troy does not concern us here," she
said, intractably. " Yet I must say that
Sergeant Troy is an educated man, and
quite worthy of any woman. He is well
born."
"His being higher in learning and
birth than the ruck of soldiers is any-
176
thing but a proof of his worth. It shows
his course to be downward."
" I cannot see what this has to do with
our conversation. Mr. Troy's course is
not by any means downward ; and his
superiority is a proof of his worth."
"I believe him to have no conscience
at all. And I cannot help begging you,
Miss, to have nothing to do with him.
Listen to me this once — only this once !
I don't say he's such a bad man as I have
fancied — I pray to God he is not. But
since we don't exactly know what he is,
why not behave as if he might be bad,
simply for your own safety ? Don't trust
him, mistress ; I ask you not to trust
him so."
"Why, pray.?"
" I like soldiers, but this one I do not
like," he said sturdily. "The nature of
his calling may have tempted him astray,
and what is mirth to the neighbours is
ruin to the woman. When he tries to
talk to you again, why not turn away
with a short ' Good day ; ' and when you
see him coming one way, turn the other.
When he says any thing laughable, fail
to see the point and don't smile, and
speak of him before those who will re-
port your talk as ' that fantastical man,'
or 'that Sergeant What's-his-name.'
* That man of a family that has come to
the dogs.' Don't be unmannerly towards
him, but harmless-uncivil, and so get rid
of the man."
No Christmas robin detained by a
window-pane ever pulsed as did Bath-
sheba now.
" I say — I say again — that it doesn't
become you to talk about him. Why he
should be mentioned passes me quite ! "
she exclaimed desperately. " I know
this, th-th-that he is a thoroughly consci-
entious man — blunt sometimes even to
rudeness — but always speaking his mind
about you plain to your face ! "
" Oh. "
" He is as good as anybody in this
parish ! He is very particular too about
going to church — yes, he is ! "
" I am afeard nobody ever saw him
there. I never did certainly."
" The reason of that is," she said eager-
ly, " that he goes in privately by the old
tower door, just when the service com-
mences, and sits at the back of the gal-
ery. He told me so."
This supreme instance of Troy's good-
ness fell upon Gabriel's ears like the
thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock. It
was not only received with utter incre-
dulity as regarded itself, but threw a
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
doubt on all the assurances that had pre-
ceded it.
Oak was grieved to find how entirely
she trusted him. He brimmed with deep
feeling as he replied in a steady voice,
the steadiness of which was spoilt by the
palpableness of his great effort to keep
it so : —
" You know, mistress, that I love you,
and shall love you always. I only men-
tion this to bring to your mind that at
any rate I would wish to do you no harm :
beyond that I put it aside. I have lost
in the race for money and good things,
and I am not such a fool as to pretend
to you now I am poor, and you have got
altogether above me. But, Bathsheba,
dear mistress, this I beg you to consider
— that both to keep yourself well hon-
oured among the workfolk, and in com-
mon generosity to an honourable man
who loves you as well as I, you should
be more discreet in your bearing towards
this soldier."
"Don't, don't, don't ! " she exclaimed,
in a choking voice.
" Are you not more to me than my
own affairs, and even life .-*" he went on.
" Come, listen to me ! I am six years
older than you, and Mr. Boldwood is ten
years older than I, and consider — I do
beg you to consider before it is too late
— how safe you would be in his hands ! "
Oak's allusion to his own love for her
lessened, to some extent, her anger at
his interference ; but she could not real-
ly forgive him for letting his wish to mar-
ry her be eclipsed by his wish to do her
good, any more than his
ment of Troy.
" I wish you to go elsewhere," she
said, a paleness of face invisible to the
eye being suggested by the trembling
words. "Do not remain on this farm
any longer. I don't want you — I beg
you to go ! "
" That's nonsense," said Oak, calmly.
" This is the second time you have pre-
tended to dismiss me, and what's the
use of it ?"
" Pretended ! You shall go, sir — your
lecturing I will not hear ! I am mistress
here."
"Go, indeed — what folly will you say
next.-* Treating me like Dick, Tom, and
Harry, when you know that a short time
ago my position was as good as yours !
Upon my life, Batheheba, it is too bare-
faced. You know too that I can't go
without putting things in such a strait as
you wouldn't get out of I can't tell when.
Unless, indeed, you'll promise to have an
slighting treat-
«f
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
177
understanding man as bailiff, or manager,
or something. I'll go at once if you'll
promise that."
" I shall have no bailiff ; I shall con-
tinue to be my own manager," she said
decisively.
"Very' well, then; you should be
thankful to me for staying. How would
the farm go on with nobody to mind it
but a woman .'' But mind this, I don't
wish you to feel you owe me anything.
Not l'. What I do, I do. Sometimes I
say I should be as glad as a bird to leave
the place — for don't suppose I'm content
to be a nobody. I was made for better
things. However, I don't like to see
your concerns going to ruin, as they must
if you keep in this mind. ... I hate tak-
ing my own measure so plainly, but upon
my life your provoking ways make a man
say what he wouldn't dream of other times !
I own to being rather interfering. But
you know well enough how it is, and who
she is that I like too well, and feel too
much like a fool about to be civil to her."
It is more than probable that she pri-
vately and unconsciously respected him
a little for this grim fidelity, which had
been shown in his tone even more than
in his words. At any rate she murmured
something to the effect that he might
stay if he wished. She said more dis-
tinctly, " Will you leave me alone now ?
I don't order it as a mistress — I ask it
as a woman, and I expect you not to be
so uncourteous as to refuse."
" Certainly I will. Miss Everdene,"
said Gabriel, gently. He wondered that
the request should have come at this
moment, for the strife was over, and they
were on a most desolate hill far from any
human habitation, and the hour was get-
ting late. He stood still and allowed her
to get far ahead of him till he could only
see her form upon the sky.
A distressing explanation of this
anxiety to be rid of him at that point now
ensued. A figure apparently rose from
the earth beside her. The shape beyond
all doubt was Troy's. Oak would not be
even a possible listener, and at once
turned back till a good two hundred yards
were between the lovers and himself.
Gabriel went home by way of the
churchyard. In passing the tower he
thought of what she had said about the
Sergeant's virtuous habit of entering the
church unperceived at the beginning of
service. Believing that the little gallery
door alluded to was quite disused, he as-
cended the external flight of steps at the
top of which it stood, and examined it.
UVING AGE. VOL. VII. 324
The pale lustre yet hanging in the north-
western heaven was sufficient to show
that a sprig of ivy had grown from the
wall across the door to a length of more
than a foot, delicately tying the panel to
the stone jamb. It was a decisive proof
that the door had not been opened at
least since Troy came back to Weather-
bury.
From Eraser's Magazine.
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
A LECTURE DELIVERED AT THE LONDON IN-
STITUTION, JANUARY 28, 1874.
The history of the decipherment of the
cuneiform or wedge-shaped inscriptions
of Assyria is a story of patience, of
acuteness, and of perseverance. When
Grotefend, at the beginning of the pres-
ent century, demonstrated that a certain
group of letters on the monuments of
Persepolis represented the name of the
great Persian monarch Darius, the prob-
lem was virtually solved. Burnouf, Las-
sen, and Rawlinson followed up the path
which had thus been opened out for
them ; and the publication by the last
scholar of the long inscription of Be-
histun, in which Darius Hystaspis nar-
rates the successful history of his troubled
reign, enabled the student to become as
familiar with the ancient language of
Persia as with the Hebrew of the Old
Testament. It was found to be one
closely related to the Sanskrit of India,
though representing a rather later form
of speech than the Zend of the sacred
books of the Parsees in which the doc-
trines of Zoroastrianism have been pre-
served down to our own day. But side
by side with these Persian legends we
always find two other kinds of cuneiform
writing, which do not use the same al-
phabet as that of the Persian inscrip-
tions, but one infinitely more complex.
By the help of the proper names, the
reading of these two other texts was de-
termined, and the syllabaries in which
they were written were made out. It
was then discovered that the one text
revealed a Semitic language, nearly al-
lied to Hebrew, while the other text con-
tained an agglutinative idiom resembling
those of the Tartar or Finnic tribes. The
empire of the old Persian kings included
subjects who spoke these three several
languages ; every edict therefore in order
to be generally understood had to be
transcribed in each one of them, just as
178
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
at the present time a Turkish governor
has to publish his decrees in agglutina-
tive Turkish, Semitic Arabic, and Aryan
Persian. Now a variety of reasons tend-
ed to show that the Semitic language
which the decipherment of the inscrip-
tions had brought to light belonged to
the inhabitants of Assyria and Babylo-
nia ; and by a lucky accident this con-
clusion was soon afterwards confirmed
by the discoveries of Botta and Layard
at Nineveh. Bulls and sculptured slabs,
obelisks and statues, were brought to
Europe covered with lines of writing to
the meaning of which the key had now
been found ; the application of it was
only a matter of time and labour.
But the labour was incomparably
greater than could have been anticipated.
The Assyrians made use, not of an alpha-
bet, but of a syllabary which contained
several hundred different characters.
Most of these had more than one pho-
netic value, and they might all be em-
ployed as ideographs, that is, not as
mere syllabic sounds, but, like the hiero-
glyphics, as representatives of some par-
ticular object or idea. In fact, we now
know that they were at the outset noth-
ing but hieroglyphics which were gradu-
ally corrupted into the arrow-headed
forms met with upon the Assyrian monu-
ments ; and the attempt to adapt these
hieroglyphics to the requirements of a
syllabary has given rise to all the diffi-
culties I have just mentioned. The
people who invented them were the prim-
itive inhabitants of Chaldea, the builders
of the great cities there, and the origi-
nators of civilization in Western Asia.
Their language was agglutinative, that is
to say, the relations of grammar were ex-
pressed, not by inflections, but by the
addition of independent words ; and it
belonged to the same family of speech as
Tartar, Mongolian, or Basque. They
seem to have called themselves Accadi-
ans or people of Accad, a word signifying
^ highlanders," and showing that they must
have originally descended from the moun-
tains of Elam on the east. The Elam-
ites, accordingly, as we find from the in-
scriptions, spoke cognate dialects to this
Accadian ; and the Accadians themselves
looked back upon the mountains of the
East as "the mountain, of the world"
and the cradle of mankind. Babylonia
was never secure from invasions from
this quarter until the Elamites were at
last nearly extirpated by Assurbanipal or
Sardanapalus, the son of Esarhaddon.
More than once in historical times the
hardy highlanders overran and conquered
their quieter neighbours. In the four-
teenth chapter of Genesis we are told
that Chedor-laomer, King of Elam, was
the leader of a confederacy of subordinate
Babylonian princes ; and the bricks in-
form us of a certain Cudur-Mabug, " the
father " or "governor of Palestine," who
came from Yavutbal or Yatbur in Elam
and founded a dynasty in Chaldea. 1635
years, again, before the conquest of EUm
by Assurbanipal, Cudurnankhundi, the
monarch of that country, had invaded
and ''oppressed Accad ; " and in the six-
teenth century B.C. the whole of Baby-
lonia was conquered by an Elamite tribe
called Cassi (or Kossaeans as the name is
given by the classical geographers), under
a leader entitled Khammuragas. Kham-
muragas first occupied Northern Babylo-
nia, then governed by a queen, and for
the first time fixed his capital at a city
hitherto known as Din-tir or " House of
Life," but which henceforth took the
name of Bab-ili or Babylon, " the gate of
the gods." After establishing his power
in this part of the country, Khammuragas
succeeded in overcoming Naram-Sin or
Rim-Sin, the King of Southern Babylonia,
and in founding a dynasty which lasted
for several centuries. He seems to have
assumed the Semitic name of Samsu-ilu
na, " The Sun [is] our God," and accord
ingly built a great temple to his patro:
deity at Larsa, the modern Senkereh.
large number of canals were constructe
during his reign, more especially the fa-
mous Nahr Malka or King's Canal of
which Pliny speaks, and an embankment
was built along the banks of the Tigris.
Khammuragas appears to have had his
attention turned to the irrigation of the
country by an inundation which destroyed
the important city of Mullias. Number-
less temples also were founded and re-
paired by the prince, and images covered
with gold were set up in them. His suc-
cessors intermarried with the royal family
of Assyria ; and upon one occasion, wher
the reigning sovereign had been murderec
and a usurper of low birth placed upor
the throne by the rebels, the Assyria:
king marched into Babylonia, suppressec
the revolt, and restored the crown to tht
brother of the murdered prince. A
other times, however, the intercourse be
tween the two countries was not so ami
cable, and finally about 1270 B.C. Tiglath
Adar, King of Assyria, took Babylon b
storm, put an end to the dynasty c j
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
179
Khammuragas, and founded a line of
Semitic monarchs which lasted down to
the days of Sargon and Sennacherib.
Now the materials for this reconstruc-
tion of ancient history have been fur-
nished in some measure by contempora-
neous records, but principally by the
small clay tablets which were found at
Kouyundjik by Mr. Layard. Thousands
of fragments of these, covered with the
most minute writing, are now in Europe,
for the most part in the British Museum.
The fragments have been patiently pieced
together by Messrs. Norris and Cox, by
Sir H. Rawlinson, and last, but not least,
by Mr. G. Smith ; and they turn out to
have formed part of an extensive library
collected by Assurbanipal. And this
brings me back to the explanation of the
way in which the difficulties arising from
the intricacies of the Assyrian syllabary
have been smoothed over. The Assyri-
ans themselves, and still more the for-
eigners at the Ninevite Court, found
these difficulties nearly as great as we do.
Syllabaries were accordingly drawn up in
which the character to be explained was
put in the middle column, the column on
the left giving its phonetic power, and
that on the right the Assyrian meaning
of what that phonetic power signified in
the old Accadian language, and of the
character itself in Assyrian when used as
an ideograph. Thus the character which
is sounded mi and sib is explained to de-
note "assembly," "mass," and "herd,"
because these were the significations of
wz'and sib in Accadian, and of the char-
acter in question whenever it stood alone.
In a syllabary which Mr. G. Smith has
lately brought home a fourth column is
added, containing Assyrian synonymesof
the words written in the third column.
Besides the syllabaries, there are tablets
of synonymes, lists of countries, deities,
animals, birds, and stones, and above all,
grammars, dictionaries, and phrase-books
of Accadian and Assyrian, together with
interlinear or parallel translations of Ac-
cadian texts into the language of Nine-
veh. It is these latter that have enabled
us to interpret this ancient forgotten
tongue, and to decipher the brick-legends
of the early Babylonian kings. Assur-
banipal is never weary of repeating that
Nebo and his wife Tasmit have enlarged
nis ears and given sight to his eyes, so
that he was inspired to "write and en-
grave on tablets, and explain all the char-
acters of the syllabary that exist, and to
place [them] in the midst of " his " palace
for the inspection of " his " people." But
it must not be supposed that, this was the
first library ever formed in those regions.
On the contrary, Assurbanipal was but the
last of a series of monarchs who were wor-
thy predecessors of the Attali and Ptole-
mies of a later period. All the great cities
of Babylonia had their libraries, most of
them older than the sixteenth century
B.C., and Babylon itself could boast of no
less than two which still lie buried under
its ruins waiting for the explorer to open
them. Libraries existed in Assyria also,
but they consisted for the most part of
works imported from Chaldea and trans-
lated from the Accadian. The most fa-
mous of the Babylonian libraries was
that of the city of Agane, the very site of
which is now unknown. It was got to-
gether by a king called Sargon, who im-
mediately preceded the queen conquered
by Khammuragas. To this library be-
longed the standard work on astrology,
consisting of 70 tablets or books as we
should call them. It was entitled " the il-
lumination of Bel," and in later times was
translated into Greek by the Chaldean his-
torian Berosus, a contemporary of Alex-
ander the Great, whose works are unfortu-
nately now lost. It passed through many
editions, and suitable extracts were made
from it upon the occurrence of any astro-
nomical phenomena. Eclipses for the
most part were recorded in it, and what-
ever event had been observed to take
place after any particular eclipse would
happen again, it was supposed, whenever
the eclipse occurred on the same day.
The following specimens from the 23rd
chapter of the work will give some idea
of its general character :
In the month Si van, on the 14th day, an
eclipse happens, and in the east it begins, in
the west it ends. In the night-watch it begins
and in the morning-watch it ends. Eastward,
at the time of appearance and disappearance,
its shadow is seen ; and to the King of Dil-
mun a crown is given ; the King of Dilmun
grows old on the throne. On the 1 5th day an
eclipse takes place ; the King of Dilmun is
murdered on the throne, and a nobody seizes
on the government. On the i6th day an
eclipse occurs ; the king is slain by his eu-
nuchs, and his nephew seizes on the throne.
On the 20th day an eclipse happens ; there
are rains in heaven ; floods flow in the chan-
nels. On the 2 1 St day an eclipse takes place ;
there is devastation or rapine in the country ;
there are dead bodies in the country.
At the beginning of the year, in the month
Nisan, on the 14th day, an eclipse occurs ;
deserts are made in the land of the enemy,
and the land is reduced ; the king dies. On
the 1 5th day an eclipse occurs ; famine en-
i8o
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
sues ; men sell their sons for silver. On the
1 6th day an eclipse occurs ; a destructive wind
blows across the land, and the planet Mars is
in the ascendant, and the cattle are scattered.
On the 20th day an eclipse occurs; king
against king sends war. On the 21st day an
eclipse takes place ; again there is oppression.
In the month Elul, from the loth to the 30th
day, there was no eclipse. The crops will
fail. If the air-god is obscured, rain and
flood will come down. If rain has descended,
the king of the land sees misfortune. If the
wind sweeps the face of the country, for six
years the country sees famine.
Now, all this seems to us very childish.
But it must be remembered that the
science of astronomy has grown out of
such false and superstitious views of na-
ture, and that, in fact, without such ob-
servations as are recorded in these old
Babylonian tablets, it could never have
come into existence at all. Nor must we
suppose that these astrological formulas
were the only result of Chaldean star-
gazing. To say nothing of the formation
of a calendar, in itself a work of primary
importance, we have a catalogue of the
astrological works contained in this very
library of Sargon, in which we find one
on "the conjunction of the moon and the
sun," another on comets, and a third on
the pole-star. It is curious to meet with
a direction to the student at the end of
this catalogue, in which he is told to
write down the number of the tablet he
wishes to consult, and the librarian will
thereupon give it to him. In this matter
at least we have not improved upon the
old Babylonian system.
But the royal patronage of astronomy
was not confined to libraries and their
contents. The Astronomer Royal, as we
should term him, was a very important
person in the monarchies of the Euphra-
tes and the Tigris, and observatories
were established in all the great cities, at
Nineveh, at Arbela, at that Ur of the
Chaldees in which Abraham was born,
and at many other places. Monthly re-
ports had to be sent in to the king ;
and though they are not couched in the
precise language of modern science, they
yet show that these ancient people hon-
estly devoted themselves to their v/ork,
imperfect as their means were, and had
come to know that eclipses occurred in a
regular order, and could therefore be pre-
dicted. Here are two of these reports.
The first tells us that the vernal equinox
fell upon the 6th of the month Nisan, or
March, in the following language :
The 6th day of Nisan, the day and the night
were equal. (There were) twelve hours of day
and twelve of night. To the king my lord
may the gods Nebo and Merodach be propi-
tious.
The second report is a longer one.
The king is informed that a solar eclipse
was expected ; but though the heavens
were carefully watched for three days, it
did not take place :
To the king my lord, thy servant Ebed-
Istar. Peace to the king my lord. May
Nebo and Merodach be propitious to the king
my lord. May the great gods grant the king
my lord long days, soundness of flesh, and joy
of heart. On the 27th of the month the moon
disappeared. On the 28th, 29th, and 30th of
the month we watched for the eclipse of the
sun, but the sun did not become eclipsed. On
the 1st of the month Tammuz the moon was
seen in the da5'time above the planet Mercury,
of which I have already sent a special account
to the king my lord. During the first five
days of the month, when the moon is termed
Anu, it was seen declining in the circle of the
star called the Shepherd of the Heavenly
Flock ; but the horns were not visible on ac-
count of rain. Thus I have sent a report of
its conjunction during these first five days of
the month to the king. Thus it extended it-
self, and was visible under the star of the
Chariot. During the period from the loth to
the 15th day it disappeared. It circled round
the star of the Chariot, [so that] a conjunction
with it was prevented, although its conjunction
with Mercury during the first five days of the
month, of which I have already sent an ac-
count to the king my lord, was not prevented.]
May the king my lord have peace.
Two things strike us in these reports,
I mean the servility and the extremely
religious colouring which they display.
The servility is the natural product of an
Oriental despotism ; but the obtrusive
piety is the result of a combination of
Semitic religious zeal with an elaborate
system of theology which the Assyrians
had learnt from their Accadian prede-
cessors. The old population of Babylo-
nia was inordinately superstitious ; it had
invented innumerable epithets for the
gods it worshipped, and then had turned
these into fresh deities. The whole world
was filled with spirits, some beneficent,
some harmful ; even the cup of water
that was drunk, or the food that was
eaten, had to be exorcised lest the demon
which possessed it might enter the body,
and produce disease and death. The
priests were acquainted with all the de-
tails of the future state ; those whom the
gods favoured would enjoy everlasting
life in their presence in " the land of the
silver sky," feasting at richly garnished
I
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
i8i
altars, and wandering amid the light of
"the fields of the blessed ; " while for the
rest of mankind was reserved the lower
world of Hades, " the land whence none
may return," as it was called. Here
Allat, " the queen of the mighty country,"
ruled together with Tu, the god of death ;
and Datilla, the river of the dead, flowed
sluggishly along, nourishing the mon-
strous seven-headed serpent which lashes
the sea into waves. Seven gates and
seven warder-spirits shut it in ; and in its
midst rose the golden throne of the gods
of the earth, the Anunnaci, or offspring
of Anu, the sky. It was a land of dark-
ness, and those who were within longed
in vain for the light. Before reaching
this dreary region the souls of the de-
parted were stripped bare and empty ;
and though the waters of life bubbled
up in its inmost depths, they were never
allowed to taste them. The spirits of
earth who inhabited it were six hundred
in number, and they seem to have been
regarded generally as hostile to mankind.
Numerous as they were, they each had a
name, like the three hundred spirits of
heaven. Above both came the fifty great
gods, and above these latter again the .
seven magnificent deities, at the head of i
whom stood the trinity of Bel, Anu, and
Hea. Anu and his brothers were the ]
children of Zikara, "the sky," for Zikara ^
was the universal mother of all the divini- j
ties whom the Assyrians feared. j
With such a pantheon the whole life of
the Babylonian must have been passed
in appeasing the deities he believed in, or !
in seeking their favour and help. He ;
was wholly surrounded by a spiritual
world. There were spirits of the head,
spirits of the neck, spirits of the hand,
and spirits of the stomach. Their names
and titles were legion, and numberless
hymns were composed in their honour.
But even this vast army of divine beings
did not suffice ; new deities were formed
out of personified cities and countries ;
and in Assyria the god Assur, the per-
sonification of the old capital of the
country, came to be the supreme object of
worship. The astronomer-priests, more-
over, identified different deities with the
various planets and stars ; and so a star-
worship came to be added to the already
overgrown pantheon. It must not be
supposed that these divine beings were
distinct deities. The larger part of them
had grown out of the manifold epithets
applied to the gods. The epithets had
been personified, and so transformed into
new gods. Hence gods of different name
had the same characteristics, and we often
find the same deity appearing under sev-
eral forms. All this, of course, gave rise
to innumerable mythological tales. Thus
Allat, the goddess of Hades, was origi-
nally only another form of Istar, or As-
tarte, the Assyrian Venus ; and yet there
is a legend which, forgetting this fact,
tells how Istar descended into Hades to
seek her dead husband Du-zi, "the son
of life," and was there confined by Allat,
her double, until the gods of heaven sent
messengers to release her and restore her
to the upper world. Du-zi himself is an-
other instance of this mythological ten-
dency to evolve many new forms and
persons out of one original. He is the
same as Tammuz or Adonis, for whom
the women that Ezekiel saw at the north-
ern gate of the Temple were weeping,
and who was slain by a boar while hunt-
ing. But Tammuz is also Tam-zi, " the
sun of life," a second husband of Istar,
and the hero of that Chaldean Flood-
story which Mr. Smith discovered a year
ago. When we come to examine more
closely into the matter, we find that both
Du-zi and Tam-zi are at bottom, like
Adonis, only epithets given to the Sun ;
and when it is said that Du-zi was killed,
and had to pass to the lower world, or
that Tam-zi floated in his ship above the
flood of water during the rainy season of
the year, this only means that the sum-
mer sun is slain by the winter, and that
the ark of the great luminary of day sails
through the sky above the clouds to re-
appear when the rain and the tempest
have ceased. Indeed, the name of Tam-
zi simply signifies the morning sun,
which gives light and life to the world ;
and he is called the son of Ubara-Tutu,
that is, " the glow of sunset." Tutu, the
second part of the name of this father
of Tam-zi, is the same as Tu, the god of
Hades, and really means nothing else
except the " setting sun," which was sup-
posed to rule in the world below during
the dark hours of night. In this invisi-
ble chaos was placed the origin of all
things ; and so Tutu is termed the " pro-
genitor," the father of gods and men,
"he who prophesies before the king."
Now there is something very remark-
able connected with these stories of Istar
and Tam-zi. They form part of a series
of twelve tablets, or books, which are
artificially connected together by being
interwoven into the history of a certain
mythical hero, Gisdhubar, another form
of the sun, just as the common thread
that runs through the different poems of
l82
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
the Iliad is the adventures of the Greeks
before Troy. Such stories as those I
have just alluded to are introduced as
episodes told to Gisdhubar. Now it is
very curious that at least as early as the
sixteenth century B.C. the Accadians
should have possessed a long epic, com-
posed of older independent legends arti-
ficially pieced together ; and it is still
more curious that the principle upon
which the stories have been arranged
should have been an astronomical one.
Each story is assigned to the month and
the sign of the zodiac — for the Accadian
months were named after the zodiacal
signs — which best corresponded to the
character of it ; thus the legend of Istar
comes sixth, answering to the sixth
month, called " the errand of Istar," and
to Virgo, the sixth sign of the zodiac ;
and the legend of Tam-zi and the Del-
uge occurs on the eleventh tablet, just
as the eleventh month was termed " the
rainy," and as Aquarius is the eleventh
zodiacal sign. It shows how devoted the
old Babylonians must have been to the
study of astronomy, that the science
should have dominated even over the
formation of the national epic.
I cannot leave this subject of the reli-
gion and superstitions of the Assyrians
and Chaldeans without referring to their
elaborate system of augury. There were
tables of omens from dreams, omens from
the births of men and animals, omens
from birds, omens from the weather ;
and in fact every occurrence that
could possibly take place was supposed
to be of either good or evil presage.
Thus " to dream of bright light fore-
boded a fire in the city," and "the sight
of a decaying house " was a sign of mis-
fortune to its inhabitant. So we have
a long list of birth-portents in which
every conceivable accident is duly re-
corded. It begins in this way : "When
a woman has a child, which has a lion's
ears, it brings a strong king into the
country. If it wants the right ear, the
days of the master [of the house] are pro-
longed. If it wants both ears, it brings
evil into the country, and the country is
reduced. If the right ear is small, the
man's house will tumble down. If both
the ears are small, the man's house will
be made of bricks ; " and so on through
all the other members of the body. Per-
haps it will be interesting to know that if
a child has a nose like a bird's beak, the
country will be at peace ; while if the
nose is wanting, evil will possess the land,
and the master of the house will die.
There is one occurrence, however, which
is never likely to happen, desirable as its
consequences are. " When a sheep
bears a lion," we are told, " the arms of
the king will be powerful, and the king
will have no rival."
But manifold as were the evils which
untoward events were continually bring-
ing about, the Babylonians knew how to
prevent them by cunning charms and
exorcisms. There is a tablet of these in
the British Museum in Accadian with an
Assyrian translation annexed. Here we
read magic formulae like the following :
May the evil god, the evil spirit of the neck,
the spirit of the desert, the spirit of the land,
the spirit of the sea, the spirit of the river, the
evil cherub of the city, [and] the noxious wind
be driven forth from the man himself, [and]
the clothing of the body ; from the evil spirit
of the neck may the king of heaven preserve,
may the king of earth preserve.
From sickness of the entrails, from sickness
of the heart, from the palpitation of a sick
heart, from sickness of bile, from sickness
of the head, from noxious colic, from the
agitation of terror, from flatulency of the
bowels, from noxious illness, from lingering
sickness, from nightmare, may the king of
heaven preserve, may the king of earth pre-
serve.
From the sweeper-away of buildings, from
the robber, from the evil face, from the evil
eye, from the evil mouth, from the evil tongue
from the evil lip, from the evil nose, may th^
king of heaven preserve, may the king of eartl
preserve.
These magic formulae, it would seemj
had to be tied about the limbs of the
sufferer, like the phylacteries of the Jews.
Thus we are told : " Let a woman hold
the charm with the right hand, but leave
the left hand alone. Knot it twice with
seven knots, and bind it round the sick
man's head, yea bind it round the sick
man's brows and round his hands and
feet like fetters ; and let her sit upon his
bed and cast holy water over him ; " and
again : " In the night-time fix a sentence
out of a good tablef [or book] on the sick
man's head [as he lies] in bed." These
sentences were the same as the Hebrew
proverbs, though some of them may have
been extracts from the numerous hymn*
with which Babylonian literature abound
ed. A large part of these hymns wen
translated from Accadian into Assyrian
and we have a record that Assurbanipal'
library possessed nine poems on the wes
side, the first of these being addresse
to Assur, and fifteen on the east sid<
Some idea may be formed of the charac
ter of these hymns from the two follow
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
183
ing specimens, one of which is dedicated ( aptly called by Mr. Fox Talbot the " Song
to'^the Sun-god, and the other has been of the Seven Spirits : "
O Sun-god, in the expanse of heaven thou O Sun-god, to the world thy face thou direct-
shinest, est.
And the bright locks of heaven thou openest : O Sun-god, with the brightness of heaven the
The gate of "heaven thou openest. earth thou coverest.
In the stream of Ocean seven they [are],
In the stream of Ocean in a palace grew they
up.
Wife they have not, child they bear not.
Prayer [and] supplication hear they not.
Seven they [are], seven they [are], seven twice again they [are].
Seven they [are], seven they [are],
In the splendour of heaven seven they [are].
Male they [are] not, female they [are] not.
Rule [and] kindness know they not :
These seven spirits, it may be re-
marked, were the guardians of the planets
and of the week, and stood, we are told,
in the presence of the Moon. They were
born in those abysmal waters on which
the earth was founded, and out of whose
encircling tide, as from the Okeanos of
Homer, rose the great luminaries of
heaven.
The devotion of the Chaldeans to the
affairs of the spiritual world did not, how-
ever, prevent them from framing laws.
We possess a curious table of Accadian
laws, witli an Assyrian translation at the
side. One of these laws enjoins that, " If
a wife repudiate her husband, and say,
'Thou art not my husband,' into the
river they shall throw her," in striking
contrast with the milder penalty incurred
by the man for the same offence : " If a
husband say to his wife, ' Thou art not
my wife,' half a maneh of silver shall he
pay." Indeed it is clear that the father
possessed almost absolute authority in
his family, as among the Romans ; thus
another law lays down that " If a son say
to his father, 'Thou art not my father,'
he shall cast him off, send him away,
and sell him for silver." So, too, we find
the astrological tablets speaking of chil-
dren being sold by their parents. The
interests of the sla^e, however, were not
wholly neglected. " If a master," it is
laid down, ''hurt, kill, injure, beat, maim,
or reduce to sickness his slave, his hand
which so offended shall pay half a maneh
of corn." The punishment was certainly
not very severe ; but we must not judge
the people of that early time by the stand-
ard of our own dav, and it was something
for the slave to be protected, however
slightly, by the State.
Only a few of the laws relating to prop-
erty have as yet been discovered. These,
however, must have existed, since trade
transactions were carried on actively.
We may see numerous black stones in
the Museum, which record the sale and
purchase of particular lands, and the
most terrible curses are invoked upon
the heads of those who should injure and
destroy these evidences of the ownership
of property. One of them, lately found
by Mr. Smith, tells us that the ground
mentioned in it was bestowed by the
king upon a sort of poet-laureate on ac-
count of some panegyrics he had written
upon the kingdom. Still more plentiful
than these are private contract-tablets,
often inclosed in an outer coating of
clay, on which an abstract of the con-
tents of the inner tablet is stamped.
Many of them are pierced with holes,
through which strings were passed at-
tached to leaves of papyri. The latter
have long since perished ; but papyrus
was used by the Accadians as a writing
material at a remote date, although the
more durable clay tablets were preferred.
The mercantile class seems to have con-
sisted chiefly of Semites rather than of
Accadians ; and if we want to find the
fullest development of business and com-
merce we must come down to the eighth
and seventh centuries B.C., when Nineveh
was a bustling centre of trade. Tyre had
been destroyed by the Assyrian kings,
and trade had accordingly transferred
itself farther to the East. Carchemish,
which was favourably situated near the
Euphrates, was the meeting-place of the
merchants of all nations, and the " maneh
of Carchemish " became the standard of
weight. Houses and other property, in-
cluding slaves, were bought and sold ;
and the carefulness with which the deeds
of sale or lease were drawn up, the de-
tails into which they went, and the num-
ber of attesting witnesses, were quite
worthy of a modern lawyer. Money, too,
was lent at interest, usually at the rate of
four per cent., but sometimes, more
especially when goods like iron were bor-
rowed, at three per cent. Security for
the loan was ' often taken in houses or
other property. The witnesses and con-
i84
ASSYRIAN DISCOVERIES.
trading parties generally affixed their
seals ; but where they were too poor to
possess any, a nail-mark was considered
sufficient. All this appreciation and in-
terchanging of property led, as we might
suppose, to testamentary devolution ; and
no less a document than the private will
of Sennacherib is now in the British Mu-
seum. As this is the earliest specimen
of a will known, the contents of it may be
of some interest. The king says : " I
Sennacherib, king of multitudes, King of
Assyria, have given chains of gold, heaps
of ivory, a cup of gold, crowns and
chains with them, all the wealth that [I
have] in heaps, crystal, and another pre-
cious stone, and bird's stone ; one and a
half maneh, two and a half cibi in weight ;
to Esar-haddon my son, who was after-
wards named Assur-ebil-mucinpal accord-
ing to my wish. The treasure [is de-
posited] in the temple of Amuk and
[Nebo-] irik-erba, the harpists of Nebo."
The monarch, it would seem, did not need
any witnesses to attest the deed ; the
royal signature was considered sufficient.
It may appear strange to us to find rec-
ords of this kind stamped upon clay
tablets. But it niust be remembered that
papyrus and parchment were scarce and
dear, although papyrus at any rate was in
use, while clay was abundant ; and it is
fortunate for us that Assyrian literature
was entrusted to so durable a material.
Even epistolary correspondence was car-
ried on by means of baked clay ; and the
library of Kouyundjik possessed a collec-
tion of royal letters inscribed upon clay
tablets, besides despatches from the
generals in the field to the Government
at home. In fact, the whole literature of
the nation was contained in these " la-
teres coctiles " (•' baked bricks ") as Pliny
calls them ; and one of the latest dis-
coveries of Mr. Smith is a volume of
fables which belonged to a certain Assy-
rian city. Fragments only of two or
three of these have as yet been met with ;
one of them is a dialogue between the ox
and the horse, another between the eagle
and the sun. Such a discovery is inter-
esting, because it shows that Egypt or
Africa was not the only birthplace of the
beast-fable, as has been commonly im-
agined ; but that human ingenuity has
hit upon the same means of conveying a
lesson in various parts of the world.
Among the most valuable portions of
this literature in clav are the chronoloiji-
cal tablets. These have already enabled
us to restore the chronology of Western
Asia from the ninth to the seventh cen-
turies B.C., and to correct the corre-
sponding dates in the Old Testament,
hifherto the despair of historians ; while
Mr. Smith has lately found a few rem-
nants of what is probably a synopsis of
Babylonian history from the mythical
period downwards, in which the length of
the reigns is given and the duration of
the dynasties summed up.
Such, then, are some of the fruits that
have already been gathered in from this
abundant harvest. We have suddenly
found ourselves brought face to face with
the men whose names have been familiar
to us from childhood, with Sennacherib,
with Nebuchadnezzar, with Tiglath-Pile-
ser. We have Sennacherib's own ac-
count of his campaign against Judah,
when he shut up Hezekiah in Jerusalem
" as a bird in a cage ; " we see the Israel-
ites bearing the tribute from Jehu sculp-
tured on Shalmaneser's obelisk ; nay, we
may examine the archives of that Ur of
the Chaldees from which Abraham, we
are told, went forth. But more than this.
We are made acquainted wMth the daily
life and thought of the people ; and the
contemporaries of Isaiah and Jeremiah
are no longer the unreal phantoms of a
fairy-land. We learn that many of our
modern discoveries are but re-discoveries
after all ; and that years ago the inhab-
itants of the valleys of the Tigris and
Euphrates had attained a development of
civilization and culture of which we have
never dreamed. And the beginnings of
this civilization are pushed back to so re-
mote an epoch as to be lost amid the
mists of a fabulous antiquity. But one
thing we now know, and that is that when
the Semites — the ancestors of the He-
brews, of the Phoenicians, of the Syrians,
and of the Assyrians themselves — first
moved from their original home in Arabia
across the Euphrates, they found a teem-
ing and highly-civilized population, with
great cities and lofty temples and a devel-
oped literature. It was there that the
Semite learned the elements of culture
and knowledge ; it was there that he pre-
pared himself for that great work for
which he was destined. In the land of
Shinar, on the north-western side of
Chaldea, the Semitic tribes settled them-
selves around the mighty cities of Baby-
lon and Erech and Accad and Calneh :
and while some remained in the country
and finally reduced the old Accadian in-
habitants to a state of vassalage, others
made their way northward to Haran an<
Mesopotamia, and eastward to the shores
of the Mediterranean Sea.
WHITBY JET.
i8s
But the record is still fragmentary.
We have to piece together thousands of
shreds of broken clay and to trust to the
scattered and half-collected relics of a
single Assyrian library. Just enough has
been revealed to us to show what incal-
culable treasures still lie buried under
the sands and marshes of the far East.
The libraries of Babylonia, numerous
and rich as they are, still remain unex-
plored— at all events by Europeans, for
Mr. Smith has found that one of those at
Babylon has been broken into by the
Arabs, and its contents will soon be lost.
A corner only of Assyria, so to speak,
has as yet been examined ; and the re-
sults of Mr. Smith's brief and hurried
diggings last year in the palace of Assur-
banipal prove how much is to be discov-
ered even there. And beyond Chaldea
lie the ruined cities of a civilization older
even than that of the Accadians ; the
relics of the once mighty kingdom of
Elam. The monuments that line the
shores of the Persian Gulf or are hidden
among the highlands of Susiana are still
untouched. Here indeed there is a vast
field for work ; and it may be hoped that
the example set by the proprietors of the
Daily Telegraph will find many imitators,
and that some small portion at least of
the wealth of which we boast may be de-
voted to the revelation of that past with-
out which we can neither understand the
present nor provide for the future.
A. H. Sayce.
Queeris Coll. Oxon.
From All The Year Round.
WHITBY JET.
Jet, a sort of semi-jewellery in its
usual applications, is one of those many
substances which have a kind of mysteri-
ous brotherhood with coal. The beauti-
ful pearly white parafiin for candles
comes from coal ; so does the benzoline
which we use in our handy little sponge
lamps ; so do the gorgeous magenta and
aniline dyes and pigments ; and so, some
people think, does jet. In this last-
named instance, if coal is to be mentioned
at all, we should rather say that jet is a
kind of coal, not that it is produced from
coal. Be this as it may, jet, a shining
black substance, is found in seams dis-
sociated from all other black minerals :
not in the coal regions, but in other dis-
tricts of England, notably near Whitby
in Yorkshire. It occurs also in Spain,
in Saxony, and in the amber districts on
the Prussian shores of the Baltic.
Scientific men, in the language of min-
eralogy, say that jet is a variety of coal ;
that it occurs sometimes in elongated
masses, sometimes in the form of
branches, with a woody structure ; that
its fracture is conchoidal or shelly, its
lustre brilliant and resinous, and its
colour velvet black ; that it is about
twenty per cent, heavier than water ; that
it burns with a greenish flame, emits a
bituminous odour while burning, and
leaves a yellowish ash. But the Whitby
folks can adduce many reasons for think-
ing that jet, ill some of its forms at any
rate, must have been at one time in a
semi-liquid state, quite unlike coal de-
rived from a ligneous origin. Mr. Simp-
son, curator of the Whitby Museum,
states that that collection comprises
among its specimens a large mass of
bone which has had the exterior con-
verted into or replaced by jet. This jet
coating is about a quarter of an inch
thick. The jetty matter appears to have
entered into the pores of the bone, and
there to have hardened ; during this
hardening or mineralizing process the
bony matter has been gradually displaced
and supplanted by jet, the original form
of the bone being maintained. Another
reason for thinking that the jet or some
of it, must once have been in a gummy
or semi-liquid state, is that bits of vege-
table and mineral substances are some-
times found imbedded in it, as flies,
wings, and small fragments are in am-
ber. Cavities and fissures in the adja-
cent rocky strata are also sometimes
found filled with it, as if it had flowed
into them originally. The stratum
called "jet-rock," in which the Whitby
jet is mostly found, is a kind of shale,
which, when distilled, yields ten gallons
of oil per ton. That in a remote geolo-
gical era there was an intimate relation
between this oil and the jet is very prob-
able ; though its exact nature cannot now
be determined. The Yorkshire coast for
many miles north and south of Whitby is
a storehouse of jet. The deposit occurs
in the lias formation, the jet-rock being
interlaid with other lias strata. Two
kinds are found in different beds or
layers, the hard and the soft jet. The
hard, which is in all respects the best,
occurs in detached compact layers or
pieces, from small bits no bigger than
dominoes to pieces of many pounds,
weight. The largest piece recorded
measured six feet long, five to six inches
i86
WHITBY JET.
wide, and an inch and a half thick ; it
weighed nearly twelve pounds. The
British Museum authorities refused to
give ten guineas for this fine specimen ;
whereupon it was sold for fifteen guineas
to a dealer, who had it carved into
crosses of exceptionally large size.
For how long a period jet, or black
amber as it was at one time called, has
been found and worked near Whitby, no
one can now say ; but the time certainly
ranges over many centuries. In a tu-
mulus or barrow, opened in the vicinity
of the town, was found the skeleton of a
lady — supposed to have been ancient
British, before the date of the arrival of
the Danes — and with it was a jet ear-
ring, two inches long by a quarter of an
inch in thickness, shaped like a heart,
and pierced with a hole at the upper end
for the reception of a ring or wire. An
ancient document affords presumptive
proof that jet was known and used for
purposes of ornament before the found-
ing of Whitby Abbey. Caedmon, a Sax-
on poet, buried in this abbey, wrote some
lines which have been modernized
thus —
Jeat, almost a gemm, the Lybians find ;
But fruitful Britain sends as wondrous kind ;
'Tis black and shining, smooth and ever light,
'Twill draw up straws if rubbed till hot and
bright !
This last allusion is to the electrical qual-
ities of jet, which are very considerable,
and somewhat like those of amber —
whence its occasional name of black
amber. The substance was, in the mid-
dle ages, made at Whitby into beads and
rosaries, probably by the monks or friars.
As a branch of regular trade, Whitby
jet work was of not much account till
about the beginning of the present cen-
tury. The Spaniards made the principal
beads and rosaries for Roman Catholic
countries of a soft kind of jet ; but when
English ladies began to wear jet as
mourning jewellery, the superior hard-
ness of the Whitby material induced
some of the townsmen to attend to this
kind of work. The first workers em-
ployed nothing but knives and files in
fashioning the ornaments ; but one
Matthew Hill gave an extension to the
trade by finding the means of turning the
jet in a lathe — a more difficult matter
than turning wood, owing to the brittle-
ness of the material. In a short time
there were ten or twelve shops in Whit-
by where jet beads, necklaces, crosses,
pendants, and snuff-boxes were made
and sold. About thirty years ago, Mr.
Bryan, the chief representative of the
trade, obtained the largest " find " of jet
ever known, from a spot in the neigh-
bourhood called the North Bats ; it com-
prised three hundred and seventy pieces,
or " stones," valued at two hundred and
fifty pounds. There were fifty work-
shops engaged in the trade at the time of
the first Great Exhibition in 185 1 ; the
number now exceeds two hundred.
According to an interesting account of
this industry by Mr. Bower, the jet is ob-
tained by two modes of operation, cliff-
work and hill-work. Pieces of jet washed
out by the sea from fissures in the face
of the cliff are, indeed, sometimes picked
up on the beach ; but these are few in
number, unreliable for purposes of regu-
lar trade. In cliff-work, portions of the
face of the cliff are hewn down, until
seams of jet are made visible ; and the
jet is picked out from these seams, so
long as it can be got at. This is some-
what dangerous employment, owing to
the precipitous nature of the cliffs. In
hill-work, diggings are made in the
Cleveland hills, near Bilsdale, about
twenty miles inland from Whitby. Tun-
nels are driven into the hillsides, drift-
ways and lateral passages are driven,
and jet-rock is thus laid bare in various
spots ; picks and other instruments ex-
tract the pieces of jet, which small wag-
gons running upon a tramway bring to
the tunnel's mouth. The find is always
precarious, especially in cliff work ;
sometimes no jet is obtained in a month's
work ; while, in other instances a lucky
hit will bring to light a valuable harvest.
At present the hill-work is most adopted,
and there are about twenty small mines
at the Cleveland hills. The men rent the
workings, as at the Cornish copper and
tin mines ; their profits represent their
wages, and depend on the ratio between
the richness of the seam and the rent
paid ; insomuch that the miners have
every motive for exercising judgment and
discrimination in the bargains they may
make. The best hard jet will realize,
when in large pieces, thirty shillings per
pound ; whereas the poorest soft pieces
are barely worth a shilling a pound :
these extremes are separated by many
intermediate gradations of value. The
Whitby hard is the finest jet known, hav-
ing more toughness and elasticity than
any other, admitting of more delicate
working, and taking a higher polish. On
the other hand the Spanish soft is better
than the Whitby soft ; and experts
I
WHITBY JET.
187
say that many ornaments sold in the
shops as genuine Whitby, came from
beyond the Pyrenees, and were never
made of Whitby jet at all. They look
well at first, but are apt to break up un-
der the influence of sudden heat and
cold, and are in other respects far from
durable. This fragility is believed to be
due to a small percentage of sulphur
which most Spanish jet contains.
Let us suppose that pieces of jet, vary-
ing much in size and shape, are brought
to the workshop. The rough jet has a
kind of exterior skin or crust, often
marked by impressions of ammonites and
other fossils, and presenting various tints
of bluish brown. This skin is removed
by means of a large chisel. At the saw- j
ing-bench the piece is then cut up with |
saws. This process requires much dis- 1
crimination, seeing that the size and ;
shape of the piece must determine the j
kind, size, and number of ornaments ob- j
tained from it ; the great object is to j
waste as little of the substance as possi-
ble. From the saw-bench, the jet passes i
into the hands of the carvers and turners, i
The turning is effected by a careful use
of small lathes. The carving is effected j
by grinding rather than cutting, grind- \
stones of various kinds being used, and |
the jet applied to them in succession — j
first to grind away, and then to polish.
In this way most of the beads, necklaces,
bracelets, crosses, brooches, lockets,
chain-links, &c., are made, as well as bas-
reliefs, floral designs, and monograms. |
A clever workman will get twenty per j
cent, more value out of the same piece of j
jet than a man of less skill and judgment, |
by adapting his design to the size and \
shape of the piece. Soft jet is much
wasted during working, by the presence
of fibres, grit, &c. ; it is therefore better
fitted for beads than for intricate orna-
ments. Much use is made of the cutting
mill, a disc or wheel of soft metal, '
about eight inches in diameter ; the edge,
or rim, made sharp and set in rapid revo- 1
lution, cuts the jet quickly and smoothly. I
The surfaces of the carved or turned or- |
naments are polished by being held j
against the edge of a revolving wheel, |
covered with walrus or bull-neck leather, j
and wetted with copperas and oil. The I
edges, scrolls, curls, and twists, require '
that the wheel edge shall be covered with >
list ; and then comes a final application !
to a brush-wheel. The beads fpr neck-
laces, bracelets, &c., are put together
with strong twisted threads and small
wires. Chains are made by turning
and carving the links separately, splitting
some of them, and inserting the unsplit
into the split links ; small wires are in-
serted where necessary, and the split
closed up with a cement of shellac and
resin. Pendants, ear-drops, &c., are
linked in a similar way. Some of the jet,
\. when rough-cut at Whitby, is bought by
Birmingham jewellers, who finish it ac-
i cording to their own taste.
{ Whitby suspects that Scarborough
affects to look down upon it as a poor
\ imitation of a fashionable watering-place.
' At any rate, a newspaper in the latter
town poked fun at the jet trade of Whit-
by not very long ago : " All towns have
their peculiar industries, and jet is well
known to be the industry of Whitby. Jet
meets you at every turn and in every
shape ; even the large black Newfound-
land dogs, glossy from their bath, sit as
if carved out of jet. Surely no modern
manufacture of trumpery ever rivalled
this in ugliness. With a refinement of
cruelty, some insert sections of ammo-
nites in it ; others (this is the ne plus
ultra of richness) surround it with a fret-
work of alabaster ; and you may buy a
card-tray of this glittering, inconclusive
material, with the classic features of
Victor Emmanuel staring at you from the
bottom. One wonders who can buy such
things ; but there are some people who
must have the speciality of the place they
are in, however base and trivial it may
be. Those who acquire mosaics at Rome,
beads at Venice, inlaid wood at Sorrento,
carved paper-knives in Switzerland, iron
brooches at Berlin, marble paper-weights
in Derbyshire, and all the 'fun of the
fair' wherever they go, will surely not
fail to carry away some dark memorials of
Whitby."
This may be all very well as a passing
skit, but is not worth much as an argu-
ment. Whether jet is a suitable material
for small ornaments is surely a matter of
taste, as it is in regard to coral, black
pearls, and bog oak. The jet trade is
increasing, and now gives employment to
fifteen hundred hands in Whitby and its
neighbourhood. The influence of fashion
is shown in a remarkable way when the
death of any great personage at court is
announced, such as that of the Duke of
Wellington, or of the Prince Consort : at
such a time Whitby can hardly meet the
sudden demand for jet jewellery suitable
for mourning. Once now and then, how-
ever, the joy of the nation is the sorrow
of jet dealers. When the Prince of
Wales lay prostrate with illness, dealers
i88
A LETTER OF LAURENCE STERNE.
purchased somewhat largely, in order to
be prepared for eventualities. When the
Prince recovered there was a larger stock
of jet jewellery ready than the public
wanted, and so the commodity did not
" look up " in the market.
Whitby and Birmingham are trying to
improve the designs for jet carvings and
turnings ; and there is no doubt room
for improvement. When a new start was
given to the trade at the first great Exhi-
bition, the Art Journal engraved some
new designs suitable to this peculiar ma-
terial. The beneficial result was seen at
the next Exhibition eleven years after-
wards ; and still more decidedly at the
second of the two annual International
Exhibitions, when jet ornaments took
their place in the jewellery display of that
year. Two or three years ago the Turn-
ers' Company of London having offered
prizes for meritorious specimens of turn-
ing in wood, ivory, and other material, th e
judges were agreeably surprised at having
placed before them a vase turned in jet.
The Whitby maker had skilfully cemented
two or more pieces together, to obtain a
sufficient bulk of the substance for the
purpose ; and his honorary reward was,
the freedom of the City of London. Jet
is usually found in such thin seams that
nearly all the ornaments and articles
made of it are flat and of small thick-
ness ; cementing is occasionally adopted,
where two pieces are suitable for being
joined face to face ; but all attempts to
work up fragments, cuttings, turnings,
and powder into a paste or homogeneous
mass, have hitherto; failed. This can be
done with amber, and with the meer-
schaum clay for pipe-bowls ; but no mode
has yet been devised for adopting the
same course with jet.
As in most other trades, a love of
cheapness acts frequently as a bar to the
attainment of any high degree of techni-
cal skill. A shopkeeper will show his lady
customer two jet brooches or necklaces
almost exactly alike in appearance ; she
is prone to select the cheaper of the two,
regardless of the fact that the other pre-
sents higher claims as a specimen of artj
workmanship. If called by its right
name, an excellent material of recent in-
troduction would deserve much commen-
dation ; but when announced as imitation
jet, and still more when allowed to pass
for jet itself, it deserves the censure that
is due to all shams. We speak of ebon-
ite or vulcanite, a very tough material,
prepared with india rubber and other
substances, smooth and black, but not
taking so high a polish as jet. Black
glass does duty for a large quantity of
cheap mourning jewellery, innocently
supposed by many of the wearers to be
jet. Another substitute is wood-powder,
blacked, moulded, and hardened. A still
more remarkable material is paper pulp,
cast or pressed into blocks, rolled into
sheets, cut up, ground on wheels, blacked,
and polished. But, naturally enough,
these substitutes for the genuine article
find no favour in Whitby.
From Tlie Academy,
A LETTER OF LAURENCE STERNE.
In the short autobiography which
Sterne left behind him, he says that at
the time of his marriage his uncle Jaques
and himself were upon very good terms,
" for he soon got me the prebendary of
York, but he quarrelled with me after-
wards, because I would not write para-
graphs in the newspapers ; though he
was a party man, I was not, and detested
such dirty work, thinking it beneath me.
From that period he became my bitterest
enemy." The events of Sterne's life
previous to his emerging to fame in 1759
with his first two volumes of Tristram
Shandy^ are little known, and the re-
searches of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald for the
biography of Sterne which he published
about ten years ago, threw but little light
upon the circumstances which helped to
form the character of such an eccentric
writer. It is, therefore, important to re-
cord that among the autograph letters re-
cently purchased by the Trustees of the
British Museum are two, written by Lau-
rence Sterne and his uncle respectively
in 1750, which have considerable literary
and biographical value. We believe that
this letter is the only Sterne autograph
in the possession of the Museum, with
the exception of the original manuscript
of The Sentimental yoiirney^ and it has
been therefore most appropriately placed
in one of the public rooms for inspection.
Thanks to the courtesy of the keepers of
the MS. Department, we have been al-
lowed to make a complete transcript of
it, which we print here at length. The
Rev. Francis Blackburne, to whom it is
addressed, will perhaps be remembered
as the author of the Confessional^ which
raised a considerable ferment in its day.
A LETTER OF LAURENCE STERNE.
Sutton : Nov. 3, 1750.
Dear Sir, —
Being last Thursday at York to preach the
Dean's turn, Hilyard the Bookseller who had
spoke to me last week about Preaching yrs,
in case you should not come yrself told me,
He had just got a Letter from you directing
him to get it supplied — But with an intima-
tion, that if I undertook it, that it might not
disoblige your Friend the Precentor. If my
Doing it for you in any way could possibly
have endangered that, my Regard to you on
all accounts is such, that you may depend
upon it, no consideration whatever would
have made me offer my service, nor would I
upon any Invitation have accepted it. Had
you incautiously press'd it upon me ; And
therefore that my undertaking it at all, upon
Hilyards telling me he should want a Preacher,
was from a knowledge, that as it could not in
Reason, so it would not in Fact, give the
least Handle to what you apprehended. I
would not say this from bare conjecture, but
known Instances, having preached for so many
of Dr. Sternes most Intimate Friends since
our Quarrel without their feeling the least
marks or most Distant Intimation, that he
took it unkindly. In which you will the read-
ier believe me, from the following convincing
Proof, that I have preached the 29th of May,
the Precentor's own turn, for these two last
years together (not at his Request, for we are
not upon such terms) But at the Request of
Mr. Berdmore whom he desired to get them
taken care of, which he did. By applying Di-
rectly to me without the least Apprehension or
scruple — And If my preaching it the first
year had been taken amiss, I am morally cer-
tain that Mr. Berdmore who is of a gentle and
pacific Temper would not have ventured to
have ask'd me to preach it for him the 2d
time, which I did without any Reserve this
last summer. The Contest between us, no
Doubt, has been sharp, But has not been
made more so, by bringing our mutual Friends
into it, who, in all things, (except Inviting us
to the same Dinner) have generally bore them-
selves towards us as if this misfortune had
never happened, and this, as on my side, so I
am willing to suppose on his, without any al-
teration of our opinions of them, unless to
their Honor and Advantage. I thought it my
Duty to let you know. How this matter stood,
to free you of any unnecessary Pain, which
my preaching for you might occasion upon
this score, since upon all others, I flatter my-
self you would be pleased, as in genl, it is not
only more for the credit of the church. But of
the Prebendy himself who is absent, to have
his Place supplied by a Preby of the church
when he can bs had, rather than by Another,
tho' of equal merit.
I told you above, that I had had a confer-
ence with Hilyard upon this subject, and in-
deed should have said to him, most of what I
have said to you. But that the Insufferable-
ness of his Behavour {sic) put it out of my
Power. The Dialogue between us had some-
189
thing singular in it, and I think I cannot bet-
ter make you amends for this irksome Letter,
than by giving you a particular Acct of it and
the manner I found myself obliged to treat
him whch By the by, I should have done with
still more Roughness But that he sheltered
himself under the character of yr Plenipo :
How far His Excellency exceeded his Instruc-
tions you will percieve (sic) I know, from the
acct I have given of the Hint in your Letter,
wch was all the Foundation for what passd.
I stepp'd into his shop, just after sermon on
A// Saints, when with an Air of much Gravity
and Importance, he beckond me to follow
him into an inner Room ; No sooner had he
shut the Dore (sic), But with the aweful solem-
nity of a Premier who held a Letter de
Chachet upon whose contents my Life or
Liberty depended — after a minuits Pause, —
He thus opens his Commission. Sir — My
Friend the A. Deacon of Cleveland not caring
to preach his turn, as I conjectured, has left
me to provide a Preacher, — But before I can
take any steps in it with Regard to you — I
want first to know. Sir, upon what Footing
you and Dr. Sterne are ? — Upon what Foot-
ing ! — Yes, Sir, how your Quarrel stands ? —
Whats that to you? — How our Quarrel
stands ! Whats that to you, you Puppy ? But,
Sir, Mr. Blackburn would know What's
that to him ? — But, Sir, dont be angry, I only
want to know of you, whether Dr. Sterne will
not be displeased in case you should preach —
Go look ; I've just now been preaching and
you could not have fitter opportunity to be
satisfyed. — I hope, Mr. Sterne, you are not
angry. Yes, I am ; but much more aston-
ished at your Impudence. I know not whether
the Chancellors stepping in at this Instant
and flapping to the Dore, Did not save his
tender soul the Pain of the last word ; How-
ever that be, he retreats upon this unexpected
Rebuff, takes the Chancellr aside, asks his Ad-
vice, comes back submissive, begs Quarter,
tells me Dr. Hering had quite satisfyed him as
to the Grounds of his scruple (tho' not of his
Folly) and therefore beseeches me to let the
matter pass, and to preach the turn. When I
— as Percy complains in Harry ye 4 —
. . . All smarting with my wounds
To be thus pesterd by a Popinjay,
Out of my Grief and my Impatience
Answerd neglectingly, I know not what
for he made me mad
To see him shine so bright & smell so sweet
& talk so like a waiting Gentlewoman
— Bid him be gone & seek Another fitter for
his turn. But as I was too angry to have the
perfect Faculty of recollecting Poetry, how-
ever pat to my case, so I was forced to tell
him in plain Prose tho' somewhat elevated —
That I would not preach, & that he might get
a Parson where he could find one. But upon
Reflection, that Don John had certainly ex-
ceeded his Instructions, and finding it to be
just so, as I suspected — there being nothing
in yr letter but a cautious hint — And being
moreover satisfyed in my mind, from this and
190
TO A FRIEND LEAVING ENGLAND IN SEPTEMBER.
twenty other Instances of the same kind, that
this Impertinence of his like many others, had
issued not so much from his Heart as from his
Head, the Defects of which no one in reason
is accountable for, I thought I slid wrong my-
self to remember it, and therefore I parted
friends, and told him I would take care of the
turn, whch I shall do with Pleasure.
It is time to beg pardon of you for troub-
ling you with so long a letter upon so little a
subject — which as it has proceeded from the
motive I have told you, of ridding you of un-
easiness, together with a mixture of Ambition
not to lose either the Good Opinion, or the
outward marks of it, from any man of worth
and character, till I have done something to
forfeit them, I know your Justice will excuse.
I am, Revd Sir, with true Esteem and Re-
gard, of which I beg you'l consider this letter
as a Testimony,
Yr faithful & most affte
Humble Servt
Lau : Sterne.
P. S.
Our Dean arrives here on Saturday. My
wife sends her Respts to you & yr Lady.
I have broke open this letter, to tell you,
that as I was going with it to the Post, I en-
countered Hilyard, who desired me in the
most pressing manner, not to let this affair
transpire — & that you might by no means
be made acquainted with it — I therefore beg
you will never let him feel the effects of it, or
even let him know you know ought about it —
for I half promised him, — tho' as the letter
was wrote, I could but send it for your own
use — so beg it may not hurt him by any ill
Impression, as he has convinced it proceeded
only from lack of Judgmt.
To
The Reverend Mr. Blacburn
Arch-Deacon of Cleveland
at Richmond.
We note that Hilyard did not live to see
Sterne achieve his great success, for the
first two volumes of Tristram Shandy
were " Printed for and sold by John
Hinxham (successor to the late Mr. Hil-
yard), Bookseller in Stonegate," York.
The other letter we have mentioned,
written by Dr. Jaques Sterne, begins
thus : —
Decern. 6 : 1750.
Good Mr. Archdeacon
I wil beg leave to rely upon your Pardon
for taking the Liberty I do with you in rela-
tion to your Turns of preaching in the Mins-
ter. What occasions it is, Mr. Hildyard's
employing the last time the Only person un-
acceptable to me in the whole Church, an un-
grateful & unworthy nephew of my own, the
Vicar of Sutton; and I should be much
obligd to you, if you would please either to
appoint any person yourself, or leave it to
your Register to appoint one when you are
not here. If any of my turns would suit you
better than your own, I would change with
you. . . .
Endorsed —
Mr. Jaques Sterne — reprobation of his
nephew Yorick — & mention of the Popish
nunnery at York.
TO A FRIEND LEAVING ENGLAND IN
SEPTEMBER.
Dear Friend, you leave our chary northern
clime.
Now that the daylight's waning, and the leaf
Hangs sere on chestnut bough, and beech, and
lime ;
The husbandman has garnered every sheaf ;
Pale autumn leads us to the lingering grief
Of melancholy winter ; while you fly
On summer's swallow-wings to Italy.
Great cities — greater in decay and death —
Dream-like with immemorial repose —
Whose ruins like a shrine forever sheath
The mighty names and memories of those
Who lived and died to die no more — shall
close
Your happy pilgrimage ; and you shall learn,
Breathing their ancient air, the thoughts that
burn
Forever in the hearts of after men : —
Yea, from the very soil of silent Rome
You shall grow wise ; and walking, live again
The lives of buried peoples, and become
A child by right of that eternal home.
Cradle and grave of empires, on whose walls
The sun himself subdued to reverence falls.
You will see Naples and the orange-groves
Deep-set of cool Sorrento — green and gold
Mingling their lustre by calm azure coves,
Or like the fabled dragon fold on fold
Curled in the trough of cloven hills, or rolled
Down vales Hesperian, through dim caverned
shades
Of palace ruins and lone colonnades :
i
Capri — the perfect island — boys and girls
Free as spring flowers, straight, tall arii
musical
Of movement; in whose eyes and clustering
curls
The youth of Greece still lingers; whose
feet fall
Like kisses on green turf by cypress tall
And pine-tree shadowed; who, unknowing
care.
Draw love and laughter from the innocent air :
Ravenna in her widowhood — the waste
Where dreams a withered ocean ; where the
hand
Of time has gently played with tombs defaced
Of priest and emperor ; where the temples
stand,
TO A FRIEND LEAVING ENGLAND IN SEPTEMBER.
191
Proud in decay, in desolation grand, —
Solemn and sad like clouds that lingeringly
Sail and are loth to fade upon the sky :
Siena, Bride of Solitude, whose eyes
Are lifted o'er the russet hills to scan
Immeasurable tracts of limpid skies.
Arching those silent sullen plains where man
Fades like a weed mid mouldering marshes
wan ;
Where cane and pine and cypress, poison-
proof,
For death and fever spread their stately roof.
You will see Venice — glide as though in
dreams
Midmost a hollowed opal : for her sky.
Mirrored upon the ocean-pavement, seems
At da\vn and eve to build in vacancy
A wondrous bubble-dome of wizardry,
Suspended where the light, all ways alike
Circumfluent, upon her sphere may strike.
There Titian, Tintoret, and Giambellin,
And that strong master of a myriad hues.
The Veronese, like flowers with odours keen,
Shall smite your brain with splendours :
they confuse
The soul that wandering in their world must
lose
Count of our littleness, and cry that then
The gods we dream of walked the earth like
men.
About your feet the myrtles will be set,
Grey rosemary, and thyme, and tender blue
Of love-pale labyrinthine violet ;
Flame-born anemones will glitter through
Dark aisles of roofing pine-trees ; and for
you
The golden jonquil and starred asphodel
And hyacinth their speechless tales will tell.
The nightingales for you their tremulous song
Shall pour amid the snowy scented bloom
Of wild acacia bowers, and all night long
Through starlight-flooded spheres of purple
gloom
Still lemon boughs shall spread their faint
perfume.
Soothing your sense with odours sweet as
sleep.
While wind-stirred cypresses low music keep.
For you the mountain Generous shall yield
His wealth of blossoms in the noon of
May —
Fire-balls of peonies, and pearls concealed
Of lilies in thick leafage, glittering spray
Of pendulous laburnum boughs, that sway
To scarce-felt breezes, gilding far and wide
With liquid splendour all the broad hill-side.
Yea, and what time the morning mists are
furled
On lake low-lying and prodigious plain,
And on the western sky the massy world
Contracts her shadow — for the sunbeams
gain
Unseen, yet growing, — while the awful
train
Of cloudless Alps stand garish, mute and
chill.
Waiting the sun's kiss with pale forehead
still, —
You from his crest shall see the sudden fire
Flash joyous : lo ! the solitary snow
First blushing ! Broader now, brighter and
higher,
Shoots the strong ray ; the mountains row
by row
Receive it, and the purple valleys glow ;
The smooth lake-mirrors laugh ; till silently
Throbs with full light and life the jocund sky I
Farewell : you pass ; we tarry : yet for us
Is the long weary penitential way
Of thought that souls must travel, dubious,
With tottering steps and eyes that wane
away
'Neath brows more wrinkle-withered day by
day:
Farewell ! There is no rest except in death
For him who stays or him who journeyeth.
Comhill Magazine. J. A. S.
The Times quotes a letter from a St. Louis
paper, giving an account of extensive ruins,
found some miles east of Florence, on the
Gila river. The principal is a parallelogram
fortification, 600 ft. in width by 1600 ft. in
length. The walls, which were built of stone,
have long been thrown down, and are over-
grown by trees and vines. In many places the
stones have disappeared beneath the surface.
Within the enclosed area are the remains of
a structure 200 ft. by 260 ft., constructed of
roughly -hewn stones. In some places the
walls remain almost perfect to a height of
some 12 ft. above the surface. On the inner
sides of the wall of the supposed palace there
are yet perfectly distinct tracings of the image
of the sun. There are two towers at the
south-east and south-west corners of the great
enclosure still standing, one of which is 26 ft.
and the other 31 ft. high. These have evi-
dently been much higher. A few copper im-
plements, some small golden ornaments — one
being an image of the sun with a perforation
in the middle — and some stone utensils, and
two rudely-carved stone vases, much like those
found at Zupetaro and Copan, in Central
America, are all the works of art yet discov-
ered. The ruins are situated in a small plain,
elevated nearly 200 ft. above the bed of the
Gila. Just west of the walls of the fortifica-
192
MISCELLANY.
tion there is a beautiful stream of water
having its source in the mountains, which
crosses the plain, and by a series of cataracts
falls into the Gila about two miles below.
The fragments of pottery and polished stone
reveal a condition of civilization among the
builders of these ruins analogous to that of
the ancient Peruvian, Central American and
Mexican nations. The country in the vicinity
is particularly wild and unusually desolate.
No clue to the builders of this great fortified
palace, with its towers and moat, has been
discovered, but it would seem that this whole
country was once peopled by a race having a
higher grade of civilization than is found
among any of the native tribes of the later
ages. But whether this race were the ances-
tors of the Pimos, or some extinct people, is
not known. It is understood that these ruins
will be thoroughly explored within the present
year.
Black Powder Found in Snow; What
IS IT? — In a letter from M. Nordenskjold on
Carbonaceous Dust, with Metallic Iron, ob-
served in Snow (dated from Mossel Bay, lat.
19° 53"^ N., received at Tromsoe July 24),
the writer remarks that in December 187 1 he
found in some snow collected towards the end
of a five or six days' continuous fall in Stock-
holm a large quantity of dark powder like soot,
and consisting of an organic substance rich in
carbon. It was like the meteoric dust which
fell with meteorites at Hessle near Upsal in
January 1869. It contained also small parti-
cles of metallic iron. Suspecting the railways
and houses of Stockholm might have furnished
these matters, he got his brother, who lived in
a desert district in Finland, to make similar
experiments; which he did, and obtained a
similar powder. In his Arctic voyage the
writer has met with like phenomena. The
snow from floating ice has furnished on fusion
a greyish residue, consisting mostly of dia-
toms (whole or injured) ; but the black specks,
a quarter of a millimetre in size, contained
metallic iron covered with oxide of iron, and
probably also carbon. He thinks, therefore,
that snow and rain convey cosmic dust to the
earth, and invites further observation on the
subject. M. Daubree, in presenting the letter,
recalled a case of meteoric dust having fallen
at Orgueil in 1864. He expressed the hope
that M. Nordenskjold has obtained sufficient
quantities of pulverulent matter to be able to
determine a characteristic fact — the presence
or absence of nickel.
the staff of astronomers sent by the German
Government to observe the transit of Venus
(on December 8) on the Kerguelen Islands, in
the South Indian Ocean. Another detach-
ment of German observers will at the same
time be stationed on the Auckland Islands.
In the event of a failure on the part of the
former portion of the staff to obtain good ob-
servations of the transit, the Gazelle will con-
vey them and the other German observers to
the Mauritius about the middle of December,
and leave them there till the end of January,
1875, when they will enter upon a voyage to
the Antarctic Seas with the special object of
investigating the polar currents and other
phenomena connected with the south-polar
region.
A correspondent of the London and China
Telegraph, writing from Kandy (Ceylon),
says : — " The changes that have taken place
in the matter of coffee cultivation within the
last three years are simply marvellous. New
districts formerly despised have risen up like
magic. Whole country-sides of primeval
forest have given way to the axe of the culti-
vator, and districts whose only inhabitants
were the elephant, the chetah and the elk, are
now flourishing plantations of coffee." The
writer observes that the leaf disease, for which
no cure has been discovered, has been very
troublesome. "It is a fungus that attaches
itself like a miniature mushroom to the lower
side of the leaf of the coffee tree, and appears
to extract its vitality, for the leaf withers and
dies. It has now been among us for four
years, and has done an incalculable amount of
mischief." The long drought, which has had
such a disastrous effect in India, has also un-
favourably affected the Ceylon coffee crop
this year.
In the course of a few weeks, the German
Imperial corvette Gazelle, under the command
of Captain von Schleinitz, will leave Kiel with
The exhibition of Colonial products in
Paris will contain an enormous nugget of gold
coming from Cayenne. At the present mo-
ment this mass of precious metal, which is in
its crude state, is at the Banque de France,
and it will be melted down into an ingot one
day next week. It weighs 200 kilogrammes,
and is worth 600,000 francs. It was sent to
Paris by one of the companies working the
mines discovered a few years ago in the
French colony of Guayana. The quantity of
gold won for some time past from these work-
ings has, it is stated, become so considerable,
that the project is seriously considered of
diverting the waters of the river Oyapoch and
its affluents from their present beds, in order
to facilitate the extraction of the gold which
there is no doubt is concealed there.
LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.
riftli Series, I
Volume Vn. 5
No. 1572. -July 25, 1874.
^ From Begiiming,
I Vol. OXXII,
CONTENTS.
I. English Lyrical Poetry, . . . . Cornhill Magazine^ , . . 195
II. Alice Lorraine. A Tale of the South
Downs. Part VI., Blackwood's Magazine^ . , 208
III. Masters of Etching, Macmillan's Magazine, , .215
IV. An Old English Traveller, . . . Chambers' Journaly . . . 227
V. The Rights of Children, . . . Victoria Magazine^ , . , 230
VI. The Romance of the Japanese Revolu-
tion, . Blackwood s Magazine^ . . 238
VII. The Third Empire, Pall Mall Gazette^ . • , 250
VIII. Examination-Marks, Spectator^ ..... 252
IX. Mr. Locker's "London Lyrics," . . Spectator^ 254
PO ETRY.
To a Thrush. A Woodland Reverie, . 194 I Serenades. By Robert Buchanan, , 194
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
LITTELL & QAY, BOSTON.
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194
TO A THRUSH, ETC.
TO A THRUSH.
A WOODLAND REVERIE.
Ah, brother singer, piping there
In a glad hush of golden air,
As though to care unknown ;
Oh, would I were a thrush to wing
The leafy world of woods and sing,
Like you, for joy alone !
Of all, ah me ! that plagues us so ;
Of days of work you nothing know,
Of nights of thought, not rest.
Oh, would I were a bird, and knew
Unclouded singing hours with you,
Unworked, undriven, and blest !
That little bill — to you 'tis sweet
A little bill to have to meet.
Which men can seldom say.
You well may sing ; men moil and toil
But thrushes have no pot to boil,
No small accounts to pay.
" Black care," so sings our Horace, " sits
Behind us still," and all our wits
Are tasked, its weight to bear ;
Your children give you not a thought ;
Within the nest they're clothed and taught ;
You've not for that to care.
And then those songs of yours you trill
And chirp and warble when you will ;
Oh, happy, happy lot !
While we must chirrup at all times
And, sad or glad, must grind out rhymes.
Whether we like or not.
Then critical Reviews we read ;
To all their scoffs you pay no heed :
You mind them not a rush.
Nor lose in peace of mind or cash •
Though they should growl your songs are
trash :
Oh, would I were a thrush !
And yet, my jovial singer there,
You too, perhaps, may have your care
And trill with anxious mind ;
Your thrushship, perhaps, may be hen-pecked
If slugs to bring home you neglect ;
Worms may be hard to find.
There may be feathered cares and woes
Unnesting nature never knows ;
We judge but as we can ;
And you there, jolly as you sing.
May think your lot not quite the thing,
And long to be a man.
All The Year Round.
SERENADES.
BY ROBERT BUCHANAN.
Sleep on thine eyes, peace in thy breast I
White-limb'd lady, lie at rest ;
Near thy casement, shrill of cry,
Broods the owl with luminous eye.
Midnight comes ; all fair things sleep
While all dark things vigil keep ;
Round thy sleep thy scented bower
Foldeth like a lily-flower.
All so still around thee lies.
Peace in thy breast, sleep on thine eyes I
All without is dark as death.
And thy lover wakeneth.
Underneath thy bower I pace,
Star-dew sparkling on my face ;
All around me, swift of sight,
Move the creatures of the night.
Hark, the great owl cries again.
With an echo in the brain.
And the dark Earth in her sleep
Stirs and trembles, breathing deep.
Sleep on thine eyes, peace in thy breast !
Fold thy hands and take thy rest ;
All the night, till morning break,
Spirits walk and lovers wake !
IL
Sleep sweet, beloved one, sleep sweet !
Without here night is growing.
The dead leaf falls, the dark boughs meet.
And a chill wind is blowing.
Strange shapes are stirring in the night
To the deep breezes' wailing.
And slow, with wistful gleams of light,
The storm-tost moon is sailing.
Sleep sweet, beloved one, sleep sweet !
Fold thy white hands, my blossom !
Thy warm limbs in thy lily-sheet.
Thy hands upon thy bosom.
Though evil thoughts may walk the dark.
Not one shall near thy chamber.
But dreams divine shall pause to mark
Singing to lutes of amber.
Sleep sweet, beloved one, sleep sweet !
Though on thy bosom creeping,
God's hand is laid to feel the beat
Of thy soft heart in sleeping.
The brother angels. Sleep and Death,
Stoop by thy couch and eye thee ;
And Sleep stoops down to drink thy breath.
While Death goes softly by thee !
Cassell's Magazine
1
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
I9S
From The Cornhill Magazine.
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
Mr. Palgrave, in the introduction to
his admirable volume, the Golden Treas-
ury of Songs and Lyrics, observes that
he is acquainted with no strict and ex-
haustive definition of lyrical poetry, and
he is content to point out a few simple
principles which have guided him in his
work. We think that Mr. Palgrave is
right, and that he has judged wisely in
not giving a definition which must have
proved at best partial and unsatisfactory.
To say what lyrical poetry is not, is an
easy task, to express in a brief sentence
what it is, so that if the question be put
the answer, like a reply in the Catechism,
may be instantly forthcoming, is well-
nigh impossible. And the reason is that
the lyric blossoms and may be equally
beautiful and perfect under a variety of
forms. The kind of inspiration that
prompts it is to be found in the Ode and
in the Song, in the Elegy and in the Son-
net. Its spirit is felt sometimes where it
is least expected, its subtle charm is per-
ceived occasionally in almost every kind
of poetry save the satirical and didactic.
Like life, like light, like the free air of the
mountains, the lyric is enjoyed, as it
were, unconsciously. We brush the
bloom off fruit when we handle it too
roughly, and there is perhaps a danger
lest, in attempting to criticise lyrical po-
etry, the critic, by his precision and care-
ful attention to rules, should destroy some
of its beauty. We have learnt, however,
of late years what was not understood a
century ago, that the critic's office is to
follow the poet, not to require that the
poet should follow him. The poet in-
deed, like all artists, must be obedient to
law, but his genius is less likely to lead
him astray than the critic's book-knowl-
edge, and of the lyric poet especially it
may be safely asserted that the lack of
conventional restraint, the freedom to
sing his own song to his own music, is
essential to success. In building the
lofty rhyme of the epic, in the long nar-
rative poem, in the drama, in the satire,
some of the material must necessarily be
of a common-place order. No great poem
but has its weak points, its prosaic de-
tails, its matter-of-fact lines. The poet-
artist who designs a vast work knows
that it cannot be of sustained excellence
throughout. If his eye roll in a fine
frenzy at one part, it is certain to grow
dim and sleepy at another ; he cannot be
always sublime, and if he could his read-
ers would grow weary. His imagination
must inevitably flag as he pursues a task
which requires time as well as genius,
and the utmost he can do is to make his
coarser workmanship serve as a foil to
that which is more delicate. This has
been done with consummate art by Mil-
ton, whose sense of fitness and congruity
is as remarkable as the lovely harmony
of his versification. Lyrical poetry, on
the other hand, will not admit of aught
that is of inferior quality. Like the
sonnet, it should be perfect throughout
— in form, in thought, in the lovely mar-
riage of pure words, in the melody that
pervades the whole. The lyric at its
best — as in the songs of Shakespeare
and some of the old dramatists, in the
" Epithalamium " of Spenser, a poem of
almost unequalled loveliness, in the
pretty love-warblings of Herrick, in the
artful music of Collins and of Gray, in
the ethereal melody of Shelley, in the im-
passioned songs of Burns — belongs to the
highest order of poetry. It is the noblest
inspiration of the poetical mind, its
choicest utterance, the expression of its
profoundest feeling. With the excep-
tion of Shakespeare and Milton, each of
whom, be it remembered, in addition to
his dramatic or epic genius, is a supreme
master of the lyric, the greatest poets of
this country belong to the lyrical class.
Moreover, the poems which live in the
memory and which take most hold upon
us, are essentially lyrical in character.
Not that the most precious of our lyrics
are generally the most popular. The
finest literary work, no matter what the
department may be, will never be the
most sought after. It is for the apprecia-
tion of the few rather than for the delight
of the many. Mr. Tupper has more read-
ers than Spenser, Dr. Cumming than
Jeremy Taylor, and there is many an
essayist of the day whose writings are
better known than the essavs of Lord
196
J^NGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
Bacon. We are accustomed to regard
poetry as a kind of inspiration, and so
no doubt it is. The gift, like the gift of
wisdom, cannot be purchased. The poet,
like all artists, may enlarge his range and
perfect his skill by labour and intense
study, but the power comes from Nature,
and even when the power is possessed it
can only be exercised at certain periods.
Dr. Johnson indeed in alluding to this
notion, as held by Gray, calls it a " fan-
tastic foppery," but Johnson, it has been
well said, " made poetry by pure effort of
diligence as a man casts up his ledger ; "
in other words he was a clever versifier,
not a poet, and the conditions upon
\iFhich poetry is produced surpassed his
comprehension.
Poetry is not a profession, and the
poet who dreams of immortality cannot
write as Dr. Johnson seems to have
thought, and as Southey thought, a given
number of lines a day. Verses written to
order are as worthless as most prize
poems. They may display ability, but
genius never. The mechanical art of the
verse-maker is, however, often mistaken
for the noble labour of the poet, and in
Johnson's time especially the one was
constantly confounded with the other.
We laugh at the old Cumberland dame
who on hearing of Wordsworth's death
exclaimed "Ay! it's a pity he's gane ;
but what then ? I'se warn't the widow
can carry on the business aw t' seame ; "
but something of the like feeling existed
among the poetasters of the eighteenth
century, and is perhaps not quite extinct
even in our day.
The great age of Elizabeth — an age as
remarkable for noble deeds as for noble
words — may be taken by the student of
our poetry as the birthtime of the lyric.
Some sweet snatches of lyrical verse were
produced indeed before that period, and
in Chaucer, the first splendid name in our
literar}' annals, there may be frequently
detected, under the narrative form, marks
of the bounding spirit and sweetness
^hich delight us in a lyric poetry. Poets
indeed who sing of love can scarcely fail
to fall into the lyrical strain, and Chaucer,
with his healthy vigorous nature, his love
of all outward beauty, especially of the
beauty of women, and his fine ear for
music, was not likely to be wholly deficient
in this branch of the poetical art. A deli-
cious simplicity, a joyous humour, a skill
of delineating character, a manly grasp of
his subject — these are among the more
prominent features of this great poet's
work, but in much of it we may detect
the spirit of the lyric poet, although the
form of the lyric is wanting.
For our purpose, however, and indeed
for any notice of English lyrical poetry
that is not severely critical, the sixteenth
century is the period in which it seems
natural to commence our survey. With
the splendid exception of Chaucer (for
the works of Govver, Surrey, Wyatt, and
others are comparatively of small ac-«
count), it may be said that\)ur poets per-»
formed their first achievements in that
wonderful age. And what they did, ia
the dawn of our poetical literature, re*
mains a living power, so that their wordsf
and thoughts influence us and delight us
still. The greatest poets then used the
drama as the vehicle of their art, and the
lyric, although largely employed, was gen*
erally made subordinate to the require-*
ments of the dramatist. Not alvvay.s,
however, and some of the loveliest lyrics
of that age, although the work of dram-
atists, had no place in their dramas,
while much sweet lyrical poetry is to b<
found in Elizabethan poets who neve^
catered for the stage. If we ask th(
reader to spend a few minutes with u^
while we open some of these old poets, ii
is not from any doubt that the best whicll
they have written is already familiar and
beloved. Those who know it best, how-
ever, will be perhaps the best pleased to
refresh their memory, and that they may
do so, allusion will often serve the pur-
pose of quotation. Of course, the first
name we think of is that of Shakespeare,
who is not only the greatest of dramatists
but stands in the front rank of lyrical poets.
But of Shakespeare, simply because he is
so great and because his words are so well
known to all who read the English tongu^
it is scarcely needful to say anything.
There is nothing in poetical literature
more entirely lovely, more delicately fra-
grant, more dainty in form, more like
II
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
197
music which once heard must be re-
membered alvvay, than the songs or
snatches of song scattered through the
works of Shakespeare. They are as fresh
as roses just bursting into bloom, as
grateful as the perfume of violets, or the
scent of the sea when the wind blows the
foam in our faces. And we are content
to enjoy them without criticism as we en-
joy the warmth of the sun or the soothing
sound of running waters. There seems
no art in these little pieces, which appear
1.0 fall from the poet like notes from a
ird, so consummately is the art con-
aled.
' Full fathom five thy father lies ; "
nder the greenwood tree ; " " When
icicles hang by the wall ; " " When daisies
pied and violets blue ; " " Where the
bee sucks ; " " Fear no more the heat
o' the sun ; " " Come away, come away,
Death;" — it is enough surely to quote
in this way the first line of a Shakespea-
rian song in order to recall it to the mem-
ory, and to convince a forgetful reader
that the charm of musical song is as
much one of Shakespeare's gifts, as the
dramatic strength and the superlative
i fmagination which enable him to see
through the deeds of men. Several of
the Elizabethan dramatists show an ear
for melody, and a knowledge of lyrical
form which gives an abiding vitality to
their verse. Webster, one of the most
powerful, although far from the most
pleasing, of Shakespeare's contempora-
ries, throws his grim strength into trage-
dy which sometimes borders on the gro-
tesque. He heaps horror upon horror with
a vehemence of language which enchains
the reader while it appals him, but this
gloomy poet does now and then venture
upon a lyrical strain, sad indeed, accord-
ing to his wont, but at the same time
beautiful. Here, for instance, are ten
quaint lines worthy almost of Shake-
speare : —
Call for the robin-redbreast and the wren,
Since o'er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flowers do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.
Call unto his funeral dole
The ant, the field-mouse, and the mole,
To rear him hillocks that shall keep him
warm
And (when gay tombs are robb'd) sustain no
harm;
But keep the wolf far hence, that's foe to men,
For with his nails he'll dig them up again.
This song is entitled by Mr. Palgrave
" A Land Dirge," and with good judg-
ment he places it on the same page with
the sea dirge sung by Ariel. A lovely
little song of somewhat similar character
by Beaumont and Fletcher might have
aptly followed these two famous pieces.
Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal yew ;
Maidens, willow branches bear,
Say I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm
From my hour of birth.
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly, gentle earth !
In their lyrics these twin-poets ap-
proach sometimes very near to Shake-
speare— so near indeed that it might
seem as if they had caught the very echo
of his verse ; and we think that Hazlitt
is correct in his judgment that, while as
dramatists they rank in the second class,
they belong to the first order as lyrical
and descriptive poets. If we may judge
from the Faithful Shepherdess^ Fletcher's
genius as a lyrist surpassed that of Beau-
mont, and it is infinitely sad that so lovely
a lyrical drama should be deformed by
gross coarseness and by passages which,
viewed simply from the artist's standing-
point, are out of place in such a poem.
Coleridsfe wished that Beaumont an<i
Fletcher had written poems instead of
plays. Had they done so, instead of pan-
dering as they too often did to the cor-
rupt tastes of the town, we might have
had lyrics from these brother-poets
worthy of a place with the youthful
poems of Milton. There is a little poem
ascribed to Beaumont, although it appears
in a play of Fletcher's, which must have
suggested the " II Penseroso." So per-
fect is its beauty, so delicious its music,
that it is not surprising it laid hold of
Milton and prompted him to utter on a
like subject his own beautiful thoughts.
198
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
Hence all you vain delights,
As short as are the nights
Wherein you spend your folly ;
There's nought in this life sweet,
"Were men but wise to see 't,
But only melancholy ;
O sweetest melancholy !
Welcome folded arms and fixed eyes ;
A sigh that piercing mortifies ;
A look that's fastened to the ground ;
A tongue chained up without a sound !
Fountain-heads and pathless groves,
Places which pale passion loves !
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are warmly housed save bats and owls !
A midnight bell, a parting groan !
These are the sounds we feed upon ;
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley ;
Nothing so dainty sweet as lovely melancholy.
It was Francis Beaumont also who
wrote the lines on Life, which may re-
mind the reader of similar but not more
striking verses on the same topic.
Like to the falling of a star,
Or as the flights of eagles are.
Or like the fresh Spring's gaudy hue.
Or silver drops of morning dew.
Or like a wind that chafes the flood,
Or bubbles which on waters stood —
Even such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight called in and paid to-night :
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring intomb'd in autumn lies.
The dew's dried up, the star is shot,
The flight is past and man forgot.
Ben Jonson, whose learning has so
encumbered his verse as in a measure to
obscure his fame, had also a fine ear for
music ; and those who know him only as
a dramatist have missed perhaps some of
the finest traits in his poetical nature.
As we read of Rare Ben, we picture to
ourselves a coarse-grained, powerful-
looking man, prodigious in waist, and
boasting, like Falstaff, a mountain belly
— a man who liked good cheer too well,
whose love was licence, and who led the
life of a town wit in a gross age, when
the conscience of a playwright was not
likely to be over-sensitive. London life
he understood in all its varieties, and as
the leader of the Apollo Club, we can
picture him enjoying the same kind of
honour which was bestowed some years
later upon Dryden. Such a man, you
might say, was not likely to babble of
green fields, or to sing the sweet songs
which are inspired by an open-air life, or
by that faith in the beauty and purity of
womanhood which is the reward of hon-
est thought and generous aspirations.
Nevertheless, this fine old dramatist,
man about town though he was, and far,
it is to be feared, from a cleanly liver,
had an eye for natural loveliness and a
heart susceptible to the delicacy and
grace of womanly charms, and of all that
is lovely and of good report, which sur-
prises and delights us as we read his
lyrical poems. To know Ben Jonson at
his best, as a man, if not as a poet, the
reader should gain a familiar acquaint-
ance with " The Forest " and with " Un-
derwoods," under which headings are to
be found the gems of his lyrical poetry
as well as much of rare excellence in de-
scriptive and rural verse. This tavern
poet and town wit knew and loved nature
well, and how charmingly he could sing
of love might be proved' by a variety 01
examples. Perhaps the song commen-
cing with —
Drink to me only with thine eyes
And I will pledge with mine —
is Jonson's best ; at all events it is tb<
one best known, and therefore we shall
not venture to quote it. Room, however,
must be found for one short and dainty
piece, which affords a favourable speci*
men of this poet's craft as a song-writer,
as well as of his hearty way of making
love. It is addressed to Celia, and al-
though imitated from Catullus, is not the
less original in tone. The man of genius,
when he attempts to imitate, generall]
transforms : —
Kiss me, sweet ; the wary lover
Can your favours keep and cover
When the common courting jay
All your bounties will betray.
Kiss again ! no creature comes ;
Kiss and score up wealthy sums
On my lips, thus hardly. sundered
While you breathe. First give a hundred,
Then a thousand, then another
Hundred, then unto the other
Add a thousand, and so more.
Till you equal with the store
All the grass that Rumney yields,
Or the sands in Chelsea fields.
Or the drops in silver Thames,
Or the stars that gild his streams
In the silent summer nights,
When youths ply their stolen delights ;
That the curious may not know
How to tell 'em as they flow.
And the envious, when they find
What their number is, be pined.
In another and nobler strain are the
fine lines so often quoted and so quota
ble, containing, as they do, a world 0:
meaning within briefest compass : —
It is not growing like a tree
In bulk, doth make men better be ;
I
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY,
199
Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere :
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May
Although it fall and die that night —
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
As a dramatist Ben Jonson deserves
to be read, and not only read but studied,
for his wit and humour, for his wonder-
ful skill as an artist, for his masterly
command of language, for the knowledge
his works afford us of the age in which
he lived ; but we venture to think that
his highest claim upon posterity rests on
the pastoral and descriptive passages,
and on the lovely specimens of lyrical
verse to be found in the little volume
that contains his poems. Truly does
Hazlitt say that Jonson's " Discourse
with Cupid " is "infinitely delicate and
piquant^ and without one single blem-
ish;" and truly, too, does Leigh Hunt
remark of his ode " To Cynthia," which
has a place in almost every selection,
that it "combines classic eloquence with
a tone of modern feeling and a music like
a serenade." No man, says Mr. Henry
Morley, can be a dramatist in any real
sense of the word who cannot produce
good lyrics — a just assertion in the
main, and one that assuredly holds good
with regard to this great poet.
Sentimental, refined, melancholy in
temperament and inclined to solitude,
Drummond of Hawthornden led a very
different life to that enjoyed by his
friend Ben Jonson. In his verse there is
a lack of vigour, but seldom a want of
sweetness, and many of his short pieces
deserve, in the quaint language of the
age, to be called "sugared." His genius
is essentially lyrical, and much that is of
genuine beauty may be found among his
poems. As a writer of sonnets, his rank
among our early poets is a high one, but
he has produced nothing that is of su-
preme excellence, and it is probable that
he will be better remembered for his
" Notes of Conversations " with Ben Jon-
son, than for his own work as a poet.
Drummond is one of the few notable
poets of that age who did not try his
hand at the drama, which was as popular
among men of letters as the novel is now.
A peculiar taste and special leisure are
needed for an adequate study of the
minor Elizabethan dramatists, and it
may be doubted whether a knowledge of
a few of the masterpieces of Ford, Web-
ster, Marlowe, and Dekker will not suf-
fice to satisfy most students of our early
poetry. The writings of these men par-
take in large measure of the passion and
turbulence of their lives, and the biogra-
phy of poets has few sadder pages than
those which record the careers of Mar-
lowe and of Greene.
Marlowe, the famous author of Dr.
Faustiis, which suggested his incompara-
ble work to the greatest of German poets,
perished in a drunken quarrel ; and
Greene, after a brief, but grossly dissi-
pated life, died miserably in abject pov-
erty. Both these writers have left some
striking pieces of lyric verse. Who does
not know the madrigal
Come live with me and be my love
of Marlowe, and the reply written by Sir
Walter Raleigh ? Robert Greene has
not written any piece popular like these ;
but several of his poems, though disfig-
ured by conceits, have the ring of true
poetry. Not one of them, however, has
been transferred by Mr. Palgrave to his
Golden Treasury^ and he has perhaps
rightly judged, so largely is the beauty
of Greene's verse mingled with imper-
fections. Lodge, also a minor dramatist
of the period, shows more of artistic
skill than his contemporary as a lyric
poet. The best of his pieces appeared in
England's Helicon, a collection of pas-
toral and lyric poems published at the
close of Elizabeth's reign, and reprinted
for the service o^ modern readers by
Sir Egerton Brydges. This is but one
among many selections of verse which
appeared during the period, and the stu-
dent who would make himself acquainted
with the lyric poetry of the age will also
read The Phcenix Nest, The Paradise of
Dainty Devises (which, however, belongs,
rather to the reign of Queen Mary), and
A Handful of Pleasant Delites. There
is much in these selections that is only
curious, but sometimes, and especially in
the Helicon, a poetical gem will repay the
reader for his toil. To the Helicon,
Lodge and Breton are among the most
important contributors ; but here, too,
will be found the great names of Sir
Walter Raleigh, Sir Philip Sidney, Mar-
lowe, Spenser, and Shakespeare.
Breton is so little known in these days
(he has no place in the best selections of
English poetry), that one short specimen
of his skill as a lyric poet may be trans-
ferred to these pages. The following
lines, three hundred years old, remem-
ber, run almost as smoothly as if they
had been written by a modern poet:. —
200
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
In the merry month of May,
In a morn by break of day,
Forth I walked by the woodside,
"When as May was in his pride :
There I spied all alone
Phillida and Corydon.
Much ado there was, God wot ;
He would love and she would not ;
She said, never man was true,
He said, none was false to you ;
He said he had loved her long.
She said, love should have no wrong;
Corydon would kiss her then.
She said, maids must kiss no men,
Till they did for good and all ;
Then she made the shepherd call
All the heavens to witness truth
Never loved a truer youth.
Thus with many a pretty oath,
Yea and nay, and faith and troth,
Such as silly shepherds use
When they will not Love abuse.
Love, which had been long deluded.
Was with kisses sweet concluded,
And Phillida with garlands gay
Was made the Lady of the May.
The marvellous genius of Spenser, the
poet who beyond all others possesses the
finest sense of the beautiful, and whose
lovely verse carries us through a land of
enchantment, was not wholly expended
upon his " Faery Queene." He has
written one lyric poem of such incompar-
able excellence as to place him beyond
all controversy in the foremost rank of our
Syric poets. Truly does Dr. George Mac-
donald say of the " Epithalamium " that
it is " one of the mosttstately, melodious,
;and tender poems in the world," and Mr.
•Hallam, the calmest and least impulsive
.of critics, writes of this splendid poem
with generous enthusiasm. " It is a
strain," he says, "redolent of a bride-
groom's joy and of a poet's fancy. The
English language seems to expand itself
with a copiousness unknown before,
while he pours forth the varied imagery
of this splendid little poem. I do not
know any other nuptial song, ancient or
modern, of equal beauty. It is an intox-
ication of ecstasy, ardent, noble, and
pure." Spenser " sage and serious," as
Milton calls him, had ever a high and
delicate perception of the passion of love.
" Noble and pure " are the words ap-
plied by Mr. Hallam to the feeling which
finds musical utterance in this nuptial
song, and better words could not be used.
Yet Mr. Palgrave has omitted this almost
perfect poem from his selection on the
ground that it is " not in harmony with
modern manners." So much the worse
'then, we say, for modern manners, which
.find sensational novels, many of them of
doubtful purity, in harmony with the
morals of society, and reject as unrefined
the manly and simple expressions of
loyal love and passionate tenderness ut-
tered in this song. Gladly would we
quote a portion of the poem, but the
verses will not bear separation, and the
supreme loveliness of the poetry cannot
be justly appreciated unless the entire
poem is read. We may add that another
piece of similar character called " Pro-
thalamium," although worthy of Spenser's
genius, is not to be compared to the
glorious "Epithalamium " written on his
own marriage. The first is, indeed, of
high excellence, but the latter is divine.
To pass from Spenser to Herrick is to
descend from the heights of poetry to a
comparatively lowly level. Herrick lives
in the plain, and his prettinesses are
such as belong to a flat country. His
verse is often graceful, but it is never
elevating, and the dainty love lyrics in
which he sings the charms — too minute-
ly specified sometimes — of a score of
mistresses are frequently sensual in tone.
Hazlitt has pointed out that from Her-
rick's constant allusion to pearls and
rubies one might take him for a lapidary
instead of a poet, and it must be allowed
that the use he makes of jewellery in de-
scribing the eyes and teeth and bosoms
and lips of fair ladies is not a little weari-
some. It is impossible to say of Her-
rick's poetry that it is a perpetual feast
of nectared sweets where no crude sur-
feit reigns. The sweets are to be found in
it in such abundance that they are apt to
induce satiety, and while women's bodily
charms are methodically inventoried,
their spiritual features, if we may use the
term, are left out of the catalogue. Rare-
ly does this poet exhibit feeling or pa-
thos, but his command of language is
great, and he has the art, which Prior
and Thomas Moore possessed, of saying
pretty things in a pretty way. The fol-
lowing little piece of counsel addressed
to girls, affords a favourable specimen of
his style as a song-writer, but his chief
strength, perhaps, lies in the epigram : —
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, JH
Old Time is still a-flying ; ^"
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
The higher he's a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.
That eye is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer ;
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
201
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry : _
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
Herrick was born in 1591, but did not
reach his poetical prime till he was con-
siderably advanced in life. Among his
contemporaries were several minor poets
who exhibited remarkable facility and
grace as writers of love lyrics. Waller,
who has been praised especially for " the
softness and smoothness of his numbers,"
has left little which will be read with
pleasure in our day, and nothing that for
sweetness and harmony can be compared
with the loveliest lyrics of the Elizabethan
period. Generally he is correct and tame,
sometimes he is feeble, and if we allow
that at his best he is graceful, and has
some felicities of language, we have given
to Waller the highest praise that he de-
serves. Readers will remember this
poet's comparison of old age to a worn-
out tenement: —
The soul's dark cottage battered and decayed
Lets in new light through chinks that time has
made.
And his lines on a girdle will also be fa-
miliar : —
That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind ;
No monarch but would give his crown
His arms might do what this has done.
It is seldom that we feel disposed to
differ from Mr. Palgrave in his critical
judgments, but we cannot agree with him
that "the poetry of simple passion pro-
duced in Herrick and Waller some charm-
ing pieces of more finished art than the
Elizabethan." Among the love poetry
characteristic of this period are some
lyrics by Lovelace, Suckling, and Wither,
that have all the wit, the graceful turn of
expression, and the lightness of touch,
which this style of verse demands. Some-
times, as in the case of Suckling, the
poetry is disfigured by grossness, but the
liveliness and gaiety of the verses in
which this poet describes a wedding are
unequalled in our language, and who does
not know the lines to Althea by Lovelace,
and the spirited piece beginning —
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair }
Tvritten by George Wither ? A word of
praise must be given here in passing to
Thomas Carew, whose little piece com-
mencing—
He that loves a rosy cheek
Or a coral lip admires —
has won a place in our anthologies.
Contemporary with these men, though
born a little later than some, and moving
apart from them in a lofty and sublime
region which has been attained only by
one or two of the world's greatest poets,
John Milton proved in early manhood
that his genius as a lyric poet would have
sufficed to perpetuate his fame even if he
had not lived to accomplish the chief la-
bour of his life. If he be not the great-
est of epic poets — and there is but one
that can compete with him for the palm
— the author of " L' Allegro," " II Pense-
roso," and " Lycidas " stands beyond
question in the front rank as a writer of
lyrics. There are flaws in these glorious
poems which have been painfully dwelt
upon by critics, but in spite of some in-
significant defects, these three poems,
two of them most admirable for descrip-
tion, and one, a pastoral elegy of the rar-
est poetic beauty — lay hold of the im-
agination and possess the memory as
only the greatest poetry can. They do
not merely win admiration, but they are
treasured up as a precious portion of our
intellectual property. Turn from them to
the greatest lyric effort of John Dryden,
the " Alexander's Feast," and how vast
appears the gulf that separates these
poets ! Dryden's ode is of its kind in-
comparable. It is written by a consum-
mate versifier, and by a man of brilliant
genius. How finely and swiftly the verse
rolls along, how full it is of animation,
how free from weakness, how great in its
variety of language ! It is a magnificent
piece of poetical rhetoric, but the ex-
quisite and subtle charms of poetry are
not to be found in it. It creates no feel-
ing but that of admiration, whereas " Ly-
cidas " excites in the reader capable of
appreciating noble verse, not admiration
only, but a glow of emotion, an elevation
of spirit, which lifts him for the moment to
the poet's level. Dr. Johnson's praise of
Dryden's famous " Ode to the Memory
of Mrs. Anne Killigrew," which he terms
" undoubtedly the finest ode which our
language ever has produced," must be
regarded from our point of view as over-
strained. Again we say it is a great
rhetorical effort, not a great lyric poem,
and in some portions it lacks
the full-resounding line,
The long majestic march and energy divine,
202
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
for which Dryden is deservedly famous.
How stiff and prosaic, for instance, are
such lines as the following ! Instead of
the majestic march, it is as if the poet
were hobbling painfully upon crutches : —
If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so good ;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood :
So wert thou born into the tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was formed at first with myriads more.
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it was
before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born
mind !
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich
ore :
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find
Than was the beauteous frame she left be-
hind :
Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celes-
tial kind.
May we presume to say that, at thy birth,
New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here
on earth ?
For sure the milder planets did combine
On thy auspicious horoscope to shine.
And even the most malicious were in trine.
Dryden stands on a high eminence as a
satirist and narrative poet. He is also a
vigorous reasoner in verse ; and his clear,
sinewy style in such poems as "Absalom
and Achitophel," and the " Religio
Laici," is that of a master of language.
In his special domain he need fear no
rival ; but in his lyric poetry, as in his
dramas, the work he has produced is of
inferior quality. If this be true of " Glo-
rious John," it is assuredly equally true
of his imitator and rival, Pope. The
author of the " Dunciad," of the " Imita-
tions of Horace," and of the exquisite
" Rape of the Lock," is in his own way
inimitable. The perfection of art, the
finest satire, the most graceful play of
fancy, characterize these poems, but
when Pope attempts the lyric the failure is
conspicuous. His " Ode on St. Cecilia's
Day " has been justly called only a feeble
duplicate of Dryden, and Mr. Elwin says
truly that his "Universal Prayer" is a
tame composition, and " never rises above
the level of a second-rate hymn." The
character of the age was not favourable
to lyric poetry, and among the brilliant
wits who associated with Pope, Addison,
and Swift, one or two only have been
successful in this form of verse. There
are a few fairly good lyric passages in
Gay's " Acis and Galatea ; " and that
small poet, who produced also some good
ballads, has written one or two tolerable
songs. Matthew Prior was far more suc-
cessful than Gay, and many of his pieces
have a brightness and quickness of fancy
which remind us of Thomas Moore. The
Irish poet was no doubt, in some instan-
ces, indebted to his predecessor for the
structure of his verse ; and readers famil-
iar with the " Melodies," in listening for
the first time to some passages in Prior's
poems, would at once attribute them to
Moore. There are several little love-
pieces in Prior so like the prurient poems
published under the name of " Mr. Lit-
tle," that it would be easy to believe they
were the productions of the same author.
Like Moore, Prior is an apt writer, also,
of vers de society and a brilliant epigram-
matist ; but unfortunately many of his
pieces are too coarse to be tolerated in
our day. Yet Dr. Johnson strangely
enough declared Prior's poems to be a
lady's book. "No lady," he said, "is
ashamed to have it standing in her libra-
ry." The following piece sounds like a
song of Moore's, and the fancy exhibit-
ed in it is of the artificial kind, in which
Moore delighted. It is an answer to
Chloe jealous — ;
Dear Chloe, how blubber'd is that pretty face,
Thy cheek all on fire and thy hair all un-
curl'd !
Pry'thee quit this caprice ; and, as old Fal-
staif says,
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this
world.
What I speak, my friend Chloe, and what I
write shows
The difference there is between Nature and
Art ;
I court others in verse, but I love thee in
prose :
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast
my heart.
The god of us verse-men (you know, child)
the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest :
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run,
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.
So, when I am wearied with wand'ring all day.
To thee, my delight, in the evening I come :
No matter what beauties I saw in my way.
They were but my visits, but thou art my
home.
Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war ;
And let us, like Horace and Lydia, agree :
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her
As he was a poet sublimer than me.
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
203
Prior deserves, we think, more praise
as a lyrist than he has hitherto received ;
for his success, such as it is, was not due
to any contemporary influence. The vein
of poetry at that period led in another di-
rection, and when the Queen Anne men
attempted the lyric they generally blun-
dered. Such laboured and conventional
odes as those written by Addison, Hughes,
and Congreve, on St. Cecilia or in Praise
of Music, were not uncommon ; but these
odes — and there are numbers of equal
merit, or demerit, in Chalmers's vast col-
lection— are mere specimens of the
versemaker's handicraft in an age when
the sole merit of some writers, called
poets by courtesy, was mechanical skill.
Charles Dickens once observed of
Thomas Gray that no poet ever gained a
place among the immortals with so small
a volume under his arm. And it may be
safely asserted that, little as Gray has
written, it does not all belong to the
highest class of poetry. It is as a lyric
poet that Gray has won his laurels, and
his best work is limited to five or six odes
and to the " Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard." This elegy is probably the
most popular poem in the language. It
lives in the memory of most men who
have received a liberal education, and the
hold it has upon us is owing to the pen-
sive beauty of the verse, to the natural-
ness of the thoughts, which are obvious
without being commonplace, and to the
choice of a subject in which every one
must feeFa pathetic interest. When the
poem appeared, the leading review of
the day observed — "The excellence of
this little piece amply compensates for
its want of quantity ; " and this was all
the critic had to say in praise of a poem
which ranks with the choicest treasures
of poetical literature. In spite of the
cold praise of the reviewer, the Elegy
gained immediate popularity, which Gray
imputed to the subject, observing that the
public would have received it as well if it
had been written in prose ; an extraor-
dinary assertion, for there never was a
poem that owed more to the melody of
the versification, and to the exact adap-
tation of the metre to the theme. Of
Gray's two greatest odes, the " Progress
of Poesy" and the "Bard," little new
can be said, for criticism has exhausted
itself upon them. Dr. Johnson's fault-
finding in his examination of these poems
may be sometimes captious, but it con-
tains a large amount of truth. No doubt
amidst much splendour there is also
much obscurity, much conventional dic-
tion, many words arbitrarily compounded,
many thoughts that are grasped with
difficulty and that give little pleasure
when the meaning is perceived. The
following remarks can hardly be gainsaid :
"These odes are marked by glittering
accumulations of ungraceful ornaments ;
they strike rather than please ; the
images are magnified by affectation ; the
language is laboured into harshness.
The mind of the writer seems to work
with unnatural violence. Double, double,
toil and trouble ! He was a kind of strut-
ting dignity, and is tall by walking on
tiptoe. His art and his struggle are too
visible, and there is too little appearance
of ease and nature." Gray, who found
fault with his friend Mason for the arti-
ficial structure of his poetry, fell himself
into the same error, and the diction of
the Odes is in the highest degree la-
boured. Yet there are lines in these
poems of superlative excellence — lines
which none but a genuine poet could
have written in his choicest moments of
inspiration. The "Ode on Eton Col-
lege " is marked by some of Gray's worst
faults, but some of the verses are of per-
fect beauty, and how lovely is the con-
clusion, too familiar to be quoted here !
The " Ode on the Death of a Favourite
Cat " has also some felicities of language,
but why the cat should be called a " hap-
less nymph" in one stanza, and a "pre-
sumptuous maid" in another, the poet
himself might have found it difficult to
say. The permanence of Gray's fame
depends, not on his Odes but on his
Elegy ; and it is impossible to conceive
of any progress of thought or of society
which shall make that poem less accepta-
ble to his countrymen. It is founded, to
use one of Mr. Carlyle's phrases, on the
eternal verities.
It was Gray's happy fortune to move
by one of -his poems the universal heart.
William Collins — a lyric poet perhaps
of equal genius — has not been so suc-
cessful. Collins's Odes appeal, like
Gray's, to a limited circle of readers ;
there are men of culture and with some
love of poetry who are quite unable to
appreciate the peculiar powers of this fine,
but occasionally obscure poet. Some-
times, and when in his highest mood,
Collins is simple and pathetic, and his
language, tortuous perhaps elsewhere, is
marked by the most exquisite propriety.
Had Collins written nothing else, the
" Dirge in Cyrabeline," the Ode com-
mencins: —
204
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest !
and the unrhymed " Ode to Evening,"
would suffice to keep his memory green.
Throughout his short life, or a large por-
tion of it, he had the burden upon him of
a great fear and sorrow, and his verse,
the growth of a mournful disposition, is
full of plaintive melancholy. Perhaps
the most inadequate criticism to be
found in Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets
is that bestowed on poor Collins ; but
the subtle charm of his poetry was not
likely to be appreciated by the robust
ritic who failed to see the loveliness of
Lycidas." Johnson, strange to say,
is far more to admire in the lyric
poetry of Shenstone, whose ideas are
commonplace and whose verse is jin-
gling. His " Pastoral Ballad," once so
famous that it had a place in most selec-
tions, is now forgotten. James Thom-
son, a genuine poet, whose genius, in
spite of his artificial diction, has given
hira a distinct and honourable place in
our poetical literature, deserves mention
among lyric poets, although his strength
lies mainly in description. Either he or
Mallet is the author of " Rule Britannia,"
and it may be noted here in passing that
the best patriotic songs or lyrics in our
language, and the best battle-songs, are
the work of Scotchmen — of Burns and
Campbell, of Sir Walter Scott and of
Allan Cunningham. Burns, the greatest
of all song writers, is too distinctly. Scot-
tish to be included in this brief survey of
English lyric poets. He needed his na-
tive dialect when giving utterance to
strong passion and feeling, and his pure-
ly English, poems are comparative fail-
ures. When Burns was delighting some
of his countrymen, and shocking others,
with his amorous lyrics, a poet of a very
different stamp was slowly winning his
way to fame amidst the tame scenery of
Buckinghamshire. Cowper's chief merit,
it has been sometimes said, is, that he
freed poetry from the so-called conven-
tional diction popular in his age, and
drew his imagery, as all true poets must,
direct from nature. Burns, a man of a far
stronger intellect, did this more vigo-
rously ; but his prose is full of affecta-
tions. Cowper, often unpoetical and
commonplace, is never wanting in sim-
plicity, and in his observation of nature
he is unerring. As a lyric poet his place is
not with the highest. He has no fine sense
of harmony, none of those exquisite feli-
cities of language which abound in Spen-
ser, Milton, and Keats, and which form a
striking feature of Mr. Tennyson's po-
etry ; but he has great clearness of expres-
sion, and his pathos is profound. Such
lyrical pieces as " The Poplar Field," " On
the Loss of the Royal George," " The
Castaway," and above all the exquisite
lines " To Mary," will always be read and
re-read by those who can best appreciate
a poet's work.
Cowper died in 1800, when several of
the great poets, whose works gave such
splendour to the first quarter of this cen-
tury, were in the full prime of manhood.
Wordsworth was thirty, Walter Scott
twenty-nine, Coleridge twenty-eight, and
Campbell twenty-three. Shelley, Keats,
and Hood, were at this date comparative
infants, and Byron was a schoolboy of
twelve. The French Revolution, excit-
ing ardent hopes in some minds, and pro-
found disappointment and regret in
others, created an extraordinary move-
ment in intellectual life. The beautiful
but somewhat languid stream of poetry
that flowed so calmly in the eighteenth
century, burst towards the close of it into
a mountain torrent, leaping and foaming
with an impetuous energy that amazed
the few so-called classic versemakers
who retained Pope's style, while lacking
his vigour and his wit. Wordsworth,
calmest and least impulsive of poets, has
described what he felt at this period : —
A gloriaus time.
A happy time that was ; triumphant looks
Were then the common language of all eyes ;
As if awaked from sleep, the nations hailed
Their great expectancy.
And Coleridge, inspired by the same
hopes, writes : —
When France in wrath her giant-limbs up-
reared,
And with that oath, which smote air, earth,
and sea,
Stamped her strong foot and said she would
be free !
Bear witness for me, how I hoped and feared !
On various minds this great movement
acted in different ways. If for a time it
quickened hope and enthusiasm in the
breasts of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and
Southey, it forced Scott into the ranks of
Toryism. In every case, however, it
served to stimulate intellectual energy,
and whatever political view men may take
of this extraordinary period, all must al-
low that poetry, and especially lyric
poetry, gained from it in exaltation and
fervour. The poets we have mentioned
have many claims upon our attention
apart from the lyrical bent of their genius,
i
I
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
205
but our subject leads us to regard their
poetry solely in one direction. If we ex-
cept Shelley — and we do not feel sure
that we ought to except him — Coleridge,
gieat in so many ways, takes the fore-
most rank in the lyric amongst the early
poets of this century. The music of his
versification is exquisite ; so perfect, in-
deed, is it at times, that the most able
critic would be doing a rash act were he
to attempt to alter a single word. Read
aloud his " Genevieve," and say whether
poet ever framed a more exquisite love
poem ? read his "Ancient Mariner," and
his " Christabel," and the perfect move-
ment of the verse will strike you as much
as the dazzling imagination which floods
every page with poetic light ; or read the
short poem entitled "Verse and Age,"
and you will agree with Leigh Hunt that
its music can only be matched by some
of the sweet strains of our early poets.
Willingly would we quote the whole of
this little piece, which contains forty-
nine lines. This would, however, en-
croach too much upon our space, and the
poem, which is in almost all selections,
should be known to every one. This in-
deed is a constant difficulty in writing a
paper upon English poetry, since to quote
the finest illustrations of the subject, is
to print verses with which readers are
already familiar. Passing as we do now
from Coleridge to Shelle)', who is his rival
in musical expression, it would obviously
be absurd to transcribe such poems as
the "Ode to the West Wind," or the
" Ode to a Sky-lark," as examples of his
lyrical genius. Of Shelley and of his
poetry it may be said in his own words : —
Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory —
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.
Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heap'd for the beloved's bed ;
And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.
Like his sky-lark, Shelley is a "scorner
of the ground," and sings the sweeter the
higher he ascends. He is the poet of
dreams and aerial fancies ; he does not
walk in the common ways of men ; his
beautiful voice speaks to us from a lofty
height, and if it does not always speak
clearly, it is because while singing he is
"hidden in the light of thought." His
song gives to us the same kind of delight
we receive from the sounds of inanimate
nature. The same kind, but in a larger
degree, for the words Shelley addresses
to the sky-lark may be fitly applied to
him : —
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous and clear and fresh thy music doth
surpass.
It seems natural to turn from Shelley
to the young poet whose death he has
so exquisitely mourned in " Adonais."
Keats was such a youth when he died, so
immature, not in years only but in cul-
ture, that it would be ungenerous to
dwell too much on the defects of his
poetry. His faults arose in part from a
lack of liberal training, and still more,
perhaps, from the influence of the poeti-
cal school in which he was a pupil. The
aroma of Leigh Hunt's poetry may be de-
tected throughout the poetry of Keats ;
whatever is beautiful in colour, delicious
in scent, or graceful in form ; whatever
captivates the fancy, or enchants the ear,
gives inspiration to his muse. His verse
is full of sweetnesses, but it is apt to cloy.
Yet there are indications which can
scarcely be mistaken that had the life of
this wonderful youth been spared (he was
but twenty-six when he died) he would
have put aside the pardonable faults of
his boyhood, and have exhibited the calm
strength and the elevation of purpose
which give dignity to poetry as well as to
life. In spite of faults which lie upon the
surface of his poetry, and need no criti-
cal sagacity to detect, what a delightful
and exceedingly precious volume Keats
has left his country ! There is genius
visible in every page of it, and not lines
only, but whole poems, which entitle the
author to claim a place with the great
poets of England. The sonnet upon
Chapman's Homer is one of the finest in
the language. " Hyperion " is a majestic
fragment ; the " Eve of St. Agnes " is
full of glorious poetry ; and scarcely
any ode produced this century shows a
higher power of suggestiveness than the
" Ode to a Nightingale." Listen but to
one stanza of it : —
Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird.
No hungry generations tread thee down ;
The voice I heard this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown ;
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when sick
for home.
She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;
The same that oft-times hath
2C)6
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the
foam
Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn.
Contrast this ode, or Shelley's " Ode to
the West Wind," with the frigid, conven-
tional, laboured odes which passed for
poetry in the last century — they may be
read by scores in Chalmers's Anthology
— and the difference is like walking in a
lovely country, with its woods, and mead-
ows, and hill-sides fragrant with heather,
after being confined to the formal paths
of a London square. The splendid poet-
ical fruit produced during the first thirty
years of this century was for the most
part lyrical. Of didactic poetry, of satir-
ical i3oetry, of epic poetry, the specimens
produced were comparatively worthless,
and although some dramas were written,
we know of none save Shelley's Cenci,
and perhaps Lord Byron's Sardanapahis^
which retain a living power. Words-
worth, who in spite of great deficiencies
(he lacked passion, which, if not the soul
of poetry, is one of its chief attributes)
held the highest place, and perhaps still
holds it, among the poets of his century,
is philosophical, and therefore to some
extent didactic ; but the strength of
Wordsworth is not to be found in his
'philosophy, much of which might have
been uttered more suitably in prose. As
a meditative poet, his genius finds its
truest expression in lyrical verse. There
are noble efforts of poetry in "The Ex-
cursion" and in "The Prelude," but
there are also long distances in those
poems over which the poet plods with
heavy lumbering feet. For his highest
and most poetical thoughts we must look
elsewhere — to the "Ode on Immortal-
ity," to many of the sonnets, which, if
they do not bear a lyrical form, are full
of lyrical feeling, to the familiar pieces in
which he imparts a human interest to the
sights, and sounds, and life of nature.
Some writers upon poetry — notably
Mr. E. S. Dallas, in his admirable work
"Poetics" — confounding the lyric with
the song, declare that while England is
strong in the drama she is weak in the
lyric. This conclusion is due to a mis-
conception. A song is, no doubt, a lyric ;
but a lyric — witness Wordsworth — need
not be a song, and most of the finest
lyrical poems we possess take another
shape. As song-writers, our English
poets must yield the palm to Scotland,
perhaps even to Ireland ; but as lyrists
they occupy the first rank, and the scep-
tic has only to read with the care it merits
Mr. Palgrave's selection, which covers
the poetry of three centuries, to be con-
vinced that the poetical genius of Eng-
land finds in this direction its highest
expression, or, rather, that it is as great
in the lyric as in the drama.
Sir Walter Scott has given the world
more of genuine healthful pleasure than
any author of this century, than any
writer, indeed, in the language, with the
one great exception of Shakespeare.
And this delight is of a kind which no
novelist could impart who was not at the
same time a great poet. Scott's finest
and most lasting work has no doubt been
done in prose, and there is more of poetry
in the Antiquary, or in the Bride of Lam-
mermoor, than in " Marmion," his best
metrical composition ; but whether he
wrote in prose or in verse he was ani-
mated by the spirit of poetry ; and in
" Marmion," a poem which it is difficult
to appreciate at its just worth in an age
when poetry delights in subtleties of
thoughts and intricacies of expression,
the fire of the lyric poet gives fervour to
the narrative. The death of Marmion is
in the highest degree noble ; there is no
such martial strain in our language, nor
anything of the kind equal to it out of
Homer, and in another direction Scott's
genius for the lyric is also remarkable,
for many of his songs possess a plaintive
sweetness, a spontaneity, a tenderness
and simplicity of feeling which will se-
cure them, one can scarcely doubt, a per-
manent place in poetry. In some of these
pieces the naiveti and freshness of the
old ballad is blended with the graceful-
ness of expression which is a character-
istic of modern art.
Of Thomas Moore's poetry, even . of
his Irish Melodies, which contain beyond
all question his best work, it is impossi-
ble to write so confidently. His poetry
sometimes goes to the heart of things,
and expresses the essential feelings of
the race ; this, however, is but rarely the
case ; in general, his pretty songs give
utterance to transitory emotions, to fan-
cies which touch the surface of life, or
rather of the artificial society in which
the poet laughed and sung. Some of his
admirers have compared him with Burns :
as well might you liken a pretty exotic to
the mountain heather, or an artificial cas-
cade to a natural waterfall, or the notes of
a bird that has been taught to pipe with
the free song of the sky-lark. He was
more of a. musician than of a poet, and
instead of composing music to verse, he
wrote his verse to the music. He said
he could answer for the sound of his
ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY.
207
songs more than for their sense ; and it
has been justly remarked that it is hardly
fair to read them unless you remember
the air.
Earl Russell once stated, if we remem-
ber rightly, that Lord Byron was the
greatest poet of this century ; that Scott
stood next in eminence, and Thomas
Moore third. We are not disposed, ac-
cording to a fashion of the day, to depre-
ciate the genius of Byron. He possesses
some of the highest qualifications of the
poet — passion, vividness of perception,
pictorial skill, and within a limited range,
imagination. Moreover, he had, what
Wordsworth and Shelley had not — wit
of a high order, and a considerable amount
of humour. What, then, it may be asked,
did he lack? Just those powers, we reply,
which we find in the greatest poets —
sincerity and concentration of purpose,
breadth of imagination, sympathy with his
kind, and the patient culture, without
which no poet ever succeeded in attain-
ing the highest eminence in the most dif-
ficult of all arts. Of all illustrious poets
Byrou is perhaps the least remarkable for
that exquisite adaptation of language to
thought, that curiosa felicitas of diction
which distinguishes the greatest masters.
Oddly enough he asserts somewhere that
execution is the sole test of a poet, and
yet in execution he is eminently deficient.
He considered Pope one of the greatest
of poets, but in spite of this extravagant
admiration, he has little in common with
the author of the " Dunciad." Words-
worth, whom he admired and laughed at
by turns, is in reality the master from
whom Byron caught the feeling which in-
spires his noblest poetry. He is strong,
however, where Wordsworth is weak, and
writes often with a vigour and point un-
known to the calmer poet. He is elo-
quent, too, as many an orator is eloquent
— commanding attention and exciting
admiration, but leaving little permanent
impression on the mind. As a descrip-
tive poet, as the poet of passion, and as a
splendid wit, Byron will always retain a
high place in our poetical literature ; as a
lyric poet, his position is less certain.
There is a period of life in which such a
piece as " The Isles of Greece " sounds
sublime, and is recited with enthusiasm.
Have we not all heard it shouted by
schoolboys, or impressively delivered by
young men devoted to the study of elocu-
tion ? Sound is dearer than thought in
those early days ; nor is it easy then to
detect the faults of a poem, the lines of
which glide along so gallantly. What are
called his " Domestic Poems "will always
interest, and in a measure charm, but the
interest they call forth is due to the feel-
ing uttered, rather than to the sweetness
of the song. The best of Byron's lyrics,
however, although not of the highest or-
der of beauty, are worthy of his reputa-
tion.
Mrs. Browning's name can never be
mentioned without profound esteem, and
even by those who were not happy enough
to know her personally, without a feeling
approaching to affection. It is easy of
course to say that she was the greatest of
all poetesses. The real question to be
answered is, what position does she hold
among great poets ? In many respects
her genius was of the noblest order. She
had a fine though an undisciplined ima-
gination, an earnestness of purpose, which
imprints itself on every page of her work ;
the largeness of culture which, as we have
said, Byron lacked, profound feeling, and
a pathos which few readers can resist.
She wanted, on the other hand, what
Wordsworth wanted, the humour which
would have prevented incongruities. Her
Pegasus too often gets the bits between
his teeth, and rides rashly over metaphors
and similes which utterly bewilder us
when we attempt to follow in his rear.
It is remarkable that Mrs. Browning's
profound study of the Greek poets pro-
duced apparently little influence upon her
style of composition, and that the very
faults most alien to the spirit of Greek
poetry are sometimes visible in her poems.
Thus it has happened that some of her
sweetest lyrics contain lines which grate
upon the ear : discordant thoughts which
break the continuity and destroy much of
the harmony of the song. This is often
evident in that wonderful series of "Son-
nets from the Portuguese ; " it will be
felt in " Lady Geraldine's Courtship," in
" Bertha in the Lane " (witness, for exam-
ple, the last stanza), in " The Cry of the
Children," which deserves to be ranked
with what Sara Coleridge desio^nates the
"high impassioned lyric," and again and
yet again in "Aurora Leigh." But de-
fects such as these, if they injure Mrs.
Browning's poetry, are but as specks
upon the sun in comparison with the
splendour of her genius. She may never
become a popular poet (though some of
her brief lyrics, as perfect in form as in
thought, will always hold their place in
selections), but her verse will be a solace
and a joy to many persons, and those be-
longing to the fit audience which the poet
' cares chiefly to attract.
2 08
ALICE LORRAINE.
Writing on a theme so fertile as the
one we have selected, a number of strik-
ing poems occur to the memory composed
by men who can scarcely claim a place
among English poets. Henry Carey, for
example, is an unknown name in our lit-
erature, but he has written a little poem,
" Sally in our Alley," which is unique of
its kind, and of the highest order of ex-
cellence. As much almost may be said
for the "To-morrow" of John Collins, a
lovely lyric, which appeared in a volume
of the writer's verse, now deservedly for-
gotten, entitled Scripscrapologia. The
Rev. Charles Wolfe would be unremem-
bered in our day were it not for his im-
mortal lines on the death of Sir John
Moore, William Blake, artist and poet,
glorious madman as he was, dreaming
dreams and painting visions, is an exquis-
ite lyrist ; but what he has done in this
respect worthy of permanent life might
be comprised in a few pages. A single
song, indeed, witness the " Auld Robin
Gray " of Lady Anne Lindsay, may raise
the singer to a place with the immortals,
so precious in poetry is quality, so insig-
nificant a factor is quantity in our esti-
mate of a poet's work.
There was a time in the last century,
when poetry seemed dead, when verse-
making had become a trade, and when
the sound thought sometimes uttered in
rhyme might have been more fittingly
expressed in prose. But the present age,
so notable for what may be called matter-
of-fact aims, so eager in the pursuit of
knowledge that might seem inimical to
the special aims of the poet, is remark-
able at the same time for the ideality of
its poetry, and among living poets are
several whose exquisite gifts lie almost
wholly in the direction of the lyric. To
these it will suffice to allude, for the space
to which this paper is necessarily re-
stricted will not allow us to examine the
lyric poetry of living poets. Consider
for an instant what such an examination
would involve. Mr. Browning might pos-
sibly be left out of the reckoning, for his
chief strength lies in another direction ;
but Mr. Tennyson, who has produced
some of the sweetest lyrics in the lan-
guage, and who, even in his blank verse
and in his " Idylls," writes with the kind
of movement that belongs to the lyric
poet, has a claim in this respect not
readily to be satisfied. " Lord ! what a
blessed thing it is," exclaims Dickens,
of the " Idylls," " to read a man who real-
ly can write ! I thought nothing could
be finer than the first poem, till I came
to the third ; but when I had read the
last, it seemed to me to be absolutely un-
approachable." There is perhaps no
modern poet who combines with a ge-
nius so exquisite, so profound a knowl-
edge of his art. We may add, what the
reader can scarcely fail to observe, that
his supreme excellence is always to be
found in the lyric. The more indeed
that we examine the poetry of the age,
the more evident will it appear that its
principal achievements have been per-
formed in this field. In America, Mr.
Longfellow, Mr. Lowell, and the vener-
able Bryant, to name three poets only
out of many, are chiefly to be distin-
guished as lyrists. In our own country,
it will suffice to mention but the names
of Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Rossetti, Mr.
Coventry Patmore, Mr. Buchanan, and
Mr. Matthew Arnold (whose " Scholar
Gipsey," and "Forsaken Merman," by
the way, are of almost peerless beauty),
to show how thoroughly the poetical ge-
nius of the age is permeated with the
spirit of lyric poetry.
Looking back over three centuries ol
our literature, it will be evident that the
splendid achievernents of this centurj
are worthy of the early fathers of Eng
lish poetry. It is surely remarkable thai
the most practical race in the work
should have produced the noblest fio
tions, and the most imaginative verse.
J.D.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.
A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.
CHAPTER XXII.
Sir Roland smiled at his mother's posi
tion, and air of stern attention, as he cam^
back from his book-room with a small bu
heavy oaken box. This he placed on ;
chair, and, without any mystery, unlocke(
it. But no sooner had he flung back th
lid and shown the case above described
than he was quite astonished at the ex
pression of Lady Valeria's face. Some
thing more than fear and terror, down
risrht awe, as if at the sisfht of somethini
supernatural, had taken the pale tint ou
of her cheeks, and made her fine forehea(
quiver.
" Dear mother, how foolish I am," h
said, "to worry you with these trifles
I wish I had kept to my own opic
ion "
I
ALICE LORRAINE.
209
" It is no trifle ; you would have been
wrong to treat it as a trifle. I have lived
a long life, and seen many strange
things ; but this is the strangest of all
of them."
For a minute or two she lay back, and
was not fit to speak or be spoken to ;
only she managed to stop her son from
rin<ying for her maid or the housekeeper.
He had never beheld her so taken before,
and could scarcely make out her signs to
him to fasten both doors of the drawing-
room.
Like most men who are at all good and
just, Sir Roland was prone to think
softly, and calmly, instead of acting rap-
idly ; and now his mother, so advanced
in years, showed less hesitation than he
did. Recovering, ere long, from that
sudden shock, she managed to smile at
herself and at his anxiety about her.
" Now, Roland, I will not meddle with
this formidable and clumsy thing. It
seems to be closed most jealously. It has
kept for two centuries, and may keep for
two more, so far as I am concerned. But
if it will not be too troublesome to you,
I should like to hear what is said about
it."
" In this old document, madam ? Do
you see how strangely it has been folded ?
Whoever did that knew a great deal more
than now we know about folding."
" The writing to me seems more
strange than the folding. What a
cramped hand ! In what languge is it
written ? "
" In Greek, the old Greek character,
and the Doric dialect. He seems to
have been proud of his classic descent,
and perhaps Dorian lineage. But he
placed a great deal too much faith in the
attainments of his descendants. Poor
Sedley would have read it straight off, I
iaresay ; but the contractions, and even
some of the characters, puzzled me
dreadfully. I have kept up, as you know,
lear mother, whatever little Greek I was
;aught, and perhaps have added to it ;
DUt my old Hedericus was needed a great
nany limes, I assure you, before I got
hrough this queer document ; and even
low I am not quite certain of the mean-
ng of one or two passages. You see at
he head a number of what I took at first
0 be hieroglyphics of some kind or
'ther ; but I find that they are astral or
idereal signs, for which I am none the
viser, though perhaps an astronomer
^'ould be. This, for instance, appears to
lean the conjunction of some two plan-
ts, and this "
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 326
" Never mind them, Roland. Read me
what you have made out of the writing."
"Very well, mother. But if I am at
fault, you must have patience with me,
for I am not perfect in my lesson yet.
Thus it begins : —
" ' Behold, ye men, who shall be here-
after, and pay heed to this matter. A
certain Carian, noble by birth and of
noble character, to whom is the not in-
glorious name, Agasicles Syennesis, hath
lived not in the pursuit of wealth, or
power, or reputation, but in the unbroken
study of the most excellent arts and phil-
osophies. Especially in the heavenly
stars, and signs of the everlasting kos-
mos, hath he disciplined his mind, and
surpassed all that went before him.'
There is nothing like self-praise, is there,
now, dear mother ? "
" I have no doubt that he speaks the
truth," answered the Lady Valeria : " I
did not marry into a family accustomed
to exaggerate."
"Then what do you think of this.'*
' Not only in intellect and forethought,
but also in goodwill and philanthropy,
modesty, and self-forgetfulness, did this
man win the prize of excellence ; and he
it is who now speaks to you. Having
lived much time in a barbarous island,
cold, and blown over with vaporous air,
he is no longer of such a sort as he was
in the land of the fair afternoons. And
there is when it is to his mind a manifest
and established thing, that the gates of
Hades are open for him, and the time of
being no longer. But he holds this to be
of the smallest difference, if only the
gods produce his time to the perfect end
of all the things lying now before him.' "
" How good, and how truly pious of
him, Roland ! Such a man's daughter
never could have had any right to run
away from him."
" My dear mother, I disagree with you,
if he always praised himself in that style.
But let him speak for himself again, as
he seems to know very well how to do :
' These things have not been said, indeed,
for the sake of any boasting, but rather
to bring out thoroughly forward the truth
in these things lying under, as if it were
a pavement of adamant. Now, there-
fore, know ye, that Agasicles, carefully
pondering everything, has found, so to
say the word, an end to accomplish and
to abide in. And this is no other thing
than to save the generations descended
from him from great evil fortunes about
to fall, by the ill-will of some divinity, at
a destined time upon them. For a man
2IO
ALICE LORRAINE.
of birth so renowned and lofty has not
been made to resemble a hand-worker,
or a runaway slave, but has many stars
regarding him from many generations.
And now he perceives that his skill and
wisdom were not given to him to be
a mere personal adornment, but that he
might protect his descendants to the re-
mote futurity. To him, then — it having
been revealed that in the seventh genera-
tion hence, as has often come to pass
with our house, or haply in the tenth (for
the time is misty), a great calamity is
bound to happen to those born afar off
from Syennesis — the sage has laboured
many labours, though he cannot avert, at
least to make it milder, and to lessen it.
He has not, indeed, been made to know,
at least up to the present time, what this
bane will be, or whether after the second
or after the third century from this
period. But knowing the swiftness of
evil chance, he expects it at the earlier
time ; and whatever its manner or kind
may be, Agasicles in all his discoveries
has discovered no cure for human evils,
save that which he now has shut up in a
box. This box has been so constructed
that nothing but dust will meet the
greedy eyes of any who force it open, in
the manner of the tomb of Nitocris. But
if it be opened with the proper key, and
after the proper interval, when the due
need has arisen — there will be a fairer
sight than ever broke upon mortal eyes
(before.'
" There, mother, now, what do you
think of all that ? I am quite out of
breath with my long translation, and I
.am not quite sure of all of it. For in-
stance, where he says "
" Roland," his mother answered quick-
ly, " I am now much older than the
prince, according to tradition, can have
been. But I make no pretence to his
^wisdom, and I have reasons of my own
.for wondering. What have you done
with the key of that case ? "
" I have never seen it. It was not in
the closet. And I meant to have searched
throughout his room until I found out
the meaning of this very crabbed post-
script — ' That fool, Memel, hath lost the
key. It will cost me months to make an-
other. My hands now tremble, and my
eyes are weak. If there be no key found
herewith, let it be read that Nature,
whom I have vanquished, hath avenged
herself. Whether, or no, have I laboured
in vain ? Be blest now, and bless me, my
.dear descendants.' "
" That appears to me," said the Lady
Valeria, being left in good manners by
her son to express the first opinion, "to
be of the whole of this strange affair the
part that is least satisfactory."
"My dear mother, you have hit the
mark. What satisfaction can one find in
having a case without a key, and knowing
that if we force it open there will be
nothing but dust inside ? Not a quarter
so good as a snuff-box. I must have a
pinch, my dear mother, excuse me, while
you meditate on this subject. You are
far more indulgent in that respect than
little Alice ever is."
" All gentlemen take snuff," said the
lady; "who is Alice to lay down the
law ? Your father took a boxful three
times in a week. Roland, you let that
young girl take very great liberties with
you."
" It is not so much that I let her take
them. I have no voice in the matter
now. She takes them without asking
me. Possibly that is the great calamity
foretold by the astrologer. If not, what
other can it be, do you think .? "
" Not so," she answered, with a seri-
ous air, for all her experience of the
witty world had left her old age quite dry
of humour ; " the trouble, if any is com-
ing, will not be through Alice, but through
Hilary. Alice is certainly a flighty girl,
romantic, and full of nonsense, and not
at all such as she might have been if left
more in my society. However, she never
has thought it worth while to associate
much with her grandmother, the result of
which is that her manners are unformed,
and her mind is full of nonsense. But
she has plenty, and (if it were possible)
too much, of that great preservative,
pride of birth. Alice may come to af-
fliction herself, but she never will in-
volve her family."
" Any affliction of hers," said Sir Ro-
land, " will involve at least her father."
"Yes, yes, of course. But what '.
mean is the honour and rank of the fam
ily. It is my favourite Hilary, my dear
brave, handsome Hilary, who is likely t
bring care on our heads, or rather upo;
your head, Roland ; my time, of course
will be over then, unless he is very quic
about it."
" He will not be so quick as that,
hope," Sir Roland answered, with som
little confusion of proper sentiments
" although in that hotbed of mischie
London, nobody knows when he may b
gin. However, he is not in London
ALICE LORRAINE.
211
present, according to your friend Lady de
Lampnor. I think you said you had
heard so from her."
" To be sure, Mr. Malahide told her
himself. The dear boy has overworked
himself so, that he has gone to some
healthy and quiet place to recruit his
exhausted energies."
" Dear me," said Sir Roland, " I never
could believe it, unless I knew from ex-
perience, what a very little work is enough
to upset him. To write a letter to his
father, for instance, is so severe an exer-
tion that he requires a holida}^ the next
day."
'* Now, Roland, don't be so hard upon
him. You would apprentice him to that
vile law, which is quite unfit for a gentle-
man. I am not surprised at his being
overcome by such odious labour ; you
would not take my advice, remember, and
put him into the only profession fit for
one of his birth — the army. Whatever
happens, the fault is your own. It is
clear, however, that he cannot get into
much mischief where he is just now — a
rural and quiet part of Kent, she says.
It shows the innocence of his heart to go
there."
" Very likely. But if he wanted change,
he might have asked leave to come home,
I think. However, we shall have him
here soon enough."
" How you speak, Roland ! Quite as
if you cared not a farthing for your only
son ! It must be dreadfully galling to
him, to see how you prefer that Alice."
" If he is galled, he never winces," an-
swered Sir Roland, with a quiet smile ;
"he is the most careless fellow in the
world."
" And the most good-natured, and the
tnost affectionate," said Lady Valeria,
warmly. " Nothing else could' keep him
from being jealous, as nine out of ten
vvould be. However, I am tired of talk-
ng now, and on that subject I might talk
:orever. Take away that case, if you
Dlease, and the writing. On no account
vould I have them left here. Of course
/ou will lock them away securely, and
lot think of meddling with them. What
s that case made of ? "
" I can scarcely make out. Something
strong and heavy. A mixture, I think, of
ihagreen and some metal. But the odd-
est thing of all is the keyhole. It is at
he top of the cone, you see, and of the
trangest shape, an irregular heptagon,
vith some rare complication of points in-
side. It would be next to impossible to
open this case without shattering it alto-
gether."
" I do not wish to examine the case, I
wish to have it taken away, my son.
There, there, I am very glad not to see it,
although I am sure I am not supersti-
tious. We shall do very well, I trust,
without it. I think it is a most extraor-
dinary thing that your father never con-
sulted me about the writing handed down
to you. He must have been bound by
some pledge not to do so. There, Ro-
land, I am tired of the subject."
With these words, the ancient lady
waved her delicate hand, and dismissed
her son, who kissed her white forehead,
according to usage, and then departed
with case and parchment locked in the
oaken box again. But the more he
thought over her behaviour, the more he
was puzzled about it. He had fully ex-
pected a command to open the case, at
whatever hazard ; and perhaps he had
been disappointed at receiving no such
order. But above all, he wanted to know
why his mother should have been taken
aback, as she was, by the sight of these
little things. For few people, even in the
prime of life, possessed more self-com-
mand and courage than Lady Valeria,
now advancing into her eighty-second
year.
CHAPTER XXIII.
At the top of the hill, these lofty
themes were being handled worthily ;
while, at the bottom, little cares had equal
glance of the democrat sun, but no stars
allotted to regard them. In plain Eng-
lish,— Bonny and Jack were as busy as
their betters. They had taken their usual
round that morning, seeking the staff of
life — if that staff be applicable to a don-
key— in village, hamlet, and farmhouse,
or among the lanes and hedges. The
sympathy and good-will between them
daily grew more intimate, and their tastes
more similar ; so that it scarcely seemed
impossible that Bonny in the end might
learn to eat clover, and Jack to rejoice in
money. Open air and roving life, the ups
and downs of want and weal, the free-
dom of having nothing to lose, and the
joyful luck of finding things — these, and
perhaps a little spice of unknown sweet-
ness in living at large on their fellow-
creatures' labours, combined to make
them as happy a pair as the day was long,
or the weather good. In the winter —
ah ! why should we think of such trouble ?
Perhaps there never will be winter again.
212
ALICE LORRAINE.
At any rate, Bonny was sitting in front
of the door of his castle (or rather in
front of the doorway, because he was hap-
py enough not to have a door), as proud
and contented as if there could never
be any more winter of discontent. He
had picked up a hat in a ditch that day,
lost by some man going home from his
Inn ; and knowing from his patron, the
pigman Bottler, that the surest token of a
blameless life is to be found in the hat of
a man, the boy, stirred by the first heave
of ambition, had put on this hat, and was
practising hat-craft (having gone with his
head as it was born hitherto), to the utter
surprise, and with the puzzled protest, of
his beloved donkey. It was a most steady
church-going hat of the chimney-pot or-
der (then newly imported into benighted
regions, but now of the essence of a god-
ly life all over this free country), neither
was it such a shocking bad hat as a man
would cast away, if his wife were near.
For Bonny's young head it was a world
too wide, but he had padded it with a
blackbird's nest ; and though it seemed
scarcely in harmony with his rakish waist-
coat, and bare red shanks (spread on the
grass for exhibition, and starred with
myriad furze and bramble), still he was
conscious of a distinguished air, and
nodded to the donkey to look at him.
While these were gazing at one
another, with free interchange of opinion,
the rector of the parish, on his little pony,
turned the corner suddenly. He was on
his way home, at the bottom of the
coombe, not in the very best temper
perhaps, in spite of the sport in prospect ;
because Sir Roland had met so unkindly
his kind desire to know things.
" What have you got on your lap,
boy ? " Mr. Hales so strongly shouted,
that sulky Echo pricked her ears ; and
"on your lap, boy," went all around.
Bonny knew well what was on his lap,
a cleverly plaited hare-wire. Bottler had
shown him how to do it, and now he was
practising diligently, under the auspices
of his first hat. Mr. Hales was a "beak,"
of course ; and the aquiline beak of the
neighbourhood. Bonny had the honour
of his acquaintance in that fierce aspect,
and in no other. The little boy knew
that there was a church, and that great
people went there once a week, for very
great people to blow them up. But this
only made him the more uneasy, to clap
his bright eyes on the parson.
" Hold there ! whoa ! " called the Rev.
Struan, as Bonny for his life began to
cut away ; " boy, I want to talk to
you."
Bonny was by no means touched with
this very fine benevolence. Taking, per-
haps, a low view of duty, he made the
ground hot, to escape what we now call
the "sacerdotal office." But Struan
Hales (unlike our parsons) knew how to
manage the laity. He clapped himself
and his pony, in no time, between Mas-
ter Bonny and his hole, and then in calm
dignity called a halt, with his riding-whip
ready at his button-hole.
" It is, it is, it is ! " cried Bonny,
coming back with his head on his chest,
and meaning (in the idiom of the land)
that now he was beaten, and would hold
parley.
" To be sure it is ! " the rector an-
swered, keeping a good balance on his
pony, and well pleased with his own tac-
tics. He might have chased Bonny for
an hour in vain, through the furze, and
heather, and blackberries ; but here he
had him at his mercy quite, through his
knowle'dge of human nature. To put
it coarsely — as the rector did in his
mental process haply — the bigger thief
anybody is, the more sacred to him is his
property. Not that Bonny was a thief at
all ; still, that was how Mr. Hales looked
at it. In the flurry of conscience, the
boy forgot that a camel might go through
the eye of a needle with less exertion
than the parish incumbent must use to
get into the Bonny-castle.
" Oh hoo, oh hoo, oh hoo ! " howled
Bonny, having no faith in clerical honour,
and foreseeing the sack of his palace, and
home.
" Give me that wire," said Mr. Hales,
in a voice from the depth of his waist-
coat. " Now, my boy, would you like to
be a good boy ?"
"No, sir; no, sir ; oh no, plaize, sir!
Jack nor me couldn't bear it, sir."
" Why not, my boy ? It is such a fine
thing. Your face shows that you are a
sharp boy. Why do you go on living in
a hole, and poaching, and picking, and
stealing ? "
" Plaize, sir, I never steals nothin',
without it is somethin' as don't belong to
me."
" That may be. But why should you
steal even that ? Shall I go in, and stea
your things now ? "
" Oh hoo, oh hoo, oh hoo ! Plaize, sir
I han't got nothin' for 'e to steal."
" I am not at all sure of that," said tht
rector, looking at the hermit's hole long
ALICE LORRAINE.
213
ingly ; "a thief's den is often as good as
the bank. Now, who taught you how to
make this snare ? I thought I knew
them pretty well ; but this wire has a
dodge quite new to me. Who taught
you, you young scamp, this moment ? "
" Plaize, sir, I can't tell 'e, sir. No-
body taught me, as I knows on."
"You young liar, you couldn't teach
yourself. What you mean is, that you
don't choose to tell me. Know I must,
and know I will, if I have to thresh it out
of you." He had seized him now by his
gorgeous waistcoat, and held the strong
horsewhip over his back. " Now, will
you tell, or will you not ? "
" I 'ont, I 'ont. If 'e kills me, I 'ont,"
the boy cried, wriggling vainly, and with
great tears of anticipation rolling down
his sunburnt cheeks.
The parson admired the pluck of the
boy, knowing his own great strength of
course, and feeling that if he began to
smite, the swing of his arm would in-
crease his own wrath, and carry him per-
haps beyond reason. Therefore he
offered him one chance more. " Will
you tell, sir, or will you not ? "
" I 'ont tell ; that I 'ont," screamed
Bonny ; and at the word the lash de-
scended. But only once, for the smiter
in a moment was made aware of a dusty
rush, a sharp roar of wrath, and great
teeth flashing under mighty jaws. And
perhaps he would never have walked
again if he had not most suddenly
wheeled his pony, and just escaped a
tremendous snap, well aimed at his
comely and gartered calf.
" Ods bods ! " cried the parson, as he
saw the jackass (with a stretched-out
neck, and crest erect, eyes flashing fire,
and a lashing tail, and, worst of all ter-
rors, those cavernous jaws) gathering
legs for a second charge, like an Attic
trireme, Phormio's own, backing water
for the diecplus.
" May I be dashed," the rector shouted,
"if I deal any more with such animals !
If I had only got my hunting-crop ; but,
kuk, kuk, kuk, pony ! Quick, for God's
sake ! Off with you ! "
With a whack of full power on the
pony's flanks, away went he at full gal-
lop ; while Jack tossed his white nose
with high disdain, and then started at a
round trot in pursuit, to scatter them
more disgracefully, and after them sent
a fine flourish of trumpets, to the grand
old national air of hee-haw.
While the Rev. Struan Hales was thus
in sore discomfiture fleeing away as hard
as his pony could be made to go, and
casting uneasy glances over one shoulder
at his pursuer, behold, he almost rode
over a traveller footing it lightly round a
sudden corner of the lane.
"Why, Uncle Struan ! " exclaimed the
latter ; " is the dragon of St. Leonard's
after you ? Or is this the usual style of
riding of the beneficed clergy ? "
" Hilary, my dear boy," answered the
rector; "who would have thought of
seeing you ? You are come just in time
to defend your uncle from a ravenous
beast of prey. I was going home to bait
a badger, but I have had a pretty good
bait myself. Ah, you pagan, you may
well be ashamed of yourself, to attack
your clergyman ! "
For Jack, perceiving the reinforcement,
and eyeing the stout stick which Hilary
bore, prudently turned on his tail and de-
parted, well satisfied with his exploit.
"Why, Hilary, what has brought you
home ? " asked his uncle, when a few
words had passed concerning Jack's be-
haviour. " Nobody expects you, that I
know of. Your father is a mysterious
man ; but Alice would have been sure to
tell me. Moreover, you must have
walked all the way from the stage, by the
look of your buckles, or perhaps from
Brighton even."
" No ; I took the short cut over the
hills, and across by way of Deeding.
Nobody expects me, as you say. I am
come on important business."
" And, of course, I am not to know
what it is. For mystery, and for keeping
secrets, there never was such a family."
" As if you did not belong to it, uncle ! "
Hilary answered, good-naturedly. " I
never heard of any secrets that I can re-
member."
" And good reason too," replied the
rector ; " they would not long have been
secrets, my boy, after they came to your
ears, I doubt."
"Then let me establish my reputation
by keeping my own, at any rate. But
after all, it is no secret, uncle. Only, my
father ought to know it first."
" Alas, you rogue, you rogue ! Some-
thing about money, no doubt. You used
to condescend to come to me when you
were at school and college. But now,
you are too grand for the purse of any
poor Sussex rector. I could put off our
badger for half-an-hour, if you think you
could run down the hill again. I should
like you particularly to see young Fox ;
it will be something grand, my boy. He
is the best pup I ever had in all my life."
214
ALICE LORRAINE.
" I know him uncle ; I know what he
is. I chose him first out of the litter,
you know. But you must not think of
waiting for me. If I come down the hill
again, it will only be about eight o'clock
for an hour's rabbit-shooting."
Since he first met Mabel Lovejoy,
Hilary had been changing much, and in
every way for the better. Her gentle-
ness, and soft regard, and simple love of
living things (at a time when cruelty was
the rule, and kindness the rare excep-
tion), together with her knowledge of a
great deal more than he had ever no-
ticed in the world around, made him feel,
in his present vein of tender absence
from her, as if he never could bear to
see the baiting of any badger. There-
fore he went on his way to his father,
pitying all things that were tormented.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Sir Roland Lorraine, in his little
book-room, after that long talk with his
mother, had fallen back into the chair of
reflection, now growing more and more
dear to him. He hoped for at least a
good hour of peace to think of things,
and to compare them with affairs that he
had read of. It was all a trifle, of course,
and not to be seriously dwelt upon. No
man could have less belief in star, or
comet, or even sun, as glancing out of
their proper sphere or orbit, at the dust
of earth. No man smiled more disdain-
fully at the hornbooks of seers and as-
trologers ; and no man kept his own firm
doubtings to himself more carefully.
And yet he was touched, as nobody
now would be in a case of that sort, per-
haps, by the real grandeur of that old
man in devoting himself (according to
his lights) to the stars that might come
after him. Of these the brightest now
broke in ; and the dreamer's peace was
done for.
What man has not his own queer little
turns ? Sir Roland knew quite well the
step at the door — for Hilary's walk was
beyond mistake ; yet what did he do but
spread hands on his forehead, and to
the utmost of all his ability — sleep ?
Hilary looked at his male parent with
affectionate sagacity. He had some little
doubts about his being asleep, or at any
rate, quite so heartily as so good a man
had a right to repose. Therefore, in-
stead of withdrawing, he spoke.
" My dear father, I hope you are well.
I am sorry to disturb you, but — how do
you do, sir ; how do you do ? "
The schoolboy's rude answer to this
kind inquiry — " None the better for see-
ing you" — passed through Hilary's
mind, at least, if it did not enter his fa-
ther's. However, they saluted each
other as warmly as can be expected rea-
sonably of a British father and a British
son ; and then they gazed at one an-
other, as if it was the first time either
had enjoyed that privilege.
" Hilary, I think you are grown," Sir
Roland said to break the silence, and
save his lips from the curve of a yawn.
" It is time for you to give up growing."
" I gave it up, sir, two years ago ; if
the standard measures of the realm are
correct. But perhaps you refer to some-
thing better than material increase. If
so, sir, I am pleased that you think so."
"Of cojrse you are," his father an-
swered ; " you would have grown out of
yourself, to have grown out of pleasant
self-complacency. How did you leave Mr.
Malahide ? Very well ? Ah, I am glad to
hear it. The law is the healthiest of pro-
fessions ; and that your countenance
vouches. But such a colour requires food
after fifty miles of travelling. We shall
not dine for an hour and a half. Ring the
bell, and I will order something while
you go and see your grandmother."
" No, thank you, sir. If you can spare
the time, I should like to have a little
talk with you. It is that which has
brought me down from London in this
rather unceremonious way."
" Spare me apologies, Hilary, because I
am so used to this. It is a great plea-
sure to see you, of course, especially when
you look so well. Quite as if there were
no such thing as mon ?y — which hap-
pens to you continually, and is your pan-
acea for moneyed cares. But would not
the usual form have done — a large sheet
of paper (with tenpence to pay), and, ' My
dear father, I have no ready cash — your
dutiful son, H. L. ' ? "
" No, my dear father," said Hilary,
laughing in recognition of his favourite
form ; "it is a much more important af-
fair tills time. Money, of course, I have
none, but still, I look upon that as noth-
ing. You cannot say that I ever show
any doubt as to your liberality."
"You are quite right. I have never
complained of such diffidence on your
part. But what is this matter far more
important than money in your estimate 1 "
" Well, I scarcely seem to know," said
Hilary, gathering all his courage, " wheth-
er there is in all the world a thing so im-
portant as money."
" That is quite a new view for you to
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
215
take. You have thrown all your money
right and left. May I hope that this view
will be lasting ? "
" Yes, I think, sir, that you may. I am
about to do a thing which will make
money very scarce with me."
" I can think of nothing," his father
answered, with a little impatience at his
prologues, " which can make money any
scarcer than it always is with you. I
know that you are honourable, and that
you scorn low vices. When that has
been said of you, Hilary, there is very
little more to say."
" There might have been something
more to say, my dear father, but for you.
You have treated me always as a gentle-
man treats a younger gentleman depend-
ent upon him — and no more. You have
exchanged (as you are doing now) little
snap-shots with me, as if I were a sharp-
shooter, and upon a level with you. I am
not upon a level with you. And if it is
kind it is not fair play."
Sir Roland looked at him with great
surprise. This was not like Hilary.
Hilary, perhaps, had never been under
fatherly control as he ought to be ; but
still, he had taken things easily as yet,
and held himself shy of conflict.
" I scarcely understand you, Hilary,"
Sir Roland answered quietly. " If you
have any grievance, surely there will be
time to discuss it calmly, during the long
vacation, which you are now beginning so
early."
" I fear, sir, that I shall not have the
pleasure of spending my long vacation
here. I have done a thing which I am
not sure that you will at all approve of."
" That is to say, you are quite sure
that I shall disapprove of it."
" No, my dear father ; I hope not quite
so bad as that, at any rate. I shall be
quite resigned to leave you to think of it
at your leisure. It is simply this — I
have made up my mind, if I can obtain
your consent, to get married."
" Indeed ! " exclaimed his father, with
a smile of some contempt. " I will not
say that I am surprised ; for nothing you
do surprises me. But who has inspired
this new whim, and how long will it en-
dure ? "
" All my life ! " the youth replied, with
fervour and some irritation ; for his fa-
ther alone of living beings knew how to
irritate him. " All my life, sir, as sure as
I live ! Can you never believe that I am
in earnest ?. "
" She must be a true enchantress so to
have improved your character ! May I
venture to ask who she is ? "
" To be sure, sir. She lives in Kent,
and her name is Mabel Lovejoy, the
daughter of Mr. Martin Lovejoy."
" Lovejoy ! A Danish name, I be-
lieve ; and an old one in its proper form.
What is Mr. Martin Lovejoy by profes-
sion, or otherwise ? "
" By profession he is a very worthy
and long-established grower."
" A grower ! I fail to remember that
branch of the liberal professions."
" A grower, sir, is a gentleman who
grows the fruits of the earth, for the good
of others."
" What we should call a * spade hus-
bandman,' perhaps. A healthful and
classic industry — under the towers of
CEbalia. I beg to be excused all further
discussion ; as I never use strong lan-
guage. Perhaps you will go and enlist
your grandmother's sympathy with this
loyal attachment to the daughter of the
grower."
" But, sir, if you would only allow
me "
" Of course ; if I would only allow yo\i
to describe her virtues — but that is just
what I have not the smallest intention of
allowing. Let the wings of imagination
spread themselves in a more favourable
direction. This interview must close on
my part with a suggestive (but per-
haps self-evident) proposition. Hilary,
the door is open."
From Macmillan's Magazine.
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
Rembrandt, Ostade, Vandyke, and
Claude — these are the four masters of
the art of etching; and it is in virtue of
their mastery of that art that they receive
from many a more enthusiastic admira-
tion than that which their painted pictures
call forth from all the world. But what
is the nature of that less popular art
which they practised ? To draw upon
the varnished surface of a copper plate,
with a steel point, the lines that are to
give the form and light and shadow of
your picture ; to bite those lines by the
application of a bath of acid, and finally
to transfer your work to paper with ink
and a printing-press — that, as far as one
rough sentence can explain it, is the pro-
cess of etching. It is, in many ways, the
2l6
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
complement of the art of mezzotinting.
The mezzotinter works by spaces, the
etcher by lines. And Turner, in the most
interesting and most important of his
serial works, the Liber Studioruin^ effect-
ed that marriage of the two arts which,
strange to say, has never been repeated.
He etched the leading lines of his studies,
and mezzotint, executed sometimes under
his own supervision and sometimes by
his own hand, accomplished the rest.
Yet one does not class him among the
great etchers, because he only used etch-
ing to perform that which by the other
process could not have been performed
at all. He etched with immense preci-
sion and power all that he meant to etch ;
but he reserved his effects — the things
for which he cared — for the other art.
That alone clothed the skeleton, and vis-
ibly embodied the spirit of each picture.
But when one speaks of the great etchers,
one speaks of those who gave to their art
a wider field, and claimed from it a great-
er result. They too, like Turner, worked
by lines, but their lines were a thousand
to his one ; for they were the end as well
as the beginning — they made the picture,
and did not only prepare for it.
The work of the great etchers was
usually speedy. Their minds had other
qualities than those of the line engravers.
On the one side there was quiet intelli-
gence, patience, and leisurely attention to
detail; on the other, rapid sympathy, in-
stinctive recognition, and either a vehe-
ment passion for the thing beheld and to
be drawn, or else, at the least, a keen
delight in it. The patience and leisure
were for Marc Antonio, the passion was
for Rembrandt, the delight for Claude.
It is perhaps because Vandyke was by
a very few years the earliest of the etch-
ers— save Albert Diirer, whose greatest
achievements were all in a different art —
that one finds in many of his prints a
poverty of means, never indeed to be con-
fused with weakness or with failure, but
tending now and then to lessen the effect
and meaning of his work. He was a
genuine etcher : there was never a more
genuine. But if you think of him with
Rembrandt and with Claude — the two
great masters who in point of time were
ever so little behind him — there comes
perhaps to your mind some thought of
the diligent schoolboy whose round-hand
and whose large-hand are better than his
teacher's, but who can write only between
those rigid lines which for himself the
teacher would discard. Or, if that simile
appear offensive, think of the difference
between certain musicians : think of the
precision of Arabella Goddard — that
faultless, measured, restrained interpreta-
tion— and then of Joachim's artistic in-
dividuality : firmness at will, a resolute
self-control, minute exactness, and then,
suddenly, and but for an instant, the
divine ^decision which is the last expres-
sion of supreme mastery, because it is
the sign that creator and interpreter are
fused into one. But there may be other
causes than the one I have suggested for
that which, define it how we will, seems
lacking to Vandyke. Perhaps not in
etching only — that process without pre-
cedents— is he something less than he
might have been. As a painter, the high-
est examples were before him. But did
he fully profit by them ?
He is born in 1599 — ^'^^ son of traders
who are wealthy — and early showing
signs of his particular ability, he has no
difficulty in entering the studio of Ru-
bens. That master much appreciates
him. The youth gives still increasing
promise ; and he is well advised in early
manhood to set out for Italy, so that he
may study the treasures of Venice, Flor-
ence and Rome. But he has not passed
out of his native Flanders before he is
enamoured of a young country girl. He
wavers. The love of her detains him
many months. He is quite happy, paint-
ing the portraits of her kinsmen. He
has forgotten Italy. Remonstrance on
remonstrance comes from Rubens, and it
is thanks to this persistence that he
finally sets forth. There is then a five
years' absence. No absence so long was
ever less fruitful in direct influence ; and
now he is busy at Antwerp. In 1632 he
travels to England, hoping for greater
gain than work in his native city affords ;
and he is early patronized by the king, by
the Lords Strafford and Pembroke, and
by Sir Kenelm Digby, whose wife's por-
trait (she was the Lady Venetia Stanley)
he paints four times. He does not neg-
lect his work, but he does not feed and
enrich his faculty. He is amiable, no
doubt ; he is dashing and brilliant too.
But it does not occur to any one to say
that he is wise. He dresses lavishly. In
the matter of display he attempts an un-
reasonable rivalry with the wealthiest of
the nobles — runs that race which an artist
rarely wins, and then wins only at the
price of a fatal injury. Vandyke keeps
an open house for his friends — an open
purse for his mistresses.* And in due
* One of these — Margaret Lemon — appears, says
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
217
time he finds he is impoverished — not
destitute, indeed, nor living meanly, but
shorn of many of his delights. He is
advised to marry, and there is found for
him the daughter of an eminent physician
— Maria Ruthven is her name. With
her, in 1640, he goes to Flanders and to
France, hoping that Louis Treize will
employ him in the decoration of the
Louvre, and stirred probably by the am-
bition to do higher work than portrait
painting. But Nicholas Poussin is en-
gaged before Vandyke puts in his claim,
and Vandyke must return to England,
though English air, in the world of poli-
tics lind fashion, is thick with a coming
trouble. Sir Anthony is ill — ill and
unhopeful — and though the king is so
far interested in the court-painter as to
offer naively a gratuity of three hundred
pounds to the physician who can save his
life, neither royal interest nor medical
skill is of any long avail, and Sir Anthony
dies on the 9th day of December, 1641 —
the day of the baptism of his newly-born
child. That child — Maria Ruthven's —
is not his only child ; for in the will made
but a few days before his death there is
pathetic mention of "my daughter be-
yond sea : " and one can fancy that with
that wife beside him whom friends had
persuaded him to marry, so that his life
might be quieter, he, " weake of body, yet
enjoying his senses, memorie, and under-
standinge," thinks somewhat of the long
past pleasure days — the bright begin-
ning, in contrast with this end.
Mr. W. H. Carpenter, who has cata-
logued his etchings, assigns to him but
twenty-four. No less than twenty of
these are portraits of men. But Mr.
Carpenter "does not feel justified in
omitting thirteen other etchings, chiefly
of sacred and allegorical subjects." With
these, in this paper, we have nothing to
do.
The practical etcher will praise Van-
dyke for the frankness and simplicity of
his work ; for an economy of labour
which up to a given point shows only as
artistic excellence, and is the proof of
knowledge and power. Yet again, it is
carried sometimes too near to meagre-
ness, and the praise needs must stop.
Does the artist, on the other hand, seek
to avail himself to the full of the resources
of his art .? — then some fault of concep-
tion or execution which slighter work
an authority, " to have been a woman of much noto-
riety." There are prints after one of the portraits
which Vandyke painted of her, by Hollar, Gaywood,
Lommelin, and Morin.
would have left to be unnoticed, or would
not even have carried with it at all, is
very plainly apparent. A sky is hard
and wooden ; a background is artificial.
Where is the tonality which would have
been given by the more complete master ?
On the whole, then, it is possible that
Vankyke is best when he sketches. The
lines of the figure, the lines of the face,
this and that trait of character, generally
true, yet generally not far below the sur-
face— all this Vandyke can render rapid-
ly and readily — a clear thought, not a
profound one, expressed with an accurate
hand. Here is a cloak set as gracefully
as Mr. Irving's in the play. Here is a
bearing as manly — but it is more the
manner than the man. Here, too, is a
sugfsfestion of a collar of lace. How well
that lies on the broad shoulders ! Some-
times the mind is seized as w-ell as the
raiment. The portrait of Snellinx has
infinite rough vigour. This man was a
painter of battles — there is battle in his
eye and in his firm right hand. Will you
see a contented countenance ; a mind at
rest, with no thought of a pose ; a grace-
ful head, with long and black disordered
hair ; a calm intelligence, in eyes and
mouth ? Look, then, at Paul Pontius, the
Antwerp engraver. He is a worthy gal-
lant, standing there, with visible firm
throat, stout arm, and dexterous hand.
The collar's lace-work makes the firm
throat yet more massive by its contrast:
the many-folded garment hides nothing of
the plain line of that rounded, stalwart
arm. There is no date engraved upon
the plate, and none is positively known
for the man's birth or death ; but on an
early impression in the Museum Print-
Room I see written by a German hand,
" Paulus Pontius, geboren 1603," and one
takes the portrait to be that of a man
close upon seven-and-twenty. It was
etched, therefore, in the prime of Van-
dyke, in 1630, or thereabouts — a year or
two before he settled in England.
For pure etching, nothing is finer or
more spirited than the print of Antonius
Cornelissen, the burly, middle-aged, and
rich " collector." And yet one turns
away from all with no other impression
than that which was formed almost at the
beginning. Surely, one says, in the com-
pany of artists Vandyke is motioned to
too great a place. Technical qualities
apart, the value of his work as an etcher
is precisely that of his work as a painter.
There is the same mind in it — that, and
no more — a mind courtier-like, refined,
chivalrous, observant, thoughtful at inter-
2l8
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
vais ; yet not of the highest at any point ;
neither the noblest nor the keenest, nor
even near to these. Deducting here and
there a great exception — such as that
grave and gracious Sir Kenelm Digby, in
the billiard-room at Knole — his subjects,
as he has represented them, are not free
from the suspicion of " posing." There
is little intensity in his artistic tempera-
ment ; little real appreciation of beauty,
or of the truest force. A touch of affec-
tation has no repugnance for him. His
works in the main seem wanting in the
unerring directness, the unerring strength
of a great man's message sent forth from
mind to mind.
II.
Roughly speaking, all our great etch-
ers were contemporaries ; and while Van-
dyke was a child, there was born, at Lii-
beck, Adrian van Ostade. Particulars of
his life are not abundant, and if we may
judge both from that little which has de-
scended to us of his story and from the
• cold and cynical observant face which
makes the frontispiece to his collection of
etchings, they would not bear with them
any dramatic interest. His life is in his
work, and his work is great in quantity
and in such qualities as are technical.
He came, when very young, to Haerlem,
to study under Franz Hals — was the fel-
low pupil and intimate friend of Brauwer
— and in the city of his adoption he soon
found ample and remunerative labour.
As years passed on, his success and repu-
tation became more general and distin-
guished, and it is not likely that he would
ever have quitted Haerlem, had not diffi-
cult times loomed in sight.
Alarmed at the approach of French
troops, in 1662, he prepares to leave Hol-
land and return to his own land. He
sells his pictures and effects with this in-
tention, and gets as far as Amsterdam,
whence he will embark for Liibeck. But
in Amsterdam he is well received — his
fame has gone before him — and an ama-
teur called Constantine Senneport pre-
vails on him to be his guest. The new
friend explains to Ostade the advantages
of remaining in a town so great and
rich ; and Ostade, with whom love of
country held, we may be sure, a very sec-
ondary place when love of money had any
need to clash with it, is soon persuaded
to stay. In Amsterdam, therefore, his
easel is set up ; his works are purchased
with avidity — they are ordered even
more promptly than with all his perse-
verance they can be executed — and
with increasing celebrity Ostade pursues
his labour until old age is well upon him.
He dies in Amsterdam in 1685, aged
seventy-five, leaving, in addition to some
three-hundred highly-finished pictures,
many drawings which were done, it is be-
lieved, as much for pleasure as for studies
of his more arduous works, and fifty etch-
ings in which most of the characteristics
of his paintings are reproduced with a
dexterity, a mastery of manner, which,
whatever be the change of fashion and of
culture, will insure for him high rank, as
one among the few great etchers.
An accomplished and often sympathetic
critic, who has made of etching his par-
ticular study, has been unusually severe
upon the work of Ostade : not, of course,
upon its technical merits — respecting
which severity itself must give way to ad-
miration— but upon the sentiment that
it expresses by touches so direct, keen,
unmistakable. Composition and chiaro-
scuro, perfect as the subjects selected can
possibly give scope for — these two great
qualities Mr. Hamerton allows in Ostade's
work. But the sentiment he finds wholly
repulsive : repulsive from end to end.
The condemnation, though true enough
in the main, is certainly a little too sweep-
ing. It is true — need I repeat? — of
much of his work : of much even of that
which is technically the best. In the
"Tavern Dance " and in "Rustic Court-
ship," " the males pursue the females ; "
while in " The Family," " the female gives
suck to her young." It is all animal.
And yet a sentiment quite other than this
is now and again conveyed ; and in enu-
merating these pieces, one should not for-
get those others — how, for instance, in
" The Painter " the calm pursuit of labour
for labour's sake is well expressed ; how
in " The Spectacle-Seller " a rustic or
suburban incident is depicted with point
and simplicity. There is nothing animal
in " The Knife-Grinder ; " it is a little
bourgeois scene of no elevation, but of
easily recognized truth. In the " Peasant
Family saying Grace" there is even a
little spirituality,* a homely but genuine
piety; though the types are poor, with
no natural dignity — the father as unin-
telligent and sheep-like a parent as ever
fostered his young, and accepted without
struggle or questioning a life of the dull-
est monotony. Again, in the " Peasant
paying his Reckoning" — the finest and
most fascinating, I should say, of Os-
* How this spiritually struck the refined mind of
Goethe may be seen in "Goethe and Mendelssohn,"
2nd Edition, p. 70.
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
219
tade's smaller plates — it is not the dull
bliss of boozing that is primarily thought
of, dwelt upon, or presented, but rather
the whole scene of this interior — paying
peasant who fumbles for the coin, and
watchful hostess, and still abiding guests.
How good is the space : how good the
accessories! — the leisure, how delight-
ful ! It is a tavern indeed, but somehow
glorified by art. For accurate delicacy of
perception, for dexterous delicacy of exe-
cution, what is there that surpasses this ?
But do you, on the other hand, wish to
see work which shall abundantly confirm
Mr. Hamerton's opinion of Ostade — al-
ready partly justified, as I have indicated,
by " The Family," " Rustic Courtship,"
and the "Tavern Dance," — then you
will turn to the pieces numbered 13 and
50 in the catalogue of Bartsch. The first
of these is called "The Smokers:" it
represents three men, one of whom sits
upon a turned-up cask. Chiaroscuro is
good, and grouping is good ; and that is
all. There is as little subject for the
mind as beauty for the eye ; there is
nothing of the character with which
Meissonier endows such a scene. The
second represents an interior with many
peasants, of whom some are children and
the rest of mature years. They are all
delighting in and commending to each
other this drink and that — this and that
savoury mouthful that fitly crowns with
sensual jollity the labour of the day.
Securae reddamus tempora mensx
Venit post multos una serena dies.
Take Adrian van Ostade out of doors,
and he is a little better. In open air,
somehow, he is less grossly animal.
Not that in presence of a wide landscape
and far-reaching vista there is any hope-
fulness in him. His own vista is bound-
ed as before. It is not the landscape
that he sees with his mind, but the near
pursuit of the peasant by the roadside,
the peasant by the bridge. In " The
Fishers," two boys, with old men's faces,
bend over the bridge's railings, and over
them hangs a grey Dutch sky, monoto-
nous and dreary as their lives. A wide
landscape says nothing to Ostade. It is
too great for him — he is never con^
cerned with the infinite in any way. But
just outside the cottage door — on the
bench, within easy reach of ale-house
tap — he and his work are happiest and
best. Here is evoked such sense of
beauty as he is dowered with by Nature,
which is never profuse to him — such
sense of beauty as the conditions of his
Netherlands life have enabled him to
keep and cultivate. Thus, in " La Fete
sous la Treille " we have some charm of
open-air life, much movement, some vi-
vacity, and here and there a gleam of
grace. In the group of " The Charlatan "
there is some dramatic interest, and
there are characters more varied than he
is wont to present. But as we have seen
him in his interiors alive to the pictu-
resqueness of litter — sprawling brush
and pot and saucer, and strewn cards
upon the floor — so let us take leave of
him in recognizing that he was alive also
to the picturesqueness of Nature, when
that was shown in little things of quite
familiar appearance, and alive too, now
and again, to such picturesqueness as
men can make. The last he proves by
the care and thought and delicacy he
bestows on the often prominent quaint
lines of diamond-patterned casements ;
and the first, by the lightness and sensi-
tiveness of his touch when he draws the
leaf and tendril of the vine by the house-
wall, as it throws its slight cool shadow
on the rustic bench, or curls waywardly
into the now open window, through
which there glances for a moment (brief
indeed in Ostade's life !) a little of the
happy sunshine of De Hooghe.
ra.
Well, we have come now to the chief-
est among our Masters of Etching — the
last Dutchman with whom we have to
deal — he in whose work is resumed the
excellence and power of the whole Neth-
erlands school : he whose art, like that
of our own more limited Hogarth, is an
art of " remonstrance," and not of " rap-
ture."
Rembrandt has had biographers enough ;
but their disagreements have involved his
life in mystery. Latest research appears,
however, to show that he was born in
1606 — on the 15th of July — and that he
died at Amsterdam with proper bourgeois
comfort, and not at Stockholm, miserably,
in the first days of October, 1669. The
son of a miller, whose mill was in the
city of Leyden, he went to college in that
city as boy and youth ; and in days be-
fore it was the fashion, in the backward
North, to be a painter of culture, he neg-
lected his studies to grapple early with
art. Owing little even of technical ex-
cellence to any master at all — owing
most to perseverance and set purpose,
and ready hand and observant eye — he
settled in Amsterdam in 1630, when
twenty-four years old : sure already to
220
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
find profitable service in fixing upon can-
vas no fleeting beauty of maiden or child,
but those stern burgher faces, laden with
thought and with past toil, which even
then charmed and impressed him more
strongly than any other thing he saw in
the bounded city streets or under the far-
reaching skies — skies, you remember,
that stretched, like a grey canopy, over
those flats of field, canal, and foot-bridge
which formed the landscape of his youth,
and touched by a magic hand, passed
long afterwards into the landscape of his
art.
His success was early : perhaps not
very brilliant at the beginning, but from
the first substantial. He has taken to
etching two years before his settlement
in Amsterdam, and has pursued that art
diligently during the first years of his
residence. His mother's face — wise,
worthy, and even handsome ; his own
face, rough and keen, and beautiful, like
his work, by its expression ; incidents,
light or low, of the city streets or long-
stretching highways — these are his sub-
jects in the earlier years. Then he turns
to religious work, and then to portrait-
painting. It is probable that he painted
many an obscure portrait before we have
record of his labours in this kind ; but
however that may be, he gradually takes
his place in good burgher society — rich,
pious, or intellectual — executing, in
1635, his portrait of Uytenbogaert, the
minister of the sect known as the Re-
monstrants ; in 1636, the portrait of
Janus Sylvius. This second divine was
probably made known to him through his
young wife — for Rembrandt, prospering
early, had somewhat early married : had
married, too, a woman of fair fortune and
good position in the town. Saskia
Uylenburg was her name. She died
eight years after her marriage ; leaving
one child, a boy, Titus, who in due time
became a painter, never much known or
greatly esteemed, and who died in 1668 :
a year or two before his father.
Rembrandt, a widower, is busy with
his work and with society ; living in a
house in the Breestraat, in the Jewish
quarter, near St. Anthony's Bridge, and
collecting in that house a whole museum
of works of art: mediaeval armour, and
antique bronzes, prints by Lukas van
Leyden, and prints as precious by Man-
tegna, and oil-paintings by contemporary
hands. Mediaeval and Renaissance work
are alike interesting to him ; but it is
from the mediaeval spirit rather than
from that of the Renaissance that he
learns. In his " Christ driving the
Money-changers out of the Temple " he
takes the whole figure of Christ from a
woodcut of Albert Diirer's. Italian art
of the sixteenth century he admires, but
he borrows nothing from it. " Ce fut
prdcisement le plus grand trait de son
genie, d'avoir admird tout sans rien
imiter ; d'avoir connu les beautds d'un
autre art, et d'etre restd toujours dans le
sien."
In the Breestraat he opened his studio.
There Gerard Dow, Ferdinand Bol, Van
Vliet, Philippe de Koning, and Gerbrandt
van den Eckhout were his pupils. He
did not make mere imitators. An indi-
vidual capacity, brought within the influ-
ence of his power and fame, was strength-
ened and developed, but remained indi-
vidual still. It was for the preservation
of individuairty that he decreed that each
pupil should work unobserved of the
rest ; each in his place apart.
I have said that Rembrandt was occu-
pied with society, but not indeed with
society as the word is very often under-
stood. He sought the company of grave
and thoughtful men to feed his intellect
— sought also, I suppose, some company
less elevated, in hours when his object
was either frank diversion or the obser-
vation of things outside his common cir-
cle. His nature was developed on many
sides ; his friendships and associations
were of many kinds. Even the habits of
his home — the time and quality of his
meals — varied from day to day. Now
he has a banquet with a citizen who is
famous ; now he eats a herring and some
cheese by himself. And so one is told
that his nature was mean and stingy and '
low — that the god of his idolatry was
money, and that his best-loved friends
were friends of the pot-house in the
Breestraat. Yet this is the man who
waits all day in an auction-room to buy a
print by the great engraver of Leyden —
the man who waits there and will pay
any price rather than fail to acquire it.
This is the man to whom the great pub-
lic banker — Receiver-General to the
States of Holland — gives, year after
year, his friendship and support ; the man
who year after year is hand-in-glove with
Jan Six, a youthful burgomaster, collect-
or, and all-accomplished poet, who must
almost realize the ideal of Matthew Ar-
nold. Rembrandt was not "low " in his
tastes : his friends were the wisest men
in a sober city. He was not sordid in
his ways, adding coin to coin. Instead
of that, he added picture to picture, till
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
221
he became insolvent through love of an
art, or of a school, not his.
Not indeed that his insolvency was of
the usual sort. For household expenses
there was money enough, no doubt. But
his son Titus, being of age, was to inherit
his mother's property, and the painter
had expended some of this. To com-
plete the sum, there was a sale in the
house, and as the times were hard times
for Holland, the sale was not as fruitful
as it should have been. The value of all
works of art had suffered a depreciation ;
the proceeds of the sale left Rembrandt
in poverty, and his friends were all un-
able to help him. Their concerns were
out of joint, like his own.
And yet, in some sense, this scattering
of his precious things was a voluntary
act with Rembrandt. Had he remained
a widower, Titus could only have inherit-
ed at his father's death ; but Rembrandt
— careless in some moods, as he was
careful and sagacious in others — had
fallen in love with the fine figure of a
peasant girl, of the village of Rarep, in
Waterland. He had married the girl in
1654; and two years afterward, failing
otherwise to discharge his obligations
towards his son, there came the sale by
auction, and the apparent, nay, for a lit-
tle whih, the genuine, poverty. But
with a healthy man of genius, whose ge-
nius is recognized, things have a ten-
dency to right themselves. Soon enough
Rembrandt is paid for his work again ;
his etchings too are sought after as of
yore. He takes to academical subjects :
we know not why, unless it be that M.
Blanc's conjecture is a correct one, and
that the model is constantly his wife.
And then he ceases altogether to etch —
confines himself to work with the palette
and the brush, and then perhaps illness
comes upon him, for work of any kind is
rare, and it can hardly be that he is rich
and idle. And then there is that break
in the story of his life which has enabled
some to say that he went to England for
a while : some, that he went to Stock-
holm, and died there, miserably. The
rest is mystery, and almost silence.
There is but one more record, and it is
of recent finding, and it attests that on
the 8th day of October, 1669, in the
church called Westerkirk, in the city of
Amsterdam, there was laid down, with
all the common pomp of pall and taper,
"bell and burial," the body which during
three-and-sixty years had held the rest-
less soul of Rembrandt.
" The restless soul ! " Is that word
the key to all his variety of aims and
arts .f* — for he is various, not alone in
subjects, but in methods of expression.
Now the brush serves him ; now the tool
of the engraver ; and now the needle of
the pure etcher is the instrument with
which he works. With one or with the
other, he essays the representation of all
things within his ken : his own face,
plain and shrewd, his mother's face, his
wife's, the preacher's, burgomaster's,
printseller's ; then the gait of the beggar
on the doorstep, the aspect of the fields
and dykes beyond the town. And then
he takes the Bible for his theme, and
portrays what is told there, from Adam's
temptation to the death of Christ. Per-
haps nowhere else have you such a range
of effort : I do not say such excellence
of achievement.
Yet sometimes, even in his endeavours,
and obviously in his achievements, he
was quickly limited by the conditions of
his life and time. Take, for an instance,
his treatment of the figure. Perhaps that
shows better than anything else how very
far he was removed from th6 great mas-
ters of the Renaissance, and how — >
though it is strange to say it — he had
some fellowship with the earlier practi-
tioners of a ruder art. An Italian, bred
to work at an epoch when there were ap-
parent in glowing freshness, not only
"the materials of art," which are "at
Florence," but "the results," which are
" at Rome," devoted himself to perfec-
tion of line and modelling. He repre-
sented the body only that he might ex-
tol it ; and while Fra Angelico's labour
was prayer to the Spirit, his own was
praise to the Flesh. But certain plain
conditions were required to produce this
result ; and these conditions were want-
ing to Rembrandt and his period in the
Netherlands. The revival of learning,
and its diffusion, had flooded Italy with
the waters of Greek thought ; had stirred
in men's minds the sleeping worship of
beauty ; and had done this too at a mo-
ment when the enthusiasm of the old re-
ligion was waning and the world seemed
ripe for a change, and in a land where
there was beauty abundant to feed the
newer faith. But things were different
in the Netherlands. How could physical
qualities be one's ideal in the Nether-
lands, when the best that were to show
were those that Rembrandt has drawn in
" Diana at the Bath," and " Danae and
Jupiter"? Clearly the worship of such
beauty as that was an impossible thing.
But there are other reasons not a whit
222
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
less strong. In Holland, Protestantism
had been a safety-valve of faith. Men
had saved in sound health the half of
their creed by resolutely lopping off the
rest of it. What remained to them — to
Dutchmen of the time of Rembrandt —
was strongly alive and active ; and in the
midst of a half-hideous world, that creed
summoned them to think of a world that
was better, though they lacked imagina-
tion to conceive what the better might
be. The influence of common Protestant-
ism upon beauty in art — that may have
been wholly bad ; but this is not the
place in which to speak of it. The influ-
ence of Protestantism such as Rem-
brandt's, upon the intellectual and spirit-
ual sides of art, as art was practised at
Amsterdam — that was probably a more
mixed thing, and we do well to glance
at it ere passing on. The stunted yet
sturdy, realistic, unpoetical faith of the
Netherlanders induced in art some rec-
ognition of possible dignity in present
poverty and suffering, and did, though
very roughly, still unmistakably proclaim
that mind and spirit were masters, and
flesh but the servant of these. This
Christianity did not recoil from what was
physically hideous. Pity, remonstrance :
these were her belongings ; and they
needed but too often to be used. Pa-
tiently one must accept the ugly facts of
life, though passionately indeed one may
sorrow and declaim, if passion of remon-
strance can remove but one of them.
And thus it is that Rembrandt etches
seven-and-twenty plates representing in
diverse phases and stages the lives and
sufferings of beggar, and hunchback, and
cripple, and leper, as these crouch wretch-
edly in the corners of hovels, or uselessly
solicit some succour from the rich,
or hide in solitude their foulness and
degradation. Is it not an unparalleled
thing? — this array of the miserable.
They are not drawn, like the beggars of
Murillo, that you may behold the pictu-
resqueness of their rags ; nor like the
beggars of Callot, that you may laugh at
them and notice well the adroitness
which will serve their ends. There is no
comedy nor farce in them, nor any beauty
in their garments' shreds and patches.
They are a serious fact in life : theirs is
a common condition of humanity. So
Rembrandt drevv them, like a philoso-
pher who accepted all things ; but
touched in this case by that pity for
their Present, that hope for their Future,
which his religion had taught him.
And here his religion is distinctly a
spiritual gain to his Art. Where then,
and why, is it a loss ? It is a loss be-
cause somehow or other, with all this
useful faith in a better future — faith
which the true Renaissance held but
slackly, and showed but little in its Art
— the Art of Rembrandt has no scope
for wide imagination : no sweet and se-
cret
thing IS
revealed throus^h it : there
flows through it to the minds of men no
such divine message as even we of these
latter days can read in the art of the
earlier Florentines. True and real, very
likely — it is rarely high and interpretive.
The early Art of Italy, fed on a fuller
faith, could do more with infinitely small-
er means. Turn from the soberest of
Rembrandt's sacred pictures — the pic-
ture most filled with piteous human emo-
tion — I mean the " Death of the Virgin,"
which is real as the death of his mother
— turn from this to the still glowing can-
vas on which Botticelli has imaged his
conception of a Paradise with countless
companies of little children, children only,
round the throne of God, and in circles
ever more distant, the great ones of the
world — the last^ who wtrQ Jirst — and
you feel at once, more strongly than can
be told by any words, what Netherlands
Protestantism has cost to Rembrandt ;
for, instead of this parable and this rev-
elation, he can give you but a human sor-
row.
Look at him for a moment, such as he
is, as a religious artist ; and considerable
as are the merits forced upon your view,
you will find that other allowances will
have to be made for him than those
which you have made already on account/
of his epoch's limited though genuine
faith. Take his " Adam and Eve" — he
calls it "The Temptation" — and note
the absolute vulgarity in the conception
of that scene. What is our first father in
this print, if not a low-bred, low-minded,
but still prudent bourgeois, tempted, as
such a one conceivably might be, by the
leers of this squat woman and the good
big mouthful of rare fruit which she holds
in her outstretched hand .? No doubt a
part of the failure of this work is to be
attributed to the heavy northern ugliness
of the women of the land — an ugliness
which, more than anything else, tells
against Rembrandt in his treatment of the
nude — but part of it is due to a cause
within himself : he lacked the imagina-
tion to conceive poetically : there is noth-
ing of seductiveness in his work ; there
is nothing of sweetness ; there is very
little of pleasure.
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
223
He lacked, I say, imagination to con-
ceive poetically ; but the subject once
well found for him, he could contrive
embellishments which were effective
enough, and neither thought nor work
was spared to give it these. His im-
agination did not play happily about
the spirit and idea of the scene : it plied
its task only to add to the strangeness or
the picturesqueness of the setting. And
yet the print which all the world knows
as the " Hundred Guilder Piece " shows
that in exceptional moods Rembrandt
could conceive as worthily as he could
execute. True dignity, nay, majesty, of
attitude is shown in the " Raising of
Lazarus ; " and in the " Death of the
Virgin " the artist himself has been pro-
foundly moved — else how portray that
piteous gaze and that gesture of sorrow
and resignation which lift this work out
of the usual level of his sacred Art ! But
commonly his pictures from the Testa-
ments suffer not only under the neces-
sary conditions of Dutch Protestant
creeds, but from the absence of elevation
in the types selected, the absence of
spiritual imagination, and the temptation
to which the artist sometimes yielded to
forget his subject and its meaning, and
to see in the Scriptural groups little else
than a happy opportunity for the distri-
bution of strong lights and stronger
shadows.
Many, then, of his professedly religious
pictures had no reason to exist. They
were in truth less religious than his troop
of beggar-pictures — they were less spon-
taneous results of his own thought.
Raison d'etre is still more lacking to
some of his Academical pieces, unless
indeed one is content to allow the
presence of these without the justifying
beauty. Action, they have ; and little
else. Anatomically, the drawing is not
bad, for Rembrandt understood anatomy ;
but the figures are constantly ill-propor-
tioned. Yet certain of these pieces, if
at the same time less^ are also more than
Academical. Rembrandt did not much
believe in Diana, and troubled himself
little about Antiope. But present facts
of all kinds interested him ; and having
etched everything under the grey Dutch
sky but the bare bodies of men and wo-
men in Amsterdam, he set himself, in his
later days, to etch these. These baboon
or gorilla-like gaunt monsters of men —
"The Bathers" — it is not possible that
Rembrandt admired them, as he drew
There was more of satire than admira-
tion. And in the whole short Academi-
cal series, what strikes you most is the
cruel brutal truthfulness. There is no
glimpse of any one's ideal : not even the
poor and fleshy ideal of Rubens could be
satisfied here. These round and palpita-
ting figures — they begin well, perhaps,
but is there one that is completely good ?
We single out the " Woman with the
Arrow" as an exception to the common
rule of ugliness — though even here we
find that among critics there is no gen-
eral consent of praise — and now con-
tentedly pass on from ground where
Rembrandt seems well-nigh lowest among
the low, to meet him again where among
the great he is almost the greatest.
There is no doubt that Rembrandt
painted many portraits of persons who
were never near to fame. You meet
with some in public exhibitions and in
private houses. Very often, like the
etched portrait of Uytenbogaert, the
"gold-weigher," they are not only por-
traits, but elaborated compositions. Of
these an example called "The Ship-
builder"— seen at Burlington House, in
January 1873 — will occur to many
readers. But the etched portraits were
often of distinguished men. Failing
these persons of distinction — as when,
in his youth, sitters of the desired rank
were unattainable — he etched the faces
that he knew most thoroughly : chiefly,
indeed, his mother's. It is also to his
delight in reproducing that with which he
was most familiar that we must attribute
the abundance of portraits of himself :
now leaning at his ease upon the window-
sill ; and now with drawn sabre ; and
now with hand on hilt of sword — mag-
nificent in meditation — and now with
plainest raiment, a keen, plain face looks
up at you from the drawing-board. But
the etched portraits, as I have said, when
they were not of himself, nor of his moth-
er, nor of the so-called "Jewish Bride,"
whom M. Blanc believes to be his first
wife, Saskia Uylenburg, were generally of
men of thought or action : of men indeed,
whose thought or action had " told " upon
the life of Amsterdam. " The Burgomas-
ter Six" is a city magnate, as well as a
poet and art-connoisseur. "John Asse-
lyn " is a painter of repute. " Ephraim
Bonus " is a famous physician. And Uy-
tenbogaert, the "gold-weigher," is Re-
ceiver-General to the States of Holland.
Among a thousand excellences in these
portraits, let us note a few. See how the
" Uytenbogaert " is more than a portrait
— for it is a composition — and see how
the keen perception, the analytical yet
224
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
synthetic mind, the assured knowledge,
and the hand that moves in accurate
obedience to the will, have in their all
but unparalleled combination enabled the
artist to say clearly a dozen things instead
of one, in this picture. It is a gold-
weigher's room : a place for quiet busi-
ness and weighty affairs. There are
places enough for laziness and laughter :
this is for serious, anxious, yet methodi-
cal and ordered toil. See, on the table,
the scales and the ranged monev-bags :
on the floor an iron-bound coffer whose
strength, quite apart from size and pro-
portion, the etcher has shown by lines of
indefinable cleverness. To the right, the
trusty servant kneels to take from his
master a bag of coin, which instantly he
will pack in this cask upon the floor ; and
then he will be off upon his errand. We
know him, thanks to Rembrandt's never-
tiring study of his minor characters, even
the Salanios and Salarinos of the drama
— a prompt man, he, we say, and ever at
his master's call. And Uytenbogaert ?
What is he, if these be his surround-
ings 1 There is a double expression in
his face and gestures, conveyed with I
know not what subtlety of Art, reached
sometimes in the finest moments of a
great player — one has seen it in Far-
gueil and Kate Terry. The gesture says
to the servant — nay, says to all of us —
how infinitely precious is that gold-
weighted bag ; how great must be the
care of it ! And the face says this too.
But such a thought is only momentary.
The mind reflected in the face is seen
to be preoccupied by many an affair.
" Here, how much gold remaining to be
dealt with ! What accounts to finish !
What business to discharge ! "
Now place by the side of Uytenbogaert
the portrait of Janus Lutma. The two
have the same dignity : the dignity of
labour. It is the Netherland spirit.
With his back to the window, from which
a placid light falls on his age-whitened
head, sits Janus Lutma, goldsmith, medi-
tating on his work. By him are the im-
plements of his art. They were used a
little, but a minute ago, and soon will be
resumed. Meanwhile, the nervous, ac-
tive hand — an old hand, but subtle still
— is relaxed, and there is no anxiety, not
even the anxiety of a pleasant busy-ness,
in the goldsmith's face. It is a happy,
tranquil face : still keenly observant, yet
greatly at rest. For in the main the,
work of life is done, and it has prospered
— a goodly gift has been well used.
There is rest in the thought of past
achievements : a kindly smile on the
aged mouth — mouth happily garrulous
of far-away work-days. And Lutma sits
there, waiting, only less plainly and im-
mediately than the tired bell-ringer of
Rethel's one great picture — waiting for
Death, who will come to him "as a
friend," and find him smiling still, but
with a finished task and a fulfilled career.
But in our admiration of the sentiment
and character of this almost unequalled
work, let us not forget the wholly marvel-
lous technical skill which the observer
may easily find in it. The play of sun-
shine, bright and clear, without intensity,
throughout the upper half of the picture ;
the cold, clear stone of the
dow-sill washed as it were, with
the strain of the leather fabric, stretched
from post to post of the chair, on either
side of the old man's head, which rests,
you see, against it, and presses it back ;
the modelling of the bushy eyebrows and
short grey beard — these are but some
points out of many. They may serve to
lead us to the rest.
To be closely imitative is not the espe-
cial glory of etching ; and Rembrandt
himself is fuller of suggestion than of
imitation. He does suggest texture very
marvellously: sometimes in the accesso-
ries of his portraits, as in the flowered
cloth of the gold-weigher's table ; and
sometimes in the portraits themselves,
as in the long hair of the "Jewish
Bride " : —
slanting win-
light
Hair, such a wonder of flix and floss ;
Freshness and fragrance ; floods of it, too !
The quality of this woman's hair is best
observed in the early state of the print.
There too the light is natural, the inspi-
ration direct. Thus far the thing has
been done at a sitting. In the finished
picture the light is a studio light, and the
work, while very vigorous and scientific,
lacks the particular delightfulness of a
sudden transcript from nature and the
life.
"A transcript from the life" — it is
that, more than any qualities of tech-
nique and elaboration, that gives an in-
terest so intense to Rembrandt's por-
traits. It is hardly too much to say of
him that his labour is faithful in propor-
tion as it is speedy. He must have ob-
served with the utmost keenness and
rapidity, and it is with a like rapidity that
he must have executed all that is intel-
lectually greatest in his work. Absorbed
in his own labours, — singularly free, we
maybe sure, from petty personal vanities,
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
225
and the desire to please unworthily-—
Rembrandt has given to his sitters the
same air of absorption. They are not
occupied at all with the artist who is >
drawing them : no, nor with those who
will notice his work. The Burgomaster
Six, leaning against the window-sill, is
deep, I take it, in his own manuscript
play. Bonus, the physician, halts upon
the stair, not quite resolved whether he
shall turn back to ask one other question
or give one other counsel. Coppencl is
absolutely occupied in giving the boy his
writing lesson. Rembrandt himself, look-
ing up from the drawing-board, looks up
only for observation. And it is thanks
to the absence of detachment from ha-
bitual life and work — it is thanks to the
every-day reality of the faces and their
surroundings — that these portraits of
Rembrandt, when considered together,
give us the means of transport across
two hundred years. We are in Amster-
dam, in the 17th century ; mingling with
the city's movement ; knowing familiarly
its works and ways. Absolute individ-
uality of character, — truth, not only to
external appearance, but to the very mind
and soul of the men who are portrayed
— and truth, be it noted, arrived at very
swiftly, and expressed with an unfalter-
ing hand, cramped by no nervous and
fidgeting anxiety — this, I suppose, the
world may recognize in the etched por-
traits of Rembrandt.
How true the hands are to the faces
and the lives ! Care, and not over-care,
has been bestowed upon them. There is
in every hand Rembrandt has drawn
prominently, a master's rapid facility and
a master's power. Mark the fat hands of
Renier Ansloo, — that stolid Anabaptist
minister, — and the fine, discerning, dis-
criminating hand of Clement de Jonghe,
the printseller, a man accustomed to the
deft fingering of delicate papers. Mark
too the nervous hand of that brooding
student, Haaring the younger, whom one
knows to have been something finer than
a common auctioneer. And for physical
feebleness, seen in an old man's hand,
note the wavering hand of Haaring the
elder. For physical strength in an old
man's hand — a tenacious hand for sure
yet subtle uses — see the sinewy's crafts-
man's hand of Lutma.
It has long been the fashion to admire,
indiscriminately, the chiaroscuro of Rem-
brandt, which does indeed very often de-
serve a wholly unlimited admiration, but
which is open now and then to Mr.
Ruskin's charge, that it is both forced
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 327
and untrue. What people perceive the
soonest and praise the most are the more
"sensational " of his effects of light and
shade. Seeing these, they think that
they see all. But it takes long to under-
stand how much of consummate art there
is in that real power of Rembrandt's :
how it is something much more than the
mere brutal force of contrast. The vio-
lence of contrast is usually presented in
interiors, — especially in fancy subjects,
— and when one passes to the land-
scapes, one ceases to remark it fre-
quently. The disposition of light and
shade is not less masterly in these — but
sometimes rather more — but its effect is
less immediate. There are two excep-
tions : for we get the old familiar juxta-
position of strongest light and deepest
dark in the " Grotto with a Brook " — here
chiefly in the first state — and we get it
to some extent in the " Three Trees,"
which, though the lines of the sky are
hard and wiry, is yet justly esteemed
among the best of Rembrandt's land-
scapes, because of its extraordinary vig-
our and passion of storm, and because of
that clear sense of space and open coun-
try which you have as you look at it.
But for an example of the most subtle
qualities of chiaroscuro in Rembrandt,
one must go back for an instant to the
portraits, and look at the picture of Abra-
ham Franz. He was a devoted amateur
— an example to all amateurs ; for he
denied himself many necessaries of life,,
so that he might possess a collection of
great prints. Look at his portrait, in*
the first state only. He sits in a room'
just light enough for him to be able to ex-
amine his print, critically, lovingly, at his
chosen station in the window. Behind
him is a curtain, and across the curtain
fall certain streaks of gentle sunlight,
which are among the really greatest, most
ordered, most restrained achievements of
a master's art.
As a landscape painter, Rembrandt was
in advance of his age ; or rather, he had
the courage to interpret the spirit of his
own time and country. While Poussin
still peopled his glades with gods and
goddesses, and Claude set the shepherd
and shepherdess of Arcadian days reclin-
ing in the cool shadows of his meadows,
Rembrandt drew just such things as were
before him whenever he went forth from
Amsterdam to any neighbouring village,
trudging slowly along the high road,
edged with stunted trees, or wandering
by the side of the weary canal. Thus it
is that at one point at least he touched
226
MASTERS OF ETCHING.
the moderns, but at other points he was
very far removed from them. If he
sketched the woman going to market and
the farmer on his horse, he did so because
these objects happened to be before him
and could give some animation to his
landscapes. But he did not seek in any
other way to connect the scenery with the
figures. The poetry of country life and
country pursuits did not exist for him,
any more than there existed for him
Turner's sense, now of the terrible ac-
cord, but oftener of the yet more terrible
discord, between the face of Nature and
the weary work and wearier life of Man.
To show the "pollard labourers " of Eng-
land as they are — human life at its poor-
est, and the country at its dreariest — the
immortal artist of Liber Stiidioruin de-
votes a plate to Hedging and Ditching.
He means you to see clearly that these
battered peasants are as stunted and as
withered as the willow trunk they hew.
To show the undertone of sympathy be-
tween the fleeting day and the brief sweet-
ness of human joy, the great Venetian
places the music party in the garden, by
the fountain, and paints the figures when
the viol has stopped : —
And the brown faces cease to sing,
Sad with the whole of pleasure.
But the one thing and the other are
alike far from Rembrandt. He cannot
take into his landscape the passion of
humanity.
Sometimes, — not often, — Rembrandt
etched landscapes because he found them
fascinating : one can hardly say, beauti-
ful. More often he etched them because
they were before him ; and whatever was
before him roused his intellectual inter-
est. They are not indeed without their
own peculiar beauty, nor was the artist
quite insensible to this. Sometimes he
even seeks for beauty ; not at all in indi-
vidual form, but in the combinations of a
composition, in blendings of shadow and
sunshine, and in effects of storm and
space. Once — it is in the view of Om-
val — the figures in the landscape take
their pleasure. It is a Dutch picnic, for
Omval is the Lido or the Richmond of
Amsterdam. There is quiet water, pleas-
ant air, and a day's leisure ; and it gives
a zest to joy to keep in view the city tow-
ers, under which at the day's end we shall
return.
But generally it is the common facts of
life that Rembrandt chronicles in land-
scape. Men and women, when they are
there at all, pursue their common tasks.
Thus, in the "Village with the Canal"
there is a woman trudging with her dog ;
there is a distant horseman who presently
will cross the bridge ; and a boat with set
sail is gliding down the stream. In a
" Large Landscape, with Cottage and
Dutch Barn," there is more than the or-
dinary beauty of composition. It is a
fine picture for space, for sunniness, for
peace, and is a master's work in its group-
ing of rustic foreground, and country-
house half hidden by the trees, and tran-
quil water, and distant town. In the
" Gold-weigher's Field " the composition
is less admirable. The picture sprawls.
There is too much subject for one plate,
or too little subject that is prominently
first, or too much that is dangerously near
to the first, — so that the eye is diverted,
and at the same time fatigued. Here
Rembrandt falls into the fault of some of
our earlier water-colour painters. His
picture is a map : a bird's eye view. Ac-
curacy is sought after till sentiment is
lost : details are insisted on till we forget
the ensejnble. Too anxious is Rembrandt
to include the greatest and the least of
Uytenbogaert's possessions : the villa,
the farm, the copse, the meadows — we
must know the capacities of the estate.
But commonly, indeed, this is not the
fault. Commonly there is a master's ab-
straction, a master's eye to unity. It is
so in the few lines, of which each one is
a guiding line, of "Six's Bridge" — a
piece which shows us the plain wooden
foot-bridge placed athwart the small
canal, and the stunted trees that break,
however so little, the flatness of the
earth-line and the weary stretch of level
land, under an unmoved grey sheet of
sky. It is so, still more notably, in the
"View of Amsterdam," while miles away,
behind the meadows of the foreground,
there rise above the long monotony of
field and field-path, slow canal and dyke
and lock, the towers of the busy town.
Great in composition, abstraction, uni-
ty, Rembrandt is also great in verisimili-
tude. What restful haunts in shadow
under the meeting boughs of the orchard
trees ! — how good is the thatch that cov-
ers the high barns and the peaked house-
roofs of the village-street ! And a last
excellence — perfect tonality — is to be
found in " Rembrandt's Mill ; " a plate
upon which a great amount of quite un-
founded sentiment has been expended,
since it is now proved that this mill waSH
not the painter's birthplace, nor for an^H
cause cherished by him with exceptional*^
affection, — a plate, which, nevertheless
I
An old ENGLISH TRAVELLER.
227
has to be singled out as perhaps the most
wholly satisfactory of his landscapes :
certainly for tonality and unity of expres-
sion it is the most faultless. Etching has
never done more than it has done in this
picture, for it seems painted as well as
drawn, — this warm grey mill, lifting its
stone and wood and tile-work, mellow
with evening, against the dim large spaces
of the quiet sky.
The work of Claude must be left to a
future opportunity.
Frederick Wedmore.
From Chambers' Journal.
AN OLD ENGLISH TRAVELLER.
In the early part of the seventeenth
century there was an Englishman, named
Fynes Moryson, who had a passion for
travelling, and has left an account of Ten
Years of Travel through Great Britain
and other Parts of Europe^ 161 7. Mory-
son's book, a bulky folio, is now as scarce
as it is curious. Few know anything
about it.
He begins by telling us of his experi-
ences as a traveller in Bohemia. Then,
he goes off in a visit to Jerusalem and
Constantinople. At this point, we are
reminded of a strange custom adopted by
the younger sons of good houses, about
the time of Queen Elizabeth, to increase
their slender patrimony. Travelling with
them was a kind of lottery. Before leav-
ing the country, they would deposit in
the hands of some speculator a sum of
money, which was to be doubled, trebled,
or in some degree proportionately in-
creased, according to the dangers or diffi-
culties attending their task, in the event
of their safe return. Their journey was
a kind of wager. Moryson found, when
he came back from his first expedition,
that his brother Henry was about to start
on a voyage, having for that purpose put
out four hundred pounds, to be repaid
twelve hundred pounds, should he not die
on the journey. In spite of his observa-
tion, that "these kind of adventures were
grown very frequent, whereof some were
indecent, some ridiculous, and that they
were in great part undertaken by bank-
rupts and men of base condition," Mory-
son shewed no reluctance to accompany
his brother, and, he says, gave only one
hundred pounds, to receive three hundred
pounds at his return, among his brethren
and friends ; and a hundred pounds to
five friends, on condition they should
have it if he died, or, after three years,
should give him one hundred and fifty
pounds if he returned. The speculation,
from a pecuniary point of view, proved
a bad one. The great expenses of the
journey, his brother's death, of his own
sickness, were far from being defrayed
by the money to which he was entitled on
his return ; and, of course, the four hun-
dred pounds put out by his brother were
forfeited.
In the year 1600, Moryson went to Ire-
land as secretary to Mountjoy, Lord-
deputy. Of the person, apparel, diet,
manners, and other particulars of his
patron, he gives a graphic account, and
we cannot resist the temptation of stray-
ing a little from the purpose of this article
by giving a portion of it here. Before
Mountjoy went to Ireland, Moryson tells
us his usual breakfast was panada and
broth ; but during the war (against Ty-
rone), he contented himself with a dry
crust of bread, with butter and sage in
the spring-time, washed down with a cup
of stale beer, sometimes mixed with sugar
and nutmeg. At dinner and supper he
had the choicest and most nourishing
meats and the best wines. He indulged
in tobacco abundantly ; and to this prac-
tice our author ascribes his good health
while among the bogs of Ireland, and the
relief of the violent headaches which reg-
ularly attacked him, like an ague, for
many years, every three months. " He
delighted in study, in gardens, a house
richly furnished, and delectable for rooms
of retreat, in riding on a pad to take the
air, in playing shovel-board, or at cards,
in reading play-books, and especially in
fishing and fish-ponds, seldom using any
other exercise, and using these rightly as
pastimes, only for a short and convenient
time, and with great variety of change
from one to the other." Particular de-
light did Mountjoy take in the study of
divinity, and especially in reading the
Fathers and Schoolmen ; some chapters
of the Bible were each night read to him,
and he never omitted prayers at morning
and night.
With such touches as the above, does
Moryson portray to us the character of a
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland at the begin-
ning of the seventeenth century.
At the time Moryson travelled, he in-
forms us, fifty or sixty pounds yearly suf-
ficed to bear the charge of his diet, apparel,
and two journeys yearly in the spring and
autumn ; such as have servants to attend
them must reckon upon each one spend-
228
AN OLD ENGLISH TRAVELLER.
ing as much for their diet as the masters
do, "especially in Germany, where pa
sengers of all sorts sit at the same table,
and pay the like shot." Germany, indeed,
is the country into which he recommends
all Englishmen first to pass. "We use,"
says he, " too much the help of our ser-
vants, and despise the company of mean
people ; there we may learn to serve our-
selves, as he that enters a shoemaker's
shop must find out the shoes that will fit
him, and put them on himself ; there we
may learn to feed on homely meat, and to
lie in a poor bed. All strangers in Ger-
many," he concludes, "are free among
.that honest people from all cozenages and
deceits, to which they are subject in other
parts."
We have no space, however, to follow
our traveller through the many countries
of Europe which he visited, rich and in-
structive as are the particulars with
which he furnishes us. Still more inter-
esting are the observations he has to
make on England itself, every part of
which would appear to have been thor-
oughly explored by him. First, we will
take a little paragraph relating to the
proverbial speeches of the country.
"Londoners," he says, "and all within
the sound of Bow-bell, are in reproach
called Cockneys. The Kentish men were
of old said to have tails, because traffick-
ing in the Low Countries, they never
gave full payments of what they did owe.
Essex men are called calves (because
they abound there ) ; Lancashire men,
egg-pies, and to be won by an apple with
a red side. Norfolk wiles (for crafty
litigiousness), Essex stiles (so many as
make walking tedious), Kentish miles
(of the length), Lincolnshire bells and bag-
pipes, Devonshire white-pots, Tewkes-
bury mustard, Banbury cakes, King's-
Norton cheese, Sheffield knives, Derby
ale, are proverbially spoken of." From
his description of the counties, it appears
that several of them differed then, in
many particulars, very much from their
present characteristics, Cornwall had
then such abundance of corn, that large
quantities were annually exported thence
to Spain. On the other hand, in no part
of England did the ground require more
expense than in Devonshire, "for in
many places it is barren, till it be fatted
with the ooze or sand of the sea, which
makes it wonderfully fruitful." Bristol
he represents as next to London and
York, being preferred to all other cities
of England, on account of its fair build-
ings, and its public and private houses.
Malmesbury was at this time celebrated
for its woollen cloths ; Wakefield, too,
was famous for the same manufacture ;
Rye, in Sussex, as the most frequented
passage into France. "The town of
Romney, one of the five ports, in our
grandfathers' time, lay close upon the
sea, but now is almost two miles distant
from the same." The town of Stony
Stratford is well known for its fair inns
and stately bridge of stone. The little
city of Westminster, of old more than a
mile distant from London, is now, by
fair buildings, joined to it. The city of
London hath the sumptuous church of
St. Paul, beautified with rich sepulchres,
and the Bourse, or Exchange, built for
the meeting of merchants ; a very sump-
tuous and wonderful bridge built over
the Thames ; rich shops of goldsmiths
in Cheapside, and innumerable stately
palaces, of which a great part lay scat-
tered in unfrequented lanes. Lynn, in
Norfolk, is represented as famous for the
safety of its haven, most easy to be
entered, for the concourse of merchants,
and the fair buildings. Cambridgeshire
is famous for its barley, "of which,
steeped till it spring again, they make
great quantity of malt, to brew beer, in
great quantity, as the beer is much ex-
ported into foreign parts, and there highly
esteemed." The ale of Derby was, for
goodness, proverbially preferred before
that kind of drink in any other town.
Coventry, Moryson declares, is the fair-
est city within land, of which the chief
trade had been the making round wool-
len caps, but these being, at the time he
wrote, very little used, the trade was de-
cayed. Coals and veins of iron were to
be found in South Staffordshire ; but the
greatest quantity and best kind of coal
was in Nottinghamshire. No other
county had so many knights' houses as
Cheshire; "it is rich in pastures, and
sends great quantites of cheeses to Lon-
don." " Manchester is an old town, fair
and well inhabited, rich in the trade of
making woollen cloth, and the cloths
called Manchester cottons are vulgarly
known." These cottons^ however, were
in fact woollen goods, as the manufacture
of real cotton goods was not begun until
about half a century later.
Moryson had evidently a wide experi-
ence of the inns and houses of entertain-
ment in all parts of England and Scotland,
and writes of them with much minute-
ness of detail and quaintness of illustra-
tion. "There is no place in the world,"
says he, " where passengers may so freely
AN OLD ENGLISH TRAVELLER.
229
command as in the English inns. They
are attended for themselves and their
horses as well as if they were at home,
and perhaps better, each servant being
ready at call, in hope of a small reward
in the morning." In no other country
did he see the inns so well furnished with
household stuff.
As soon as a passenger comes to an
inn, we are told, the servants run to him ;
one takes his horse, and walks him about
till he be cool, then rubs him down, and
gives him meat ; another servant shews
the passenger his private chamber, and
kindles his fire ; the third, pulls off his
boots, and makes them clean. Then the
host and hostess visit him ; and if he will
eat with the host, or at a common table
with the others, his meal will cost him
sixpence, or in some places fourpence ;
but if he will eat in his chamber — for
which superior accommodation a charge
of something like two shillings is made —
he commands what meat he will, accord-
ing to his appetite. The kitchen is open
to him, to order the meat to be dressed
as he likes best. After having eaten
what he pleases, he may with credit set
by a part for next day's breakfast. His
bill will then be written for him, and
should he object to any charge, the host
is ready to alter it.
In Scotland, they have no such inns as
were in England, but in all places some
houses were known where passengers
might have meat and lodging; but they
have no "bushes" or signs hung out
[this is not quite correct] ; and as for the
horses, they were generally set up in sta-
bles, in some "out-lane," not in the same
house where " the passenger lay." " If
any man be acquainted with a townsman,
he will go freely to his house, for most of
them will entertain a stranger for his
money."
On the subject of coaches, horses, and
the other different modes of conveyance,
Moryson speaks with equal authority.
Sixty years ago, he tells us, coaches were
very rare in England ; but in his day,
pride was so far increased, that there
were few gentlemen of any account
(meaning "elder brothers," as he paren-
thetically explains) who had not their
coaches ; so that the streets of London
were almost stopped up with them. We
may here remark, that we have ample
evidence, from other sources, of the an-
noyances caused to the ordinary dwellers
in London by the great amount of coach-
traffic through the narrow thoroughfares,
and many methods were suggested of
abating the nuisance. In 1619, a tax of
forty pounds a year (which is equivalent
to two hundred pounds, at least, of our
present currency) was proposed to be
levied on all persons below a certain de-
gree who kept a coach ; and in January
1635-36 King Charles found it necessary
to issue a proclamation "for restraint of
the multitude and promiscuous use of
coaches about London and Westminster."
From the terms of this, we gather, that of
late times the great numbers of hackney-
coaches in London and Westminster, and
the general use of coaches therein, had
grown to a great disturbance to the king,
queen, the nobility, and others of place
and degree, in their passage through the
streets ; the streets also were so " pes-
tered," and the pavement so broken up,
that the common passage was hindered
and made dangerous ; and the prices of
hay and provender made exceedingly
dear. His Majesty therefore commanded
that no hackney coach should be used,
except to travel three miles out of Lon-
don, and that no person should go in a
coach in the streets of London except he
kept four horses for His Majesty's ser-
vice whenever his occasions should re-
quire.
For the most part, continues Moryson,
Englishmen, especially in long journeys,
used to ride upon their own horses ; for
hired horses, two shillings was paid for
the first day, and eighteen pence for each
succeeding day that he was required by
the traveller. Lastly, the carriers had
long covered wagons, in which they car^
ried passengers from city to city ; but
this kind of journeying is described by
our author as so tedious, that none but
women and people of inferior condition,
or strangers (among whom he particularly
instances the Flemings, their wives and
servants), avail themselves of it.
We have only space enough left for
Moryson's account of the mode of living
and manners of the Scotch. At the
house of a knight where he staid, he
writes, there were many servants in at-
tendance, who brought in the meat with
their heads covered with blue caps ; the
table being more than half-furnished with
great platters of porridge, each having
a little piece of "sodden" meat. When
the table was served, the servants also sat
down at it ; but the upper mess, instead
of porridge, had a pullet, with some
prunes in the broth. And he observed
"no art of cookery, or furniture of house-
hold stuff," but rather rude neglect of
both ; though himself and his companion
230
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
— sent from the governor of Berwick
about Border affairs — were entertained
after their best manner. The Scotch
were then living in factions, and used to
keep many followers, thus consuming
their " revenue of victuals," and living in
some want of money. They commonly
ate hearth-cakes of oats, but in cities had
also wheaten bread, which for the most
part was bought by courtiers, gentlemen,
and the best sort of citizens. When he
lived at Berwick, the Scotch used weekly,
on the market-day, to obtain leave from
the governor to buy pease and beans, of
which, as also of wheat, the merchants
sent great quantities from London into
Scotland.
Pure wine was the favorite Scotch
drink, not mixed with sugar, after the
English fashion ; though, at feasts, they
put comfits to it, like the French. The
better sort of citizens brewed ale, their
usual drink (which, says the writer, will
distemper a stranger's body), and the
same citizens will entertain travellers
upon acquaintance, or entreaty. Their
bedsteads were then like cupboards in
the wall, with doors to be opened and
shut at pleasure, so that they had to
climb into their beds. When travellers
went to bed, it was the custom to present
them with a sleeping-cup of wine at part-
ing. The country-people and merchants
used to drink largely, the gentlemen
somewhat more sparingly ; yet the very
courtiers, at feasts, by night-meetings,
and entertaining any stranger, used to
drink healths not without excess, and (to
speak truth without offence, interposes
Moryson) the excess of drinking was then
far greater among the Scotch than the
English — a fact which, looking at the con-
sumption of liquors in the present day,
does not excite any surprise.
From The Victoria Magazine.
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
In an age whose best thinkers are oc-
cupied with the question of individual
rights there should be room for consider-
ing the claims of the children.
That "the law of the subject is the will
of the sovereign," that slaves have no
rights which the master is bound to re-
spect, are exploded traditions ; but
among the traditions not yet exploded is
one no less mischievous ; one never ex-
pressed in words, but embodied in our
daily acts ; namely, that children have no
rights that adults are bound to respect.
It is not unlikely that I may be met
with the assertion that children already
monopolize too much attention : that the
best authors are engaged in writing their
books, any number of artists in making
pictures for their amusement ; that every
street has its stores filled with their toys,
and that more is expended on the ward-
robes of the young people of the present
day than would have suflSced to clothe a
family of twelve in the days of our grand-
fathers. Children are denounced as
forth-putting, irreverent, disobedient ;
their destructive tendencies are the ab-
horrence of landlords and boarding-house
keepers ; their encroachments and ill-
timed speeches the terror of guests ;
their wilfulness and ingratitude the de-
spair of parents. These charges, in so
far as they are true, afford the strongest
possible evidence that the rights of chil-
dren neither have been nor are respected.
The first right of every child is to be
well-born ; and by this I mean that it
has a right to the best conditions, physi-
cal, mental, and moral, that it is in the
power of the parents to secure. Without
this the child is defrauded of his rights
at the outset, and his life can hardly fail
of being a pitiful protest against broken
laws. Centuries of preparation fitted the
earth for man's occupancy, hinting thus
the grandeur of his destiny, and suggest-
ing that, in an event of such magnitude
as the incarnating of a soul, prevision
should be exercised, and all the best con-
ditions secured in aid of a harmonious
and happy result.
Good health, good habits, sound men-
tality, and reverend love should form the
basis of every new life that is invoked.
The mother who gives herself up to mor-
bid fancies, who considers her health an
excuse for petulance and non-exercise of
self-control, proves herself unworthy of
the holy office of mother, and ought' not
to be surprised if she reap at a later day
the bitter harvest of her unwise sowing.
The form of the Madonna is draped in
a more solemn mystery than enveloped
Rachel following her dead.
To be born into a peaceful, loving at-
mosphere is another right that inheres in
every child. To have its tender organ-
ism protected from discordant noises,
from abrupt movements, from the din of
eager or angry discussion, to linger un-
disturbed in the twilight vestibule of ex-
istence, till the eye is prepared for light,
the ear for sounds, and the brain for ira-
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
231
pressions. Tread softly in the presence
of this great mystery, old as humanity,
yet ever new. Be not too loud in your
exultation, for the Life-Bringer walks
arm in arm with his twin brother Death,
and for the winning of this new joy a soul
has descended into the valley of Shadow,
and stood alone with God.
To be made physically comfortable, to
breathe pure air, untainted by the fumes
of the paternal cigar, or the bad breath
of a gin-drinking nurse ; to enjoy quiet
sleep, free from the nightmare of tightly
pinned bands, or the shocks occasioned
by the inconsiderate banging of doors ;
to be shielded from the flippant curiosity
of visitors, and the harassing endearments
of friends and relatives ; to be exempt
from rocking, and trotting, and drugs ;
to have opportunity for natural, unforced
development, and care that is not fussy,
love that is not fidgetty, and a great deal
of judicious letting alone ; all these are
among the earliest, and some of them
among the most enduring rights of the
child.
Second in importance to none, as a
means of securing the happiness and best
good of childhood and youth, is the right
to be taught obedience. It is easy to
submit to what we know is inevitable,
and to the little child the requirement of
the parent should be law without appeal.
The tender, immature being, shut in
by the unknown, where every relation is
a mystery, and every advance an experi-
ment, has a right to find itself everywhere
s?jstained and directed by the parent. It
should not be tempted to resistance by
laws that are imperfectly enforced, nor
subjected to the injurious friction of dis-
cussion by having a long list of reasons
given for every requirement.
The habit of obedience to the parents
may be formed before the child is two
years old, and this is a necessary prece-
dent of obedience to law, the next stage
of a true development.
The disciple of Hebert Spencer may
take issue with me, and insist that there
should be no coercion of the child at any
period of its existence, but I claim that
if Mr. Spencer's premises were strictly
carried out, no child could reach Matu-
rity.
The most helpless of animals, the new-
born child is brought to a stage of its
development where it can begin to act
for itself by a long series of measures
more or less coercive.
Education has for its object the forma-
tion of a character, but the very alphabet
of this education is the formation of cer-
tain habits, among which none is more
important than the habit of obedience.
Coercion precedes reason, habit intelli-
gent self-direction. Both coercion and
habit are to be got rid of at the earliest
possible moment, but neither can be
safely dispensed with at the outset. It
is with extreme reluctance that I admit
even the provisional necessity of habit,
for to my thinking this same habit, is
above all others, the tyrant that has en-
slaved the world. I never hear any one
expatiate upon the importance of forming
good habits without feeling a disposition
to protest that nothing deserves to be
called good that is merely a habit. Shoul-
der-braces may be of service to a sickly
frame, and a life of routine to a weak
will, but for the morally healthy man or
woman slavery to good habits is only less
vicious than slavery to bad habits, and
any sort of slavery is an inversion of
divine order.
The child has a right to employment
and the free use of its faculties. " What
shall I do ? " is the plaintive wail of many
a little one imprisoned in rooms where
everything is too nice to be played with,
and among grown-up people who cannot
endure noise. " Sit down and keep
quiet," is too often the impatient answer
— an answer which I never hear without
an indignant mental protest.
I admonish you, father, mother, guar-
dian, into whose hands God has committed
the sacred trust of a child's life, be care-
ful how you betray it ! Beware how you
hinder a soul's development by a selfish
seeking of your own convenience !
Do you talk of ennui — you, an adult,
with memories, hopes, plans, the world
of people, and the world of books .'*
What do you suppose must be the ennui
of a child "i the hunger of an active, ea-
ger intelligence, repressed, unsatisfied,
thrown back upon itself, with all the
needs of an immortal being — needs
which only Heaven can satisfy — clamor-
ing importunately ? " Keep quiet," in-
deed ! do you rather bestir yourself, O
ease-loving mother, newspaper-reading
father, frivolous elder sister, and find
occupation for the restless hands, thought-
fibre for the eager intelligence that makes
to you its plaintive appeal — "What
shall I do ? " nor dare to leave the beau-
tiful temple of a child's soul to be taken
possession of by the demons of idleness
and unrest.
Absolute reliance on the love of the
parents, faith in their wisdom that foo-
23^
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
bids doubt, are indispensable conditions
of a healthy and happy development.
They constitute the fertile soil and ge-
nial atmosphere in which all beautiful
human affections bud and blossom.
" Father does what is right," " Mother
knows better than I," are the instinctive
-Utterances of a child whose life and edu-
cation have been rightly begun. That
(these utterances are not oftener heard is
a severe commentary upon our methods,
a sad indication how much the rights of
children have been neglected.
The parent who scolds, who is alter-
nately severe and indulgent, who forbids
to-day what he permitted yesterday, who
is controlled by moods, and whose gov-
ernment must, consequently, be capri-
cious and contradictory, disregards the
most sacred obligations, and mars the
foundations of a character which duty re-
quires him to lay wisely and well.
" But," says an objector, " the habit of
obedience to another once formed, how
is it to be superseded by intelligent self-
direction?" Supporting a child in its
first efforts to walk does not prevent its
acquiring the use of its limbs. That the
alphabet is learned a letter at a time does
not imply that all reading is to be so la-
boriously performed.
From a very early age there are some
matters that come so fully within the
child's apprehension that they may safely
be left to its decision ; and it should be
the constant aim of the parent to exer-
cise the faculties and strengthen the
judgment by increasing as rapidly as pos-
sible the number of such decisions.
Every one who has had much to do
with children knows how they differ in
the matter of assuming responsibility.
One wishes to decide every thing for
himself, another wants every particular
<iecided for him, and this difference
should constantly be taken into account.
" Mamma, what dress shall I put on
rny dolly ? " said a little girl of the latter
type in my hearing. "Any one that you
like," replied the mother. " But I wish
you would tell me which one, mamma,"
persisted the child, in an aggrieved tone.
" I want my little girl to learn to decide
for herself," was the reply of the judi-
cious mother.
Accustom the child to the idea that it
is to think and act independently, and
never do for him what he is able to do
•for himself. Teach him to take pride in
being self-helpful, and in adding each
day to the number of things which he
knows how to do. , . .
The child has its rights of property ;
and how keenly its sense of justice is
outraged by their invasion may be in-
ferred from its passionate and almost in-
consolable grief. The little girl's love of
her doll is considered a legitimate subject
of ridicule by her older brothers, and her
grief at any indignity shown this object
of her affection is regarded by them as
good fun ; and yet, the instinct outraged
is nothing less than incipient maternity,
and the rights violated are no less sacred
than those of society itself.
Calling on a friend one day, I found the
usually sunny-faced pet of the household
convulsed with sobs. A glance into the
playroom, where I had had many a good
frolic with the small mamma and her large
family of dolls, showed what was amiss.
" The destroyer " in the shape of a big
brother had " come down like a wolf on
the fold," and all the dollies were doing
duty as Blue Beard's slaughtered wives.
Some were suspended by their hair, others
by their necks, while several had been
beheaded and were scattered in ghastly
confusion about the floor. " Never
mind, darling," said the mother — " never
mind, brother Will has only ripped off
their heads ; I can easily mend them and
make them just as pretty as they were be-
fore." " Yes, mamma," sobbed the little
one ; "but you can't mend their feelings."
And just here is the trouble ; a child's
feelings, wounded by injustice, are diffi-
cult to mend. I once saw an elegant
woman draw herself up proudly, on hear-
ing the name of a gentleman who had
asked to be presented to her i " Excuse
me," said she, ignoring the proffered
hand ; " when I was a very little child, I
received at your hands the one injury
which I have never forgiven. You may
have forgotten the jest of coiling a dead
snake about a little girl's arm, but the
little girl has not forgotten it, and never
will." It would be well to remember that
no impressions are so enduring, as those
made upon the mind of the child.
No amount of indulgence can atone for
a wrong, and the constant aim of every
parent should be to be just. The property
of a child, no less than that of an adult,
should be respected. However worthless
it may be in itself, it should not be dis-
posed of without his consent. Let him
feel that he has a realm peculiarly his
own, and that in that realm he is su-
preme ; that his possessions are abso-
lutely his, and that his proprietorship is
recognized and respected. More eloquent
than any amount of admonition, far more
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
2J3
effective in forming correct ideas in the
mind of the child, is the daily recogni-
tion of his personal rights.
See to it that the little one has the ex-
clusive use of his personal belongings,
whatever these may be ; that no one else
appropriates his spoon, or fork, or cup,
his place at the table, or his chair in the
family circle. Among the ancients Limi-
tation was a god : and " mine " and
"thine" are oracular utterances com-
manding reverence, even when they issue
from the lips of a child.
Children at an early age should begin
to learn the use of money, and this they
can only do by having money to use. Let
a small sum be given at stated intervals,
and the child made to feel that it is his to
keep, to spend, or to give away ; that to
the extent of his allowance he is a capi-
talist, and as much at liberty to choose
his investments as any grown man. The
traffic in marbles and other small articles
of personal property shows that the spirit
of trade is no less active in the boy than
in the man ; and the little girl's desire to
select the objects of her charity, and to
provide for her dolls, indicates the capa-
city for a practical education that ought
not to be neglected. This independence
does not preclude counsel, which the child
will be quite as ready to ask as the parent
to give, but that the money and its use
may be a means of education, he must
feel that the final decision is his.
At a much earlier age than is customary
with most parents, I would have them be-
gin to teach the child to provide for its
own wants, and meet the exigencies of
its daily life. And there need be no such
difference between boys and girls in this
matter as custom has led U|S to suppose.
The boy, no less than the girl, can be
taught to take pride in a neatly kept
room, in orderly closets, and tastefully
arranged bureau-drawers ; to have a place
for everything and everything in its place ;
to know what garments will be needed for
the coming season, and to ask father or
mother to go with him to select them, in-
stead of having everything provided with-
out thought or care on his part. I have
even a secret conviction that the mastery
of his own buttons might be acquired by
a boy of average intelligence, and that to
take the entire care of his room would
not necessarily lessen his chances of a
noble and self-respecting manhood.
As for the girl, I see no reason why
she should not be taught the use of the
jack-knife, the hammer, and the saw, to
drive a nail, tighten a screw, or put up a
shelf in her room. She should, if possi-
ble, have a garden and be taught to take
a pride in her acquaintance with nature,
in her good health and ability to endure
fatigue. Each should be taught what is
traditionally proper for the sex to which
he or she belongs, but I should be very
far from saying
Only this and nothing more.
The child has a right to the full use of
his powers, to be taught the mastery of
the wonderful instrument by means of
which he is to communicate with the
world outside of him ; to know how to
make good the faculties of himself, how
to command from the abundant resources
of the world what is suited to his needs,
and in turn, how to bestow all that he
has and is upon the world in beneficent
giving.
He should be taught such mastery of
himself as will insure the mastery of any
situation in which he may be placed ;
such consideration for others and such
a habit of helpfulness as will make him
quick to see and prompt to administer to
their wants ; such an abiding faith in
God and His divine order as no untoward
circumstance can disturb.
We know many persons who live so
uneasily in their bodies that they seem
rather the chance tenants of a night than
authorized proprietors, and legitimate
life-owners ; whose souls and bodies are
so illy adjusted to one another, that they
are constantly getting in their own way,
and helplessly stumbling over their own
toes. Almost every family has its mem-
bers who walk over things without see-
ing them, who never hear till they are ad-
dressed a second time, whose hands are
so helpless or so clumsy that they
might almost as well have been made
hoofs or fins. The child should be taught
that his eyes, ears, hands, all the organs
of his body, all the faculties of his mind
are his servants, and that it is his busi-
ness to see to it that they serve him faith-
fully— that they report accurately what
is passing about him, and respond
promptly and fully to his demands. Such
sentences as " I didn't notice," " I heard,
but I don't remember," have no business
in a child's vocabulary. He should be
taught to apprehend clearly that to say
" I forgot " is only another way of saying
" I did not care enough to remember."
Educate the faculties to prompt action,,
teach the senses to respond fully to every
impression made upon them. When you
give a command or communicate a
234
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
thought to a child, secure his attention,
use the simplest and most direct terms,
and do not repeat them. Superfluous
words are demoralizing, and iteration a
bid for inattention. Some of us are born
clods ; more of us become so through
vicious training. Make the child self-con-
scious, and you have established an en-
during feud between him and his capabili-
ties ; henceforth his feet are an embarrass-
ment to him, and no number of pockets is
adequate to the satisfactory bestowal of
his hands. He fancies all eyes are upon
him, and his very blood turns mutinous
and flies in his face without just cause or
provocation. It is his right to be uncon-
scious ; to develop from within outward
as sweetly and unostentatiously as a flow-
er ; not to be thrust into notice by hav-
ing his sayings and doings repeated in his
presence, nor snubbed into silence and
conscious inferiority by being constantly
reminded that " children should be seen
and not heard." Hardly anything is
more essential in the management of
children than the kindly ignoring eye
that does not notice too much. I pity
the child who is the centre of a blindly
doting or injudiciously critical family —
whose every saying is repeated, every act
commented upon, and where, in conse-
quence, naturalness is impossible.
We all know how it fared with the
bean that, after being planted, was dug up
every morning to see if it had begun to
grow, and which, after having made a
brave struggle for life and got its head
above ground, was declared out of order,
and ruthlessly pulled up and turned up-
side down.
Much of our interference with children
is no less impertinent, and in its results
no less mischievous. Nature abhors
meddling; to reverent co-operation she
yields her happiest results ; but she will
not be diverted from her purpose by your
homilies, nor submit her plans for your
revision. Handmaiden of the great Ar-
chitect, she never loses sight of the origi-
nal intention. If you thwart her, it is at
your peril, and she leaves on your hands
the work you have spoiled.
The child in his normal condition is an
embodied interrogation.
He cannot wait for the eyes alone to
report the objects about him ; every fin-
ger-tip is pressed into the service and
made to convey tidings to the eager in-
telligence. The little creature is over-
whelmed with impressions, stunned by
the music of the spheres, blinded by
excess of light. His greatest need is a
wise and tender interpreter ; some one
to walk beside him and explain the sig-
nificance of what he sees and hears, to
distinguish between the important and
the unimportant, the high and the low,
the near and the far. Do we realize what
we are doing when we sit stolid and dumb
under a child's questions, allowing the
keen intelligence to be blunted against
our indifference, the glowing enthusiasm
to be damped by our apathy, the buoyant
hope crippled by our unbelief ? Having
eyes we see not, having ears we hear not,
and standing before the great wonder-
book of God's universe, we watch the
turning of its leaves with scarcely an emo-
tion. Verily, we need to be taught of the
child.
What one is determines his posses-
sions, and whether the child shall be beg-
gar or prince depends upon the training
of his faculties and the education that he
receives. In the fairy story, it was only
the children of the king who were invest-
ed with the golden key to which all doors
swung open, but every child is of the
blood royal, heir of the King of kings, a
prince in his own right, lord of a province
peculiarly his own, for the unlocking of
all whose treasures he should carry the
golden key.
As it is the child's right to observe, it
is also his right to arrive at conclusions ;
in other words, to have opinions and to
express them — not at all times, nor in
all places, but to the wise and tender in-
terpreter already referred to, one who will
listen patiently, who will help the imper-
fect utterance, shed light on the confused
impression, and place in the hand the
clew that will lead to the just conclusion.
" I don't like Mrs. D," says the little
boy who has sat quietly observant through
the morning call of a visitor. " Little
boys mustn't talk about not liking peo-
ple," says the well-intentioned but unwise
mother. A better course would be to
learn upon what the antipathy rests.
The intuitions of a child are seldom at
fault, and in the brief summing up con-
tained in the words, " I like or I don't
like Mr. So and So," there is often a
subtle analysis of character of which we
should do well to learn the secret.
No one would expect fulness of mus-
cle or strength of sinew in a limb that
was denied f'-eedom of action ; but is it
not equally absurd to expect intelligent
opinion and soundness of judgment from
the adult whose childhood has beea
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
235
spent in enforced repression, and the
non-use of its powers of observation and
reflection ?
The child has a right to ask ques-
tions and to be fairly answered ; not to
be snubbed as if he were guilty of an
impertinence, nor ignored as though his
desire for information were of no con-
sequence, nor misled as if it did not
signify whether true or false impressions
were made upon his mind.
He has a right to be taught everything
which he desires to learn, and to be
made certain, when any asked-for infor-
mation is withheld, that it is only deferred
till he is older and better prepared to re-
ceive it.
Answering a child's questions is sow-
ing the seeds of its future character.
The slight impression of to-day may have
become a rule of life twenty years hence.
A youth in crossing the fields dropped
cherry-stones from his mouth, and in old
age retraced his steps by the trees laden
with luscious fruit. But many a parent,
whose heart is lacerated by a child's in-
gratitude might say,
The thorns I bleed withal are of the tree I
planted.
To answer rightly a child's questions
would give scope for the wisdom of all
the ancients ; and to illustrate needed
precept by example would require the ex-
ercise of every Christian virtue.
I have hinted at the child's right to be
let alone, by which I mean he should have
the sovereignty of his person and immu-
nity from invasion. It may be fine sport
for grown people to victimize children as
they do ; to tumble their hair with a clum-
sily caressing hand, pinch their cheeks or
ears, tweak their noses, or playfully trip
them up as they are crossing the room ;
to catch a timid little girl and toss her to
the ceiling, or subject a sensitive, bashful
boy to the ordeal of indiscriminate kiss-
ing. But every such act is an unwar-
ranted liberty, and no less an invasion of
personal rights than if practised upon the
highest dignitary of the land. In fact, it
is rather more so than less, for the child
cannot protect himself, nor even show
displeasure without subjecting himself to
rebuke. If there is any right that is in-
alienable, it is that of every human soul
to the tenement with which God has in-
vested it ; to be safe from so much as the
touch of a finger except at its own option.
To profane with a careless hand the
shrines of the gods was a grave offence
and subjected the offender to fearful pen-
alties, but is not every human organism
a shrine no less sacred ?
The beauty of all our relations is
marred by this coarse familiarity. We
need to learn more reverence ; to be re-
minded that every human form, whether
of adult or of little child, embodies a
thought of God ; to hear anew the voice
from the bush, saying, " Put thy shoes
from off thy feet, for the place whereon
thou standest is holy ground."
The child has a right to his individu-
ality, to be himself and no other ; to
maintain against the world the Divine
fact for which he stands. And before
this fact father, mother, instructor, should
stand reverently ; seeking rather to un-
derstand and interpret its significance
than to wrest it from its original pur-
pose. It is not necessarily to be in-
scribed with the family name, nor written
over with family traditions. Nature de-
lights in surprise, and will not guarantee
that the children of her poets shall sing,
nor that every Quaker baby shall take
kindly to drab colour, or have an inhe-
rent longing for a scoop-bonnet or a
broad-brimmed hat.
In the very naming of a child his in-
dividuality should be recognized. He
should not be invested with the cast-off
cognomen of some dead ancestor or his-
torical celebrity, a name musty as the
grave-clothes of the original wearer —
dolefully redolent of old associations —
a ghostly index finger forever pointing
to the past. Let it be something fresh ;
a new name standing for a new fact, the
suggestion of a history yet to be written,
a prophecy to be fulfilled. The ass was
well enough clothed in his own russet,
but when he would put on the skin of the
lion every attribute became contempti-
ble. Common-place people slip easily
through the world, but when we find
them heralded by great names we resent
the incongruity, and insist upon making
them less than they are. George Wash-
ington selling peanuts, Julius Caesar as a
boot-black, and Virgil a vender of old
clothes, make but a sorry figure. Leave
to the dead kings their purple and er-
mine, to the poets their laurels, and to
the heroes of the earth sole possession of
the names they have rendered immortal.
Let the child have a name that does
not mean too much at the outset, but
which he can fill with his individuality,
and make by-and-by to stand for exactly
the fact that he is. Swedenborg tells
us that in the spiritual world the name
i of an angel is the epitome of all his ex-
«36
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
periences, the expression of his whole
being.
The child has a right to companion-
ship. Not more surely does the plant
turn its leaves to the light than does the
child seek to share with the parent every
thought and emotion. If your boy does
not talk to you of his projects, of his suc-
cesses at school and his mishaps on the
play-ground ; if your little girl has nothing
to say of her experiences during the hours
that she is away from you, of the play-
mates whom she loves, or of the teacher
who, to her thinking, is not quite fair ; if,
in a word, you have not your child's full
confidence, be sure that it is your
fault, not his ; that you have somehow
failed in your duty towards him, and you
should not rest till you have bridged over
the chasm and placed yourself beside
him as faithful counsellor and tenderest
friend.
But while giving needed support, do
not fail to recognize in the clinging, de-
pendent child of to-day, the responsible
man or woman of a few years hence.
Leave space between you for growth.
Separate the young life sufficiently from
your own to secure to it the conditions
most favourable to its proper develop-
ment.
The object to be attained is not the il-
lustration of your theories, not by any
means your pleasure or convenience, not
even the embodiment of your ideal ; but
a recognition from the outset of a fact
beyond you, a character to be developed
according to the laws of its own being:
the unfolding from a child of a self-cen-
tred, self-directing man or woman ; the
securing to a soul the power to make
good the faculties of itself.
Do not forget that in all matters that
may with safety be left to the child your
office is merely that of counsellor, not by
any means that of autocrat. Make him
feel from the first that your government
is only provisional, and that he is to fit
himself as rapidly as possible for the sov-
ereignty of his own life. Do not burden
him with laws, nor hedge him about with
orders, nor bind him with promises.
Implant at the centre of his being the
desire to do right, and having done this,
be sure that you have provided for every
emergency in the best manner that is
possible for you.
You need not fear to tell him that the
whole of life is a school for the learning
of that one lesson ; that you as well as
he are often in the wrong ; and that you
no less than he need daily to kneel and
ask God to forgive your mistakes and
help you to become better. Not a Pope
but a parent is the child's need ; not an
assumed infallibility, but candour and
integrity of purpose ; not a guide who is
never in error, but one, who, in spite of
errors, can command confidence. To be
always near enough to give needed sup-
port, always far enough removed not to
invade, and to consider first, last, and
always the best interests of the child ;
these are the offices of a good parent,
offices rendered extremely difficult by
two strong elements of human nature —
the love of exercising authority, and the
love of serving one beloved. " Ask no
questions, but do as I bid you," is the
language of the first ; " I will do all for
you," is the language of the second. Both
utterances are selfish, and below the
standard of a true paternity. " Do you
realize that you belong to me ? that but
for me you had never been ? " said a
father to his son. " And had I been
consulted I would sooner not have been,
than have been the son of such a father,"
was the bitter but not inappropriate
answer.
The old barbarism still clings to us.
We interpret too literally the term "my
child," and assume ownership where only
guardianship was intended. They are
not ours, these young immortals ; not
wax, to be moulded to any pattern that
may please us ; not tablets, to be in-
scribed with our names, or written over
with our pet theories. Images of God,
filled with His life, consecraf-ed to His
work, destined to an immortality of
growth and individual development, we
may not confiscate them to our uses, nor
prescribe their sphere, nor fancy that our
care of their infancy has mortgaged to
our convenience their after life.
Paternity imposes duties, it does not
establish claims. Even between parent
and child comes the inexorable fiat of the
gods, " You shall have only what you are
strong enough to take." I confess I
have little sympathy for parents who
complain of the ingratitude of children.
If the stream is muddy, it is safe to infer
that the fountain was not pure. All talk
about obligation is futile ; " With what
measure ye mete it shall be measured to
you again." If you would have love, be
lovable as well as loving ; if loyalty be
loyal ; if large-hearted devotedness, be
magnanimous in giving.
Look to it, oh fathers and mothers,
that your love be something nobler than
mere instinct j that it be unselfish, long-
THE RIGHTS OF CHILDREN.
237
suffering, far-seeing, large enough to
welcome every good influence that comes
into your child's life, to rejoice that it is
not dependent solely upon you, but is
enriched by manifold affections ; that it
is joyous and happy in all innocent ways,
though the happiness be not of your pro-
viding. Look to it, that in all your re-
lations you be just and considerate,
tender and wise ; that you live so nobly,
that love, honour, reverence, must needs
attend you and run with alacrity to do
your biddin'T; that through self-control
you learn the secret of wise government,
and by the | ractice of self-abnegation
win from your children a loving consider-
ation of your highest claim.
All our lives we have been hearing of
the debt children owe their parents ; do
we think enough of what parents owe
their children ? To my mind this is by
far the greater question. We owe them
harmonious organizations, favourable
conditions, a true development ; but this
is not all. Aside from these things we
owe to them a debt beyond our power to
estimate. If they need us materially,
we no less need them spiritually. I pity
the man or woman who can spend an
hour with a little child and not be made
wiser. Children utter the only oracles,
and are the most truly inspired, because
the most unconscious of teachers. By
the directness and simplicity of their
questions they rebuke our pretence and
artificiality, constantly reminding us how
much there is that we do not know ; by
their loving trust they shame our doubts,
by the play of their fancy and the buoy-
ancy of their spirits they banish our
despair. Said a little seven-year-old girl,
looking up musingly from the doll she was
tending, " Mamma, what is the good of us,
and what are we all living for ? " Could
the mother answer that question without
drawing near to the heart of God, feeling
her own life and that of her little one
sheltered in His all-embracing love ? I
remember sitting one afternoon last sum-
mer in a room where a dusky little face
was pressed against the window-pane,
intently watching a coming thunder-
storm ; suddenly it flashed round upon
us with the exclamation, " Oh, mamma !
do come here and see how God is writing
short-hand across the clouds."
What shadow would not be dispelled
by the quaint answer of the little one,
who, having been naughty, was asked by
her mother if she was not going to ask
God to forgive her. " No, mamma, I
don't like to talk with God, for if he gets
too well acquainted with me, He may
want me to go and live with Him and
leave you."
" Who was the dark's mother ? " en-
quired a little boy coming back suddenly
from the border of dream-land to ask the
question ; and what mother has not been
startled by the solemn enquiry, " How did
God begin ?"
Could any mother afford to spare out
of her life the children's hour ? Not the
one described by the poet — not the one
that we all know so well, tinged with the
last rays of sunset, deepening into the
mystery of twilight, and suddenly blos-
soming into merriment with the incoming
of the evening lamp. That is also father's
and mother's hour — a care-free, happy
time, interposed between the day's work
and the evening's sociability ; very en-
joyable with its snatches of talk, its brief
chapters from the day's experience, its
ripples of laughter, and its stories mur-
mured softly to the little ones ; very en-
joyable, but not like an ho-;r that comes
later, when, having unfastened the last
hook, picked out the last troublesome
knot, and buttoned the comfortable night-
gown over the dimpled shoulders, the
mother lies down beside the little one
and takes the chubby hand in hers for
the good-night talk — when questions are
asked and answered, grievances told and
kissed away — when the naughty word or
act is acknowledged, and the how and
why of wrong and of right doing is ex-
plained.
This is the true confessional, approved
by the ang Is and blessed of God ; of
more value to the child than a whole
library of catechisms, and with a minis-
tration to the mother in comparison with
which fasts and festivals are of small
account, and even sermons and sacra-
ments of secondary importance.
We are indebted to our children for
constant incentives to noble living; for
the perpetual reminder that we do not
live to ourselves alone, for their sakes we
are admonished to put from us the debas-
ing appetite, the unworthy impulse, to
gather into our lives every noble and
heroic quality, every tender and attrac-
tive grace.
We owe them gratitude for the dark
hours which their presence has bright-
ened, for the helplessness and depend-
ence which have won us from ourselves ;
for the faith and trust which it is ever-
more their mission to renew : for their
238
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
kisses on cheeks wet with tears, and on
brows that but for that caressing had
furrowed into frowns.
We bless them for the child-world
which they keep open to us — the true
fairy-land, where all that we once hoped
and dreamed is still possible ; the Para-
dise of humanity, which they perpetually
dress and keep ; a Paradise which, spite
of the angel with the scythe and hour-
glass who has driven us forth, we shall
yet regain, and through all whose beati-
tudes a little child shall lead us.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE
REVOLUTION.
Visitors to the Vienna Exhibition
were grievously disappointed at one part
of the promised show. They had been
told that all the nations and peoples of
the remote orient would come crowding
in the wake of their miscellaneous exhib-
its to the palace of industry on the semi-
oriental Danube. They came in faith
and hope, to see few signs of anything of
the kind. There were no flowing drap-
eries in silk or flowered calico, no jew-
elled turbans or high-crowned caps of
fur. If there were any Pagan visitors
from the Tartar steppes, they were so
completely disguised en Chretien that
there was no detecting them. If there
were gentlemen from the Caucasus or
the Persian frontier, they had dismantled
themselves of their ambulant armories,
had left their cartridge-quilted vests at
home. The Anglicised Hindoo was con-
spicuous by his absence. We believe
there was but a single Chinaman, and
he was on duty in the department of
the Flowery Land ; nay, even the Os-
manli from the neighbouring Bosphorus
had not been stirred sufficiently from his
habitual apathy to trouble himself to un-
dertake the easy voyage by rail and
steamboat. En revanche^ there was one
strange type of nationality you met at
every turn — small, slight-made men with
olive complexions and black twinkling
eyes slit almond-fashion. But on their
way to Vienna they had probably passed
by Paris, and were dressed in such gar-
ments as are to be procured at the Belle
Jardiniere or the Bon Diable, with tall
chimney-pot hats that came well down
upon their foreheads. They had taken
wonderfully kindly to these new clothes of
theirs, and yet there was something about
them that told you that they were mas-
querading cleverly. On the first glance
you were conscious of an impression you
had seen them somewhere before, and
then it gradually dawned on you that it
was on porcelain vases and lacquered
cabinets you had met them. For these
were the Japanese, the sprightly children
of "the Land of the Rising Sun ; " and
it was not only in the ease with which
they had slipped into their European
clothes that they showed their happy fac-
ulties of adaptation. They were little
versed as yet in foreign tongues ; they
knew next to nothing of German gut-
turals. But there they were, working
their way about everywhere, giving the
freest play to their inquiring minds, and
dispensing for the most part with inter-
preter or cicerone. They hopped on be-
hind the crowded tramway cars with an
utter absence of the dignity we regard as
the birthright of oriental blood ; they
submitted to be jostled and trodden upon
with as little sign of temper or prejudice
as the good-humoured Viennese them-
selves ; they bartered their base Aus-
trian coin for conductors' tickets as if
they had been accustomed to street rail-
ways from their boyhood. You saw them
everywhere, because they had been sent
so far upon their travels at the Govern-
ment expense, to act on the maxim of
the sage Bacon. Travel with them was
indeed a part of education, and they
were studying men as much as things.
The shrewd interest shown in their sharp
eyes seemed never to flag for a moment;
the flesh might sometimes be weary, but
the spirit was always willing. If they
had shipped any prejudices with them in
Japan, they had thrown them overboard
on the outward voyage. High-caste
Hindoos, even if they had consented to
come across the " black water," would
have thought themselves contaminated
had they been brought in contact with
unbelievers at their meals. The China-
man would have showed himself all
abroad had he not been permitted to
bring his chopsticks into society. But
these Japanese gentlemen frequented the
French restaurants, and gulped down
Dreher's beer in the Austrian " brewer-
ies " like all the rest of the world ; they
handled our knives and forks as if they
had been to the fashion born, and, in
short, behaved themselves in every re-
spect like easy and liberal men of the
world.
To those who remarked the ease and
apiomboi their bearing, it seemed scarcely
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
239
credible that they came from a country
that had maintained itself in the most
churhsh isolation until within the last
twenty years : a country so jealously self-
contained that until the other day per-
mission to leave it would have been de-
nied to its highest dignitaries. We know
how an Englishman looks when he sets
his foot for the first time in a strange
city — half shy, half suspicious, moving
about in a chilling atmosphere of repul-
sion which numbs his good-fellowship
and faculties, and obscures his vision.
Frenchmen may be more versatile and
impressionable, yet fugitive impressions
disappear from their casing of vain self-
complacency, like breath from a plating
of polished steel. These Japanese rubbed
their eyes when they woke up in a new
world of wonders, and there they were,
wide awake at once. Their lively brains
must have been in a perpetual whirl of
excitement, but surprises stimulated in-
stead of stunning them. They came to
Europe eager to learn, and from the first
day of their landing they began to do
like the Europeans. The imitation of ex-
ternals came naturally to them : they
were quick at catching up the manners
and customs of the people who jostled
them. They acted like a shrewd man
who finds himself in more refined society
than he has been used to, and is not sure
of the ways of his company. They ob-
served and copied with smiling self-con-
fidence and an off-hand assumption of
original action. They were learning from
everything around them without an ap-
pearance of effort ; and under their in-
souciant exterior, they were remodelling
their minds with marvellous rapidity.
Whether minds so mobile, and made of
material so plastic, are the best materials
for forming a great nation and founding
a stable power, is another question. It
is at least certain that these Japanese were
the genuine representatives of that spirit
of progress or innovation which is hurry-
ing the ancient empire of the Mikados
towards a future that no one can foretell,
Had the Japanese been a nation of
quick and docile barbarians, we could
better understand all that has passed
among them of late years. But until
Americans* and Europeans bombarded
them into the brotherhood of nations,
they had been conservative to bigotry, and
with no little reason. The past they are
now impatient to break with was one of
which any untravelled people might well
be proud ; and it was odd enough that,
at the moment when they were flocking
' to Vienna, they were playing a game of
I cross purposes with the most advanced
j nations of the Western world. While
! they were doing their best to denational-
ize themselves with astounding success,
we Europeans were 'servilely copying
their arts, and humbly confessing that
our attempts at imitation were failures.
Wherever you moved about among the
ornamental works of the Exhibition — •
especially among the ceramics, the wood-
carving, and the precious metals — you
saw Japanese ideas in the ascendant. If
there were extraordinary grace in an out-
line, or wonderful delicacy in a fabric,
you might be pretty sure it was borrowed
from the Japanese. Although there are
follies in fashions, and our connoisseurs
have launched into many an absurd ex-
travagance since Dutch monsters fetched
fabulous prices, in the early days of the
Hanoverian dynasty, there could be no
mistake about the aesthetic purity of this
fashion. In the court of the Japanese
you could judge for yourself of the ad-
mirable superiority of their models. You
crossed the threshold to find yourself in
an artistic fairyland, where fancy might
be said to have run the wildest riot, had
it not been subordinated so invariably to
the sense of the beautiful. There was
much that was grotesque, for rich droll-
ery and quaint humour abounded. There
was a great deal of ingeniously imagined
deformity : but in the grotesqueness
there was never anything to scandalize,
and often the deformity had its positive
fascination. Everywhere the perfect
elaboration of the patient execution did
ample justice to the vigorous origiaality
of the design. The monsters, marine
and terrestrial, exquisitely moulded in
brass or bronze, were instinct with life ;
while, fabulous or not, they impressed
you with a conviction of the general cor-
rectness of their anatomy. The snakes
and lizards coiling themselves on the
covers of vases, or twining themselves
into handles or hinges, looked like na-
ture itself in all their fantastic contor-
tions. There was a world of expression
in the eyes of the elephants and the sa-
gacious curl of the animals' trunks. As
for the fabrics of the famous pottery-
ware, the colouring of the painted flowers
and the tints of the plumage of the birds,
they were the envy and despair of Staf-
fordshire potteries and Parisian artists.
With all their taste, appliances, and ex-
perience, neither Deck in France nor
Mr. Binns in England could surpass, or
even equal, the delicate ivory of the Sut-
240
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
suma-ware, with its waving lines, or the
red and grey of the exquisite Kago. No
European fingers had the nicety to ma-
nipulate those minute plaques of gold that
were wrought into those wondrous de-
signs on the exquisitely finished cabi-
nets ; while the repoussi-v^oxk. on vases,
caskets, and incense-burners was inimit-
able in its delicacy. Painting, no doubt,
was in its infancy with them. They had
crude notions of perspective ; they had
not gone on educating themselves through
successive centuries to develop schools
and styles ; nor did they show any of the
highly varnished canvasses we hang on
the walls of academies and salons. With
them the painter was rather in the pay
of the upholsterer and house-decorator.
They dashed in a pattern in outline on
screens and hangings, with men and
heads, birds and fishes, fruits and flowers.
But in the measure and within the scope
of their designs, they showed something
more like genius than talent. There
were flights of water-fowl streaming
through the air, there were fishes cleav-
ing the water. There was but a line, a
dot, or a shadow here and there to con-
vey the idea of water or the atmosphere.
It eluded your critical sagacity altogether
to discover how the artist had conveyed
so easily the idea of motion, lightness, and
buoyancy ; but there could be no mistake
about the v; vid reality of your impressions.
And yet the collection that excited the
admiration of connoisseurs only indicat-
ed faintly the extent and value of the art-
treasures of the Japanese empire ; for
the rage for Japanese art has prevailed
among us for a good many years, and
dealers and brokers have picked up most
that were for sale, and transferred it be-
fore now to wealthy amateurs. It is true
that the Government, when it decided
on exhibiting, advertised for industrial
objects, to be produced regardless of
cost. But the Mikado and the great
nobles were not likely to strip their pal-
aces and risk their most treasured ob-
jects on a perilous sea-voyage, even in
order that they might raise the reputation
of their country in the opinion of remote
barbarians. Such as the exhibition was,
however, it showed you sufficient to in-
dicate the existence of an old civiliza-
tion of a very high character ; for when
a country has made such advances in the
arts, it implies a strong social organiza-
tion, refined tastes, and the leisure and
security to indulge them. Anarchy and
irresponsible despotism arbitrarily ex-
ercised, are altogether incompatible with
the calm thought and patient labour that
for many centuries had been working
those precious materials into those cost-
ly heirlooms. There had been wars and
troubles in Japan, no doubt, — indeed the
Japanese have been a military nation par
excellence J and the sword was the most
honoured of all the professions, for the
military caste took rank after the nobles.
But the manner of conducting wars and
feuds may be a proof the more of the
progress and spirit of a nation ; and these
ancient vases and cabinets must either
have been saved by sound engineering
from siege and storm, or been spared by
the victors in a spirit of appreciation, or
else by capitulations honourably ob-
served.
The Japanese have notoriously been a
nation of warriors, and that in all proba-
bility was the reason why the exhibition
was so surprisingly pacific in its charac-
ter. They have just been fighting out
their revolution in a sharp series of civil
wars ; throwing aside the weapons that
served their fathers and used to satisfy
themselves, and snatching eagerly at those
that were offered them by European
traders. Of late years it was European
war-steamers and field-pieces, Sniders,
Enfields, powder and cartridges, that
figured most conspicuously among the
imports at the treaty ports ; but as yet
they had scarcely found time to establish
gun-factories for themselves, and so
they had nothing to exhibit among native
productions by way of competing with
Essen or Woolwich. Yet one warlike
object they did exhibit, and a very signifi-
cant one, for it was eloquent of the mar-
vellous transitions they are passing
through, as well as of the extraordinary
dangers which beset the foreigners who
have settled among them. The chain-
armour of a Japanese foot-soldier, with
the plumed morion to match, had slipped
in somehow among the china and the
cabinets. It embodied in itself many of
the odd contrasts and inconsistencies
which still strike the stranger in Japan,
although they are fast disappearing be-
fore revolutionary legislation : it remind-
ed you of the recent vitality of that for-
midable, aggressive, and reactionary
feudal system which consented of a sud-
den to its own happy despatch in the
very flush of a crowning victory. It ex-
pressed the intense antagonism of the
immemorial institutions of Japan to that
trading spirit which has carried all be-
fore it, imbuing to all appearance in a
few short years the natural leaders of the
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
241
feudal aristocracy of the empire. It was
eloquent of the romantic side of the Jap-
anese life and manners, which in their
very picturesqueness were a standing
menace to strangers. It recalled the
times — they are only of yesterday —
when the streets, highroads, and houses
of entertainment swarmed with the
swordsmen retainers of the daimios ;
when these men, who, by training and
tradition, were utterly reckless of life
and consequences, regarded every for-
eigner they set eyes upon as the symbol
of all that was most vile and objection-
able ; when the country was infested by
bands of masterless men-at-arms, some-
thing of a cross between the knight-er-
rant and the condottiero. Chain-armour
of this kind was going out of fashion with
us when the Black Prince and his father
won Crecy and Poitiers ; morions of the
sort have been out of date since the wars
of the Long Parliament ; but they were
the uniform worn by the soldiers of
Chosiu and Satsuma when they were set-
tling their domestic differences the other
day, within range or hearing of the rifled
guns in our ironclads. The armour of
yesterday is relegated to-day to muse-
ums, with all the antiquated institutions
it symbolized ; but the men who wore it
can scarcely have changed their natures,
or renounced the feelings inculcated as
the religion of their caste, vf"
Japan has always been -fejftveloped in
mystery, thanks to its jealous policy of
exclusion ; and now that its ports are
thrown open to us, it is more of a mys-
tery than ever. The story of our inter-
course with it during the last quarter of
a century has resembled in all respects
a historical romance. It has abounded
in sensations and startling surprises. It
has been a succession of plots cleverly
contrived to puzzle us, and of which we
scarcely yet hold the clue. The grand
ddnoueinent is yet to come, and the best-
informed observers are watching for it in
hopeless mystification. As for exciting
episodes, they are endless. Peaceful
diplomatists have been sitting and nego-
tiating under keen-edged swords that
have been literally suspended by threads.
Merchants have been pushing their trade
in the teeth of prejudices, and in defiance
of threats, — buying and selling on the
treacherous edge of an abyss. Now the
country is apparently inundated with Eu-
ropean ideas, and the loyal subjects of
the galvanized Mikado are supposed to
have renounced their most cherished
prejudices, and to have taken for their
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 328
models foreigners and traders — the peo-
ple they detested, following a calling
they despised. But to measure the
movement, and to estimate the dangers
our countrymen have so far tided over in
comparative safety, we must glance at
what we know of the condition of the
empire before the recent revolution and
fall of the Shogun.
There are a good many excellent works
on the subject — excellent at least, ac-
cording to their authors' light at the
time of writing ; for we have gradually
been fathoming the depths of our igno-
rance. But of the works that have been
written, there is none, perhaps, that gives
a more thorough insight into Japanese
society than one of the lightest and least
pretending — Mitford's "Tales of Old
Japan." One veracious native history
like that of the " Forty-seven Ronins " is
worth any quantity of speculative com-
mentary on passing events, hit off super-
ficially from the European point of view.
The features in the national character
and institutions, brought out by Mitford
in the boldest relief, are precisely those
that would make the events that have
been happening lately under our eyes
appear most improbable. We see a mar-
tial spirit in the ascendant everywhere :
the soldier class ranking after the nobles ;
the agriculturist taking precedence over
the ingenious artisan ; and the trading
counterpart of the foreign settlers occu-
pying the lowest place of all. We see
the central Government, with which for-
eigners would naturally treat, divided
against itself ; while powerful feudato-
ries, paying but an illusory allegiance to
their liege lord, overshadowed the throne
altogether, and carried the system of de-
centralization to an extreme. We see
the patriarchal principle almost more ab-
solute than it ever was among ourselves
in the Highlands of Scotland ; the system
of clanship in the fullest force, with a
self-sacrificing devotion on the part of
the clansmen so sublime as sometimes to
border on the ludicrous. The point of a
tragic story often lies in the grim humour
with which a vassal gravely insists on de-
spatching himself for a mere bagatelle —
for nowhere perhaps do men part more
lightly with their lives than in Japan.
Not only do the Japanese possess the
passive indifference to death of the
Chinaman, who will make* a bargain for
his life as for anything else that belongs
to him ; but they have the active and
high-flown courage which inspired the
fantastic chivalry of our middle ageSi,
242
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
Setting their personal feelings out of the
question altogether, the very idea that
the foreigners were objects of detestation
to their lords, with the knowledge that
their being under the protection of the
Government made it a somewhat dan-
gerous matter to meddle with them, was
quite sufficient to provoke the swagger-
ing Samurais to undertake the adventure
of cutting down individuals. No doubt
assassination and attempts at assassina-
tion occurred not unfrequently. The
only marvel is, that massacres have not
been universal, and that either the lega-
tions or the mercantile communities have
survived so far to see their perseverance
rewarded.
Take the tale of the " Forty-seven
Ronins " by way of illustrating our argu-
ment. The Ronins, who figure so con-
spicuously in Japanese legends, are, to
borrow the old Scotch phrase, "broken
men " — literally " wave men " — who, by
some crime or accident, are masterless
for the time being, and who have taken
to living by sword and stirrup, in defiance
of the law and at war with society. The
famous Forty-seven were part of the fol-
lowing of a high dignitary of the Shogun-
ate. Being thrown on the world by his
untimely and violent death, they banded
themselves together in secret to avenge
ihim. Their unfortunate master had been
condemned to the hara-kiri — solemn sui-
cide, with all the forms of state ceremony
— for attempting to right a wrong of his
own within the sacred precincts of the
Shogun's palace. They vowed to carry
out the work that their master had been
interrupted in ; but his enemy and theirs
was wary and vigilant, and formidably
guarded in his fortified residence. In
their loyalty they deliberately decided to
sacrifice their own careers, their lives,
their character, their happiness, and their
tenderest affections. To disarm suspi-
cion, their leader betakes himself to a life
of low debauchery, haunts houses of ill-
fame, and rolls about the public ways in
a state of swinish intoxication. Nay,
more, he quarrels with his dearly-loved
wife when she remonstrates ; and to
make sure that his part shall be played
out to perfection, he does not take her
into his confidence. On the contrary, he
divorces her with abusive words, sending
her away sorrowing, to the scandal of
their grown-up family. So much for
the preparation ; and the circumstances
of the night attack, when it comes off at
last, are scarcely less significant of the
national manners. The palace to be as-
sailed is in the crowded metropolis of
Yeddo ; and the Forty-seven send round
the quarter to warn its inhabitants not to
be alarmed should they hear a disturb-
ance. The formal announcement runs
thus : " We, the Ronins, who were for-
merly in the service of Asano Takumi no
Kami, are this night about to break into
the palace of Kotsuk^ no Suk^, to avenge
our lord. As we are neither night rob-
bers nor ruffians, no hurt will be done to
the neighbouring houses. We pray you
to set your minds at rest." Accordingly,
not a soul stirs, although the desperate
fight is maintained for hours. For the
body-guards of Kotsuke no Sukd show
themselves just as stanch as the Ronins,
and, taken by surprise as they were, they
fight it out till they fall to a man. The
palace is carried, and its occupant fer-
reted out, hiding himself in rather ludi-
crous circumstances. Yet the chief of
the Ronins, warm from the fray, in spite
of his inveterate animosity and the con-
temptible appearance presented by his
trembling victim, makes it a point of
honour to resume the calm dignity of a
warrior's training. He is exceptionally
punctilious in observing the forms of
humble respect due to a superior. He
briefly recalls the circumstances that
have brought about the present catastro-
phe, apologizing with much courtesy for
the disagreeable necessity to which he
and his companions have been driven,
and respectfully prays the wounded noble-
man to execute the "happy despatch"
volunteering himself for " the honour " of
acting as second. Kotsukd, however,
won't hear of this. He is one of those
rare characters in Japanese legend or
history — a coward who even shrinks
from death when it is inevitable. So he
figures* passively in place of actively as,
principal in the drama that is hastily
enacted, and the Ronins evacuate his
palace, carrying off his head. It is their
intention to offer it on their master's
tomb. Although the city is all in excite-
ment by this time, no one attempts to ob-
struct their retreat. It is understood
that the head of their late master's fam-
ily has got his retainers all under arms,
ready to come to their support if neces-
sary. He will protect them from the
populace, or the followers of other
princes ; he even offers them a banquet
of honour ; yet he will not interpose be-
tween them and the law. Their lives
were devoted beforehand, and they had
counted the cost when they swore them-
selves to the desperate adventure. They
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
243
feast themselves solemnly with "gruel "
and wine before completing their pious
work, by offering the head of his enemy
to the manes of their master. Then
they calmly await their fate in the sanc-
tuary where they had taken refuge, al-
though the country is before them, and
they can fly if they please. The sentence
comes at last in an order that the whole
forty-seven shall perform hara-kiri. They
have knowingly broken the law, and there
is no remitting the penalty. But, although
divided in their deaths, they are once
more reassembled in an honoured sepul-
chre, around the master they loved so
well ; and from that day until now their
memory has been reverejiced, and they
have been worshipped. /
Now this is no picturesque legend of
another and earlier state of society, like
an exploit of Robin Hood or Rob Roy, or
even of some highwayman on Bagshot
Heath. Until the other year, if not to the
present day, the unfaltering loyalty of
the warlike Samurais to their feudal lords
was similar in kind, if not in intensity, to
that which has immortalized the Forty-
seven Renins. Suicides on the point of
honour were just as common lately as
then, and were often committed with far
less reason. Thus Mr. Mitford tells us
how, so late as 1868, a man had solemnly
disembowelled himself among the graves
of the Renins, simply because he had
been refused admission among the fol-
lowers of the Prince of Chosiu ; and no
one seemed to think the proceeding any-
thing but natural. An individual act may
be prompted by fanaticism or insanity ;
but there is no misinterpreting the annals
of the recent wars. One of the most
striking instances we can recall is fur-
nished by the repeated revolts of that
Prince of Chosiu, the warlike and turbu-
lent daimio of Naguto. Chosiu took the
field in 1864 with fifty thousand men ;
and of course, in any ordinary war, the
men he nourished would naturally follow
him. But he flew at high game, and
actually assaulted the palace of the
Mikado. Now the explanation of the
late revolution offered by Iwakaura, the
present premier, and other leading poli-
ticians, is, that it has its springs in the
profound reverence of the nation for the
person and office of the Mikado — a rev-
erence which survived the usurpation of
his authority by the Shoguns during a
period of seven hundred years. Yet
Chosiu's troops stood by him in his deed
of sacrilege, and they fought gallantly,
though the assault failed. The Shogun
and the daimios in alliance with him
turned out, and came to the rescue.
Chosiu had to succumb to the forces of
the League ; he and his son shaved their
heads and retired from public life to sanc-
tuary in a temple, just as the beaten mon-
archs of early Christian monarchies were
sometimes permitted to withdraw into
convents. His contrition and submis-
sion were both feigned ; but, to give a
lively colour to them, and to carry off his
part successfully, he informed his great
officers who had headed his troops that it
was his pleaure they should perform hara-
kiri. Then he duly transmitted the
heads of these stanch friends of his to
the Shogun by way of vouchers. A more
cruel, cowardly, and treacherous proceed-
ing— one better fitted to alienate the
affections of the most loyal subjects — it
is difficult to conceive. Yet in the follow-
ing year, when he was again in the field,
his men followed him as loyally as ever,
although the military odds were all
against him, and although in the dis-
turbed state of the country they could
have deserted him with absolute im-
punity.
But in truth, not only was there blind
devotion among the men-at-arms to their
immediate chiefs, but a most deferential
submission among all classes to those
above them. First came the nobles, then
the soldiers, then the agriculturists, arti-
sans, traders. The men who tilled the
ground held high honour comparatively
in the social hierarchy ; but they sub-
mitted in resigned acquiescence to the
imposts of their landlords, until some-
times when their burdens became at last
absolutely intolerable. To venture on
remonstrance or appeal needed heroism
almost as self-sacrificing as that which
animated the Ronins ; and next to the
tale of the Forty-seven, the story in Mit-
ford which is most characteristic is that
of the ghost of Sakurd. S6gor6 is head-
man of a village in a district which is be-
ing ground to the dust by exactions.
The miserable inhabitants take heart of
grace and petition their lord, who is an
absentee proprietor residing in Yeddo.
They take nothing by their petition but a
warning not to do it again. Driven to
desperation, Sogoro, knowing full well
what he has to expect in any case, re-
solves on appeal to the Shogun, stops
him as Richie Moniplies stopped King
James, and thrusts a petition into his
litter. The " sifflication " is favourably
received, the truth of its contents being
admitted on inquiry — things must have
244
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
come to a melancholy pass with the vil-
lagers before such an act of insubordina-
tion was approved — and the lord is com-
manded to do justice. He dare not
disobey the Shogun, but Sogoro is his, to
deal with as he pleases ; nor does the
Shogun, in the full plenitude of his pow-
er, feel it his province to interpose for
the unlucky villager's protection. Sogoro
is condemned to crucifixion, with his wife
and family. The population of the dis-
trict he has saved are full of sympathy,
although not greatly surprised. Sogoro
is a lost man, they see ; indeed, his life is
forfeited by custom, if not by law. But
they make an effort to save his wife and
children, and nothing can be more thor-
oughly Japanese than the quaint wordling
of their petition. " With deep fear we
humbly venture " — " With reverence and
joy we gratefully acknowledge the favour,"
squeezed out of this vindictive lord —
" With fear and trembling we recognize
• A \ A
the justice of Sogoro's sentence." So-
goro has been " guilty of a heinous crime."
" In his case we reverently admit there
can be no reprieve."
In fact, when we established relations
with Japan, it was a federation of feudal
despotisms, administered more or less
benevolently according to the individual
dispositions of the daimios, and all nomi-
nally subjected to the Shogun, who was
despotic within his own territories, and
so far as his power extended beyond
them. The great daimios resided for a
good part of the year in Yeddo, the
Shogun's capital, in vast palaces that
covered whole quarters. The barracks
of potentates like Satsuma or Chosiu had
accommodation for 10,000 or 15,000 men,
and were often overflowing. And these
formidable body-guards were not regu-
larly drilled and disciplined troops. They
"were reckless swashbucklers, idle and
penniless, for their bread literally de-
pended on their masters, and they sub-
sisted on the daily rations of rice by
which their masters measured their in-
comes. We have seen how lightly life is
held by all classes ; and these men were
trained from their boyhood to show con-
tempt for death. Not a man of the gen-
tlemen among them but had been regu-
larly instructed in the ceremonial of the
hara-kiri, with the view of dving with
dignity and credit should he ever be con-
demned to solemn suicide. The Japanese
youths were taught to die as boys with
us are taught to dance. Not a man
among them but would have thought him-
self honoured at being singled out to
commit an assassination on his prince's
behalf, and who would not have felt his
mission the more flattering had he been
commanded to make himself a scapegoat,
and keep his prince's counsel. They
were far quicker to take murderous hints
than the duller brains of the Barons to
whom Henry spoke so plainly, when he
longed to be rid of the overbearing
Becket. Without hints of any sort they
understood the spirit of their masters'
minds, and knew they could rely upon the
protecticm of their clansmen should they
come home red-handed after cutting down
a foreigner. Even when they went
abroad with no particular design — when
they were swaggering about in the tea-
houses with those naked blades of theirs,
the keener of which are warranted to cut
through three corpses at a blow — the
temptation to have a slash at a passing
foreigner must often have been almost
irresistible. As we remarked before, the
wonder is, not that foreigners were occa-
sionally slaughtered, but that a single in-
dividual of them was suffered to exist.
When a crime was committed, and the
Shogun declared, in answer to remon-
strances, that his justice was baffled, it is
more than likely that he generally spoke
the truth. It might have puzzled a
daimio to detect a culprit among the
crowd of his followers, although, no
doubt, had he declared that a scapegoat
was wanted, there would have been keen
competition for the honourable service.
Such were the daimios and their retain-
ers when the American and European
war squadrons were prevailing on the
Shogun to give us access to the country.
So long as the daimios were courteous to
the Shogun, and spoke reverentially of
the Mikado, they had pretty much carte
blanche to do as they pleased even in
Yeddo. In their own dominions they
were absolute. They were very bigoted ;
the chief of them were very rich ; they
had good reason to be satisfied with the
island-empire they had locked themselves
up in ; they dreaded change : they de-
tested foreigners, and especially despised
them in their capacity of traders, the
capacity in which the strangers claimed
admission to Japan. They had formed
their idea of Europeans, Christians, and
traders, from the Dutch they penned
up in Nagasaki harbour, — for their
intercourse with the Portuguese was an
old story. The abject submission of
these Dutch strangers must have con-
firmed the Japanese in their contempt
for the trading classes. For the sake of
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
245
profit, the Dutch had consented to all
manner of inflictions and restrictions ;
and it had been the consistent policy of
the authorities to degrade them in the eyes
of the people. They were shut up in an
artificial island ; they had to send a sol-
emn deputation annually to play the
mountebanks in the presence of the
Mikado by way of court ceremony ; they
were said to have renounced their reli-
gion by trampling on the symbol of their
salvation, although that may have been
calumny. So when Commodore Perry
sailed his squadron into Yeddo Bay in
the summer of 1853, the Japanese no
doubt believed that he brought a fresh
batch of humble petitioners for toleration.
They were quickly undeceived, and the
American took a bold line from the first.
He spoke as equal to equal, with an in-
sinuation of unknown resources in re-
serve that was calculated to impress an
intelligent people. On shore he could
have done nothing, and the followers of
a daimio of the third class might have
disposed of the party of marines he might
have landed. But then, on the other
hand, he was invulnerable at sea. There
his squadrons were floating in the hither-
to inviolate waters of the Empire, flaunt-
ing their dragon pendants with the stripes
and stars, and resolutely declining to be
put off with speeches, either soft or im-
perious. He was mistaken, like the rest
of the world, as to who was the legal sov-
ereign ; but he was aware that the Shogun
was actual ruler, and he declined to enter
into negotiations with anybody but
officials of the highest rank. There he
was, and there he seemed likely to stay.
For the Japanese had no navy in their
archipelago, although the light coasting
vessels that scouted about their enemy's
ships were models of grace and skilful
construction in their way.
We have no intention of even sketch-
ing in outline the history of negotiations
since the Americans first broke ground
in their straight-forward fashion. We
will only repeat that they went the right
way to work with their practical sagacity ;
and very soon — such was the force of
their example — the Dutch actually got
up from their knees, and provoked a snub
by their sudden change of demeanour.
In the earliest days of foreign interposi-
tion, we think we can comprehend the
progress of thought and the shifting rela-
tions of parties in the empire. The Mi-
kado had nothing to say in the matter,
and probably neither he nor his Court
nobles felt any great interest in it. The
Shoguns had administered the realm for
centuries, and it was the province of the
Shoguns to deal with those importunate
barbarians. The daimios were disgusted
with the overweening pretensions of the
new arrivals ; they detested them hearti-
ly, with the strange forms of civilization
they had imported, and they resented the
Shogun not having got rid of them at
once. As for the Shogun, he was very
sensible of the increasing pressure he
was being subjected to. Sharp and intel-
ligent like all his countrymen, he made it
his business to find out what forces those
intrusive foreigners could dispose of, and
to discover whether they were in a posi-
tion to make good their promises. For
while they hinted that he must be co-
erced in case of recalcitrancy, they were
very eloquent as to all he would gain
were he only to give in to them with
a good grace. At first, unquestionably,
it was his purpose to get credit with
his countrymen by throwing dust in
the strangers' eyes, for his position was
excessively delicate and dangerous, as
events have proved. As the strangers
would not be blinded, he had to choose
the lesser of two evils : he went in for
the speculative alternative of obtaining
for himself and his country great gains
by means of trade, at the risk of provok-
ing unpopularity and strong animosities.
We talk of the Shogun, for such seems
to have been the successive policy of the
men who filled the office while foreigners
had anything to do with them. But in
those few years the Shoguns changed
fast. An acting regent was assassinated
in broad day close to the very gates of
his palace ; while one, if not two others,
died under strong suspicion of poison.
But in reality it was the last of the
Shoguns — the instigator of that auda-
cious assassination of the regent — who
voluntarily embodied in his conduct the
policy that had been forced on his prede-
cessors by the very decided line he
adopted. He hurried matters to the cri-
sis that crushed the Shogunate.
Yoshi Hisha, a prince of the family of
Mito, began to be so firmly persuaded of
the profits of this foreign connection,
that he fell under the suspicion of desir-
ing to monopolize them for his own ad-
vantage. Seventeen years had elapsed
since Commodore Perry's arrival in Jap-'
anese waters, and the daimios all the
time had been in process of conversion to
European ideas. Satsuma had been bom-
barded in his capital of Kagosima. A de-
scent had been made on Chosiu's territo-
246
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
ries, in retaliation for his firing upon pass-
ing shipping ; his batteries had been
spilcedin the straits of Nagasaki, and the
obstructions cleared away that he had laid
down in their intricate channel. The
daimios had learned the value of European
weapons, and the comparative worthless-
ness of their own. They had begun to buy
armour-plated steamers and rifled guns ;
but each was nervously apprehensive that
his neighbour might get the start of him.
What chance had a body of irregular
swordsmen clothed in chain-armour, with
regularly drilled battalions armed with
breech-loaders ? And there was the
Shogun at head-quarters treating directly
with the foreigners ; increasing a strength
they were already jealous of, and which
had no superstitious sanction, like that of
the Mikados. He made concession of
treaty ports after a great show of resist-
ance, and all of them were in territories
that were under his personal control. The
eighteen great feudatories could only
conduct their transactions with the stran-
gers through the intermediacy of the
Shogun's officers ; the Prince of Satsu-
ma being perhaps an exception, for he
always kept himself on a somewhat ex-
ceptional footing. At first these feuda-
tories had been as bitterly opposed to
new-fangled innovations as our English
squires when their properties were threat-
ened by the railway companies. Now,
like the Englishmen, when they saw that
money was being lavished all around
them, they recognized their mistake, and
tried to retrieve it. They were eager for
opening treaty ports of their own ; and
the Shogun, who saw that discontent was
rife, and war imminent in any case, was
more resolved than ever not to concede
these. Were the war to break out, arms
might counterbalance numbers, and he
had no idea of renouncing what advan-
tage he possessed in the way of obtain-
ing superior equipments. Already it ap-
peared that the warlike prince of Nagato
had managed to get the start of him in
that respect, probably in great measure
by way of contraband trade, if trade may
be called contraband when the rebellious
potentate was strong enough and bold
enough to carry it on in defiance of his
superior.
While the Shogunate was being threat-
ened by this formidable coalition, it oc-
curred to both parties to turn to the Mi-
kado. In the seven hundred years of the
Shogunate it had been the interest and
policy of the reigning Shogun to ignore
the ernpereur faineant of Kioto ; and this
policy of neglect had succeeded so well
that the daimios had come to regard the
Mikado as a phantom. When Lord Elgin
and Baron Gros had treated with the Sho-
gun as supreme sovereign, that usurping
dignitary had left them in their mistake ;
and when the treaties were solemnly
signed and sealed, no one else had cared
to undeceive them. Indeed, what had
once been usurpation had since been
sanctioned by time and custom ; and if
prescription and acquiescence go for any-
thing in a matter of the kind, the Shogun
was sovereign by acquiescence of the
Mikado. If might as well as right had
remained with the Shoguns, we should
have heard nothing of reviving the tem-
poral supremacy of the Mikados. But
the intercourse with the foreigners had
shaken the political and social relations
of the country to their foundation. The
influence of the Shogun had depended
not so much on his personal territorial
power as on a solidarity of interest with
the most powerful daimios ; for the Sho-
gunate was not hereditary in a single
family, but elective among four of the
leading houses. Now the daimios being
divided against themselves, the Shogun
who was their chief began to totter. The
hostile daimios had bethought them-
selves of flying the Mikado's flag, thus
turning the tables on the Shogun, and
declaring him a rebel de jure. The last
but one of the Shoguns was a lad and a
puppet, but those who advised him made
counter-advances to the Mikado in self-
defence, thus accepting the false position
the hostile daimios had made for them.
The last of the Shoguns, elected from a
rival family — he was a cadet of the pow-
erful family of Mito — was a singularly
clear-sighted man, and probably he dis-
cerned the signs of the times as plainly as
anybody. He accepted office with pre-
tended reluctance ; by certain stipulations
he insisted upon, he admitted himself to
be merely a viceroy and commander-in-
chief, charged with carrying out the wish-
es of the Mikado and leading the forces
of the empire. He was ambitious, no
doubt, or he would not have put himself
forward in these troublous times ; but his
ambition was regulated by sound judg-
ment. By taking office on the terms he
did, he opened for his ambition a double
alternative. Things might settle back
into the old position, in which case he
might again be governor de facto^ as his
predecessors had been. Or if the S!io-
gunate was doomed, as was mucli mjre
likely, he might resign his state without
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
247
loss of dignity, and still remain the fore-
most man in the country, administering
affairs as minister of the Mikado. It
would only be exchanging his residence
in Yeddo for a residence in Kioto.
Things turned out as he probably ex-
pected, and we need not trace their his-
tory. The Shogun was driven to abdi-
cate, but he had to abdicate under the
pressure of unsuccessful campaigns, and
far too late for the fulfilment of that alter-
native hope of his. The victors spared
his life and his property ; and although
he has since been recalled to inferior
office, it is probable that he has passed
from the history of Japan. One sharp
successful war had dispossessed him. A
second campaign disposed of his north-
eastern allies, who had tried to revenge
and restore him, in their jealousy of the
south-western daimios. The Mikado re-
mair^, nominally, absolute master ; actu-
ally, exercising such an authority as none
either of his predecessors or of the Sho-
guns had ever exercised in the long an-
nals of the empire. He — or his advisers
— lost not a moment in putting his newly-
regained powers to the test. They struck
while the metal was hot with a vengeance,
and sent showers of sparks flying over the
length and breadth of the country, that
might have caused explosions everywhere
among a far less inflammable people.
Yet, until the other day, everything
passed off peaceably ; and now we are
assured that th^ recent disturbances are
a mere question of the popularity of a
foreign war. We ask ourselves question
upon question, and can find satisfactory
answers to none of them, if we are to
judge by historical precedent elsewhere,
or our ideas of human nature all the world
over. Who were the real promoters of
the revolution ? Were they the four
great daimios whose names have been
put forward so conspicuously, or were
they adroit wire-pullers in humbler ranks,
who made use of their great men for their
own purposes ? What was the spell they
used to subvert the most sacred institu-
tions, to conciliate the feelings and the
prejudices of the nation ? Did it all ori-
ginate— as we are told it originated — in
a profound veneration for the Mikado's
person and office ? How came it that the
victorious daimios were prevailed upon
to execute a happy despatch — to part
with their authority and their lands, and
their formidable military following?
Then there are a variety of other ques-
tions, with respect to the future, scarcely
less interesting, and of more practical
consequence. We should be glad to
know, for example, who are the real rulers
' of the country ; what is the actual state
of feeling under the apparent calm ; how
I the foreigners are regarded, for they have
i undoubtedly been at the bottom of every-
i thing ; what has become of the hordes of
' disbanded swordsmen whose occupatioa
is gone, and who are reduced to penury ;
whether the secularized and disendowed
' priests of a once popular religion still re-
|tain their hold on their devotees, and are
: disposed to preach a holy war by invok-
ing the support of the interests that have
suffered. And last, but not least, comes
the financial question ; indeed it must
': take precedence of all the others, in
'; States that rank as Japan aspires to do.
Will the new financial machinery, so sud-
denly improvised, support the strain of
those Reavy burdens that are the conse-
quence of this general imitation of all
things European ?
On all these points we own we can
hazard nothing better than conjecture ;
and it is the very uncertainty in which
they are involved that has induced us to
call attention to affairs in Japan. The
most trustworthy authorities frankly con-
fess themselves puzzled, while more
credulous individuals are content to ac-
cept Japanese explanations — which is
simply absurd. Only time can elicit the
truth, and time is likely to bring it out
speedily, if matters keep moving as they
have been doing hitherto. It is possible
that some of these problems may be left
unsolved for the benefit of posterity, for
we are never likely to have better means
of forming an opinion than at present,—
and at present we are all abroad — as to
the action of the insurgent daimios, for
instance, and the use they made of the
Mikado's name. Iwakaura, the present
prime minister, volunteered an explana-
tion to Baron Hiibner, the Austrian di-
plomate^ whose account of Japan is the
best that has lately been published. Iwa-
kaura's explanation was that the Sho-
gunate had been accumulating a heavy
load of unpopularity, while the principle
of veneration for the Mikado had re-
mained profoundly rooted in every heart
in the country. In other words, it only
needed an appeal to that veneration to
work miracles ; when by a sudden pro-
cess, resembling that of religious revivals
in our own country, it softened simulta-
neously the hearts of all the daimios in a
moment of intense political agitation, and
made them sacrifice, in evidence of their
sincerity, everything they had most
248
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
dearly cherished. These unselfish con-
verts to a patriotic principle commenced
their revolt with a combined attack on the
palace of the Mikado, and a violation of
the sanctity of his sacred person. Hav-
ing once mastered his person, they sent
out their proclamations in his name ;
and in the ecstatic sublimity of its re-
viving faith, the country resigned itself to
the most revolutionary measures, ignor-
ing all that was suspicious in the trans-
action. We may grant readily enough
that the people prudently pretended a
faith tliey did not feel, and shrank from
trying conclusions with the forces of the
victorious princes. But what are we to
think of the conduct of the daimios them-
selves ? The princes of Satsuma, Cho-
siu, Hitzen, and Tosa had overthrown the
Shogun, apparently because he was men-
acing their feudal authority, or at least
because he seemed likely to increase his
own in virtue of his more intimate rela-
tions with the strangers. And the first
step they took after this victory was to
resign all they had been fighting for, and
infinitely more than any one would have
dreamed of exacting of them, even had
they been prostrated in a series of disas-
trous campaigns. They volunteered the
abolition of the feudal system, to which
they owed their very existence. They
offered guarantees for their sincerity by
resigning the bulk of their vast territories
into the possession of the Crown. They
surrendered their valued titles of honour.
They consented to receive Crown pr^fets
into their hereditary dominions, to ad-
minister them absolutely in the name of
the central authority. In further proof
of straightforward dealing, they consented
to direct upon Yeddo all the troops they
did not disband, with all that materiel of
war whose costly accumulation had prob-
ably been at the bottom of the overthrow
of the Shogun.
Let us admit, for the sake of argument,
that the four leaders of the movement
did all this for a blind — that they knew
they could make better use of their men
and materiel at the capital than in their
outlying dominions. The admission is
quite inconsistent with the fact that six-
and-thirty other daimios, openly opposed
to the movement, or else outsiders, imi-
tated them blindly. The memorable doc-
ument, the protocol of the political hara-
kiri they were executing, was drawn up
by the Minister Kido, who has taken a
leading part in the revolution all along.
Till then Kido had been a simple Samu-
rai of the Prince of Chosiu, and his re-
markable ability and sagacity are beyond
all dispute. This is one of the passages
embodied in his famous State paper :
"The place where we live is the property
of the Mikado, and the food we eat is
grown by his subjects. How then can
we make the land we possess our own ? "
It is as audacious a bit of humour as we
have ever come across, considering what
manner of men they were whose ideas it
professed to embody. These were the
men who had made themselves unconsti-
tutionally absolute in the course of seven
hundred years, and it was late in the day
to ask so delicate a question without a
syllable of apology for deferring it so
long. Yet if the daimios have been play-
ing a game hypocritically in their own
ambitious interests, it must be admitted
that the game is a very desperate one.
They had so very little to gain, and so
very much to lose. Only one of them
could attain to a dictatorship, and that he
could not make hereditary ; while the
rest have in any case taken a step they
cannot recede from, even should they
care to provoke a counter-revolution.
There is no restoring a feudal system
that has been the gradual growth of cen-
turies. They have broken up their clans,
and subverted the castes on which their
feudal supremacy depended. Their dis-
banded swordsmen are seeking service in
the national army, or betaking themselves
to the agriculture and handicrafts they
used formerly to despise. Either they
have been hoodwinked into the most un-
paralleled act of abnegation recorded in
history, or in their short-sighted ambition
they have been guilty of a most egregious
and suicidal piece of folly.
It is possible that their self-sacrifice
may be for the permanent benefit of the
empire ; and that Japan may date a new
era of prosperity from the self-denying
ordinance promulgated by its nobles. In
the course of half-a-dozen years, Japan
has transformed itself into a civilized
kingdom, and has advanced itself more
decidedly in many respects than some of
the ancient monarchies of Europe. It
has State Councils and Privy Councils —
a house of representatives, subdivided
into committees ; it has sixty-six arron-
dissemeiits, each with its prefetj it has
railways and telegraphs, mints and edu-
cational establishments with European
professors ; it has sent its legations
abroad, resident or with roving commis-
sions ; and it has a national debt that
bids fair to increase rapidly if the credit
of the country holds good. But if the
THE ROMANCE OF THE JAPANESE REVOLUTION.
249
successive coatings of civilized varnish
have not been laid on far too quick, the
atmosphere of Japan must be altogether
exceptional. The revolution was in no
sense a popular one, whatever its pro-
moters may allege. If the people have
the vigour of intellect they are credited
with, the country must be pregnant with
the elements of discontent and disturb-
ance. There are the inferior daimios,
whose teeth have been filed, and whose
claws have been cut, and vvho must be-
gin to repent their surrender when they
become conscious of their comparative
impotency. There are the priests of
Buddha, who may consider the permis-
sion to marry but poor compensation for
the loss of the endowments and offerings
they could have afforded to marry upon.
There are the lower orders, who used to
flock in crowds to the temples of Bud-
dha, and who are now commanded to go
back to the established church, and re-
turn to the more orthodox worship of
Shinto. There is the vexatious imposi-
tion of increased taxes, which must be
rigorously enforced if the Government
is to pay its way. In old times the feu-
dal vassals paid contributions in kind ;
and they paid nothing or very little when
the rice crop was a failure. In old times
it was only the agriculturists who paid,
and the industrial and commercial classes
escaped altogether. Now, all are rated
alike. Nor is the Government content
to interfere merely with the consciences
and the pockets of its subjects — both
of them points on which men are ex-
tremely sensitive all the world over. It
extends its initiatory regulations to their
persons, and nothing is too great or too
small to be legislated for in elaborate de-
tail. Now-a-days the greatest nobles are
denied the liberty of living where they
please. Formerly, they were bound to
spend half the year in the capitol of the
Mikado ; now, they must pass the whole
of the twelve months there, and are for-
bidden to reside on their patrimonial do-
mains. It may be right to put a stop to
the sale of young girls, and to restrict
the unbounded licence of divorce. But|
it was a strong measure to lay down !
sumptuary laws for the ladies' toilets, ]
and to compel every Japanese to cut his {
top-lock and let his hair grow all over his j
head. These miscellaneous measures of |
all sorts and sizes may be right and wise
in themselves, or they may not. But
this much seems certain, that no nation
with a real capacity for progress and self-
education can sit down complacently
and contentedly under legislation at once
so trivial and imperious.
In making our rapid summary of the
vested interests that have been injured
or outraged, we have left one class for
special mention, because our country-
men settled in Japan are specially con-
cerned in its future. We have no means
of estimating the numbers of the dis-
banded Samurais. We only know that
each of the daimios used to entertain a
host of these irregulars, according to his
degree and the extent of his revenues ;
that, as we said, Satsuma and Hitzen
thought nothing of bringing fifty thousand
men into the field, or of keeping a fifth of
that number on permanent garrison duty at
Yeddo. And we know that, roughly
speaking, the new national army, includ-
ing the line and the imperial guard, con-
sists of no more than some thirty infan-
try battalions. A few of the Samurais
have taken service with the Government ;
the rest are thrown on their wits and the
world. These are the men who would
have turned Renins a few years ago,
roaming the country in search of reck-
less adventure. Some very inadequate
provision has been made for them by the
legislature, and they are officially recom-
mended to betake themselves to more
peaceful professions. Even were they
ready and willing to do so, it must be
long before industrial society could absorb
so many individuals utterly unfitted by
previous training for ordinary work. But
in reality, work of any kind must be in-
tensely repugnant to their training and
tastes. It is derogating from their supe-
riority of caste, and renouncing their
esprit de corps. Agricultue is relatively
respectable ; but it can scarcely be pleas-
ant for a Court swashbuckler to exchange
the sword for the spade. As for handi-
crafts, they are contemptible, and com-
merce is still more so. Thus these men
who are strong enough to coerce the com-
munity, and who possibly might get the
better of the troops of the St.ite in spite
of breech-loaders and rifled field-pieces,
have everything in the world to gain by a
revolution. Even domestic disturbances
or a foreign war would restore them
in the mean time their old occupation.
And in the event either of a revolution
or an emeute^ what would be their feel-
ings towards foreign merchants and the
foreign legations 1 for it is certainly for-
eign interference that has turned their
world upside down.
So far as we can judge, a knot of able
and pushing statesmen are the only per-
250
THE THIRD EMPIRE.
sons who as yet have profited by the
changes, and all of these are adventurers
more or less. There are Iwakaura, who
is Provisional Prime Minister ; and San-
jo, who was President of the Council.
Both are men of the first rank and con-
nections, but they are both taken from
the class of the Kugos or nobles of the
Court of the Mikado, and the Kugjos had
neither the territorial influence nor war-
like following of the daimios. There is
Kido, whom we have already spoken of,
perhaps the ablest of them all ; and there
is Okuma. Kido came to power as del-
egate for the Chosiu clan, as Okuma for
the Hijen, and Itagaki for the Satsuma ;
and previous to the revolution, Kido was
nothing but an ordinary Samurai, while
Okuma was a humble student on his pro-
motion. Whether they worked upon
more powerful men or were put forward
by them, it appears clear that at the pres-
ent moment they actually direct the
State policy. In other words, the formid-
able elements of the old society are be-
ing dexterously set off against each
other, by sleight-of-hand or shrewdness
of brain. The recent troubles are said
to have arisen out of the question of the
Corea war, and it is reported that they
have been pretty nearly suppressed. Yet
the symptoms were very ominous. There
was an attempt to assassinate Iwakaura,
which nearly proved successful ; and
men who are well informed assure us
that the mutiny in the island of Kiusiu
is believed to have been fomented by
those princes of Satsuma, Tosa, and
Chosiu, who already begin to repent the
precipitate surrender of their feudal pow-
ers. Be that as it may, it is certain that
the disbanded Samurais must have set
their hearts upon a foreign war, and that
the pacific policy of the present Minister
must have gone far to aggravate the pre-
vailing discontent. We hope the best,
because everything we have lately seen
of them assures us that the Japanese
have great capabilities for improvement.
But just because they have great capa-
bilities, because they have shown them-
selves thoughtful and intelligent, with
quick feelings and earnest convictions,
we can hardly help apprehending the
worse. The Ministry who have made
the revolution must understand their
countrymen far better than we do,
and may be able to guide it through
shoals and breakers. In any case, the
progress of events must speedily give us
a clue to the denouement of the historical
drama.
From The Pall Mall Gazette.
THE THIRD EMPIRE.
The quarrel between the Legitimists
and the Orleanists seems to have become
too bitter and too declared to leave any
room for a reconciliation, and a necessary
consequence of that quarrel is the final
exclusion from the throne of both branch-
es of the Bourbons. The Comte de
Chambord has made a Legitimist and an
Orleanist restoration alike imposssible.
His obstinacy has prevented him from
accepting the Crown for himself, and at
the same time it has stirred up so much
anger against the Orleanists in the minds
of his followers that it is very doubtful
whether even if he were now to die the
Legitimists would consent to transfer
their allegiance to the Comte de Paris.
Without the Legitimists, it is needless to
say, a Royalist restoration is out of the
question. The hereditary Monarchists
being thus cleared out of the way, the
field is open to the Republicans and the
Imperialists. If this fact were as ap-
parent to Frenchmen as it is to outsiders,
the prospects of the Republic would be
very much better than they are. The
progress which it made under M. Thiers
was in every way remarkable, and though
the Imperialist reaction is already strong,
and is every day growing stronger, there
is little doubt that if the Assembly pro-
claimed the Republic at this moment,
and then appealed to its constituents to
say whether it had done well, the answer
would be an unmistakable affirmative.
But this is precisely what to all appear-
ance the Assembly cannot be got to do.
Very little dependence can be placed upon
a working majority of one, and this is the
outside support which the Republic can
at present command in the Chamber. It
is true that if the Orleanists were to come
over in a body to the Left the whole as-
pect of affairs would be changed, and a
time will probably come when the Orlean-
ists will have brought themselves to do
this. B^t the question is whether this
time will come soon enough to exercise
any real influence upon events. The ad-
hesion of the Right Centre now would
establish the Republic, the adhesion of
the Right Centre at some future day may
only give the Republic a larger band of
mourners.
This inability of the Assembly to found
any settled Government cannot but force
the nation to consider what chances there
are of founding a settled Government
without the Assembly, and if once
Frenchmen take seriously to thinking
THE THIRD EMPIRE.
251
about this the return of the Empire is as
good as assured. It is the only Govern-
ment that can appeal directly to the peo-
ple without making itself distrusted by
the people. If the Republicans were to
try to sever themselves from the Assem-
bly, they would throw away their only
chance of victory. It is in the new power
they have displayed of enlisting sober
politicians in their ranks, and of adapting
themselves to parliamentary necessities,
that the origin of their popularity is to
be looked for. But the Empire can afford
to be democratic because in the hands of
Napoleon III. Imperialism was not asso-
ciated with disorder. If we imagine an
intelligent Frenchman, ready to give the
Republic a fair trial if it can but succeed
in getting itself tried fairly, seeing the
faults of the Empire as France has hither-
to known it, but convinced, above all, of
the necessity of having a Government
which shall at any rate claim to be some-
thing more than provisional, he might, as
he looks at the growth of Imperialist
ideas, reason something in this way : It
is impossible not to see that the probabil-
ity of an Imperialist restoration grows
greater every day. Is there any reason
to fear that the Third Empire will do as
much harm to France as the Second Em-
pire did ? The worst feature of the Sec-
ond Empire was not the Emperor but the
Emperor's friends. Napoleon III. had
been an adventurer all his life, and when
he came to the throne he brought with
him the companions with which such a
career naturally surrounds a man. Na-
poleon IV. will be better off in this re-
spect. Death has taken away most of
the advisers who did so much harm to his
father, and his own chief adviser has been
his father himself. Defeat, imprisonment,
and exile must have cleared away many
delusions from the ex-Emperor's mind.
At Chiselhurst probably he saw the faults
and mistakes of his own career with a
clearness of vision that came too late, and
his son must have listened to and may
have benefited by his father's counsels.
If ever the experience of one man can
be of any use to another, the experience of
Napoleon III. is likely to be useful to
Napoleon IV. The only one of his
father's advisers who is left to the young
Prince, M. Rouher, was mixed up, it is
true, with most of the failures and vices
of the Imperial administration ; but a
place of repentance must not be denied
to politicians. Tiiere was a time when
M. Thiers himself might have been ranked
as an unscrupulous politician. M. Rouher
has seen the breakdown of one system,
and he will hardly care to build it up
again without change or improvement.
Even the points in which the Third Em-
pire will be inferior to the Second —
especially the absence of military or
diplomatic prestige — will have a ten-
dency to check the reproduction of the
old mistakes. It must be long before a
French ruler can again be tempted to
divert attention from liome blunders by
rushing into a foreign war, and the very
circumstance that there will be no glory
with which to dazzle the nation is a
guarantee that popularity must be won
in a more sober way. If Frenchmen take
the Empire again, they will take it with
their eyes open and of their own free
choice. Consequently there will be noth-
ing illegitimate about its origin, no birth
mark which can only be got rid of by dan-
gerous experiments in political chemistry.
Napoleon IV. will have his reputation to
make, and he can only make it by a
course of steady good government. He
will have been called to the throne in no
paroxysm of enthusiasm. On the con-
trary, the main foundation of his title
will be the weariness of a nation which
has been unable to keep France a Repub-
lic or make it a Kingdom, and so comes
back, by a process of exhaustion at once
logical and political, to the only Govern-
ment which is left. There is nothing in
this position to turn a Sovereign's head,
nothing to blind him to the fact that the
Empire has been re-established on the
implied condition that it is to show itself
different from what it has been. It will
be a further advantage that, supposing
the Empire to be again set up, it will
have no serious rival. Republicans and
Royalists will each have tried their hand
at giving the country settled institutions,
and will each have failed. Governments
which reign by an undisputed title com-
monly improve as they go on. The exi-
gencies of administration are found to re-
quire the best men that can be had, and
the politicians who answer to this de-
scription are induced by degrees to take
hold of the only opportunities which are
open to them. As to the depreciation of
parliamentary government which is part
of the Imperial theory, the spectacle of a
Legislature which will not dissolve itself
and cannot be dissolved by any one else,
and of an electorate which shows at every
turn that it is not represented by the
Assembly and yet appears perfectly con-
tent to remain unrepresented, is admira-
bly calculated to soothe any undue sus-
252
EXAMINATION-MARKS.
ceptibility on this head. The most ardent
lover of parliamentary government must
admit that the existence of proper mate-
rials out of which to construct it is a
necessary condition of its successful
crention.
It would not be easy to devise a con-
clusive answer to these speculations.
They are prompted by a spirit which in
itself is a valua-ble element in political
training, the desire to make the best of
what is inevitable. On the assumption
that the Republic cannot be founded at
once, the Empire is the only alternative
that remains for France ; and if this is
admitted it is the business of a good citi-
zen to look at the fair side of the prospect,
in the hope that in this way he will be
doing all in his power to make that fair
side the true side. That there is another
side to the prospect of the Emoire is true,
and the very fact that its return is so
hateful to all moderate French politicians
will of itself be a great impediment to a
good choice of instruments. But this
hostility on the part of moderate politi-
cians may be modified if a Bonapartist
restoration becomes inevitable, especially
when it is remembered that it will be
their own shortsighted dislike of the Re-
public that will have opened the gates to
its adversary.
From The Spectator.
EXAMINATION-MARKS.
The Daily Telegraph tells us of the
great triumph which the system of Ex-
amination-marks has obtained by its
extension to the science of Cookery, and
gives us in proof questions with marks
attached which have been set at South
Kensington by the examiners in that
great art to students emulous of diplo-
mas. " A paper of twenty-five questions,
in which a possible total of i,odo marks
can be reached, lies before us,*' says the
Telegraph of Wednesday. " How would
you grill a pound of rump-steak ? " asks
the twelfth question. '• How would you
prevent it from getting dried up ? What
time would it take to cook.-^" is a ques-
tion for the perfect answering of which
6o marks are allowed. Then comes, —
" How would you prepare a dish of mut-
ton cutlets .-* Describe the whole process
(45 marks)." " How would you make
what is called melted butter 1 (25 marks)."
" How would you prepare a cup of bright,
clear, and fine-flavoured coffee ? Which
of the various kinds of berries should you
select, and what quantity of ground coffee
would you allow for each cup ? (25 marks)."
This is indeed a great advancement for
the Marks system, but hardly so great a
one as the development given it the other
day by a vacation party of University
men who, in their delight at the discrim-
inating power of the system, agreed to
give marks privately to every unit of
beauty or sublimity Nature should pre-
sent to them on their travels and to com-
pare their results on the close of their
examining tour, when, so the report says,
it was discovered that the various exam-
iners had t:ome to very near the same
conclusion, not only as to the hills and
river-reaches and waterfalls and glens
which had passed in the Honours divis-
ion, in the first division, and in the sec-
ond division, and had been plucked alto-
gether by these adventurous measurers
of nature's charms, but even as to the
individual rank to be assigned to each in
each class. The statement is definite
enough, though we have no sufficient in-
formation as to the beauties of nature
which were " gulfed " or " ploughed," and
whether the marks given were independ-
ent of the weather in which the particular
landscapes were seen, or were awarded
to units of landscape and weather com-
bined. One can imagine the Jungfrau in
a storm of thunder and lightning coming
out Senior Wrangler, but the Jungfrau in
a day of mist and drizzle being very
properly "gulfed." Thus there must
have been even more, much more, diffi-
culty in deciding on the unit of phenome-
non to which marks should be assigned,
than Lady Barker, of the Kensington
Cookery School, can ever have had in this
respect, for a white soup, or a rump-
steak, or a dish of melted butter, or a
dish of cutlets, is a perfectly separable
phenomenon, the absolute excellence of
which cannot depend on any adjuncts,
whether of climate or even of temper. If
the University enthusiasts were really
able to apply their mark system with any
substantial agreement to the beauties of
nature, it seems pretty clear that they
would have been able to apply them with
certainly greater success to the beauties
of society. A woman or a man is at least
as definite a phenomenon as a dish, and
would clearly include everything in him
or her calculated to impress a companion
agreeably or the reverse. If the mark
system could but be generalized, how
happy it would make Mr. Galton ! And
why not ? With a thousand marks' scale
EXAMINATION-MARKS.
253
for everything, it might be possible to
determine that a perfect lobster patty
should gain the same number of marks
among dishes which " Peter Plymley's
Letters " should receive in the rank of
political literature, or the late Henry
Drummond among successful members
of the House of Commons, or " Mrs. Lir-
riper's Lodgings " amongst Charles Dick-
ens's works. Perhaps the information
thus conveyed might not be very definite,
but then, as a very excellent examiner
said the other day in a learned body,
"Whenever I commit myself to a given
number of marks as the exact equivalent
of any candidate's merit, I always feel I
am telling lies ; " and if it is useful to
commit yourself to a misleading scale of
appreciation in judging of definite answers
to questions, it may be useful to gener-
alize the information so gained, and com-
pare the place at which one candidate
stands in one table of relative merit with
that at which another stands in a quite
different table of relative merit.
No doubt, in carrying out minutely in
practical life this fanciful mark system,
the doubts which have already often oc-
curred to puzzled examiners would repeat
themselves. For instance, examiners
have contended, we think justly, that it
would be only right to give negative
marks for answers which not only show
ignorance, but betray so false a concep-
tion of principles, that even the questions
answered rightly must be right more by
accident than through any intelligent
comprehension of the subject. Such a
principle, we think, should certainly be
imported into the Cookery examination
at South Kensington. If any one there
replied that a mutton-chop should be fried,
the candidate making so radical a mistake
of principle should not only gain no marks,
but should have, say fifty, deducted from
any he or she might otherwise gain. Of
what account would it be that he or she
could write out a description of the
proper way of making short-crust, or of
serving up a dish of grilled mushrooms,
if, in the elementary fact of all cooking,
the use and abuse of the frying-pan, gross
ignorance were shown ? So, too, if any
candidate declared that in order to make
good tea, the tea should be allowed to
"brew " for five or ten minutes, there
should be no mercy shown to one so
grossly ignorant of the first great princi-
ple of tea. Again, in the %'acation rambles
of the enthusiasts for marks to whom we
have referred, we have no doubt that a
corresponding principle must have been
adopted. How could you fairly compare
the relative beauties of two glacier-views,
without deducting marks for the ugly des-
olation of moraine and mud in any glacier
landscape in which the moraine was a con-
spicuous feature ? How could you esti-
mate the beauty of a Surrey heath, with-
out taking off a great deal for such a blot
upon it as a brick-field, with all its clay
and hideous monotony of dull cubes ?
How could you give marks to an English
village, without large deductions for ob-
trusive pigstyes and advertising-boards
covered with notices of all the papers
that have the "largest circulation in the
world," and all the four-post bedsteads
which are "sent free by post." No
doubt Mr. Boyce, who has an eccentric
taste in pictorial art, is apt to introduce
ground " to let on building leases," with
all its litter, into his clever pictures, but
we think he must have some notion that
painting should not deal by preference
with the beautiful, but rather with the
imitable, — and these things are certainly
very easily imitable on canvas. Again, if
ever marks should be applied, as they may
one day be, in case our examining tourists
follow up their own precedent, by young
men to the qualities of young ladies, or
vice versa, with the view of selecting as a
partnerfor life the candidate who gains the
largest number of marks in a competitive
examination for general companionability,
it will certainly be necessary to strike off
marks very freely for what may be called
negative qualities. If a thousand marks
were the maximum that could be gained,
age, of course, being previously deter-
mined, a sagacious examiner would prob-
ably allow 100 marks for beauty, 50 for
elegance in dress, 400 for character —
including sweetness of temper — 300 for
activity of sympathy with the tastes and
pursuits of others, and 150 for a general
margin of unenumerated graces. But
then, of course, under all these heads, it
would be necessary to have the right of
making large positive deductions. If a
girl were not only plain, but vacant-faced,
and yet had the languishing airs of a
particular class of beauties, it would be-
come necessary to make large positive
deductions, both under some subordinate
division, such as " Sincerity," of the head
of " Character," and also under the head
of " Beauty," on the distinct ground that
such a characteristic both grievously
enhances every fault of feature and car-
riage, and also gives an air of pinchbeck
and falsehood to the character itself.
So, too, if she not only did not dress well,
254
MR. LOCKERS
"LONDON LYRICS."
but insisted on wearing a jeweller's shop
on her hands and arms and in her ears,
bell-pulls on her head, and fifty pounds'
weight of flounces about her skirts, — or
on the other hand, on making herself hid-
eously neat in close-fitting brown holland,
without any touch of relief to the mo-
notony of the dreary ensemble, — then,
clearly, instead of allowing any marks for
dress, a great many more should be de-
ducted than the maximum which might
have been gained. Again, if instead of
being active in sympathy with the tastes
and pursuits of others, she could talk of
nothing but servants and shopping, and
regarded all the occupations and thoughts
of men as the kind of things which keep
them "out of mischief," but have no
meaning in themselves for the more ra-
tional sex, clearly a minus quantity of
300 would not be an inadequate apprecia-
tion of so formidable a demerit. Just as
a cook who sent up a potato in a sodden
condition should hardly be allowed to
take credit at all, even for a chef d'oeuvre
in the shape of a mayonnaise ; just as a
man who wore a blue coat with brass but-
tons should be plucked for dress without
even glancing at his hat, his tie, or his
shirt-front ; just so a girl who could only
gossip or giggle with girls, and not feel
the least interest in any subject that men
understand, should be rejected at once
in an examination for companionability
as a wife, without even weighing any of
\X\^ per contras.
But these are great subjects. Instead
of flying so high, — though even this
would hardly be so audacious as giving
marks to woodland, mountain, and lake,
to glacier and tempest, to dawn and sun-
set,— we would suggest to those enthu-
siasts for the mark system to take a hint
from the Cookery School at South Ken-
sington, and begin with more humble at-
tempts. They might try giving marks to
the various parties of the season, and
publishing the estimates of the different
examiners in the Morning Post, for the
sake of ultimate comparison ; or estimat-
ing in the same way the various orators
at Exeter Hall, giving a negative quantity
for every sign of Pecksniffian ostenta-
tiousness and pretence. In that fashion
they might gradually feel their way to the
more elaborate use of marks for appre-
ciating the character of an omelette or a
sunrise on the plan now adopted at Ken-
sington and by the enthusiasts of the
University. But at present, the attempt
has been too sudden for success. If the
Recording Angel estimates our merits
and demerits by marks, even though he
has the range of the whole series of num-
bers between a negative infinity and a
positive infinity, he must have had a very
careful training in the method, to apply
it with anything like justice. And per-
haps, on the whole, human arithmetic is
as yet hardly equal to the task of esti-
mating by marks even the difference be-
tween a good cup of tea and a bad one,
much less the difference between the
beauty of Venice and the beauty of Rot-
terdam, or between the loveliness of a
rainbow on the sea, and the loveliness of
a triumphal arch decorated with flags and
ribbons.
From The Spectator.
MR. LOCKER'S "LONDON LYRICS."*
The number of editions which this
little book has reached, — aided, we ad-
mit, by periodical accessions, often of
some of the best things in the volume to
each edition, — shows sufficiently in itself
that Mr. Locker has managed to hit the
tone of the society for which he writes,
and to give a delicate expression in verse
to the eddies of hope and fear, of ambi-
tion and humiliation, of laughter and
tears, of pathos and persiflage, by which
in turn the drawing-rooms of London are
agitated. We should like Mr. Locker's
poems even better than we do — and we
never take them up without being at-
tracted to read on — if there were a little
less of the persiflage of polite society,
and rather more of those under-currents
of true feeling which he so well knows at
times how to sing for us, — but then we
quite admit that if it were so, he would
be less the poet of society, and more of
the poet of feeling than he is. The couple
of lyrics " On an'Old Muff," the lines on
" An Old Buffer," even the piece called
"At Hurlingham," but most of all the bit
headed "Mr. Placid's Flirtation," and
perhaps one or two others, are to our
minds almost unworthy of the society in
which they find themselves. They repre-
sent, no doubt, something more than true
phases, perhaps the most common of all
phases, of life in society ; but then they
represent that element of life in society
which makes one feel the frivolity and
the dross of society, without conveying,
even by an undertone, that that frivolity
* London Lyrics. By Frederick Locker. Seventh
Edition. London : Isbister and Co.
MR. LOCKERS
"LONDON LYRICS."
and dross are painful and wearisome ;
and this, lyrics, however light and unpre-
tending, are almost bound, we think, in
the name of poetry, to bring home to us.
Mr. Locker is very skilful in condensing
the sneer, and the shallow mirth, and the
shallower regrets of society into his
verses ; but then he usually shows that
he can do so much more, that he can put
so true, though delicate, a note of pathos,
so tender a gleam of affection, and so
wholesome a touch of scorn, into his
verse, that one is a little impatient of
stanzas in which the polished vulgarities
of the world are delineated in a tone of
even half-sympathy. It seems to us that
Mr. Locker's humour is at its best when
there is a touch of depth in it, as in the
charming verses on "The Old Oak-tree
at Hatfield Broadoak" and on " Bramble-
rise," or the very happy ones on "A Hu-
man Skull," "The Housemaid," "The
Jester's Moral," " To Lina Oswald," and
most others ; not but what his chiefly
playful and bantering ones are often ex-
tremely good, such as "To my Grand-
mother," " My Mistress's Boots," or
"The Castle in the Air" which so grace-
fully introduces the volume. But the
finest of all Mr. Locker's poems, to our
taste, are those in which the jest passes
into earnest, and the smile dies away in
an emotion that is higher and keener,
like the lines on "The Unrealized Ideal,"
" It might have been," " The Widow's
Mite," and " ' Her quiet resting-place is
far away.' " The only poems we do not
like, and which seem to us unworthy of
Mr. Locker, are those, comparatively few
we admit, in which the levity of society
gives the key-note not only to the picture
(for that it must do), but to the back-
ground of the picture also. Nor do we
care much for the merely sentimental
ones, such as those on " Gerty's Glove "
and " Gerty's Necklace," where the sen-
timent strikes us as too superficial for
the serious manner, or the manner as too
little tempered with playfulness for the
superficial character of the sentiment.
We have said too much, however, of
the few exceptions to the easy and grace-
ful pleasantry or pathos of this attractive
volume, and will now give some illustra-
tions of Mr. Locker's success in different
manners. We will take the first, from
" My Neighbour Rose," a playful little
poem, for the whole of which we have
hardly room, but two verses of which will
bear, without injury, separation from the
happy context. Mr. Locker has been de-
255
lineating Rose's childhood, and thus pro-
ceeds : —
Indeed, farewell to bygone years ;
How wonderful the change appears I
For curates now, and cavaliers,
In turn perplex you :
The last are birds of feather gay,
Who swear the first are birds of prey ;
I'd scare them all had I my way,
But that might vex you.
At times I've envied, it is true,
That hero, joyous twenty-two,
Who sent bouquets and billets doux^
And wore a sabre.
The rogue ! how close his arm he wound
About her waist, who never frown'd.
He loves you, Child. Now, is he bound
To love my neighbour }
The happy expression of fanciful jeal-
ousy, the humorous play on the command
to love your neighbour as yourself, and
complaint that that is not equivalent to
loving somebody else's neighbour, is in
Mr. Locker's quaintest manner, — just
the same manner in which, addressing
the picture of his late grandmother, he
declares in reference to that other and
better world in which she now is, with a
grotesque realism that no one has ever
been able to borrow from Mr. Locker, —
I fain would meet you there ; —
If, witching as you were,
Grandmamma,
This nether world agrees
That the better you must please
Grandpapa.
These are the turns which give the dis-
tinctive, macaroon-like flavour to Mr.
Locker's humour, and make us read the
playful poems with a zest which humor-
ous poetry, since Hood died, has seldom
provoked in us. And how pleasantly
Mr. Locker praises and chaffs children.
There is nothing in the poems tenderer
and livelier than the lines to little Geral-
dine's boots, or the description of the
child who wears them, —
What soles to charm an elf !
Had Crusoe, sick of self,
Chanced to view
One printed near the tide,
Oh, how hard he would have tried
For the two !
For Gerry's debonair,
And innocent and fair
As a rose :
She's an angel in a frock,
With a fascinating cock,
To her nose.
256
MR. locker's "LONDON LYRICS.'
— except, indeed, it be the second set of
lines to Lina Oswald, in which she is
rallied so gaily on the great age of ten
years, which she has attained, and so
happy a transition is made from mirth to
deeper sentiment : —
Your Sun is in brightest apparel,
Your birds and your blossoms are gay,
But where is my jubilant carol
To welcome so joyous a day ?
I sang for you when you were smaller,
As fair as a fawn, and as wild :
Now, Lina, you're ten and you're taller —
You elderly child !
I knew you in shadowless hours,
When thought never came with a smart ;
You then were the pet of your flowers,
And joy was the child of your heart.
I ever shall love you, and dearly ! —
I think when you're even thirteen
You'll still have a heart, and not merely
A flirting machine !
And when time shall have spoil'd you of pas-
sion, —
Discrown'd what you now think sublime,
Oh, I swear that you'll still be the fashion,
And laugh at the antics of time.
To love you will then be no duty ;
But happiness nothing can buy —
There's a bud in your garland, my beauty,
That never can die !
A heart may be bruised and not broken,
A soul may despair and still reck ;
I send you, dear child, a poor token
Of love, for your dear little neck.
The heart that will beat just below it
Is open and pure as your brow —
May that heart, when you come to bestow it,
Be happy as now.
Or to pass to poems with a more pathetic
turn in them, what can be tenderer in
its raillery than " The Old Government
Clerk " ? or what more genuinely pa-
thetic, in the restrained and reticent fash-
ion which suits the great world, than
these simple verses on "The Widow's
Mite"? —
A Widow — she had only one I
A puny and decrepit son ;
But, day and night.
Though fretful oft, and weak and small,
A loving child, he was her all —
The Widow's Mite.
The Widow's Mite — ay, so sustained,
She battled onward, nor complain'd
Tho' friends were fewer :
And while she toil'd for daily fare,
A little crutch upon the stair
Was music to her.
I saw her then, — and now I see
That, though resign'd and cheerful, she
Has sorrow'd much :
She has, He gave it tenderly,
Much faith ; and, carefully laid by,
A little crutch.
But after all, though Mr, Locker knows>
as every mocking poet should, how to
write without the laugh or the scornful
gleam of something bright and bitter
in his verse, when he is expressing a
mood of pure, grave feeling, his most
characteristic mood is that in which the
jest and the kindlier emotions are equally
mingled, and we hardly know whether it
is the feeling which we like the better for
the sarcasm with which it is blended and
by which it is veiled, or the taunt which
we appreciate the more for the tender-
ness by which it is half betrayed. It is
the mixed feelings by which the surface
of society is agitated which Mr. Locker
has the greatest skill in embodying in his
verse. We like his pure pathos to the
full as well as his sadder banter, but it is
possibly the less difficult to write of the
two, and probably the less unique when it
is written. Mr. Locker closed some very
graceful verses, which appeared in con-
junction with other literary contributions
in aid of the operatives who suffered by
the cotton famine of 1862, with these two
verses, which exactly describe the satiric
tenderness of the best things in this vol-
ume. Nothing we could quote would
illustrate better the character of the
singer, or the polished warmth of sym-
pathy which so often underlies the smil-
ing levity of the song : —
I do not wish to see the slaves
Of party stirring passion,
Or psalms quite superseding staves,
Or piety " the fashion."
I bless the Hearts where pity glows.
Who, here together banded.
Are holding out a hand to those
That wait so empty-handed !
Masters ! may one in motley clad,
A Jester by confession,
Scarce noticed join, half gay, half sad,
The close of your procession ?
This garment here seems out of place
With graver robes to mingle,
But if one tear bedews his face.
Forgive the bells their jingle.
LITTELL'S LIVn^G AGE.
Pifth Series, ]
Volume VII. 5
No. 1573.— August 1, 1874.
Prom Beginning,
Vol. OXXII.
CONTENTS.
I. Drummond of Hawthornden. By George
Barnett 'Smith, JVew Quarterly Revie7u,
II. The Country Cousin, All The Year Round, .
III. The Poets at Play, Blackwood's Magaziney
IV. Far from the Madding Crowd. By
Thomas Hardy, author of " Under the
Greenwood Tree," "A Pair of Blue Eyes,"
etc. Part VIII., Cornhill Magazme,
V. The Convent of San Marco. I, — The
Painter, Macmillan's Magazine,
VI, "Josh Billings" in English, . *. . Spectator, . *
POETRY.
Of the Lady Pietra Degli Sero-
VIGNI, 258
Ballad, ' . 258
Clytemnestra,
Sonnet, .
259
269
281
29s
308
317
258
258
Miscellany, 319* 320
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25S
OF THE LADY PIETRA DEGLI SEROVIGNI, ETC.
OF THE LADY PIETRA DEGLI SEROVIGNL
To the dim light and the large circle of shade
I have clomb, and to the whitening of the
hills,
There where we see no colour in the grass,
Nathless my longing loses not its green,
It has so taken root in the hard stone
Which talks and hears as though it were a
lady.
Utterly frozen is this youthful lady,
Even as the snow that lies within the shade ;
For she is no more moved than is a stone
By the sweet season which makes warm the
hills
And alters them afresh from white to green,
Covering their sides again with flowers and
grass.
When on her hair she sets a crown of grass
The thought has no more room for other lady ;
Because she weaves the yellow with the green
So well that Love sits down there in the,
shade, —
Love who has shut me in among low hills
Faster than between walls of granite-stone.
She is more bright than is a precious stone ;
The wound she gives may not be healed with
grass :
I therefore have fled far o'er plains and hills
For refuge from so dangerous a lady ;
But from her sunshine nothing can give
shade, —
Not any hill, nor wall, nor summer-green.
A while ago I saw her dressed in green, —
So fair, she might have wakened in a stone
This love which I do feel even for her shade ;
And therefore as one woos a graceful lady,
I wooed her in a field that was all grass
Girdled about with very lofty hills.
Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the
hills
Before Love's flame in this damp wood and
green
Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady.
For my sake, who would sleep away in stone
My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass.
Only to see her garments cast a shade.
How dark soe'er the hills throw out their
shade.
Under her summer-green the beautiful lady
Covers it like a stone covered in grass.
Dante, Translated by Rossetti.
My life was laid upon thy love ;
Then how could'st let me die .''
The flower is loyal to the bud.
The greenwood to the spring,
The soldier to his banner bright,
The noble to his king :
The bee is constant to the hive.
The ringdove to the tree,
The martin to the cottage-eaves;
Thou only not to me.
Yet if again, false Love,'thv feet
To tread the pathway burn
That once they trod so well and oft.
Return, false Love, return ;
And stand beside thy maiden's bier,
And thou wilt surely see.
That I have been as true to love
As thou wert false to me.
Comhill Magazine. F. T. PaLGRAVE.
CLYTEMNESTRA.
[" Clytemnestra, from the battlements of Argos,
watches for the beacon-fires which are to announce the
return of Agamemnon."]
The stars are clear above the Argive height,
Where soon shall blaze a redder, angrier
fire, —
Signal of answer to a long desire.
Sending the doom of Troy across the night.
When shall it flash upon thy steadfast sight.
Thou whose child bled beneath a father's
hand, —
When shall the Fury lift the flaming brand,
O Clytemnestra ! calling thee to smite ?
But he, the king, thy lord, by Ida's hill.
Hears even now the paean sound on high,
Feels even now that hour's triumphant thrill
When wifely welcome and a city's cry
Shall drown in joy the faint, sad memory
Of her who perished when the winds were
still.
Spectator. R. C. JeBB.
SONNET.
BALLAD.
Why is it so with me, false Love,
Why is it so with me .''
Mine enemies might thus have dealt ;
I fear'd it not of thee.
Thou wast the thought of all my thoughts.
Nor other hope had I :
Weep lovers, sith Love's very self doth weep,
And sith the cause for weeping is so great ;
When now so many dames, of such estate
In worth, show with their eyes a grief so deep :
For Death the churl has laid his leaden sleep
Upon a damsel who was fair of late,
Defacing all our earth should celebrate, —
Yea all save virtue, which the soul doth keep.
Now^ hearken how much Love did honour her.
I myself saw him in his proper form
Bending above the motionless sweet dead
And often gazing into Heaven ; for there
The soul now sits which when her life was
warm
Dwelt with the jo^'ful beauty that is fled.
Dante, translated by Rossetti.
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
259
From The New Quarterly Review.
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
BY GEORGE BARNETT SMITH.
An excursion into the domains of
the old English poets is one of the
pleasantest recreations in literature.
This field of research certainly shows
no paucity hi attractions for the pa-
tient and enthusiastic student, though
it is one which has been too often neof-
lected. The names of some of the sweet-
est writers in the language are probably
entirely unknown to the vast majority of
readers. Nor, perhaps, ought we greatly
to wonder at this, seeing that it is a work
of extreme difficulty to keep abreast of
the writers of our own era. The multi-
plication of books compels the individual
reader to restrict his acquaintance to
those works which either his taste or ne-
cessity suggests. Occasionally, however,
it is well to take note of the progress we
have made since the age of the Renais-
sance in England, and useful to turn
from the busy highways of the modern
world to those by paths which lead to for-
saken garden lands which have yielded so
much richness and fragrance. Perchance
we may discover that, after all — and set-
ting aside those great lights of the earlier
ages of letters — there were still in these
ages many who, though now compara-
tively unknown, were the equals in genius
of the favourite authors of our later time.
Where shall we look, for instance, for a
repetition since their own period of the
grace of Herrick, of the delicious feeling
and tenderness of Suckling, or of the
stateliness of Shirley? One searches in
vain for any approach to the music of the
poets of the Renaissance amongst the
later singers. Possibly, very probably,
this age of iron and gold has stamped its
impress upon the poetry too, which loses
in graceful fancy what it gains in realistic
power. And the change may be justified
when we remember that with changing
ages come changing manners. The ro-
mance that clung to the lives and charac-
ters of our forefathers has very nearly
died out amongst us ; our virtues are
more solid, our vices are not so obnox-
ious, but with these strikingly preponder-
ant advantages, we have lost the ease 1
and the courtliness which made life
pleasurable. Poets no longer wander in
sylvan glades, or indite " sonnets to their
mistress's eyebrows." The lives of many
of the most excellent lyric poets, if led
now, would be accepted as affording am-
ple evidence of insanity ; but we, who
would never think of imitating them in
that respect, never laugh at those lives
of theirs. A charm clings to them be-
cause of their work. They were the fore-
runners of the giants of mind ; they sang
before the times were fully ripe ; their
notes were delightful, if not strong ; and
because their music was true we hold
them in reverent and continual remem-
brance.
Amongst these early singers who de-
serve well of posterity was William
Drummond, commonly called Drummond
of Hawthornden. He was decidedly the
best poet of his age in Scotland, and
there were few in England who could be
accounted his superior. It was no small
tribute to his work that old Ben Jon-
son, the acknowledged sovereign of the
realms of contemporary English litera-
ture, should take upon himself a journey
from London to the North to see him,
when that rough and burly Briton was
scarcely in a fit condition to do so.
The lowest estimate which has ever
been given of Drummond still leaves him
a very high rank as a poet, whilst the
highest lifts him to a pedestal so lofty as
almost to be inconceivable. Hazlitt, a
critic of no mean power and acumen,
says : " Drummond's Sonnets, I think,
come as near as almost any others to the
perfection of this kind of writing, which
should embody a sentiment and every
shade of a sentiment, as it varies with
time, and place, and humour, with the
extravagance or lightness of a momentary
impression." On the other hand, Hal-
lam, the ever calm and philosophic, treats
these same sonnets rather contemptu-
ously, affirming that they "have obtained
probably as much praise as they deserve."
The historian, however, doubtless wished
by this not so much really to dispraise the
sonnets themselves, as to give a soberer
tone to the opinions which had been gen-
erally current respecting them, and to
26o
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
moderate the enthusiasm with which they
were cherished in certain quarters. Turn- '
ing from Hallam's view to that expressed
by Philh'ps, Milton's son-in-law, who
edited the edition of Drummond's poems j
published in the year 1656, we are not a!
little startled at meeting with this dis- 1
similarity of language: — "To say that I
these poems are the effects of a genius, |
the most polite and verdant that ever the
Scottish nation produced, although it be
a commendation not to be rejected (for it
is well known that that country hath af-
forded many rare and admirable wits), yet
it is not the highest that may be given
him ; for should I afifirm that neither
Tasso, nor Guarini, nor any of the most
neat and refined spirits of Italy, nor even
the choicest of our English poets, can
challenge to themselves any advantages
above him, it could not be judged any at-
tribute superior to what he deserves."
This language must be admitted, even by
the greatest admirers of Drummond, to
be extravagant, and it leads to the con-
clusion that had its writer been as con-
versant with the Italian poets he has
named as he was with Drummond, he
must have moderated the strength of his
assertions. For in Tasso, at anv rate, we
find qualities which are either absent in
Drummond, or present in so subdued a
degree as to forbid his being placed on a
position of equality with the Italian poet.
The great poet of Sorrento possessed a
great breadth of view and a width of im-
agination to which Drummond could lay
no claim ; for fancy at its highest, how-
ever graceful and active, must not be
confounded or compared with the greater
product of the mind, which we very justly
distinguish from it as imagination. These
contradictory estimates, however, only
afford a strong argument in favour of a
thorough reconsideration of Drummond's
work, and of an endeavour to assign to
him his true place in the ranks of poets.
Should we fail in this attempt, there is
still sufficient interest left in the life and
labours of this old Scotch poet to make
a consideration of him and of his work
pleasant and desirable.
Notwithstanding that this man was one
of the most prominent writers of his age.
and in some measure identified with im-
portant political and literary movements,
the materials available for his biography
are scanty in the extreme. A brief me-
moir by Bishop Sage, and a few of Drum-
mond's letters prefixed to a collection of
his prose works and poems, published at
Edinburgh in 171 1, and a paper read be-
fore the Society of Scotch Antiquaries
by the learned David Laing, form nearly
all the trustworthy materials for a life of
the\poet.
It has been reserved for Professor
Masson to supply a biography* which is
not only the fullest yet written, but may
at once be accepted as all that is neces-
sary to a just appreciation of his charac-
ter. All the well-known assiduity and
conscientiousness of the biographer have
been brought to bear upon the task, and
the result is one that must inevitably
please the lovers of Drummond. Mr.
Masson's style is a little too limp; he
occasionally becomes too colloquial, and
is sometimes scarcely on a level with the
dignity of his subject ; but his book is a
perfect mine of facts. Wherever it has
been possible, by force of industry, to
obtain anything which shall collaterally
afford elucidation to any portion of his
hero's history, such industry has not
been wanting. The whole results of his
researches have been tabulated with
care ; the facts marshalled in chronologi-
cal order, and the story written with a
clearness which is charming. The his-
tory of the time and the relations between
England and Scotland have been re-
viewed with a calmness befitting the
theme, and an absence of political and
religious bias, all the more praiseworthy
when we consider that on these points
the poet and his biographer are at op-
posite poles. It is upon Mr. Masson's
work chiefly — though not to the exclu-
sion of other authorities whom we have
examined — that we shall rely in the
present article.
The first Drummond of the now classic
Hawthornden was John, second son of
Sir Robert Drummond, of Carnock, in
* *' Drummond of Hawthornden ; the Story of his
Life and Writings." By David Masson, M.A., LL.D.
London, Macmillan & Co., 1873.
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
261
Stirlingshire ; the latter being of a fami-
ly of jirummonds who had branched off
from the more ancient Drummonds, of
Stobhall, in Perthshire, whose chiefs had
ranked in the Scottish peerage from 147 1
as Lords Drummond. The poet was the
eldest son of this first Laird of Haw-
thornden, and was born in 1585. From
his earliest years young Drummond was
thrown under the shadow of court influ-
ence— his father being gentleman usher
to the king — and this may serve partly
to explain his espousal of the cause of
royalty in after life. Educated first at
the High School of Edinburgh, he after-
wards went to the University of that
city, where he graduated. Shortly be-
fore this took place. King James was
summoned to London to assume the
English crown, and before leaving he
distributed numerous honours, amongst
which was that of a knighthood to the
poet's father. Not long afterwards a
greater honour was conferred upon an-
other branch of the family, Drummond
of Stobhall being advanced to the digni-
ty of Earl of Perth. The next we hear
of the poet (and the information concern-
ing his earlier years is very scanty)
is of his going abroad to obtain instruc-
tion in the law.
It is certain that Drummond must
have gained much from his several years
of Continental travel, and the study of
the riches both of literature and art
which he made during that time ; espe-
cially when we consider that at this pe-
riod foreign courts and nations were so
much in advance of our own in matters
of taste, music, and the arts of design.
For all of these matters Drummond had
evidently a natural bent and inclination ;
and his poetry would give one the im-
pression, if all other kinds of evidence
were wanting, that its author was a man
of cultivated tastes, well versed in the
polite arts, and of courtly bearing and
demeanour.
On his return from the Continent, and
in the midst of preparations to join the
Scottish bar, an event occurred which
changed the whole current of his life, as
fortunate a one, perhaps, for posterity as
the chance which prevented John Milton
from devoting himself to the Church.
Drummond's father died, leaving his son
Laird of Hawthornden at the compara-
tively early age of twenty-four. There
was now no necessity for him to adopt a
profession ; and it can be imagined with
what joy one who had been described by
his professor to the pupils under his care
as another Quintilian, betook himself to
his favourite pursuit of literature. Evi-
dence exists that Drummond's reading
at this period was of the most extensive
and erudite character ; in fact, it is stated
in Mr. Laing's Hawthornden Manu-
scripts, that in the short space of eight
years he had read more than two hun-
dred and twenty separate books, many of
being in several large volumes. When
we remember the somewhat limited
number of works at that time produced,
it would seem that Drummond must
have been acquainted with the great
bulk of contemporary literature. It is
interesting to note, that among the works
which he had well studied were many in
Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, French,
and Spanish. Most educated persons in
his position at that period read French,
but the chief studies of the secluded Laird
were in Greek and Latin, with a great
leaning also to the Italian. A glimpse
respecting his ambition as to the course
of his future life is obtained in the re-
mark of his biographer, that " the delica-
cy of his wit ran always on the pleasant-
ness and usefulness of history, and on
the fame and softness of poetry." It is
pointed out, however, that if he really
desired to excel in the two walks just in-
dicated, there was little encouragement
for him to do so in the then existing
condition of Scottish poetry. The grand
flush of genius in Scotland had appar-
ently ceased about thirty years before,
and had been succeeded in England by
the highest perfection of literary great-
ness. Professor Masson assigns several
reasons for the intellectual sterility of
Scotland at this time. One cause, he af-
firms, had been the incessant political
strife in the northern kingdom ; another,
perhaps, is to be found in the strict and
repressive nature of the Presbyterian
system, except in a few grooves where it
262
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
chose to recognize individual efforts of
mind ; and a third cause was the great
controversy between Presbyterianism
and Prelacy. In England there was
for the time freedom from all such dis-
tracting questions ; and we can well un-
derstand, therefore, that while in Scot-
land the polemical fields were sown with
the seeds of quick and lively thought,
the field of literature became correspond-
ingly bleak and barren.
At the time Drummond first devoted
himself to literature, the first poet in
Scotland — the only one of conspicuous
talent — was William Alexander, after-
wards Sir William Alexander, and finally
Earl of Stirling. Of this poet, who
earned considerable repute from both his
English and Scotch contemporaries, Chal-
mers says : " His versification is in gen-
eral very superior to that of his contem-
poraries, and approaches nearer to the
elegance of modern times than could
have been expected from one who wrote
so much. There are innumerable beau-
ties scattered over the whole of his
works." To us he appears to have had
but a small endowment of genius, though
he possessed much scholarly feeling and
talent. We do not intend, nevertheless,
by this, to sum up the whole of the merits
of one who undoubtedly made a consid-
erable figure in both literature and poli-
tics : what we are concerned to notice is,
that Drummond attached himself to Sir
William Alexander's school ; that is, he
followed him in his determination to
choose the English language, and not the
northern dialect, as the vehicle for his
poetry. It was not only after his retire-
ment to Hawthornden that Drummond
must have done something in verse, for
we find that in one of his letters to a lady
he made some references to poems which
had either seen the light or were then in
manuscript. Speaking of these poems,
he observes : " Keep them, that hereafter,
when time, that changeth everything,
shall make wither those fair roses of your
youth, among the other toys of your cab-
inet they may serve for a memorial of
what once was."
Drummond's first public appearance as
an author was on the occasion of a mel-
ancholy event affecting the entire nation,
viz., the death of the Prince of Wales.
This prince, though only eighteen years of
age, was, judging by all contemporary ac-
counts, a youth of unusual promise, and
was so beloved that the mourning for him
was universal. His death set in motion
all the springs of elegiac poetry; and
amongst the poems produced there were
few which could compete in merit with
Drummond's first striking piece, entitled
" Teares on the Death of Moeliades."
This elegy has a good deal of vigour,
beauty, and stateliness about it, though
we should not be disposed to adjudge it
such high praise as has been commonly
awarded it, for it lacks that profundity of
feeling which should pre-eminently dis-
tinguish such poetry. Mr. Masson thinks
that the " Lycidas " of Milton most re-
sembles it ; but, except in the one point
of pastoralism, we fail to detect any kin-
ship. Milton had more skill than to use
an unbroken succession of heroics where-
in to depict his grief. The following lines
will give some idea of Drummond's style
at his early period : they are the closing
lines of the elegy, just mentioned, on
Prince Henry : —
Rest, happy ghost, and wander in that glass
Where seen is all that shall be, is, or was,
While shall be, is, or was shall pass away,
And nought remain but an eternal day :
Forever rest ; thy praise fame may enrol
In golden annals, whilst about the pole
The slow Bootes turns, or sun doth rise
With scarlet scarf, to cheer the morning skies :
The virgins to thy tomb may garlands bear
Of flowers, and on each flower let fall a tear.
Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore,
From Thule to Hydaspes' pearly shore.
There can be no doubt that these ver-
ses are both elevated and impressive, but
the unchanging measure in which the
poem is written (except under the ma-
nipulation of transcendent genius) does
not afford scope for the display of the «
variations and paroxysms of grief, which
can infinitely better be expressed by
means of a somewhat uneven and vary-
ing metre.
About this time, and subsequent to
the friendship which sprang up between
him and Sir William Alexander, Drum-
mond did what most susceptible poets
have done in the course of their lives —
he fell in love. But the course of his
love was brief and its ending melancholy.
"Notwithstanding his close retirement,"
says an old memoir, "and serious appli-
cation to his studies, love stole in upon
him, and did entirely captivate his heart ;
for he was, on a sudden, highly enamoured
of a fine, beautiful young lady, daughter
to Cunningham of Barns, an ancient and
honourable family. He met with suitable
returns of chaste love from her, and fully
gained her affections ; but, when the day
for the marriage was appointed, and all
things ready for the solemnization of it,
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
she took a fever and was suddenly
snatched away by it, to his great grief
and sorrow." This tragic event occurred
about 1615, and had for its result the still
deeper seclusion from the world of the
sorrowing lover. The only outward effect
it had, consisted of the publication of a
volume of poems in 1616, in which he set
forth his love for his mistress, and the
grief which her untimely death had
caused him. The title of the volume was
of some length, " Poems : Amorous, Fu-
neral!, Divine, Pastorall : in Sonnets,
Songs, Sextains, Madrigals : by W. D.,
author of the Teares on the Death of
Moeliades." This was published by
Andw. Hart of Edinburgh, and had so
good a sale that a second edition was
published with the briefer title, "Poems :
by William Drummond, of Hawthorne-
Denne." It is said that of the first edi-
tion of this work only one copy is in
existence at the present time. His love
story is told with some fulness in the
course of these poems, which exhibit a
tolerably wide range of verse, and have an
elevated ideality, which had probably been
touched into quicker and warmer action
by the events which they celebrate. The
heaping up of epithets and the constant
use of metonymy, which distinguish the
earlier poets, are found in the sonnets in
the first part of Drummond's work. He
seemed, in fact, to be constantly on the
search for a profusion of comparisons.
Take the following sonnet as a specimen,
in which the poet ransacks nature only
to pour contempt upon her most valuable
treasures as compared with the charms of
his lady : —
Vaunt not, fair heavens, of your two glorious
lights
Which, though most bright, yet see not when
they shine ;
And shining, cannot show their beams divine
Both in one place, but part by days and nights.
Earth, vaunt not of those treasures ye en-
shrine,
Held only dear because hid from our sights.
Your pure and burnish'd gold, your diamonds
fine,
Snow-passing ivory that the eye delights ;
Nor, seas, of those dear waves are in you
found,
Vaunt not rich pearl, red coral, which do stir
A fond desire in fools to plough your ground.
Those all, more fair, are to be had in her ;
Pearl, ivory, coral, diamond, suns, gold,
Teeth, neck, lips, heart, eyes, hair, are to
behold.
The comparisons in the last two lines
are very ingenious, if somewhat extrava-
263
gant ; but in respect of extravagance they
fall far short of many poems written by
fellow poets of the same period. There
are other sonnets on the beauty of his
mistress which are more general in char-
acter, and exhibit a great delicacy of
touch and ease of versification. We can-
not here unravel the whole of the story
as related in the poems. Suffice it to
state, that the exquisiteness of the feel-
ing of love, when it first broke upon his
spirit, is told in a more impassioned man-
ner than we should have expected from
Drummond. We are then led throusfh
the various stages which distinguish love
affairs generally — the bliss of a returned
passion, the horrors of separation, the
joy of reunion ; indeed, the whole anat-
omy of the subject is laid bare before us.
In the second part, however, the poet is
in another mood, the grave has swallowed
up all that beauty which he held so dear,
and there is nought left for the survivor
but lamentation and woe. He no longer
joys in the glories of earth and heaven,
because she is reft from him, and cannot
tread the fair meadows by his side. He
wishes to die to all that the world has to
offer in the shape of bribes to happiness.
He has lost all, and the treasure cannot
be recovered. The minor chords of his
being give forth their wailing sound in a
variety of sonnets, all intensified with the
one feeling of loss. The nature of the
poet must have been one peculiarly sus-
ceptible to the feeling of despondency.
He was very reserved, and, doubtless, at
times somewhat austere, wrapping himself
up in his own feelings, feeding upon his
grief, and refusing to find in society the
opportunity of assuaging his sorrow. A
little light occasionally dawns in upon his
soul, but after flickering for a brief period
it dies away again, and leaves the dark-
ness as dense as it previously existed.
There are some noble strains appended
to the volume which we have been exam-
ining in the form of " Spiritual Poems,"
where the soul of the poet seems for the
moment to have caught a higher tone,
and in which he enlarges on the advan-
tages and the comforting power of faith in
the Unseen. But here he only struggles
with adversity ; he cannot overcome it
and rejoice. His nature re-asserted
itself, and he could not shake off his
mood.
A time came, notwithstanding, when
the poet was perforce compelled to rise
from his lethargy and gloom. The
sombre covering of the spirit was to be
doffed, and brighter garments assumed.
264
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
Drummond was^sensibly affected by the
general rejoicing which took place when
King James, after an absence of fourteen
years, revisited Scotland, and his pres-
ence amongst his Scotch subjects drew
forth Drummond from his retirement.
In celebration of the happy event he
set his muse' to work, and produced
" Forth Feasting," a long panegyric on
the King. The poem is full of the most
extravagant praise of the royal literary
dabbler, who is credited with being one
of the greatest sovereigns the world has
ever seen, and his reign one of the most
glorious and beneficent on record. Some
latitude must be allowed, of course, to all
who speak within the shadow of "the
divinity which doth hedge a king;" but
if history is to be believed, James was
not credited with much dignity by any of
his contemporaries when once outside of
his presence.
Posterity has awarded the royal singer
very different praise from that accorded
to him by Drummond ; and has relegated
him to his due position amongst fourth
or fifth-rate bards.
Amongst the most interesting periods
of Drummond's life, and one which has
drawn forth a considerable amount of
animadversion upon him, is that of his ac-
quaintanceship with Ben Jonson. It was
scarcely likely that a poet of Drum-
mond's mark could long pass unrecog-
nized by that band of poets who made the
literary world of London, at that time
scarcely past its zenith. The great
leader of this literary circle of brilliant
wits and dramatists was, as we have said,
Jonson. The " Devil Tavern," in Fleet
Street, that street which has had more
literary associations connected with it
than any other street in the world, was
Ben's headquarters, and there he pub-
lished his fiats on poetic and other mat-
ters, in which he was considered to be
supreme. The sovereign of letters was
personally as little of an ideal king as the
monarch who filled the political throne ;
ugly of visage, unkempt of person, and
careless as to cleanliness, he was, take
him for all in all, the most extraordinary
specimen of a leader of men which it is
possible to conceive. However, Shake-
speare out of the way, there was no dis-
puting his talent and his right to suprem-
acy. With all his roughness, however,
and somewhat blatant speech, there was
in him a sense of uprightness and hon-
our, and in his better moods he was in-
dubitably conscious of a far higher ideal
than he ever reached.
It was in the year 1618 that Ben Jon-
son visited Drummond ; on the whole
the most curious and interesting of re-
corded literary rencounters. The state-
ment that Jonson went to Scotland pur-
posely to visit Drummond is now dis-
posed of as a mere invention. Mr.
Masson preserves in his pages the myth
as to how the two first met.
Drummond was sitting under the great syca-
more tree in front of his house, expecting his
visitor, when at length, descending the well-
hedged avenue from the public road to the
house, the bulky hero hove in sight. Rising,
and stepping forth to meet him, Drummond
saluted him with " Welcome, welcome, royal
Ben ! " to which Jonson replied, " Thank ye,
thank ye, Hawthornden ! " and they laughed,
fraternized, and went in together.
It was while Jonson was under his
hospitable roof, or at any rate immediate-
ly after he had left it, that Drummond
put in writing his impression of the man.
This it was which caused the northern
poet to be so adversely criticised when
his opinions were published after his
death. It seems a somewhat singular
thing to do, without doubt, but a man is
surely at liberty to make what private
memoranda he likes without any infringe-
ment of the laws of hospitality, and tfliere
is no evidence whatever that Drummond
intended to publish these impressions of
his guest. One can well understand that
in many respects Drummond must have
suffered a revulsion of feeling when he
discovered what manner of man his hero
really was. Much of the halo which he
had thrown round Ben's character must
have disappeared as he saw him ply the
wine bottle with such terrible assiduity,
Drummond himself being a man of but
moderate appetites. But the biographer
hints at another reason why Drummond
should have been a trifle disappointed
with his guest. Being at the head of lit-
erature in his native country, " it may
have been a little hard to hear Ben Jon-
son talk patronizingly of recent Scottish
attempts as not bad for a region so far
from the London centre, and recom-
mend a course of Quintilian and Eng-
lish grammar as discipline for something
better." This rough-shod riding over
the sensibilities of one who could feel so
keenly as Drummond, cannot have been
very pleasant, and his patriotism as well
as his personal vanity was clearly
wounded ; and we have reason to rejoice
that this was so, for we have obtained
thereby the portrait of a very distin-
guished poet, drawn by one of his con-
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
temporaries, and with no flattering lines
in it whatever. Here it is : —
He (Ben Jonson) is a great lover and praiser
of hiniself ; a contemner and scorner of others ;
given rather to lose a friend than a jest ;
jealous of every word and action of those
about him (especially after drink, which is one
of the elements in which he liveth) ; a dis-
sembler of ill parts which reign in him, a
bragger of some good that he wanteth ; think-
eth nothing well but what either he himself or
some of his friends and countrymen hath said
or done ; he is passionately kind and angry ;
careless either to gain or keep ; vindictive,
but, if he be well answered, at himself. For
any religion, as being versed in both. Inter-
preteth best sayings and deeds often to the
worst. Oppressed with phantasy, which hath
ever mastered his reason — a general disease
in many poets. His inventions are smooth
and easy ; but, above all, he excelleth in a
translation.
More valuable even than this issue to
his visit, nevertheless, were the notes
made by Drummond of his conversations
with Jonson. These were really note-
worthy and most interesting, and had
there been no other record of the meet-
ing they would have made us quite con-
tented. A good deal of the dramatist's
genius shines through this recorded gos-
sip, and we get also glimpses of eminent
people, more serviceable for the forma-
tion of our judgment upon them than
whole pages of speculation. Let us see
what he remarked of some whose names
are " familiar in our mouths as household
words." Of Inigo Jones, he said, that,
" When he wanted words to express the
greatest villain in the world, he would call
him an Inigo." "Queen Elizabeth never
saw herself after she became old in a true
glass : they painted her, and sometimes
would vermilion her nose." "Spenser's
stanzas pleased him not, nor his matter ;
and Sir Walter Raleigh esteemed more of
fame than of conscience." The world
will venture to differ from Ben Jonson on
both these latter points. Then, after
considerable gossip as to Sir Philip Sid-
ney's pimply face, he says, " Shakespeare
wanted art. In a play, he brought in a
number of men saying they had suffered
shipwreck in Bohemia, where there is no
sea near by some hundred miles." This
is hypercriticism with a vengeance, espe-
cially as no other observations are made
concerning the universal poet. " Had he
(Ben Jonson) written that piece of South-
well's 'The Burning Babe,' he would
have been content to destroy many of
his. He esteemeth John Donne the first
poet in the world for some things, but
265
that, from not being understood, he would
perish." It is pleasant to hear him speak
nobly of Selden. "J. Selden liveth on
his own ; is the law book of the judges of
England ; the bravest man in all lan-
guages." " Francis Beaumont loved too
much himself and his own verses. Next
himself, only Fletcher and Ciiapman could
make a masque." In addition to much
gossip of this character, Jonson narrated
his own history to Drummond, which the
latter carefully preserved, and he further-
more criticised the poetry of the Scottish
bard with considerable freedom, as might
be imagined from his character. Drum-
mond reports that, after telling him his
verses smelt too much of the schools,
" he said to me that I was too good and
simple, and that oft a man's modesty
made a fool of his wit. He dissuaded me
from Poetry, for that she had beggared
him, when he might have been a rich law-
yer, physician, or merchant." All this is
very acceptable, for nothing can possess
greater interest than the unbiassed opin-
ion upon men and things generally which
genius may entertain. We must leave
the two poets, nevertheless, making com-
plimentary verses to each other after their
separation, and indulging in a friendly
correspondence. Their intimacy appears
to have terminated as suddenly as it com-
menced, and we next find Drummond,
with his friend Sir William Alexander,
assisting King James with his version of
the Psalms. The royal conceit was far
in advance of the royal talent, but it be-
hoved the assistants of their august mas-
ter to preserve a quiet tongue on this
matter. Drummond seems to have exe-
cuted the translation, which was very
well received ; but who can gauge the
depth of Alexander's sorrow at having to
listen and to applaud the King's excru-
ciating efforts at versification ?
Our next experience of him in the ca-
pacity of author is the publication of
" Flowers of Sion," to which work was
adjoined his " Cypresse Grove," the vol-
ume being issued in 1623. He had for
some time back established himself in the
public eye as the rising poet of his native
country, and this new venture comprised
all the fugitive pieces he had written dur-
ing the previous six or seven years. He
had now risen above the feeling which
dominated his spirit after the loss of his
mistress — that feeling that there was no
other fact in the universe for him but the
one expressed in the word bereavement.
It was manifest that his soul, having been
for a long period at its utmost tension,
266
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
had now relaxed a little, and Drummond
was able to look out upon Nature with
the true vision of the poet, seeing there
the grand beauty of the physical All.
The later poems are touched, as were also
the earlier ones, by a kind of mysticism
which is not too powerful to prevent them
worth or Armstrong: of his ao:e. He ar
pears to have taken up the matter heart-
ily, and to have been very diligent in the
discovery of weapons, the profits of
which were to be reserved to him, be-
cause, as His Majesty expressed it,
" there are not wanting: certain envious
from being excellent in form, and generally '• and grasping persons who, from a sordid
susceptible of being grasped by the ordi- and base spirit, strive to jret for them-
selves the use and fruits of other people's
labours." It does not appear what be-
came of all the inventor's improvements
in deadly .weapons, and whether his pat-
ent, which was for three years, was of
nary mind. Many of the poems are on
strictly Scriptural themes ; for Drum-
mond possessed much reverential feeling.
For the poems which take rather a scien-
tific and astronomical turn, we have little
affection, preferring, when we must have any pecuniary service to him.
such facts dressed up for us in the form i Passing from the death of Drayton
of poesy, to go to Milton for them, where j which naturally affected Drummond ver
the art is carried to its greatest perfec- ' deeply, we arrive at an interesting poin
tion. But when any inferior mind at- ; in the career of the latter — viz., his mar-
tempts this class of work, the result is riage to Elizabeth Logan, grandchild o:
invariably dull and wearisome. The ; Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, a grea
" Cypresse Grove " is an essay in prose and ancient family. Though married a
on the subject of death, and upon this , the mature age of forty-six, the poet live
essay Mr. ALasson passes the following , to have by his wife the numerous famil
very high judgment : — " Here, in a short j of five sons and four daughters. Th
series of prose pages, we have a medita- j next year after his marriage, Charles mad
tion on death, by our poet of Hawthorn- 1 his Coronation journey to Scotland, ac
den, which, for its pensive beauty, its j companied by a brilliant retinue. Drum
moral highmindedness, and the mournful ; mond, nearly always openly and avowedl
music that rolls through it, surpasses any loyal to the Crown, composed an elab
similar piece of old English prose known rate address, which was delivered befor
to me, unless it be here and there, per- the King on his arrival at Edinburgl:
haps, a passage in some of the English ; But more serious events than were at th
divines at their best, or Sir Thomas | time dreamt of soon followed this visit
Browne of Norwich in the finest parts of Charles and Laud were very much dij
his 'Urn Burial.' It is matter of sur- satisfied with affairs in Scotland, bot|
prise that such a rare specimen of poeti- Episcopal and otherwise. That cel(
cal and musical prose should have dropt i brated struggle between King and pe(
out of sight." The essay bears out this j gle, which was afterwards to have s<
encomium. Its philosophy is reasonable disastrous an ending for the former, no\
and consoling, deprecating the fear of dis- | began. The leading features of that stru<
aster to the soul because earthly and ma-
terial things bear ruin stamped upon
them. The mind having originated from
the Deity, it is superior to all the acci-
dents which overtake inert matter, and
man can find solid ground for his feet in
this truth. Such is the leading argument
of the essay, which is clothed in the rich
and quaint language of one who was evi-
dently no stranger to prose composition.
gle are common history ; but we musl
note here that " by temperament and cul^
ture Drummond was a philosophical Conj
servative, the friend of prerogative an(
constituted authority in all things, an(
adverse to all popular movements an(
democratic ideas as mere roarings of th<
Blatant Beast." This description wii|
easily assure the reader of the cause h<
espoused in the struggle. His constitu^
After the death of King James, and in j tion abhorred political storms and dis-
the early years of his successor, we come j turbances : he desired, more than all
upon Drummond in an entirely new char- j else, peace ; and at one time it is believed
acter, and one the exact opposite to any ; that he imagined sincerely it would be
we should have associated with him. It compatible with the introduction of a
has been discovered, by means of a Latin I moderate Prelacy into Scotland,
document, that King Charles gave a pat- At the age when most poets have only
ent to his "faithful subject, Mr. William just attained their greatest poetic vigour,
Drummond," for the making of military \ Drummond seems to have forsaken the
machines. It is certainly somewhat as- 1 Muse, and to have taken to prose. That
tounding to find in our hero the Whit- he had no mean gift in the latter was ob-
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN,
267
ious by his production of the " Cypresse
jrove," to whose excellence reference
as already been made. The only ques-
ion remained, what form of composition
/as his genius to favour now? In 1633,
he question was decided for him by a
orrespondence between himself and the
-i^arl of Perth. Burying himself in the
enealogy of the family with which he
/as connected, the poet proposed to pro-
t/uce a table and statement of its various
'amifications. One point which had con-
iderable attraction for him was this —
hat in the records of the Drummonds
here was related the story of an Anna-
lella Drummond, wife of King Robert III.
f Scotland ; and from her, it was al-
-iged, had descended all the Stuarts,
ome of whom had intermarried with
ther crowned houses of Europe. This
,'as something to be proud of, and es-
pecially for the direct relative and de-
cendant of Annabella — the Earl of
'erth, who was the representative of the
)rummonds of Stobhall. The researches
f the poet in this new field resulted in
"History of Scotland during the Reigns
f the Five Jameses" (1424-1542), which
3ok many years to complete, the writer
aving been drawn insensibly on to
viden his original intention, which was
D write the story of King James I., who
/as the son of the Annabella Drummond
Iready mentioned.
During this period political matters
/ere assuming a threatening aspect,
.aud had already commenced his high-
landed policy in Scotland ; and we find
Jrummond interrupting his literary stud-
ss to write a bold letter on behalf of Lord
3almerino, who was prosecuted by the
\.rchbishop for what was designated " an
nfamous libel against the King's Gov-
rnment ; " but which was, in reality,
lothing more than a protest against ty-
anny — or, as he called it, and those who
igned the document with him, a " Sup-
)Hcation." The prosecution made con-
iderable stir, but virtually ended in
moke ; and the next serious political
vent was the order by the King for the
doption of the new Service-book. After
his came the Presbyterian rising, and the
doption of the Scottish Covenant — one
if the most remarkable instances of una-
limity in a nation, in the matter of re-
igion, on record. At the head of this
novement — or, at least, of the clergy who
ostered it — was Alexander Henderson ;
nd in a short time the chief landed
:entry of Scotland had identified them-
elves with it. There is no evidence that
Drummond signed the Covenant ; but
he gave evidence of his satisfaction in a
printed address, when he learnt that the
Marquis of Hamilton, on behalf of the
King, had come to terms with the leaders
of the great movement. There are many
noble passages in this address, some of
which celebrate the glory and beauty of
freedom ; but the writer does not omit to
support the idea of Prerogative, to which
he had invariably been loyal. It is sin-
gular, nevertheless, to note that, in the
matter of individual liberty of conscience,
he was far in advance of the Covenanters,
and gave much practical advice to the
Presbyterian Clergy, which they needed,
but were not too grateful for. The upshot
of all was, that Episcopacy was banished
from Scotland, and the Kirk re-estab-
lished with an almost unparalleled amount
of bell-ringing and bonfire celebrations.
Drummond chose this time in which to
rebuild his ancestral mansion ; and the
present house of Hawthornden bears the
inscription (in Latin) : — " By the Divine
favour, William Drummond of Hawthorn-
den, Son of Sir John Drummond, Knight,
that he might rest in honourable ease,
founded this house for himself and his
successors."
The Gordian knot of politics in Scot-
land, which had apparently been solved,
anon became more complicated than ever,
and Drummond was in a difficulty. He
could not approve the King in all his
measures, and yet the bent of his inclina-
tions was still to support the prerogatives
of the monarch. He expressed his dis-
sent from the majority in more than one
epigram, but he finally conformed, if he
did not consent, to the views of the larger
and stronger party. So far did this sub-
mission extend, that it is supposed he at
last signed the Covenant. At the same
time he continued to write pamphlets, in
which he urged moderation on the part of
his countrymen. It is noteworthy that in
one of these papers he made use of an
expression which was afterwards re-
garded as veritable prophecy. " During
these miseries," he observes, " of which
the troublers of the State shall make
their profit, there will arise perhaps one
who will name himself Protector of the
Liberty of the Kingdom. He shall sur-
charge the people with greater miseries
than ever before they did suffer." It was
subsequently pointed out, however, that
Drummond was not thinking of England
at all, but of Scotland, so that the proph-
ecy was, in fact, no prophecy at all.
During the Bishops' war Drummond had
268
DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN.
a bitter pill to swallow ; be was compelled
to send men to swell the ranks of the
army which fought against the King,
while sympathizing with the latter, and
the only revenge within his power was
the issue of the following epigram, which
had its rise in the fact that Drummoud
was obliged to supply his men to the
army in fractions, his estates lying in
three different counties : —
Of all these forces raised against the King,
'Tis my strange hap not one whole man to
bring :
From diverse parishes yet diverse men ;
But all in halves and quarters. Great King,
then,
In halves and quarters if they come 'gainst
thee.
In halves and quarters send them back to me.
In writing squibs and pamphlets Drum-
mond passed the next few years of his
life. In secret sympathy with the King,
he was obliged to be somewhat circum-
spect in public. After his death many
papers were discovered, most of which
his family considered it prudent to de-
stroy, some of them being severe animad-
versions upon the leaders of the great
English revolution. One of the pieces
preserved is the following verse, written
on the death of Pym, the distinguished
Parliamentary leader : —
When lately Pym descended into hell,
Ere he the cups of Lethe did carouse,
What place that was, he called aloud to tell ;
To whom a devil, "This is the Lower
House."
Matters gradually got worse for the Roy-
alists, and Drummond wrote a plea for
Charles. The King, however, was finally
surrendered, and a tragic end was the se-
quel to the stirring series of events. The
last year of the sovereign's life was also
the last in this world for Drummond.
There is no doubt that the troubles of
his native country must have embittered
the closing days in Drummond's career
(though not to the extent of hastening his
end) ; for, whatever might be thought of
his views, and his wise or unwise advo-
cacy of them, he had at any rate in a
marked degree the virtue of patriotism.
The death of Charles was a tremendous
shock to his spirit. With many others
who were Royalists in heart, he never
dreamt that the victorious Parliamenta-
rians at Whitehall would dare to con-
summate their successes by the execu-
tion of the sovereign. The old gloom
and melancholy from which the poet had
nearly recovered returned with tenfold
force, and Drummond gave vent to his
surcharged feelings in despondent son-
nets and verses.
Drummond's death occurred at the
close of 1649, ^^^ the biographer in re-
cording it says that he was much weak-
ened with close studying and diseases, be-
sides being overwhelmed with extreme
grief and anguish. He wanted but a few
days to complete his sixty-fourth year. He
was buried in his own aisle, in the church
of Lasswade, near to Hawthornden. Mr.
Masson disbelieves the statement that
his end was actually accelerated by the
King's execution, and (though his spirit
must, as we have remarked, have been
sore vexed), there is some plausibility in
this, considering that ten months had
elapsed between the two events.
Whatever fame Drummond has se-
cured is of course due to him as a poet.
He was pre-eminently a student and a
man of letters. He had no qualifications
as a leader of men. In the first place,
he had a feeling half pity, half contempt,
for the majority of the human race ; and
in the second, he lacked the strong sin-
ews necessary " to breast the waves of
circumstance," and to grapple with the
opposition of foes. As a writer he could
occasionally, in a happy moment, cast off
an effective polemical sonnet or stanza,
but even that was foreign to his nature,
and when he did this, it was simply to re-
lieve his feelings, which were unusually
active. These political efforts have,
however, long ago well-nigh sunk out of
sight, except to those who really desire
to see what the Laird of Hawthornden
accomplished in more ways than the one
in which he became justly famous. As
to his position amongst the poets,
Phillips's dictum is one which cannot
possibly be upheld ; but Milton himself,
Phillips's uncle, had a high opinion of
Drummond, and regarded his poetic vein
as most true in kind, though not of the
highest rank. His principal distinguishing
characteristics are sensuousness (a quality
which most of his critics have credited
him with), pastoral beauty, and spiritu-
ality of thought. The sensuousness is
sometimes strong and rich, and at others
spends itself in dainty conceits, as when
he sings of Phillis : —
In petticoat of green,
Her hair about her eyne,
Phillis beneath an oak
Sat milking her fair flock : _
Among that strained moisture, rare delight
Her hand seemed milk in milk, it was so_
white.
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
For his period, too, Drummond was re-
markably pure, there being very few
lines in the whole of his works to offend
the taste of the most fastidious. His
song was not high, but it was strangely
musical and captivating. He has not
left us lyrics which will vie with Her-
rick's, but he has given us more sus-
tained efforts in poetry, if not of the very
loftiest order. He never degraded his
genius ; he was true to the powers with
which he was endowed. By no means
the equal of Ben Jonson, Drayton, Mar-
lowe, and Massinger in genius, he was
superior to any Scotch poet of his time.
He belonged rather to that school which
had for its chiefs Chaucer and Spenser,
though he was far from approaching these
in strength of wing. His sonnets are
justly considered as amongst the best in
the language — a point respecting which,
indeed, few critics will be found to differ.
They possess some of the dignity we find
in Milton, combined with some of the
sweetness of Shakespeare. And another
advantage which Drummond enjoyed was
that his sensuousness and feeling were
tempered by the reflective faculty ; this
has given substance to his verses, and
made them worthy of occupying a prom-
inent place in literature, instead of being
merely the hasty record of transient emo-
tions. A study of his works must inev-
itably result in yielding to him a promi-
nent place amongst the national bards.
Fancy, elegance, exquisiteness, tender-
ness— all these are to be found in abun-
dance in him, and if he was not sufficient-
ly powerful to make an age for himself in
the literary annals of his country, he un-
questionably adorned and strengthened
the poetic era in which he was cast.
From All The Year Round.
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
CHAPTER I.
Old Tony Spence kept a second-hand
book-shop at the corner of a back street
in the busy town of Smokeford ; a brown
dingy little place with dusty windows,
through which the light came feebly and
yellowly. From the door one could peer
down the narr0w interior, with its book-
lined walls and strip of counter, to the
twinkling fire at the far end, where the
old fellow sat in his arm-chair, poring over
ancient editions, and making acquaintance
with the latest acquisitions to his stock.
He was a dreamy-looking old man, with a
269
parchment-like face and a snuff-coloured
coat, and seemed made of the same stuff
as the books among which he lived, with
their dusty-brown covers and pages yel-
lowed by time. He had been a school-
master in his youth, and had wandered a
good deal about the world, and picked up
odds and ends of a queer kind of knowl-
edge. Of late years he had developed a
literary turn, and now and again gave
forth to his generation a book full of
quaint conceits, a sort of mosaic fragment
of some of the scraps of knowledge and
observation stored up in his brain, which
was as full of incongruous imajres as a
curiosity shop. In the morning he used
to turn out of his shuttered dwelling about
six, when there was light, and go roving
out of the town to the downs beyond it,
where he would stroll along with his
hands behind his back and his head
thrown upward, musing over many things
he found puzzling, and some that he found
delightful in the world.
His house consisted of four chambers,
and a kitchen above a ladder-like stair,
which led up out of the bookshelves ; and
his family of an ancient housekeeper, a
large tom-cat, and his daughter Hetty,
soon to be increased by the addition of a
young girl, the child of his dead sister,
to whom he had promised to give a shelter
for a time. Hetty was often both hands
and eyes to him, and wrote down oddities
at his dictation when the evening candles
burned too faintly, or his spectacles had
got dim — oddities whose flavour was not
seldom sharpened or sweetened by the
sentiment or wit of the amanuensis.
" That's not mine, Hetty ; that's your
own ! " the old man would cry.
" Only to try how it would go, father."
" 'Tis good, my little girl ; go on."
And thus in scribbling on rusty fools-
cap, and poring into musty volumes, tend-
ing a small roof-garden, and sketching
fancies in the chimney-corner, Hetty had
grown to be a woman almost without
knowing it.
She possessed her father's good sense,
with more imagination than was ever
owned by the bookseller. She saw pic-
tures with closed eyes, and wove her
thoughts in a sort of poetry which never
got written down, giving audience to
strange assemblages in her dingy cham-
ber, where a faded curtain of tawny dam-
ask did duty for arras, and some rich dark
woodcuts pasted on the brown walls stood
for gems of the old masters in her eyes.
Lying on her bed with hands folded and
eyes wide open, she first decorated then
270
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
peopled her room, while the moonshine
glimmered across the shadows that hung
from roof and beam. Sleep always sur-
prised her in fantastic company, and with
gorgeous surroundings, but waking found
her contented with her realities. She was
out of her window early, tending the
flowers which flourished wonderfully be-
tween sloping roofs, in a nook where the
chimneys luckily stood aside, as if to let
the sun in across many obstacles upon
the garden.
One summer morning she was admiring
the crimson and yellow of a fine tulip
which had just opened, when a young
man appeared, threading his way out of a
distance of house-top, stepping carefully
along the leads as he approached Hetty's
flower-beds, and smiling to see her kneel-
ing on the tiles of a sloping roof and
clinging to a chimney for Support. He
carried in his hand a piece of half-sculp-
tured wood and an instrument for carving.
Hetty, looking up, greeted him with a
happy smile, and he sat on the roof be-
side her, and praised the tulips and
chipped his wood, while the sun rose right
above the chimneys, and gilded the red-
tiled roofs and flamed through the wreaths
of smoke that went silently curling up to
heaven above their heads, li-ke the in-
cense of morning prayer out of the dwell-
ings.
" I have got a pretty idea for your
carving," said Hetty, still gazing into the
flower as if she saw her fancy there. " I
dreamed last night of a beautiful face,
half wrapped up in lilies, like a vision of
Undine. I shall sketch it for you this
evening, and you will see what you can
make of it."
" What a useful wife you will be ! " said
the young man. " If I do not become a
skilful artist it need not be for want of
help. Even your dreams you turn to ac-
count for me."
" They are not dreams," said Hetty,
merrily. " They are adventures. A
broomstick arrives for me at the window
here at night, and I am travelling round
the world on it when you are asleep. I
visit very queer places, and see things
that I could not describe to you. But I
take care to pick up anything that seems
likely to be of use."
Hetty stood up and leaned back laugh-
ingly against the red-brick chimney, with
the morning sunshine falling all around
her. She was not very handsome, but
looked nov/ quite beautiful, with her smil-
ing grey eyes and spiritual forehead, and
the dimples all a-quiver in her soft pale
cheeks. She had not yet bound up her
dark hair for the day, and it lay like a
rich mantle over her head and shoulders.
" I want to talk to you about something,
Hetty. I have made up my mind to go
abroad, and see the carvings in the
churches ; and we might live awhile in
the Tyrol, and learn something there."
"Oh, Anthony ! " the girl clasped her
hands softly together, and gazed at her
lover. "Is it possible we could have
been born for such good fortune .'*"
Anthony was a young man who had
come to the town without friends, to learn
furniture-making, and developing a taste
for carving in wood, had turned his atten-
tion to that, instead of to the coarser
part of the business. His love of reading
had led him to make acquaintance with
the old book-man and his daughter.
Evening after evening he had passed,
poring over Tony Spence's stores, and
growing to look on the book-lined chim-
ney-corner as his home. He and Hetty
had been plighted since Christmas, and
it was now June.
That evening, when the evening meal
was spread in the sitting-room above the
shops, Anthony came up the ladder out
of the book-shelves, just as Hetty ap-
peared at another door carrying a dish of
pancakes. The old man was in his chair
by the fire, his spectacles off duty thrust
up into his hair, gazing between the bars,
ruminating over something that Hetty
had told him.
" So," he said, looking up from under
his shaggy brows, as Anthony sat down
before him at the fire. " So you want to
be off to travel ! It's coming true what I
told you the day you asked me for Hetty.
I said you were a rover, didn't I ? "
" Yes," said Anthony, smiling and toss-
ing back his hair, "but you meant a dif-
ferent kind of a rover. I have not moved
from Hetty. I shall not move a m.ile
without Hetty. And you too, sir, you
must come with us."
Old Spence lay back in his chair, and
peered through half-closed eyes at the
speaker. Anthony had a bright keen
face, with rapidly changing expressions,
spoke quickly and decidedly, with a charm
in his pleasant voice, and had a general
look of skilfulness and cleverness about
him. There was not to be seen in his
eyes that patient dreamy light which is
shed from the soul of the artist ; but that
was in Hetty's eyes, and would be sup-
plied to him now and evermore to make
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
271
him really a poet in his craft. Hetty's
fancies were to be woven into his carv-
ings that he might be famous.
" I don't know about breaking up and
going abroad," said the old book-worm.
"• Tm too old for it, I'm afraid. Leaving
the chimney-corner, and floating away off
into the Nibelungen Land ! You two
must go without me, if go you must."
" I will not leave you alone, father,"
said Hetty.
" And I will not go without Hetty,"
said Anthony. " In the meantime, just
for play, let us look over the maps and
guide-books."
These were brought down, and after
some poring the old man fell asleep, and
the young people pursued their way from
town to town and from village to village,
across mountains and rivers, till they
finally settled themselves in the Bavarian
Tyrol. From a pretty home they could
see pine-covered peaks and distant gla-
ciers, and within doors they possessed
many curious things to which they were
unaccustomed.
"And I wonder if the mountains are so
blue and the lakes of that wonderful jas-
per colour which we see in pictures,"
said Hetty. " How beautiful life must
be in the midst of it all ! "
" Yes," said Anthony, " and Hetty, you
shall wear a round-peaked hat with silver
tassels on the brim, and your hair in two
long plaits coming down your back. 'Tis
well you have such splendid hair," he
said, touching her heavy braids with lov-
ing pride in his eyes and finger-ends.
Hetty blushed with delight and looked
all round the familiar room, seeing blue
mountains and dizzy villages perched on
heights, people in strange costumes,
brass-capped steeples, and strange wood-
en shrines, all lying before her under a
glittering sun. Twilight was falling, the
homely objects in the room were getting
dim. the dream-world was round her, and
with her hand in Anthony's she could im-
agine that they two were already roaming
through its labyrinths together. It was
not that in reality she could have quitted
the old home without regret ; but the
home was still there, and the visions of
the future had only floated in to beautify
it. They had not pushed away the old
walls, but only covered them with bloom.
The love of Anthony and Hetty was
singularly fitting. He had gradually and
deliberately chosen to draw her to him
for the happiness and comfort of his life ;
his character was all restlessness, and
hers was full of repose. She refreshed
him, and the sight of her face and sound
of her voice were as necessary to him as
his daily bread. Hetty's was that spiritual
love which spins a halo of light round the
creature that leans upon it, and garners
everything sweet to feed a holy fire that
is to burn through all eternity. In the
hush of her nature a bird of joy was per-
petually singing, and its music was heard
by all who came in contact with her. No
small clouds of selfishness came between
her and the sun. She knew her meetness
for Anthony and her usefulness to his
welfare, and this knowledge lay at the
root of her content.
It was quite dusk, and the scrubby lines
on the maps which marked the mountains
of Hetty's dreamland were no longer dis-
cernible to peering eyes, when a faint
ting-ting was heard from the shop-bell
below. The lovers did not mind it. It
might be a note from the little brazen
belfry up among the pines against the
Tyrolese sky, or from the chiming neck-
lace of a mule plodding along the edge of
the precipice, or from the tossing head
of the leader of a herd on a neighbouring
Alp ; or it might be the little pot-boy
bringing the beer for Sib's supper. Sib,
the old serving-woman, had come to the
latter conclusion, for she was heard de-
scending by a back way to open the
door.
After an interval of some minutes there
was a sound of feet ascending the ladder,
and the door of the sitting-room was
thrown open. The light figure of a girl
appeared in the doorway, and behind fol-
lowed Sib, holding a lamp above her
head.
"Who is it.?" cried Hetty, springing
forward. " Ah, it must be Primula, my
cousin from the country. Come in, dear ;
you are welcome ! " and she threw an
arm round the glimmering figure and
drew it into the room. " Sib, put down
the lamp and get some supper for her.
Father, wake up ! here is your niece at
last. Tell us about your journey, cousin,
and let me take your bonnet."
Hetty took the girl's hat off, and stood
wondering at the beauty of her visitor.
Primula's father had brought her up in
a country village where he had died and
left her. She had come to her uncle, who
had offered to place her with a dress-
maker in Smokeford. The fashions of
Smokeford would be eagerly sought at
Moor-edge, and it was expected that
Primula would make a good livelihood on
her return, with her thimble in her pocket
and her trade at her finger-ends.
272
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
She had been named by a hedgerow-
loving mother, who died eighteen years
ago in the spring-time, and left her newly-
born infant behind her in the budding
world. The motherless girl had, as if by
an instinct of nature, grown up to woman-
hood modelled on her mother's fancy for
the delicate flower whose name she bore.
She had glistening yellow hair, lying in
smooth uneven-edged folds across her low
fair forehead. A liquid light lay under
the rims of her heavy white eyelids, and
over all her features there was a mellow
and exquisite paleness, warmed only by
the faintest rose-blush on her cheeks and
lips. She wore a very straight and faded
calico gown, her shawl was darned, and
her straw hat was burned by the sun.
" She is very lovely — prettier far than
I," thought Hetty, with th.it slight pang
which even a generous young girl may
feel for a moment when she sees another
by her side who must make her look
homely in the eyes of her lover. "But
I will not envy her, I will love her in-
stead," was the next thought ; and she
threw her arms round the stranger and
kissed her.
Primula seemed surprised at tlie em-
brace.
" I did not think you would be so glad
to see me," she said. " People said you
would find me a deal of trouble."
Old Spence was now awake and taking
his share in the scene.
" Bless me ! bless me 1 " he cried,
"you are like your mother I a sweet
woman, but with no brains at all, nor
strength of mind. Nay, don't cry, child !
I did not mean to hurt you. I have a
way of my own of speaking out my
thoughts. Hetty does not mind it, nor
must you."
Primula was trembling, and had begun
to cry ; and Hetty and Anthony drew
nearer and comforted her.
CHAPTER II.
"This is a dull place, after all," said
Primula next day, when Hetty, having
shown her everything in the house, took
her a walk through the best streets to see
the shops. " I thought that in a town
one would see gay ladies walking about,
and soldiers in red coats, and a great deal
of amusement going on about us. Moor-
edge is as good nearly, and there isn't so
much smoke."
"You thought it was a city," said
Hetty, laughing. " I never thought about
it being dull, but perhaps it is. We have
gay ladies in Smokeford, but they do not
walk about in the streets. You may meet
them sometimes in their carriages. It is
a manufacturing town, and that makes
the smoke. I don't wonder at all that
Moor-edge should be prettier."
" Oh, there is a lady ! Look at her
hat ! and there is certainly embroidery
on her dress. I should like a dress like
that, only I've got no money. Do you
never see any company in your house,
cousin Hetty '? "
" Anthony comes often," said Hetty,
happily, " and others come in and out, but
we have nothing you could call company.
You will see more of life when you go to
the milliner's. There will be other young
girls, and you will find it pleasant."
" I ought to have a better dress to go
in," said Primula. "All the girls in the
shops are nicely dressed. Have you got
any money, cousin Hetty.?" she added,
hesitatingly.
Hetty blushed and was embarrassed for
a moment. She had indeed a pound, the
savings of years, about the expending of
which she had made many a scheme — a
present for her father or for Anthony,
she had not quite decided. Well, here
was her cousin who wanted clothing.
She could not refuse her.
" I have a pound," said Hetty, faintly,
"and you can buy what you please with
it."
"Oh, thank you," said her cousin.
" Let us go in and buy the dress at
once ! " And they went into the finest
shop, where the counter was soon covered
with materials for their choice.
" This lilac is charming," said Primula,
longingly. " What a pity it is so dear ! "
" The grey is almost as nice," said
Hetty ; " and I assure you it will wear
much better."
" Do you think you have not got five
shillings more ? " pleaded Primula. " The
lilac is so much prettier ? "
" No," said Hetty, in distress ; " indeed
I have not a penny more."
" The young lady can pay me at some
other time," said the shopman, seeing
the grieved look in Primula's face.
" Oh, thank you ! " murmured Primula,
gazing at him gratefully.
" No, no, cousin ; you must not indeed
think of going into debt," said Hetty.
" Come home and let us talk about it."
" Ah, I shall never get it," said Prim-
ula, with a heavy sigh, and the tears
rushed into her eyes.
" I will take off the five shillings," said
the fascinated shopman. " You may have
the lilac for the same price as the grey."
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
273
Primula blushed scarlet, and murmured ]
some tremulous enraptured thanks ; and
the shopman bowed her out of the shop
with the parcel in her arms.
Though Primula was going to be a
dressmaker, Hetty had to make this par-
ticular dress. " I don't know how to do
it yet, cousin," said Primula; "at least
not the cutting out." When the cutting-
out was done, the owner of the dress was
not at all inclined for the trouble of sew-
ing it. Hetty had turned her room into
a work-room, and stitched with good-
will, while the new inmate of the cham-
ber sat on the little bed which had been
set up for her accommodation in the cor-
ner, and entertained Hetty with her prat-
tle about the life at Moor-edge, the num-
ber of the neighbours' cows, and the
flavour of their butter ; the dances on the
green in summer-time, the pleasure of
being elected Queen of the May. When
the dress was finished and put on, Prim-
ula willingly took her steps to a house in
a prominent street, with " Miss Betty
Flounce " on a brass plate on the door,
and was stared at on her first appearance
by all the new apprentices, who never
had had so pretty a creature among them
before.
Summer was past, and the dark even-
ings had begun.
"Anthony," said Hetty one day,
"your work-place is near to Primula's.
Could you call for her every evening and
bring her home ? "
Anthony changed colour, and looked
at Hetty in surprise.
" Not if it annoys you," said Hetty,
quickly; "but I don't think you would
find it much trouble. She is greatly re-
marked in the streets, and some one who
calls himself a gentleman has been fol-
lowing her about lately."
Anthony frowned. " I should not won-
der," he said, angrily ; "she is a thought-
less creature."
" You need not be so hard on her,"
said Hetty. " She is soft and childlike,
and does not know how to speak to peo-
ple and frighten them off."
"Well, I will be her knight, only to
please you," said Anthony. " And see,
here is the carving of the design out of
your dream. Don't you remember ? "
" The face among the lilies ! " cried
Hetty, examining it. " And it has turned
out quite beautiful. Why, Anthony, I
declare it looks like Primula ! "
" So it does, indeed," said Anthony
turning away.
" I suppose her face must have come
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 33O
in my dreams," said Hetty, "for I never
had seen her when this was designed. I
have heard of dreams foreshadowing
things, but I never believed it. How-
ever, you could not have a lovelier model,
I am sure."
" No," said Anthony ; and thenceforth
he called for Primula every evening and
brought her home. Sometimes Hetty
came to meet them ; more often she re-
mained at home to have the tea ready.
At first Primula did not like being so se-
corted, for she had made many acquaint-
ances, and had been accustomed to stop
and say good evening to various friends
whom she met on her way from Miss
Flounce's door. And Anthony walked
by her side like a policeman, and kept
everybody at a distance. But she had to
submit.
" Hetty," said Anthony, one day, when
things had gone on like this for some
time, "don't you think it is time she was
going home .'* "
" What ! Primula ? " cried Hetty, sur-
prised. "Why, no; she does not think
of it : nor we, neither ! "
" She is sometimes in the way," said
Anthony, moodily.
" I never saw you so unkind," said
Hetty. " Poor little Primula, whom ev-
erybody loves ! "
" You and I are not the same to each.
other since she came."
" Oh, Anthony ! "
"We never have any private talks to-
gether now. You never speak as you-
used, because Primula is present, andi
she does not understand you."
" I have noticed that," said Hetty ;
" but I thought you did not. I believed
it was not my fault. You often talk to.
Primula about the things that please
her. I thought it seemed to amuse you,
and so I was content."
Anthony lifted Hetty's little brown-
hand off the table, and kissed it ; then
he turned away without another word,
and went out of the house.
The kitchen was a pleasant enough
place that evening, with firelight twink-
ling on the lattice-windows ; coppers
glinting on the walls ; Hetty making
cakes at a long table ; Anthony smoking in
a chimney-corner ; while Primula moved
about with a sort of frolicsome grace of
her own, teasing Hetty and prattling to
Anthony, playing tricks on the cat, and
provoking old Sib, by taking liberties
with the bellows to make sparks fly up the
chimney. She stole some dough from
Hetty, and kneaded it into a grotesque-
2 74
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
looking face, glancing roguishly at An-
thony, while she shaped eyes and nose
and mouth.
" What are you doing, you foolish kit-
ten ? " said Anthony, taking the pipe from
his lips.
" Making a model for your carving, sir,"
and Primula displayed her handiwork.
" Bake it," said Anthony, " and let me
eat it ; and who knows but it may fill me
with inspiration."
Primula laughed gaily, and proceeded
to obey ; and Hetty looked over her
shoulder to enjoy the ridiculous scene
which followed.
" It was a sweet face certainly," said
Anthony. And Primula clapped her
hands with glee at the joke.
Anthony put away his pipe and seemed
ready for more play. It was no wonder,
Hetty had said, that he seemed to like
Primula's nonsense.
By this time Primula had learned to
find Smokeford a pleasant place. Her
beautiful face became well known as she
passed through the streets to and from
her work. Young artisans and shop-
keepers began to look out of their open
doors at the hour of her passing, and idle
gentlemen riding about the town did not
fail to take note of her. Her companions
were jealous, her mistress was dissat-
isfied with the progress of her work, and
the head of the little apprentice was near-
ly turned with vanity.
One night Hetty, going into her bed-
room, found Primula at the glass fasten-
ing a handsome pair of gold ear-rings in
her ears.
" Oh, Prim ! " cried Hetty, in amaze-
ment. " Why, where did you get any-
thing so costly ?"
" From a friend," said Primula, smiling,
and shaking her head so that the ear-rings
flashed in her ears. " From some one
who likes me very much."
"Oh, Primula!"
" How cross you are, Hetty ; you
needn't envy me," said Primula, rubbing
one of her treasures caressingly against
her sleeve. " I'll lend them to you any
time you like."
"You know I am not envious, cousin.
You know I mean that it was wrons: for
you to take them."
" Why ? " pouted Primula ; " they were
not stolen. The person who gave them
is a gentleman, and has plenty of money
to buy what he likes."
" Oh, you silly child ! You are a baby !
Don't you know that you ought not to
take jewellery from any gentleman ? "
"You are unkind, unkind!" sobbed
Primula, with the tears rolling down the
creamy satin-smooth cheeks that Hetty
liked to kiss and pinch. " Why do you
get so angry and call me names ? I will
go home to Moor-edge and not annoy
you any more."
"Nonsense, Prim! I won't call you
baby unless you deserve it. Do you know
the address of the gentleman who gave
these to you ? You must send them back
at once."
Primula knew the address, but vowed
she would keep her property. He bought
them, he gave them to her, and there was
nothing wrong about it. Hetty gave up
talking to her and went to bed, and Prim-
ula cried herself to sleep with the treas-
ures under her pillow.
The next day Hetty, in some distress,
consulted Anthony about Primula's ear-
rings. Anthony was greatly disturbed
about the matter.
" I will talk to her," he said ; " leave
her to me, and I will make her give them
back." And he spent an hour alone with
her, breaking down her stubborn childish
will. At the end of that time he returned
to Hetty, flushed and triumphant — look-
ing as if he had been routing an army,
and bearing in his hand a little box con-
taining the ear-rings and a piece of paper
on which Primula had scrawled some
words. The present went back to it.-»
donor, and Primula was sulky for a
week.
One evening when the spring was com-
ing round again, Anthony called as usual
for Primula, but found that she had left
the work-room early, as if for home. Ar-
rived at the old book-shop he learned
that she had not returned there since
leaving, as usual, in the morning for her
work.
" She has gone for a walk with some of
her companions," suggested Hetty.
" She went alone," replied Anthony ;
and he thousrhtof the ear-rinofs, " I must
go and look for her."
Outside the town of Smokeford there
were some pleasant downs, where, in fine
weather, the townspeople loved to turn
out for an evening walk. It was too early
in the season as yet for such strollers ;
and yet Anthony, when he had gone a
little way on the grass, could descry two
figures moving slowly along in the twi-
light. These were Primula and the gen-
tleman who had given her the ear-rings ;
a person whom Anthony had been watch-
ing very closely for some time past, whom
he had often perceived following upon
I
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
275
Primula's steps, and whom, for his own
part, he detested and despised.
" Primula ! " he said, walking up to the
young girl and ignoring her companion.
" Come home ! It is too late for you to
be here unprotected."
Primula pouted and hung her head.
"The young lady is not unprotected,"
said the gentleman, smiling. " And pray,
sir, who are you .'' "
" I am her nearest masculine friend,"
said Anthony, wrathfully ; " I stand here
at present in her father's place."
The gentleman laughed. " You are too
young to be her father," he said. " Go
away, young man, and I will bring her
safely to her home when she wishes to
go."
" Primula," said Anthony, white with
anger, "go yonder directly to the tree,
and wait there till I join you." The girl,
terrified out of her senses, turned and
fled as she was bidden ; the gentleman
raised his stick to strike this insolent
tradesman who had dared to defy him ;
but, before it could descend, Anthony had
grappled with him. There was a struggle,
and Primula's admirer lay stretched on
the green.
Anthony brought home the truant in
silence, and for many days he came in
and out of the house, and did not speak
to her. Primula sulked and fretted and
was miserable because Anthony looked so
crossly at her. Anthony was moody and
dull, and Hetty, with a vague sense of
coming trouble, wondered what it all
could mean.
CHAPTER III.
Old Tony Spence was taken ill that
spring, and Hetty was a good deal occu-
pied in attending on him. Anthony came
as usual in the evenings, but he did not
expect to see Hetty much, and Primula
and he amused themselves together.
Hetty's face got paler during this time,
and she fell into a habit of indulging in
reveries which were not happy ones, if
one might judge by the knotted clasp of
her hands, and the deep lines of pain be-
tween her brows. Her housekeeping
duties were hurried over, she fetched the
wrong book from the bookshelves for
customers, her sewing was thrown aside,
her only wish seemed to be to sit behind
her father's bed-curtain, with her head
leaned against the wall and her eyes
closed to the world. Sorrow was coming
to seek for her, and she hid from it as
long as she could.
One night old Spence asked to have a
particular volume brought him from the
shop, and Hetty took her lamp in hand
and went down to fetch it for him. There
was a faint light already burning in the
place, which Hetty did not at first per-
ceive, as she opened the door at the top
of the staircase, and put her foot on the
first step to descend. She went down a
little way, but was stopped by the sound
of voices. Anthony and Primula were
there.
"Yes," Primula was saying, in her soft
cooing voice, " I love you better than any
one. You fought for me, and I love
you."
" Hetty " murmured Anthony.
" Hetty won't mind," whispered Prim-
ula. " She gives me her money and
her ribbons. She won't refuse to give
me you too — I'm sure of that."
They moved a little from behind the
screen of a projecting stand of books,
and saw Hetty standing on the stairs,
gazing straight before her and looking like
a sleep-walker. Primula gave a little cry,
and covered her face. Hetty started,
turned and fled up into the sitting-room,
shutting the door behind her.
She sat down at the table, and leaned
her head heavily upon her hands. The
blow which she had been half dreading,
half believing to be an impossibility, had
fallen and crushed her ; Anthony loved
her no more. He had taken away his love
from her, and given it to Primula ; who
with pleading eyes and craving hands,
had robbed and cheated her. The greedi-
ness which she had tried to satisfy with
ribbons and shillings, had not scr jpled to
grasp the only thing she would have kept,
and held till death as her very own.
Hetty's thoughts spun round and round
in the whirl of new and uncomprehended
agony. She had no thought of doing or
saying anything, no wish to take revenge
nor to give reproach. She was stunned,
bruised, benighted, and willing to die.
Primula came creeping up the stair-
case, after crying for an hour all alone
among the old books. Life was very
troublesome, thought Primula, everybody
was selfish and cross, and everything was
either wrong or disagreeable. People
petted and loved her one moment, and
were angry with her the next. Anthony
had rushed away from her in a fit of grief,
although she had told him she loved him,
and had given up a fine gentleman for his
sake. Hetty, who used to be so tender
with her, and so ready to give her every-
thing, had looked so dreadfully there
on that step of the stairs, that shje,
276
Primula, was afraid to go up, though she
was tired and longing to be in bed. Sob-
bing, and fretting, she crept up the stair-
case, and her desire to be comfortable
overcoming her fear, she opened the door
of the sitting-room, and came in. Hetty
was sitting quietly at the table, with her
head leaned on her hands, and she did
not look up. "That is a good thing,"
thought Primula. " How dreadful if she
were to scold me ! 'Tis well it is not
her way to make a talk about things."
And she stole across the floor and shut
herself up in the bed-room.
It was quite late at night when Hetty
followed her into the bed-room, and then
Primula was fast asleep, with the sheet
pulled over her head and face, as if she
would hide herself from the glance of
Hetty's anger, even while she was hap-
pily unconscious of it. Hetty's lamp
burned itself out, and she kneeled down
in the dark to say her prayers. Her
knees bent themselves mechanically in a
certain corner of the room, but no words
would come to Hetty's lips, and no clear
thoughts to her mind. She only remem-
bered that she ought to pray, and
stretched out her arms, dumbly hoping
vaguely that God would know what she
meant. Nothing would come into her
mind but pictures of the happy hours
that Anthony and she had spent together
in their love. She fell asleep stupidly
dwelling on these memories, and unable
to realize that Anthony had given her up ;
then she dreamed that she had wakened
out of a terrible dream, in which An-
thonv had seemed to have forgotten her
for Primula. How joyful she was in that
dream ! How she laughed and sang for
ecstasy, and chattered about the foolish
fancies that will come into people's minds
when they are asleep ! And then she
wakened, and saw the dawn-light shining
on Primula's golden head, and sweetly-
tinted face, and she knew and remem-
bered that Primula was the beloved one,
and that she, Hetty, was an exile and an
outcast from her Paradise forevermore.
Then, in that moment of exquisite an-
guish, in the leisure of the quiet dawn, a
terrible passion of anger and hatred broke
out in her breast. Everything that the
light revealed had something to tell of
her lost happiness, every moment that
sped was bringing her nearer to the hour
when she must rise up and give Anthony
to Primula, and stand aside and behold
their bliss and accept their thanks. She
dared not let that moment come, she
would not have it, she could not confront
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
it. She should do them some mischief if
she were to see them together again be-
fore her as she had seen them last night.
What, then, was she to do with herself?
She dared not kill them, she could not
wish them dead. It would not comfort
her at all that they should suffer or be
swept out of the world to atone for their
sins. They had murdered her heart, and
they could not by any suffering of theirs
bring back the dead to life. What, then,
must she do with herself ? The only
thing that remained for her was to get
away, far out of their sight and out of
their reach, never to behold them, nor to
hear of them again, between this and the
coming of her death.
She sprang out of bed and dressed her-
self hastily, keeping her back turned upon
sleeping Primula, and, creeping down the
stairs, she got out of the house. She felt
no pang at leaving her home, and never
once remembered her father ; her only
thought was to get away, away, where
Anthony could never find her more.
She hurried along the deserted streets
and got out on the downs, and then she
slackened her speed a little, quite out of
breath. She knew that the path across
the downs led to a little town, about ten
miles away, in the direction of London.
She had been too long accustomed to
the practical management of her father's
affairs, not to feel conscious, from mere
habit and without reflection, that she
must work when she got to London, in
order to keep herself unknown. She
would help in a shop somewhere or get
sewing at a dressmaker's. In the mean-
time her only difficulty was to get there.
The whirl of her passion had carried
her five nrw'les away from Smokeford,
when she came to a little roadside inn.
She was faint with exhaustion, feeling
the waste caused by excitement, want of
sleep and food, and by extraordinary ex-
ertion. She bought some bread and sat
on a stone at the gate of a field to eat it.
She saw the ploughman come into the
field at a distant opening, and watched
him coming towards her ; a grey head and
stooping figure, an old man meekly sub-
mitting his feebleness to the yoke of the
day's labour, though knowing that time
had deprived him of his fitness for it.
Hetty watched him, her eyes followed him
as if fascinated ; the look in his face had
drawn her out of herself somehow, and
made her forget her trouble. She want-
ed to go and help him to hold the plough,
to ask if he had had his breakfast ; to
put her hand cix his shoulder and be
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
277
was hard on
my own, sir.
forgot all
kind to him. She did not know what it
was about him that bewitched her. He
turned his plough beside her, and as he
did so, he noticed the pale girl sitting by
the gate, and a smile lit up his rugged
face.
Then it was that Hetty knew why she
had watched him. He looked like her
father. Her father ! He was ill, and
she had deserted him ; had left him
among those who would vex and neglect
him ! The untasted bread fell from Het-
ty's hands ; the tears overflowed her
eyes ; she fell prone on the grass, and
sobbed for her own wickedness, and for
the grief and desolation of the sick old
man at home.
" What is the matter, lass ? " asked
the old ploughman, kindly bending over
her.
Hetty rose up ashamed.
"Sir," she said, humbly,"! was run-
ning away from my father, who is ill ; but
I am going back to him."
" That is right, lass. Stick by the
poor old father. Maybe, he was hard on
you."
" No, no, no ; he never
me. I have a sorrow of
that made me mad. I
him until I saw his look in your
shall run back now, sir, and be
to get him his breakfast."
The clock of the roadside inn struck
six, and Hetty set o£E running back to
Smokeford.
She ran so fast that she had not time
to think of how she should act when she
got home. When arrived there, she
found she could have a long day to think
of it, for Primula had gone to her work-
room, and there was nobody about the
house but Sib, and her father, and her-
self.
The old man had never missed her ;
but Sib met her on the threshold and
looked at her dusty garments with a won-
dering face.
"Well, Hetty!" she said, "you did
take an early start out of us this morn-
ing."
" I wanted a walk," said Hetty, throw-
ing off her cloak, and making a change
in her forlorn appearance. " Is my fa-
ther's breakfast ready ? I'm afraid I am
late."
Old Tony Spence did not even remark
that his daughter was unusually pale, nor
that her dress was less neat than usual
as she carried in his tea and toast.
She was there, and that was everything
for him. That she had been that morn-
about
face. I
in time
ing flying like a hunted thing from
Smokeford, sobbing in the grass five
miles away from her home ; that he had
lost her forever, only for a strange old
man following a plough in a distant field ;
of these things he never could know.
Hetty was one of the people who do not
complain of the rigour of the struggle
that is past.
All day she sat by her father's side, in
the old place behind the bed-curtain. He
was getting better, and showed more
lively interest in the world than she had
seen in him since he first fell ill. Through
the window he could see, as he lay, the
little roof-garden which had been accus-
tomed to look gay every summer for years.
It was colourless now and untrimmed.
" Hetty, dear," he said, " how is it that
you have been neglecting your flowers .''
Perhaps, you think it isn't worth while
to keep up the little garden any longer ?
You will be going off with Anthony. Is
any day settled for the wedding ? "
" No, father," said Hetty, keeping her
white, drawn face well behind the cur-
tain. " We could not think of that until
you are on your feet again."
In spite of her effort to save him the
pain of an unhappy thought just now,
something in her voice struck upon the
old man strangely. He was silent for a
while, and lay ruminating.
" Hetty, let me see your face."
Hetty looked forth from her hiding-
place unwillingly, but kept her face as
much as possible from the light.
"What do you want with it. Daddy?
You have seen it before."
" 'Tis a comely face, Hetty ; and others
have thought so besides me. I don't
like the look on it now, my girl. Child !
what's the matter with you ? Out with
it this minute ! If he's going to fail you,
it will be a black day for the man. I'll
murder him ! "
" Hush ! hush ! I have told you noth-
ing of the kind."
" Deny it, then, this moment ; and tell
me no lie."
Hetty sat silent and scared.
"Is it that doll from Moor-edge that
has taken his fancy .'' "
" He has not told me so."
" My lass ! why do you play hide and
seek with your old father? I know it is
as I have said. Let me rise ! Do not
hold me ; for I will horsewhip him to
death ! "
Hetty held him fast by the wrists.
" I will turn her out-of-doors without a
character ; and, though I am a weak, old
278
man, I will punish him before the eyes of
the town."
For a moment Hetty's angry heart de-
clared in silence that they would deserve
such punishment ; and that she could
bear to see it. But she said —
" Father, you know you will do nei-
ther of those cruel things. Listen to me,
father. I am tired of
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
Anthony ! Let
You and I will
when they are
brave
again,
. We'll
and —
him go with — Primula,
be happy here together
gone."
The old man fell back on his pillow
exhausted. After a time, he drew his
daughter towards him, took her face, be-
tween his hands, and looked at it.
" Let it be as you say," he said, "only
don't let me see them. You're a
girl ; and I'll never scold you
We'll be happy when they're gone
finish that little book of mine,
and — and "
His voice became indistinct, and he
dropped suddenly asleep. Hetty sat on
in her corner, thinking over her future,
and thanking Heaven that she had at
least this loving father left to her. After
an hour or two had passed, she looked
up and noticed a change in the old man's
face. He was dead.
CHAPTER IV.
It was new and awful to Hetty to have
neither father nor lover to turn to in her
desolation. She got over one terrible
week, and then when the old man was
fairly under the clay she broke down and
fell ill, and Sib nursed her. Primula
hung about the house, feeling guilty and
uncomfortable, and Anthony came some-
times to ask how Hetty fared. He
brought fruit and ice for her, offering
them timidly, and Sib accepted them
gladly and poured out her anxiety to him,
all unconscious that there was anything
wrong between the lovers. Primula
sulked at Anthony, who seemed to be
thinking much more of Hetty than of her.
The old book-shop was closed for good,
and the Spences' happy little home was
already a thing of the past.
Hetty thought she would be glad to
die ; but people cannot die through mere
wishing, and so she got better. When
she was able to rise Sib carried her into
the little sitting-room and placed her in
her father's old arm-chair ; and seated
here, one warm summer evening, she
sent to beg Anthony to come and speak
with her.
Anthony's heart turned sick within
him as he looked on the wreck of his
once adored Hetty. Her wasted cheeks
and hollow eyes made a striking contrast
to Primula's fair smooth beauty. Yet in
her spiritual gaze, and on her delicate
lips, there still sat a charm which Antho-
ny knew of old, and still felt ; a charm
which Primula never could possess.
" We are not going to talk about the
past," said Hetty, when the first difficult
moments were over. " I only want to
tell you that Primula and you are not to
look on me as an enemy. I am her
only living friend, and this is her only
home. She shall be married from here ;
and then we will separate and meet no
more."
"You are too good," he stammered,
" too thoughtful for us both. Hetty," he
added, hesitatingly, " I dare not apolo-
gize for my conduct, nor ask your for-
giveness. I can only say I did not in-
tend it. I know not how it came about
— she bewitched me."
Hetty bowed her head with a cold,
stately little gesture, and Anthony backed
out of the room, feeling himself re-
buked, dismissed, forgiven. He went
to Primula ; and Hetty sat alone in the
soft summer evening, just where they
two had sat a year ago planning their fu-
ture life.
" She is too good for me," thought
Anthony, as he walked up the street.
" Primula will vex me more, but she will
suit me better."
Still he felt a bitter pang as he told
himself that Hetty's love for him was
completely gone. Of course it was bet-
ter that it should be so, but still — he
knew well that Primula could never be to
him the sweet enduring wife that Het-
ty would have been. He knew also that
his love for Primula was not of the kind
that would last ; whereas Hetty would
have made his peace for all time. Well,
the mischief was done now and could not
be helped. He hardly knew himself how
he had slipped into his present position.
When Hetty found that she had in-
deed got to go on with her life, she at
once set about marking out her future.
She had a cousin living on an American
prairie with her husband and little chil-
dren, who had often wished that Hetty
would come out to her. And Hetty de-
termined to go. She sold off the con-
tents of the old book-shop, only keeping
one or two volumes, which, with her fa-
ther's unfinished manuscript, she stowed
away carefully in her trunk. Primula
had given up her work at the dress-mak-
er's, and was busy making her clothing
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
27#
for her wedding. Hetty was engaged in
getting ready for her journey. The two
girls sat all day together sewing. They
spoke little, and there was no pretence
of cordiality between them. Hetty had
strained herself to do her utmost for this
friendless creature, who had wronged
her, but she could find no smiles nor
pleasant words to lighten the task. Pale
and silent, she did her work with trem-
bling fingers and a frozen heart. Prim-
ula, on her side, sulked at Hetty, as if
Hetty had been the aggressor, and sighed
and shed little tears between the fitting
on and the trimming of her pretty gar-
ments. In the evenings, Primula was
wont to fold up her sewing, and go out
to walk ; with Anthony, supposed Hetty,
who sometimes allowed herself to weep
in the twilight, and sometimes walked
about the darkening room, chafing for
the hour to come which would carry her
far away from these old walls, with their
intolerable memories.
So Hetty endured the purgatory to
which she had voluntarily condemned
herself. Anthony came into the house
no more ; Primula had her walks with
him, and sometimes it was very late when
she came home. But Hetty never chid
her now. Primula was her own mistress,
and could come and go as she liked, from
under this roof, which her cousin's gen-
erosity was upholding over her head.
One evening, a gossip of the neighbour-
hood, one who had known Hetty in her
cradle, came in with a long piece of knit-
ting in her hands, to sit an hour with
Hetty, and keep her company.
*' And so they do say you are going to
America," she said, "all alone, that long
journey, and everybody thinking this
many a day that it was you that was to
marry Anthony Frost. And now it is
that Primula. People did say, my dear,
that they have treated you badly between
them, but I couldn't believe that, and
you behaving so beautifully to them. Of
course it shuts people's mouths to see
the girl stopping here with you and pre-
paring for her wedding."
Said Hetty, " I cannot take the trouble
to contradict idle stories. Anthony Frost
is a very old friend, and Primula is my
cousin. It would be strange if I did not
try to be of use to them."
" Of course, of course, when there's no
reason for your being angry with them ;
but all the same, my dear, you'd have
been a far better wife for him than that
flighty little fool that he has chosen. He
has changed his mind about many a
thing it seems, for he has taken a house
in Smokeford, and is setting up as a cabi-
net-maker, instead of turning out a sculp-
tor, no less, as some people said he had
a mind to do. Well, well ! it's none of
my business to be sure, and I do hope
they'll be as happy as if they had both
been a bit wiser."
" I see no reason why they should not
be happy," said Hetty, determined to act
her part to the end. And the gossip
went away protesting to her neighbours
that there never could have been any-
thing but friendship between Anthony
and Hetty.
" There's no girl that had been cheated
could behave as she's doing," said the
gossip,
"and she's as brave as a lion
about the journey to America." And
after this people found Hetty not so in-
teresting as they had thought her some
time ago.
The time for the wedding approached.
Primula's pretty dresses and knick-
knacks of ornament were finished and
folded in a trunk, and she arranged them
and re-arranged them ; took them out
and tried them on, and put them back
again. She went out for her evening's
walks, and Hetty waited up for her re-
turn, and let her into the house in the fine
clear starlight of the summer nights, and
the two girls went to bed in silence, and
neither sought to know anything of the
thoughts of the other. And so it went on
till the night that was the eve of Prim-
ula's wedding. On that night Primula
went out as usual and did not come back.
The arrangement for the next day had
been that Anthony and Primula should
be married early in the morning, and go
from church to their home. Hetty in-
tended starting on her own journey a
few hours later, but she said nothing
about her intention, wishing to slip away
quietly out of her old life at the moment
when the minds of her acquaintance were
occupied, and their eyes fully filled with
the wedding.
She did not wonder that Primula should
stay out late on that particular evening.
It was a beautiful night, the sky a dark
blue, the moonlight soft and clear. Hetty
wandering restlessly in and out the few
narrow chambers of her old home, once so
delightful and beloved, now grown so
dreary and haunted, and saw the silver
light shining on the roofs and chimneys,
and on the dead flowers and melancholy
evergreens of her little roof-garden.
Only a year ago she had cherished those
withered stalks, with Anthony by her
28o
THE COUNTRY COUSIN.
side, and they had smiled together oven
their future in the glory of the sunrise.
Now all that fresh morning light was
gone, the blossoms were withered away,
and her heart was withered also. Faith
and hope were dead, and life remained
with its burden to be carried. She shut
her eyes from sight of the deserted walls,
with their memories, and thought of the
great world-wide sea, which she had
never beheld, but must now reach and
cross ; and she longed to be on its bosom
with her burden.
The hours passed and Primula did not
return. Hetty thought this strange, but
it did not concern her. Primula and her
lover and their affairs seemed to have
already passed out of her life and left her
alone. She did not go to bed all night,
and she knew she was waiting for Prim-
ula, but her mind was so lost in its own
loneliness that it could not dwell upon
the conduct of the girl. The daylight
broke, and found her sitting pale and as-
tonished in the empty house, and then
her eyes fell on a letter which the night-
shadows had hidden from her where it
lay on the table. It was written in Prim-
ula's scratchy writing, and was addressed
to Hetty.
" I am going away to be married,"
wrote Primula. " Anthony and you were
both very good to me once, but you are
too cold and stern for me lately. The
person I am going with is kinder and
pleasanter. I am to be married in Lon-
don, and after that I am to be taken to
travel. When I come back I shall be a
grand lady, and I shall come to Smoke-
ford ; and I shall order some dresses
from Miss Flounce, I can tell you. I am
very glad that Anthony and you can be
married after all. He was always think-
ing of you more than me ; I could see
that this long while back. I hope you will
be happy, and that you will be glad to see
me on my return. Your affectionate
Primula."
Hetty sat a long time motionless, quite
stupefied, with the letter in her hand.
" Poor little ungrateful mortal," thought
she ; " Heaven shield her, and keep her
from harm ! " And then she thought of
her own little cup of life-happiness spilled
on the earth for this.
" Oh, what waste ! what waste ! "
moaned poor Hetty, twisting the note in
iher fingers. And then she straightened
at and folded it again, and put it in an en-
velope addressed to Anthony, and she
hastened to send it to him, lest the hour
should arrive for the wedding, and the
bridegroom should come into her pres-
ence seeking his bride.
When this had been despatched, she
set about cording her trunks, and taking
her last farewell of Sib, who was too old
to follow her to America, and was nigh
heart-broken at staying behind. When
the last moment came she ran out of the
house without looking right or left. And
she was soon in the coach, and the coach
was on its way to the sea-port from
whence her vessel was to sail.
When Anthony received the note, he
felt much anger and amazement, but very
little grief. Primula's audacity electri-
fied him ; and then he remembered that
she was not treating him worse than he
had treated Hetty. Let her go there !
she was a light creature, and would have
brought him misery if she had married
him. Her soft foolish beauty and be-
witching ways faded from his mind after
half an hour's meditation ; and Anthony
declared himself free. And there was
Hetty still in her nest behind the old
book-shop ; as sweet and as precious as
when they were lovers a year ago. The
last few months were only a dream, and
this was the awaking.
Hetty's pale cheeks would become
round and rosy once more, and she must
forgive him for the past, so urgently
would he plead to her. How badly he
had behaved !
Anthony put on his hat and went
out to take a walk along a road little fre-
quented, eager to escape from the gaze
of his acquaintance in the town, anxious
to think things thoroughly over, and to
consider how soon he could dare to pre-
sent himself to Hetty. Not for a long
time, he was afraid. He remembered
her stern pale look when he had last
seen her, and how sure he had felt when
turning away from her that her love was
dead. A chill came over him, and he
hung his head as he walked. Hetty was
never quite like other girls, and it might
be — it might be that her heart would be
frozen to him forevermore.
Just at this moment a cloud of dust en-
veloped Anthony, and the mail coach
passed him, whirling along at rapid speed.
Hetty was in the coach and she saw him,
walking dejectedly on the road alone
with his trouble. She turned her face
away lest he should see her ; and then
her heart gave one throb that made her
lean from the window, and wave her hand
THE POETS AT PLAY.
281
to him in farewell. He saw her; he
rushed forward ; the coach whirled round
a bend of the road.
Hetty was gone.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE POETS AT PLAY.
If we were not told it by the poets we
should not all of us take so readily for
granted that childhood was our happiest
time. They are so entirely agreed upon
it — however much they differ from one
another in other matters — they are so
unanimous here, that we accept it as true
to a truism. "The heart of childhood is
all mirth," says the " Christian Year,"
and its generations of readers have echoed
"of course" without asking each of him-
self if it were indeed so in his individual
case. But whether it be true universally
or no, it probably is true with the poets ;
and if so, then common consent derived
from a common experience proves one
point, that high animal spirits and excep-
tional vivacity are as essential to the
making of a poet as what we call genius.
Considering how exceedingly dismal is
some of the poetry of the world, and on
the other hand how much lively verse
lacks every quality of true poetry, this
may not be at once accepted. No doubt
mere vivacity hurries many people into
mistaking fervour of temperament for in-
spiration : like Doeg in the satire, who
was
Too warm on picking work to dwell,
But fagoted his notions as they fell,
And if they rhymed and rattled all was well.
But the effort of giving harmonious voice
to genuine inspiration cannot be sustained
without a constitutional elation, a keen
enjoyment in the exercise. Rhymes even
will only run when the spirits are serene
to gaiety. Verse would not be the ac-
cepted vehicle for effervescing gaiety if
the writer did not show /iimse/f a.\\ alive
with the delight of his theme. We do
not think of Milton as a man of mirth,
but spirits dance and sparkle in " L' Alle-
gro," that perennial fount of cheerfulness.
No doubt the temperament capable of
exaltation to the point of rapture has its
relapses, to be made excellent capital of
when the cloud is blown over. But the
vivacity which helps poets to make verses
does not confine itself to this office. It
belongs to their nature, often passing the
bounds, and through excessive indulgence
inducing reaction, but still there and part
of themselves so long as they write po-
etry that deserves the name : though it is
now not the common fashion of poets to
own to this capacity for jollity as frankly
as Prior in his epitaph upon himself —
And alone with his friends, lord, how merry
was he !
No poetry is written in the dumps, though
the remembrance and experience of this
gloomy condition are fertile themes.
Thus Coleridge in justifying the egotism
of melancholy verse. "Why then write
sonnets or monodies ? Because they
give me pleasure when perhaps nothing
else could. After the more violent emo-
tions of sorrow the mind demands amuse-
ment, and can find it in employment
alone ; but full of the late sufferings it
can endure no employment not in some
measure connected with them."
Cowper, who might seem an instance
against this view, is in reality a strong
support of it : so long as he could keep
the despondency of insanity at arm's
length, he was the cheerfulest of men.
"I never could take a /I'U/e pleasure in
anything," he writes ; and his constitu-
tional vivacity was such that, as a boy
exulting in his strength and activity, and
observing the evenness of his pulse, he
began to entertain with no small com-
placency a notion that perhaps he might
never die. He was fully conscious of
this vivacity as a stimulus, as when play-
fully addressing Lady Austen —
But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger and his thumb.
Wordsworth says —
We poets begin our life in gladness,
But thereof comes in the end satiety and mad-
ness.
With Cowper they ran side by side, the
one quite as marked as the other. Pleas-
ure in his work contended with horror.
" You remember," he writes to his friend,
"the undertaker's dance in the Rehear-
sal, which they perform in crape hat-
bSnds and black cloaks to the tune of
Hob and Nob, one of the sprighiliest airs
in the world. Such is my fiddling and
dancing." So long as he could describe
his despair in sapphics, and illustrate it
in such harmonious stanzas as his " Cast-
away," we detect pleasure of some sort
in the exercise of his gift, just as we see
it in Burns, "still caring, despairing," in
282
THE POETS AT PLAY.
his beautiful ode. The two influences
are in visible contention. Many poets
have the stigma in a lesser degree of de-
pression of spirits ; but if they wrote
well, it was when the incubus was shaken
off. Johnson was, he used to say, mis-
erable by himself, and hated going to bed ;
but while he could get people to sit up
with him he exultingly enjoyed life, and
constituted the life and inspiration of the
company, which no desponding man can
possibly be.
Grey is a genuine instance of a poet
without this exceptional vivacity of tem-
perament. He was witty and humor-
ous, but habitually his spirits were in a
low key, and the consequence was, no
poet who got himself a name ever wrote
so little. He had everything of a poet
but social instincts and animal spirits ;
but these deserted him wholly for long
periods during which his muse was ab-
solutely tongue-tied. When his friends
urged him he answered, " It is indeed
for want of spirits that my studies lie
among the cathedrals, tombs, and ruins.
At present I feel myself able to write a
catalogue or to read a peerage-book or
Miller's Gardeners' Dictionary, and am
thankful there are such employments in
the world."
All this does not prevent the composi-
tion of poetry being the hardest work the
mind can exercise itself upon : nor does
the fact contradict its being the highest
form of enjoyment. AH vigorous intel-
lectual pleasure needs to be worked up
to with effect. We cannot read fine po-
etry which opens and revives in us a
world of keen sensation without a degree
of labour from which men too often
shrink, preferring lower satisfactions
more easily and lazily come by.
The poet, knowing what his real
achievements cost him, never withholds
them from the world of readers. We
need expect no discoveries of this nature
in the private records he leaves behind
him, unless, like Wordsworth, he delib-
erately postpones the publication of some
cherished manuscript till after his death.
But if the gift of verse is a pleasure, it
will be played with apart from solenjn
duty either to the world or the poet's
own fame. There will be amusement in
adapting it to homely purposes — it will
break out at odd times and in odd places,
and be characteristic of the man often
beyond what he designs for a larger and
more critical audience. Whatever a
man of genius writes because it pleases
him to write it, will tell us something of
himself; though it be but a direction to
his printer, an invitation to dinner, or a
receipt for the cook. These little spurts
of the Muse are quite distinct from the
vers de societi which amateurs turn off,
whether easily or laboriously, as the best
they can do — specimens of their powers
in an unfamiliar field. They are espe-
cially not examples ; we were never
meant to see them ; neither " reader "
nor critic was in the poet's mind, but
something closer and more intimate.
The most prosaic doggerel of the true
poet stands on a different footing from
the rhymes of a writer with whom verse
is not a natural medium. He would not
commit himself to it, but as the indul-
gence of some impulse which belongs to
his poet nature. With his name attached
— and this proviso is sometimes neces-
sary, for we have not all the discrimina-
tion to detect the master-hand under the
homely disguise — we see something that
distinguishes it, and stamps his charac-
ter upon it. An impulse of some kind
drives him to express a thought in verse,
because it is easier to convey it that way,
because it wraps it up so as to allow of a
thing being said which might have looked
awkward, or bold, or egotistical in prose,
or because it best expresses relief from
a task or a burden. With the poet, verse
is his natural medium for a good deal
that the Muse is not generally invoked
for ; and we like to see how far verse is
a language, not a task — to see the " num-
bers come " on any stimulus. There are
poets who never willingly wrote a care-
less line. Crabbe might have been
thought one of these — so careful, so
measured, so little egotistical ; but we
once find him indulging in the repetition
of some verses which he acknowledged
were not of the most brilliant description,
but favourites, because they had amused
the irksome restraint of life as chaplain
in a great house : —
Oh ! had I but a little hut
That I might hide ray head in ;
Where never guest might dare molest
Unwelcome or forbidden.
I'd take the jokes of other folks,
And mine should then succeed 'em j
Nor would I chide a little pride,
Nor heed a little freedom.
With Wordsworth every verse was a
brick in the temple his life was building ;
he would have thought it profanation to
despatch an ephemeral jingling joke
by post and keep no record. Conse-
quently we have no example of verse
THE POETS AT PLAY.
283
from him inspired by the humour of the
moment, written on a subject not poeti-
cal. But take Sir Walter Scott's corre-
spondence with James Ballantyne as a
specimen of what we mean ; he suits as
an early example, for very rarely are
rhymes strung together as he strung
them, literally for only one ear, or indeed
only for his own : so heartily careless of
his poetical credit. Though not poetry,
what a great deal these jingling lines tell
us of a poet ; how they let us into the
character and feeling of the man ; how
much there is that he would not, and per-
haps could not, have unveiled in prose !
It is through such effusions that we learn
something of him as author, about which
he was so reticent. After finishing
" Paul's Letters to his Kinsfolk," on
w^hose name he plays somewhat careless-
ly, we see the " Antiquary " in his mind's
eye : —
Dear James — I'm done, thank God, with the
long yarns
Of the most prosy of apostles — Paul ;
And now advance, sweet heathen of Monk-
barns,
Step out, old quiz, as fast as I can scrawl.
In simple prose he would never have
betrayed this confidence and fondness
for any creature of his imagination. He
thus rejoices over the completion of
" Rob Roy : " —
With great joy
I send you Roy ;
'Twas a tough job,
But we're done with Rob ;
the " tough job," referring to the agonies
of cramp and the lassitude of opium un-
der which the novel was written. He
was the most patient of men under inter-
ruption ; only in verse does he indulge
in a murmur, his temper really worn to a
hair's breadth : —
Oh James, oh James, two Irish dames
Oppress me very sore :
I groaning send one sheet I've penn'd,
For, hang them, there's no more.
In momentary discouragement, when
'' Ouentin Durward " did not go off at the
rate anticipated, "he did not sink un-
der the short-lived frown," but consoled
himself with a couplet —
The mouse who only trusts to one poor hole,
Can never be a mouse of any soul.
When overwhelmed with books, prepara-
tory to his life of Buonaparte, he thus
condenses his experience, and blesses
himself in prospect of his gigantic
task : —
When with poetry dealing,
Room enough in a shieling,
Neither cabin nor hovel
Too small for a novel ;
Though my back I should rub
On Diogenes' tub.
How my fancy could prance-
In a dance of romance ;
But my house I must swap
With some Brobdingnag chap.
Ere I grapple, God bless me, with Emperor
Nap.
When adversity came, the slip-shod muse
was his confidant, the depository of his
resolutions, cheering him onward in the
untried stony path of authorship under
compulsion, — the inexorable demand of
duty. After soliloquies which would have
done credit, both in matter and manner,
to Shakespeare's fallen kings, we find
him writing —
I have finished my task this morning at
half-past eleven, easily, early, and I think not
amiss. I hope J. B. will make some notes of
admiration ! ! ! otherwise I shall be disap-
pointed. If this work answers — if it ^«/ an-
swers, it must set us on our legs ; I am sure
worse trumpery of mine has had a great run.
I remember with what great difficulty I was
brought to think myself anything better than
common, and now I will not in mere faintness
of heart give up hope. So hey for a Swift*
ianism —
I loll in my chair
And around me I stare,
With a critical air^
Like a calf in a fair;
And, say I, Mrs. Duty,
Good-morrow to your beauty,
I kiss your sweet shoe-tie,
And hope I can suit ye.
Fair words butter no parsnips, says Duty :
don't keep talking then, but go to your work
again ; there's a day's task before you — the
siege of Toulon, Call you that a task ? hang
me, I'll write it as fast as Bony carried it
on ! —
And long ere dinner time I have
Full eight close pages wrote ;
What, Duty, hast thou now to crave?
Well done, Sir Walter Scott.
These dialogues with his conscience
could hardly have been recorded without
the playful veil of verse to hide their
deep seriousness of self-sacrifice and
atonement. Who can grudge him his es-
cape to the country from the uncongenial
scene of them celebrated in these vale-
dictory lines .'* —
So good-bye, Mrs. Brown,
I am going out of town,
Over dale, over down,
Where bugs bite not.
Where lodgers fight not.
Where below you chairmen drink not,
Where beside you gutters stink not ;
284
THE POETS AT PLAY.
But all is fresh, and clear, and gay,
And merry lambkins sport and play.
Scott wrote too easily to value himself
on his gifts, or to be very sensitive to
criticism. The poet jealous of his repu-
tation, fastidious on his own account, or
keenly hurt by adverse opinion, would
never commit himself thus, even to the
privacy of his diary, secured by lock and
key. It thus illustrates a very marked
characteristic. We can hardly fancy
Waller, who, somebody said, spent a
whole summer in correcting ten lines —
those written in the Tasso of the Duchess
of York — disporting himself in this way.
Scott here is addressing himself. The
poet playing with his gift more commonly
adopts the epistolary form, and compli-
ments a friend with some facile careless
specimen of his art. We do not want the
amusement to become general out of the
charmed circle ; but where once a name
is won, a tribute of verse is felt to be a
real token of friendship, and treasured
among the most flattering of compliments,
as a private communication from Parnas-
sus ; especially when it illuminates some
grave subject, or assumes an unexpected
form, in which the poet selects you as
the recipient of a new and choice con-
ceit.
It must have been a delightful discov-
ery to the diplomatist when Canning's
Despatch first unfolded itself to eye and
ear. And that Canning was a universal
genius does not prevent the writer of the
Anti-Jacobin and the famous Pitt lyric,
"The Pilot that Weathered the Storm,"
being a poet in especial. Canning's gen-
eral principle, it should be explained,
was, that commerce flourished best when
wholly unfettered by restrictions ; but as
modern nations had grown up under va-
rious systems, he judged it necessary to
discriminate in the application of the
principle ; hence the Reciprocity Act
placing the ships of fore'gn States im-
porting articles into Great Britain on the
same footing of duties as British ships,
provided our ships were treated by the
same rule in their turn ; reserving, how-
ever, a retaliative power of imposing in-
creased duties when the principle was re-
sisted or evaded, as it was in the case of
Holland — M. Falck, the Dutch Minister,
having made a one-sided proposition,
much to the advantage of his own coun-
try. A tedious negotiation dragging on
from month to month ensued, without ar-
riving one step nearer consummation ; at
last Canning's patience was exhausted.
Sir Charles Bagot, our ambassador at the
Hague, was one day (as we are told) at-
tending at Court when a despatch in
cipher was hastily put into his hand ; it
was very short, and evidently very ur-
gent, but unfortunately Sir Charles, not
expecting such a communication, had not
the key of the cipher with him. An in-
terval of intense anxiety followed, until
he could obtain the key, when, to his in-
finite astonishment, he deciphered the
following despatch from the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs : —
In matters of commerce, the fault of the Dutch
Is giving too little and asking too much ;
With equal advantage the French are content,
So we'll clap on Dutch bottoms a twenty per
cent.
Twenty per cent.,
Twenty per cent.,
Nous frapperons Falck with twenty per cent.
George Canning.
Tom Moore, subsequently meeting this
M. Falck when ambassador at our Court,
calls him a fine sensible Dutchman.
Whether he ever knew the form in which
the tables were turned upon him is no-
where stated. Surprise constitutes some
of the fun and attraction of a very differ-
ent rhymed letter, where Cowper fills a
sheet — prose alike in aspect and matter
— with a flow of the most ingenious and
facile rhymes. It shows remarkable mas-
tery over words ; and the little turns of
humour, the playing with his own serious
aims and with his friend's gravity of call-
ing and reputation, are pleasantly charac-
teristic of the man. The letter is long,
but does not admit of curtailment, and
the lurking rhymes keep up the reader's
vigilance and attention.
Jtily 12, 1781.
To the Rev. John Newton.
My very dear Friend, — I am going to
send, what when you have read, you may
scratch your head, and say I suppose, there's
nobody knows whether what I have got, be
verse or not : by the tune and the time, it
ought to be rhyme ; but if it be, did you ever
see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before ?
The thought did occur to me and to her, as
Madam and I, did walk and not fly, over hills
and dales, with spreading sails, before it was
dark to Weston Park.
The news at Oitey is little or noney, but
such as it is, I send it — viz., poor Mr, Peace
cannot yet cease, addling his head with what
you have said, and has left Parish Church
quite in the lurch, having almost swore, to go
there no more.
Page and his wife, that made such a strife,
we met them twain, in Dog Lane ; we gave
them the wall, and that was all. For Mr.
Scott, we have seen him not, except as he
THE POETS AT PLAY.
pass'd in a wonderful haste, to see a friend, in
Silver End. Mrs. Jones proposes, ere July
closes, that she and her sister and her Jones
Mister, and we that are here, our course shall
steer, to dine in the Spinney ; but for a guinea,
if the weather should hold, so hot and so cold,
we had better by far, stay where we are. For
the grass there grows, while nobody mows,
(which is very wrong), so rank and long, that
so to speak, 'tis at least a week, if it happens
to rain, ere it dries again.
I have writ " Charity," not for popularity,
but as well as I could, in hopes to do good ;
and if the Reviewer should say, " To be sure,
the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes ;
you may know by her pace, and talk about
grace, that she and her bard have little regard,
for the taste and fashions and ruling passions,
and hoidening play of the modern day ; and
though she assume a borrowed plume, and
now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her
plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay,
as they go that way, by a production on a new
construction. She has baited her trap, in
hopes to snap all that may come, with a sugar-
plum." His opinion in this, will not be amiss ;
'tis what I intend, my principal end : and if I
succeed, and folks should read, till a few are
brought to a serious thought, I shall think I
am paid, for all I have said, and all I have
done, though I have run, many a time, after a
rhyme, as far as from hence, to the end of my
sense, and by hook or crook, write another
book, if I live and am here, another year.
I have heard before, of a room with a floor,
laid upon springs, or suchlike things, with so
much art in every part, that when you went in,
you were forced to begin a minuet pace with an
air and a grace, swimming about, now in now
out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight,
without pipe or string, or any such thing ;
and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what
will make you dance, and as you advance,
will keep you still, though against your will,
dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to
an end, of what I have penn'd ; which that you
may do, ere Madam and you are quite worn
out, with jigging about, I take my leave, and
here you receive, bow profound, down to the
ground, from your humble me, W. C.
P. S. — When I concluded, doubtless you
did think me right, as well you might, in say-
ing what I said of Scott ; and then it was true,
but now it is due, to him to note, that since I
wrote, himself and he has visited we.
This was written in a poetical year,
when verse and matter crowded upon
him. After finishing " Table Talk," we
find him resolving to hang up his harp
for the remainder of the year, and —
Since eighty-one has had so much to do,
Postpone what yet is left for eighty-two.
Charles Lamb and Cowper are as little
associated in our minds as poets can
well be ; but there were points, especial-
285
ly of temperament, in common, and the
I Muse was a handmaid to them both ;
jthey each liked to adapt her to domestic
j uses- Cowper acknowledged homely
[favours by giving averse for a dish of
: fish, apostrophizing a halibut in high-
I sounding blank verse, and explaining in
I neatly-turned heroics how the barrel of
oysters was delayed on the road by the
imprudent kindness of paying the' car-
riage beforehand. Charles Lamb asked
a favour through the same medium : —
To William Ayrton, Esq.
My dear friend,
Before I end
Have you any
More orders for Don Giovanni
To give
Him that doth live
Your faithful Zany ?
Without raillery
I mean Gallery
Ones ;
For I am a person that shuns
AH ostentation,
And being at the top of the fashion,
And seldom go to operas
But in formd pauperis.
I go to the play
In a very economical sort of a way,
Rather to see
Than be seen,
Though I am no ill sight
Neither ,
By candle light
And in some kinds of weather.
You might pit me
For height
Against Kean ;
But in a grand tragic scene
I'm nothing;
It would create a kind of loathing
To see me act Hamlet ;
There'd be many a damn let
Fly
At my presumption
If I should try,
Being a fellow of no gumption.
By the way, tell me candidly how you relish
This which they call
The lapidary style ?
Opinions vary.
The late Mr. Mellish
Could never abide it ;
He thought it vile
And coxcombical.
My friend the poet-laureate,
Who is a great lawyer at
Anything comical.
Was the first who tried it ;
But Mellish could never abide it :
But it signifies very little what Mellish said,
Because he is dead.
&C. &C.
286
THE POETS AT PLAY.
It does not seem, by the way, to have
been Southey's turn, however much he
played with fantastic measures, to versify
for'the amusement of his friends alone.
All his composition — even his fun —
had its destination for the press ; but we
find him slipping into rhythm to his
friend Bedford : —
How mortifying is this confinement of
yours ! I had planned so many pleasant
walks to be made so much more pleasant by
conversation ;
For I have much to tell thee, much to say
Of the odd things we saw upon our journey —
Much of the dirt and vermin that annoyed us.
Charles Lamb was never careless or
rapid. It was his amusement to play
with his thougjiits. The labour of invest-
ing a quaint fancy in fit wording was his
pleasure. As in many other sports, the
fun lay in the dressing. In fact, all that
was characteristic in his mind needed
exact expression ; and now and then
verse comes in to give the last point, as,
after denouncing a cold spring, and May
chilled by east winds, he concludes —
Unmeaning joy around appears,
And Nature smiles as though she sneers.
In complete contrast to this is the
rapidity of Scott's habits of composition.
His domestic verse has all the air of
extempore. He seems to have consid-
ered it a duty to his chief to retain the
minstrel character in his letters. In
them he liked to exercise his pen in un-
familiar measures, proving how easy they
all were to him. Canning had told him
that if he liked he could emulate Dryden
in heroics, his letter from Zetland begin-
ning-
Health to the chieftain from his clansman
true ;
From her true minstrel health to fair Buc-
cleugh —
Health from the isles where dewy Morning
weaves
Her chaplet with the tints that Twilight
leaves —
is a very happy experiment in them ; but
his account of the sea-serpent in dancing
anapaests better suits our purpose, as
bearing also upon the late reappearance
of that tantalizing fable. He writes from
Kirkwall —
We have now got to Kirkwall, and needs I
must stare
When I think that in verse I have once called
it fair.
He dates August the 13th, 1814.
In respect that your Grace has commissioned
a Kraken,
You will please be informed that they seldom
are taken ;
It is January two years, the Zetland folks say,
Since they saw the last Kraken in Scalloway
Bay,
He lay in the offing a fortnight or more,
But the devil a Zetlander put from the shore,
Though bold in the seas of the North to
assail
The morse and the sea-horse, the grampus
and whale.
If your Grace thinks I'm writing the thing
that is not,
You may ask at a namesake of ours — Mr.
Scott
(He's not from our clan, though his merits de-
serve it ;
He springs, I'm informed, from the Scotts of
Scotstarvit) ;
He questioned the folks who beheld it with
eyes,
But they differed confoundedly as to its size.
For instance, the modest and diffident swore
That it seemed like the keel of a ship, and no
more;
Those of eyesight more clear, or of fancy
more high.
Said it rose like an island 'twixt ocean and
sky —
But all of the hulk had a steady opinion,
That 'twas sure a live subject of Neptune's
dominion ;
And I think, my Lord Duke, your Grace
hardly would wish
To cumber your house such a kettle of fish.
&c. &c.
Verse in such easy hands is a very use-
ful instrument for turning a disagreeable
incident into a joke, the poet can be im-
perious in it without giving offence,
apologetic without meanness or servility.
Thus in Lockhart's unlucky false quantity
which made such a stir over Maida's
grave. James Ballantyne had run ofiE
post-haste with the epitaph thinking it
Scott's, and printed it with an additional
blunder of his own. All the newspapers
twitted the supposed author, and Lock-
hart properly desired that the blame
should lie on the right shoulders. Scott,
however, cared much more for the repu-
tation of his son-in-law, the author of
"Valerius," than his own, and rattled off
an epistle to Lockhart with many rea-
sons for letting the matter rest, of which
the third is —
Don't you perceive that I don't care a boddle,
Although fifty false metres were flung at my
noddle ;
For my back is as broad and as hard as Ben-
lombn's,
And I treat as I please both the Greeks and
the Romans ;
THE POETS AT PLAY.
And fourthly and lastly, it is my good pleasure
To remain the sole source of that murderous
measure.
So stec pro ratione voluntas — be tractile,
Invade not, I say, my own dear little dactyl ;
It you do, you'll occasion a break in our in-
tercourse.
To-morrow will see me in town for the winter
course,
But not at your door at the usual hour, sir,
My own pye-house daughter's good prog to
devour, sir ;
Ergo — peace, on your duty, your squeamish-
ness throttle.
And we'll soothe Priscian's spleen with a
canny third bottle ;
A fig for all dactyls, a fig for all spondees,
A fig for all dunces and Dominie Grundys.
&c. &c.
We do not often catch him taking the
hisfh line about himself that really
hidden under this disparagement of
lies
his
scholarship. Tom Moore has recourse
to the epistolary Muse under a very
different mortification ; though there
may be many tingling sensations after
giving a bad dinner near akin to the dis-
covery of being even party to a false
quantity. The man in both cases feels
lowered, and has to give himself a fillip
to reinstate himself in his own good
opinion. The dinner in question seems
to have been an utter breakdown ; and
where Luttrell and brother epicureans
were the guests, all can sympathize in
the mishap ; while it is only given to
poets to express in becoming terms a
consciousness of disaster. Prose apolo-
gies in such cases are heavy aggravations
of the original ill-usage. Moore sitting
down after seeing his guests off, aided
by his lantern, and soothing his spirits
by an imitation of Horace, might be glad
he was a poet ; for what trouble does not
in a degree dissipate itself under neat
definition ?
That bard had brow of brass, I own.
Who first presumed, the hardened sinner,
To ask fine gentlemen from town
To come and eat a wretched dinner ;
Who feared not leveret, black as soot,
Like roasted Afric at the head set.
And making towards the duck at foot.
The veteran duck, a sort of dead set ;
Whose nose could stand such ancient fish
As that we at Devizes purvey —
Than which I know no likelier dish
To turn one's stomach topsy-turvy.
&c. &c
Luttrell himself could turn a verse,
and was no doubt recompensed in soir.e
degree by the opportunity afforded for
airing his talent, owning indeed that
287
"your cook was no dab at her duty," but
making the answering line " end with
poetry, friendship, and beauty."
And then to increase our delight
To a fulness all boundaries scorning,
We were cheered by your lantern at night,
And regaled with your rhymes the next
morning.
We must go back to an earlier date to
find dinners a cheerful subject for the
poet's muse. When a couple of dishes
furnished a table to which it was not un-
becoming to invite a lord, Matthew Prior
could gaily extemporize an invitation to
Harley ; with no fears of a contretemps
when a joint of mutton and a ham sup-
plied the board : —
AN EXTEMPORE INVITATION TO THE EARL OF
OXFORD, HIGH TREASURER, I712.
My Lord, —
Our weekly friends to-morrow meet
At Matthew's palace in Duke Street,
To try, for once, if they can dine
On bacon-ham and mutton-chine.
If, wearied with the great affairs
Which Britain trusts to Harley's cares,
Thou, humble statesman, may'st descend
Thy mind one moment to unbend,
To see thy servant from his soul
Crown with thy health the sprightly bowl ;
Among the guests which e'er my house
Received, it never can produce
Of honour a more glorious proof —
Though Dorset used to bless the roof.
And when Gay versified the receipt for
stewed veal, we may take for granted that
the dish so glorified would not be lost in
a crowd of rival candidates for favour,
but was, no doubt, a crowning attraction
of the occasion. " As we cannot enjoy
anything good without your partaking of
it," he writes to Swift, "accept of the
following receipt for stewed veal : — "
The receipt of the veal of Monsieur Davaux,
Mr. Pulteny's cook, and it hath been approved
of at one of our Twickenham entertainments.
The difficulty of the saucepan I believe you
will find is owing to a negligence in perusing
the manuscript. If I remember right, it is
there called a stew-pan. Your earthen vessel,
provided it is close-topped, I allow to be a
good succedanaim : —
Take a knuckle of veal —
You may buy it, or steal ;
In a few pieces cut it.
In a stewing-pan put it.
Salt, pepper, and mace
Must season this knuckle ;
Than what's joined to a place *
With other herbs muckle.
That which killed King Will,t
* Vulgo salary,
t Supposed sorrel.
288
THE POETS AT PLAY.
And what never * stands still ;
Some sprigs of that bed
Where children are bred ; —
Which much you will mend if
Both spinnage and endive,
And lettuce and beet,
With marygold meet, —
Put no water at all,
For it maketh things small ;
Which, lest it should happen,
A close cover cap on.
Put this pot of Wood's metal t
In a hot boiling kettle,
And there let it be
(Mark the doctrine I teach)
About — let me see —
Thrice as long as you preach, t
So, skimming the fat of?.
Say grace with your hat off.
Oh, then with what rapture
Will it fill dean and chapter !
The mention of Twickenham, where
Swift was so keenly missed, reminds us
of Pope's lines suggested by the vexed
question of his descent. Swift in Ire-
land was contented to be called an Irish-
man ; but the monument he put up to his
grandfather in Goodrich (or Gotheridge)
Church, to which he also presented a cup,
implies, as Pope also took it, a desire to
assert his English origin. He had sent
a pencilled elevation of the tablet to Mrs.
Howard, who returned it with these lines
on it scribbled by Pope. The paper was
found endorsed in Swift's hand, " Model
of a monument to my grandfather, with
Mr. Pope's roguery : " —
Jonathan Swift
Had the gift
By fatheridge, motheridge,
And by brotheridge.
To come from Gotheridge,
But now is spoil'd clean
And an Irish dean.
In this church he has put
A stone of two foot ;
With a cup and a can, sir,
In respect to his grandsire.
So Ireland change thy tone,
And cry O hone, O hone !
For England hath its own.
Swift is rarely spoken of in these days
but as a misanthrope, abhorring as well
as despising his fellow-creatures. Mis-
anthrope as he might be towards parties
and people he did not like or did
not know, he could not live without
friends, who were more necessary to
him than they are to many philanthro-
pists, and more constantly in his mind
for their amusement and his own ; and
trusting, no doubt, to their immense
opinion of his genius, he delighted,
♦ Thyme or time. ,t . , • t
t Copper. The allusion is to Wood, the comer of
Irish halfpence, who furnished the text of the Drapier
t " Which we suppose to be near four hours."
among other uses of the " Little lan-
guage," in stringing together, in a sort of
horse-play, jingling rhymes and intermi-
nable lines, in bold defiance of metrical
rule, like the following, — certainly never
designed for the public eye, though they
found their way to it : —
Swift's and his Three Friends' Invita-
tion TO Dr. Sheridan.
Dear Tom, this verse, which, however the be-
ginning may appear, yet in the end's good
metre,
Is sent to desire that, when your august vaca-
tion comes, yowx friends you" d meet here ;
For why should stay you in that filthy hole —
I mean the city so smoaky —
When you have not one friend left in town, or
at least no one that's witty to joke ivV ye ?
How he served his friends is shown, in
one instance, by Gay's acknowledgments,
who attributes to his good offices his ap-
pointment to attend Lord Clarendon to
the House in capacity of secretary. " I
am every day," he writes, "attending my
Lord Treasurer for his bounty to help me
out, which he hath promised me upon the
following petition, which I have sent him
by Dr. Arbuthnot : — "
The Epigkammatical Petition of John
Gay.
I'm no more to converse with the swains,
But go where fine people resort.
One can live without money on plains,
But never without it at court.
If, when with the swains I did gambol,
1 arrayed me in silver and blue.
When abroad and in courts I shall ramble,
Pray, my lord, how much money will do ?
Instead of the terrors of a competitive
examination, his wardrobe was obviously
Gay's first care on entering the public ser-
vice : for subdivision of labour is a mod-
ern idea. A genius or a clever fellow
used to be considered fit, and to hold
himself fit, at a moment's warning, for
any employment that would bring him an
income. A place or an appointment,
whatever the duties, was an appropriate
recognition of any form of merit or suc-
cess. Scarcely more than half a century
ago, Theodore Hook was made account-
ant-general to the Mauritius, and treas-
urer to the colony, for rattling off such
verses as these in ridicule of the tag-rag
deputations to Queen Caroline : —
A rout of sham sailors
Escaped from their jailors,
As sea-bred as tailors
In Shropshire or Wilts,
And Mark Oldi's smile, and her's,
THE POETS AT PLAY.
Greeting as Highlanders,
Half a score Mile-enders
Shivering in kilts.
It was a fit sequel to such a choice that
the luckless treasurer, having got the
money affairs of the island into inextri-
cable confusion, was brought back in
disgrace, entertaining his custodians, and
amusing the tedium of the voyage by ex-
temporizing songs, of which himself and
his own predicament was the theme, and
denouncing
The atrocious, pernicious
Scoundrel that emptied the till at Mauritius.
But we are digressing, and must not leave
the elder generation without one speci-
men, gathered from his letters, of Swift's
graver epistolary style, addressed to the
honoured friend who was emphatically
the poet of the brilliant circle. It is an
example of his delightfully easy versifica-
tion, so peculiarly adapted for familar
uses : —
Dr. Swift to Mr. Pope,
While he was writing the " Dunciad.''''
Pope has the talent well to speak,
But not to reach the ear ;
His loudest voice is low and weak,
The Dean too deaf to hear.
A while they on each other look,
Then different studies chuse ;
The Dean sits plodding on a book —
Pope walks and courts the muse.
Now backs of letters, though design'd
For those who more will need 'em,
Are filled with hints, and interlined,
Himself can hardly read 'em.
Each atom by some other struck,
All turns and motions tries ;
Till in a lump together stuck,
Behold diJ>oem rise !
Yet to the Dean his share allot ;
He claims it by a canon ;
That without -which a thing is not,
Is causa sine qud non.
Thus, Pope, in vain you boast your wit ;
For, had our deaf divine
Been for your conversation fit,
You had not writ a line.
Of prelate thus for preaching fam'd
The sexton reasoned well ;
And justly half the merit claim'd
Because he rang the bell.
Amongst epistolary effusions, Gray.'s
lines to Mason must find a place.
Whether Mason had any idea of editing
Shakespeare we cannot now remember,
but doubtless Gray had been irritated by
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 33 1
289
a good deal of the cfiticism laboriously
bestowed on the poet by his numerous
commentators, and thus expressed his
opinion of their value : —
To THE Rev. William Mason.
July 16, 1765.
William Shakespeare to Mrs. Anne,
regular servant to the Rev, Mr. Precentor cf
York.
A moment's patience, gentle Mistress Anne :
(But stint your clack for sweet St. Charitie) :
'Tis Willey begs, once a right proper man.
Though now a book, and interleav'd, you
see.
Much have I borne from canker'd critic's
spite.
From fumbling baronets, and poets small,
Pert barristers, and parsons nothing bright ;
But what awaits me now is worst of all.
'Tis true our Master's temper natural
Was fashion'd fair in meek and dove-like
guise ;
But may not honey's self be turned to gall
By residence, by marriage, and sore eyes ?
If then he wreak on me his wicked will,
Steal to his closet at the hour of prayer ;
And (then thou hear'st the organ piping
shrill),
Grease his best pen, and all he scribbles
tear.
Better to bottom tarts and cheesecakes nice,
Better the roast meat from the fire to save,
Better be twisted into caps for spice
Than thus be patched and cobbled in one's
grave.
So York shall taste what Clouet never knew.
So from our works sublimer fumes shall
rise ;
While Nancy earns the praise to Shakespeare-
due,
For glorious puddings and immortal pies.
" Tell me, if you do not like this,""
writes Gray, " and I will send you a
worse." We think them good lines to
find their home only in a letter ; and
Gray had no eye beyond his correspond-
ent : and so thought Mason, who writes
answer, " As bad as your verses were,
they are yours, and therefore, when I get
back to York, I will paste them carefuil)*
in the first page of my Shakespeare, for 1
intend it to be put in my marriage settle-
ment, as a provision for my younger
daughters."
Editors have been often provocatives
of verse. Tom Moore has his thoughts
on editors, though on different grounds,
but mingled in his case also with good
cheer. The following querulous effusion
fails to distinguish between the private,
the social, and the public duties of the
critic. " I see my Lord Edward," he
writes, "announced as one of the articles
290
THE POETS AT PLAY.
in ttie " Quarterly,' to be abused, of
course ; and this so immediately after my
dinings and junketings with both editor
and publisher." Having occasion to write
to Murray, he sent him the following
squib : —
Thoughts on Editors.
Editur et Edit.
No, editors don't care a button
What false and faithless things they do ;
They'll let you come and cut their mutton,
And then they'll have a cut at you.
With Barns I oft my dinner took,
Nay, met ev'n Horace Twiss to please him ;
Yet Mister Barnes traduced my book,
For which may his own devils seize him !
With Doctor Bowring I drank tea.
Nor of his cakes consumed a particle ;
And yet th' ungrateful LL.D.
Let fly at me next week an article.
John Wilson gave me suppers hot.
With bards of fame like Hogg and Pack-
wood ;
A dose of black strap then I got,
And after a still worse of " Blackwood ! "
Alas ! and must I close the list
With thee, my Lockhart, of the " Quar-
terly ! "
So kind, with bumper in thy fist —
With pen, so very gruff and tarterly.
Now in thy parlour feasting me.
Now scribbling at me from thy garret,
Till 'twixt the two in doubt I be
Which sourest is, thy wit or claret.
Byron never made verse his plaything.
Even where it affected to be, it was a
weapon which would have altogether
iailed of its purpose if it did not find its
way and hit far beyond its seeming des-
>tination. Self-banished, he felt his ex-
clusion from the intellects of the day,
and sought for some medium of commu-
nication with them which should not
compromise his pride. This medium was
.his distinguished publisher, at whose
house his restless fancy imagined con-
stant gatherings of wits and poets. To
them he sent messages, as it were, to
keep his name and fame still in men's
mouths — and the fear of him, an abiding
influence. Mr. Murray was thus the de-
positary of some lively critiques on men
and books, as where Byron supplies him
with a civil refusal of the " Medical
Tragedy " (Dr. Polidori's), spoken in his
(Murray's) own person. We give it as so
iar to our point that it is verse applied to
a personal use, and affecting to be thrown
off for the amusement of his correspond-
ent : —
There's Byron too, who once did better,
Has sent me folded in a letter
A sort of — it's no more a drama
Than Darnley, Ivan, or Kehama ;
So altered since last year his pen is,
I think he's lost his wits at Venice.
. . . But, to resume :
As I was saying, sir, the room —
The room's so full of wits and bards,
Crabbes, Campbells, Crokers, Freres, and
Wards,
And others, neither bards nor wits.
My humble tenement admits
All persons in the dress of gent.
From Mr. Hammond to Dog Dent j
A party dines with me to-day,
All clever men who make their way ;
They're at this moment in discussion
On poor De Stael's late dissolution ;
Her book they say was in advance,
Pray Heaven she tell the truth of France ;
Thus run our time and tongues away —
But to return, sir, to your play, &c., &c.
His publisher's name suggests other
verses in a more genuinely playful vein,
as well as more for the individual recipi-
ent. He felt Murray the link between
him and his country, as apart from a
few personal intimacies. His mind, we
see, ran on the scene where his name
was spoken and his works inquired after.
He liked to recall "the table's baize so
green," the comings and goings, the lit-
erary gossip, and all that was most op-
posed to the line he had chosen for him-
self. It associated him with poets, not
only of the day, but of the earlier times : —
Strahan, Jonson, Lintot of the times,
Patron and publisher of rhymes,
To thee the bard up Pindus climbs,
My Murray.
To thee with hope and terror dumb
The unfledged MS. authors come ;
Thou printest all — and sellest some —
My Murray.
Upon thy table's baize so green
The last new Quarterly is seen,
But where is thy new Magazine
My Murray ?
Along thy sprucest book-shelves shine
The works thou deemest most divine —
The " Art of Cookery " and mine.
My Murray.
Tours, travels, essays, too, I wist,
And sermons to thy mill bring grist !
And then thou hast thy " Navy List,"
My Murraj
And Heaven forbid I should conclude
Without the Board of Longitude,
Although this narrow paper would,
My Murray.
THE POETS AT PLAY.
291
Complimentary verses, if premeditated,
scarcely come within our subject. Play-
ful they may be, but no style of composi-
tion has more severely tasked the facul-
ties of versifiers, or been less congenial
to the poet proper. We mean, of course,
social verse ; for addresses and dedica-
tions, profuse of compliment, swell the
pages to a very inconvenient extent, of
generations of poets. One exception,
however, we must make to our exclusion
of this vehicle for forced liveliness.
What more easy and playful lines can we
find than the following, or more suggest-
ive of fun and enjoyment in the writer ?
and if any question the choice of subject,
let them remember the argument of the
"Splendid Shilling" —
Sing, heavenly muse !
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme, —
A shilling, breeches, and chimeras dire.
These lines were addressed to Mrs. Legh on
her wedding-day, in reference to a present of
a pair of shooting-breeches she had made to
Canning while he was a Christ Church under-
graduate : —
To Mrs. Legh.
While all to this auspicious day,
Well pleased, their heartfelt homage pay,
And sweetly smile, and softly say
A hundred civil speeches ;
My muse shall strike her tuneful strings,
Nor scorn the gift her duty brings,
Tho' humble be the theme she sings, —
A pair of shooting-breeches.
Soon shall the tailor's subtle art
Have made them tight, and spruce, and smart,
And fastened well in every part
With twenty thousand stitches ;
Mark, then, the moral of my song ;
Oh, may your loves but prove as strong,
And wear as well, and last as long,
As these my shooting-breeches I
And when, to ease the load of life,
Of private care, and public strife,
My lot shall give to me a wife,
I ask not rank or riches ;
For worth like thine alone I pray,
Temper like thine, serene and gay,
And formed, like thine, to give away.
Not wear herself, the breeches.
No man that has much in him can
write to amuse himself in ever so easy a
vein, without telling something that will
convey information a hundred years or
so after. Take, for example, Cowper's
song on the History of a Walk in the
Mud. What a picture it raises of the
roads and paths of his day ! Often it
occurs to the reader to speculate on the
use that is made of gardens in literature
of a former date. How constantly Pepys,
e.g., "walks up and down," in discussion !
what provision was made for this exer-
cise in all old gardens ! A terrace, we
see, was no affair of mere state, it was a
necessity of health ; for if people walk
for exercise in narrow bounds, it must
be on a straight line, not one winding
and turning. A country walk was an ad-
venture for ladies in those days. Wit-
ness the immense preparations when the
Duchess of Portland on first succeeding
to Welbeck wished to walk to Creswell
Crag, two miles and a half from the great
house. The ladies were accompanied by
the steward to show them the way, and
two pioneers to level all before them.
Paths were cut through thickets and
brambles, and bridges made for swampy
places. It was an expedition to be proud
of. Walking was necessary to Cowper,
and a lady companion equally necessary ;
hence the point he makes of having leave
to walk in the Throckmortons' grounds.
It is really sad to read (February 1785),
" Of all the winters we have passed at
Olney, this, the seventeenth, has con-
fined us most. Thrice, and but thrice,
since the middle of October, have we es-
caped into the fields for a little fresh air
and a little change of motion. The last
time it was at some peril we did it, Mrs.
Unwin having slipt into a ditch ; and,
though I performed the part of an active
squire upon the occasion, escaped out of
it upon her hands and knees." ^ The occa-
sion of the following composition was
four years earlier, the Sister Anne ad-
dressed at the close being Lady Aus-
ten : —
The Distressed Travellers, or Labour
IN VAIN.
An excellent new song, to a tune never sung
before,
I.
I sing of a journey to Clifton,
We would have performed if we could,
Without cart or barrow to lift on
Poor Mary and me through the mud
Slee sla slud,
Stuck in the mud ;
O it is pretty to wade through a flood !
2.
So away we went, slipping and sliding
Hop, hop, h la mode de deux frogs.
'Tis near as good walking as riding.
When ladies are dressed in their clogs.
Wheels no doubt,
Go briskly about.
But they clatter and rattle, and make such a
rout !
3-
' She.
Well ! now I protest it is charming ;
How finely the weather improves I
292
THE POETS AT PLAY.
That cloud, though, is rather alarming ;
How slowly and stately it moves !
He.
Pshaw ! never mind ;
'Tis not in the wind ;
We are travelling south, and shall leave it be-
hind.
4.
She.
I am glad we are come for an airing,
For folks may be pounded and penn'd
Until they grow rusty, not caring
To stir half a mile to an end.
He.
The longer we stay
The longer we may ;
It's a folly to think about weather or way.
5-
She.
But now I begin to be frighted
If I fall, what a way I should roll !
I am glad that the bridge was indicted, —
Stop ! stop ! I am sunk in a hole !
He.
Nay, never care !
'Tis a common affair ;
You'll not be the last that will set a foot there.
6.
She.
Let me breathe now a little, and ponder
On what it were better to do ;
That terrible lane I see yonder,
I think we shall never get through !
He.
So think I ;
But, by the by.
We never shall know if we never should try.
7-
She.
But, should we get there, how shall we get
home ?
What a terrible deal of bad road we have
passed !
Slipping and sliding ; and if we should come
To a difficult stile, I am ruin'd at last.
Oh, this lane ;
Now it is plain
That struggling and striving is labour in vain.
He.
Stick fast there while I go and look.
She.
Don't go away, for fear I should fall !
He.
I have examined in every nook,
And what you have here* is a sample of all.
Come, wheel round ;
The dirt we have found
Would be worth an estate, at a farthing a
pound.
9.
Now, sister Anne, the guitar you must take ;
Set it, and sing it, and make it a song.
I have varied the verse for variety's sake.
And cut it off short, because it was long.
'Tis hobbling and lame.
Which critics won't blame.
For the sense and the sound, they say, should
be the same.
Southey calls this one of the playful-
lest and most characteristic of his pieces.
We are glad to have a poet's testimony
to its merits. It is a remarkable exam-
ple of Covvper's special power of pictu-
resquely reproducing a scene, incident, or
situation ; and by touches minutely true,
playing with the trivalities of life as an
exercise of his apt and choice resources
of language. The editors have probably
thought the subject too trivial, for it has
been "overlooked" in every edition of
his poems that we know of. There is a
poem of Coleridge's which comes under
our class, having been clearly written with
friends only in view ; but as it is insert-
ed in his works, we will only indicate it
by a few lines. It is that Ode to the
Rain, composed in bed on the morning
appointed for the departure of a very
worthy but not very pleasant visitor,
whom it was feared the rain might de-
tain : —
But only now, for this one day.
Do go, dear Rain, do go away !
O Rain ! with your dull twofold sound.
The clash hard by, and the murmur all round !
You know, if you know aught, that we
Both night and day but ill agree.
For days, and months, and almost years
Have limped on through this vale of tears,
Since body of mine and rainy weather
Have lived on easy terms together.
Yet if, as soon as it is light,
O Rain ! you will but take your flight,
Though you should come again to-morrow,
And bring with you both pain and sorrow ;
Though stomach should sicken and knees
should swell,
I'll nothing speak of you but well,
But only now, for this one day,
Do go, dear Rain, do go away !
Of all the intellectual gifts bestowed
on man, the most intoxicating is readi-
ness— the power of calling all the re-
sources of the mind into simultaneous
action at a moment's notice. Nothing
strikes the unready as so miraculous as
this promptitude in others ; nothing im-
presses him with so dull and envious
I
THE POETS AT PLAY.
293
a sense of contrast in his own person.
To want readiness is to be laid on the
shelf, to creep where others fly, to fall
into permanent discouragement. To be
ready is to have the mind's intellectual
in proportion when rhythm and rhyme
are added to the other requirements.
Conversation one day after dinner at Mrs.
Creed's running upon the origin of names,
- ^ , , , i Mr. Dryden bowed to the good old lady and
property put out at fifty or a hundred per | spoke extempore the following verses : —■
cent. ; to be unready at the moment of
trial, is to be dimly conscious of faculties
tied up somewhere in a napkin. What
an engine — we are speaking of "the
commerce of mankind"' — is a memory
ready with its stores at the first question,
words that come at your call, thoughts
that follow in unbroken sequence, reason
quick at retort ! The thoughts we may
feel not above our level ; the words we
could arrange in as harmonious order ;
the memory, only give it time, does not
fail us ; the repartee is all the occasion
called for, if only it had not suggested
itself too late, thus changing its nature
from a triumph into a regret. It is such
comparisons, the painful recollection of
panic and disaster, the speech that would
not be spoken, the reply that dissolved
into incoherence, the action that belied
our intention, or, it may be, experience
in a humbler field, that gives to readiness
such a charm and value. The ready
man does seem such a very clever fellow.
The poet's readiness does not avail him
for such practical uses, and does not con-
tribute to his fame or success at all in
the same degree. It is the result — the
thought, the wit, the sense — not the
speed of performance, which determines
the worth of his efforls. But we delight
in an extempore effusion because of the
prestige of readiness called into play in
busy life ; at least this adds to the pleas-
ure. The poet's best verses are the
greatest, least imitable, wonder about
him ; but we are apt to be most surprised
when he shows his powers under imme-
diate command : and good lines struck
off at a heat, do give us a vivid insight
into the vivacity and energy of the poet-
ical temperament, prompt in its action,
ready at a call, and gaily willing to dis-
play its mechanical facilities. There is a
specimen of Dryden's fluency in extem-
pore verse, communicated and authenti-
cated by Malone, which shows that fore-
sight and composite action which a
strong imagination seems to possess,
uttering what it has prepared, and com-
posing what is to follow, at one and the
same lime — a habit or faculty observed
in Sir Walter Scott by his amanuenses.
This double action must belong to all
rapid complex expression ; but the diffi-
culty is enhanced and the feat magnified '
So much religion '\x\ your name doth dwell,
Your soul must needs with piety excel ;
Thus names, like [well-wrought] pictures drawn of old,
Their o\vner s natures and their story told.
Your name but half expresses, for in you
Belief and justice do together go.
My prayers shall be, while this short life endures,
These may go hand in hand with you and yours ;
Till faith hereafter is in vision drown' d,
And practice is with endless glory crowned.
Dr. Johnson, readiness itself in his con-
versation, has left some remarkable ex-
amples of the extemporizing power. Mrs.
Thrale relates that she went into his
room at Streatham on her birthday and
complained, " Nobody sends me verses
now, because I am five-and-thirty years
old ; and Stella was fed with them till
forty-six, I remember." " My having just
recovered from illness will account for
the manner in which he burst out sud-
denly ; for so he did without the least
previous hesitation whatsoever, and with-
out having entertained the smallest in-
tention
fore : " •
towards it half a minute be-
Oft in danger, yet alive.
We are come to thirty-five ;
Long may better years arrive,
Better years than thirty-five.
Could philosophers contrive.
Life to stop at thirty-five,
Time his hours should never drive
O'er the bounds of thirty-five.
High to soar, and deep to dive.
Nature gives at thirty-five.
Ladies, stock and tend your hive,
Trifle not at thirty-five ;
For howe'er we boast and thrive.
Life declines from thirty-five.
He that ever hopes to thrive
Must begin by thirty-five :
And all who wisely wish to wive,
Must look on Thrale at thirty-five.
And now [said he, as I was writing them
down], you may see what it is to come for
poetry to a dictionary-maker ; you may observe
that the rhymes run in alphabetical order ex-
actly, — and so they do.
His extempore parodies are by no means
feats like this, which is really a bundle
of valuable maxims ; but how easily flow
the lines to Miss Reynolds, in imitation
of the " Penny Ballads," and how well
the rhythm is caught ! —
I therefore pray thee, Renny dear.
That thou wilt give to me.
With cream and sugar softened well,
Another dish of tea.
Nor fear that I, my gentle maid,
Shall long detain the cup,
294
THE POETS AT PLAY.
When once unto the bottom I
Have drunk the liquor up.
Yet hear, alas ! this mournful truth,
Nor hear it with a frown,
Thou canst not make the tea so fast,
As I can drink it down.
Swift had an " odd humour" of extem-
porizing rhymed proverbs, which he
brought out with such apt readiness as to
puzzle collectors of old saws. Thus, a
friend showing off his garden to a party
of visitors without inviting them to eat
any of the fine fruit before them, Swift
observed, "It was a saying of my dear
grandmother's —
Always pull a peach,
When it is within your reach,"
and helped himself accordingly, an exam-
ample which, under such revered sanction,
the rest of the party were not slow to fol-
low.
The value of all specimens lies a good
deal in the assurance of their authenticity
as unprepared efforts, sudden plays of
humour or ingenuity. The following
professes also to be extempore ; but
there must have been finishing touches,
— it surely passes human power to have
been hit off in one sustained unbroken
flow. That it answers our leading re-
quirement as poet's play work, there can
be no doubt. Whitbread, it seems, had
perpetrated the unpardonable sin against
taste and parliamentary usage, of intro-
ducing personal and family matters into
his speech on a great public occasion, at
a time when party feeling against Lord
Melville was carried to a point of savage
virulence. It is no wonder his witty
friend was inspired by such an oppor-
tunity for firing a shot in return.
Fragment of an Oration.
Part of Mr. Whitbread' s speech on the trial of Lord
Melville, 1805, put into verse by Mr. Canning at the
time it was delivered.
I'm like Archimedes for science and skill ;
I'm like a young prince going straight up a
hill;
I'm like (with respect to the fair be it said),
I'm like a young lady just bringing to bed.
If you ask why the nth of June I remember
Much better than April, or May, or November,
On that day, my Lords, with truth I assure ye,
My sainted progenitor set up his brewery ;
On that day in the morn he began brewing
beer ;
On that day too commenced his connubial
career ;
On that day he received and he issued his
bills ;
On that day he cleared out all his cash in his
tills ;
On that day he died, having finished his sum-
ming,
And the angels all cried, " There's old Whit-
bread a-coming ! "
So that day I still hail with a smile and a sigh,
For his beer with an E, and his bier with
an I ;
And still on that day in the hottest of weather,
The whole Whitbread family dine altogether.
So long as the beams of this house shall sup-
port
The roof which o'ershades this respectable
court.
Where Hastings was tried for oppressing the
Hindoos ;
So long as that sun shall shine in at those
windows,
My name shall shine bright as my ancestor's
shines ;
Mine recorded in journals, his blazoned on
signs.
Our examples have been uniformly
taken from biographers' collections of
letters and private recollections. In only
one case have we referred to the poet's
" poems " for the specimen in point ;
though our extract may, in one or two in-
stances, have been removed from its
original standing to a niche in what are
emphatically called an author's works.
It is obvious, on this and other grounds,
that our poets at play can include no liv-
ing brother within their circle. Poets
must first be known and valued by their
works. They must have done great
things before we care for trifles from their
hands. But this knowledge once ac-
quired, and an estimate formed, a further
intimacy may be promoted by some ac-
quaintance with performances which do
not rank among their works. It would
be very unjust to measure them by such
specimens as we have strung together ;
but having established their reputation
with us, trivialities, like many of these, if
they do not contribute to their fame, yet
suggest versatility, and in most cases
add an engaging touch of homely nature
to a great name. They are all examples,
as we began by saying, of that essential
element of the poet's nature when in work-
ing effective order — exceptional life and
spirits. Nobody writes verse for his own
pleasure, or even relief, without the ba-
rometer of his spirits being on the rise.
They are tokens of that abiding youthful-
ness which never leaves him while he can
write a living line. The poet, we need
not say, is forever sighing over the youth
that is past and gone, not taking note of
the youth that remains to him, altogether
independent of years. But in fact he is
a boy all his life, capable of finding
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
29:
amusement in matters which the plod-
ding man of the world considers puerile,
and so conferring on his readers and
lovers some share of his own spring, some
taste of the freshness which helps to keep
the world alive.
From The Cornhill Magazine.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
CHAPTER XXX.
HOT CHEEKS AND TEARFUL EYES.
Half-an-hour later Bathsheba en-
tered her own house. There burnt upon
her face when she met the light of the
candles the flush and excitement which
were little less than chronic with her
now. The farewell words of Troy, who
had accompanied her to the very door,
still lingered in her ears. He had bid-
den her adieu for two days, which were,
so he stated, to be spent at Bath in visit-
ing some friends. He had also kissed
her a second time.
It is only fair to Bathsheba to explain
here a little fact which did not come to
light till a long time afterwards : that
Troy's presentation of himself so aptly at
the roadside this evening was not by any
distinctly preconcerted arrangement. He
had hinted — she had forbidden; and it
was only on the chance of his still com-
ing that she had dismissed Oak, fearing
a meeti-ig between them just then.
She now sank down into a chair, wild
and perturbed by all these new and fever-
ing sequences. Then she jumped up
with a manner of decision, and fetched
her desk from a side table.
In three minutes, without pause or
modification, she had written a letter to
Boldvvood, at his address beyond Caster-
bridge, saying mildly but firmly that she
had well considered the whole subject he
had brought before her and kindly given
her time to decide upon ; that her final
decision was that she could not marry
him. She had expressed to Oak an in-
tention to wait till Boldwood came home
before communicating to him her con-
clusive reply. But Bathsheba found that
she could not wait.
It was impossible to send this letter
till the next day ; yet to quell her un-
easiness by getting it out of her hands,
and so as it were, setting the act in mo-
tion at once, she arose to take it to any
one of the women who might be in the
kitchen.
She paused in the passage. A dia-
logue was going on in the kitchen, and
Bathsheba and Troy were the subject of
it."
" If he marry her, she'll gie up farm-
ing."
" 'Twill be a gallant life, but may bring
some trouble between the mirth — so say
I."
"Well, I wish I had half such a hus-
band."
Bathsheba had too much sense to mind
seriously what her servitors said about
her ; but too much womanly redundance
of speech to leave alone what was said
till it died the natural death of unminded
things. She burst in upon them.
"Who are you speaking of?" she
asked.
There was a pause before anybody
replied. At last Liddy said, frankly,
" What was passing was a bit of a word
about yourself, miss."
" I thought so ! Maryann and Liddy
and Temperance — now I forbid you to
suppose such things. You know I don't
care the least for Mr. Troy — not I.
Everybody knows how much I hate him.
— Yes," repeated the froward young
person, ^^ hate him ! "
" We know you do, miss," said Liddy,
" and so do we all."
" I hate him too," said Maryann.
" Maryann — O you perjured woman !
How you can speak that wicked story ! "
said Bathsheba, excitedly. " You ad-
mired him from your heart only this
morning in the very world, you did. Yes,
Maryann, you know it ! "
" Yes, miss, but so did you. He is a
wild scamp now, and you are right to
hate him."
" He's fiot a wild scamp ! How dare
you to my face ! I have no right to hate
him, nor you, nor anybody. But I am a
silly woman. What is it to me what he
is ? You know it is nothing. I don't
care for him ; I don't mean to defend his
good name, not I. Mind this, if any of
you say a word against him you'll be dis-
missed instantly."
She flung down the letter and surged
back into the parlour, with a big heart
and tearful eyes, Liddy following her.
" O miss ! " said mild Liddy, looking
pitifully into Bathsheba's face. " I am
sorry we mistook you so ! I did think
you cared for him ; but I see you don't
now."
"Shut the door, Liddy."
Liddy closed the door, and went on :
" People always says such foolery, miss.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
296
I'll make answer hencefor'ard, ' Of course
a lady like Miss Everdene can't love
him ; ' I'll say it out in plain black and
white."
Bathsheba burst out : " O Liddy, you
are such a simpleton ! Can't you read
riddles ? Can't you see ! Are you a
woman yourself !"
Liddy's clear eyes rounded with won-
derment.
"Yes, you must be a blind thing, Lid-
dy! " she said, in reckless abandonment
and grief. " Oh, I love him to very dis-
traction and misery and agony. Don't
be frightened at me, though perhaps I am
enough to frighten any innocent woman.
Come closer — closer." She put her
arms round Liddy's neck. " I must let it
out to somebody ; it is wearing me away.
Don't you yet know enough of me to see
through that miserable denial of mine ?
0 God, what a lie it was ! Heaven and
my Love forgive me. And don't you know
that a woman who loves at all thinks
nothing of perjury when it is balanced
against her love ? There, go out of the
room ; I want to be quite alone."
Liddy went towards the door.
" Liddy, come here. Solemnly swear
to me that he's not a bad man ; that it is
all lies they say about him ! "
" But, miss, how can I say he is not
if "
" You graceless girl. How can you
have the cruel heart to repeat what they
say ? Unfeeling thing that you are. . . .
But /'//see if you or anybody else in the
village, or town either, dare do such a
thing ! " She started off, pacing from
fireplace to door, and back again.
" No, miss. I don't — I know it is not
true," said Liddy, frightened at Bath-
sheba's unwonted vehemence.
" I suppose you only agree with me
like that to please me. But, Liddy, he
can7tot be bad, as is said. Do you hear 1 "
" Yes, miss, yes."
" And you don't believe he is ? "
" I don't know what to say, miss," said
Liddy, beginning to cry. " If I say No,
you don't believe me ; and if I say Yes,
you rage at me."
"Say you don't believe it — say you
don't ! "
" I don't believe him to be so bad as
they make out. "
" He is not bad at all. . . . My poor
life and heart, how weak I am ! " she
moaned, in a relaxed, desultory way,
heedless of Liddy's presence. " Oh, how
1 wish I had never seen him ! Loving is
misery for women always. I shall never
forgive my Maker for making me a wo-
man, and dearly am I beginning to pay
for the honour of owning a pretty face."
She freshened and turned to Liddy sud-
denly. "Mind this, Lydia Smallbury, if
you repeat anywhere a single word of what
I have said to you inside this closed door,
I'll never trust you, or love you, or have
you with me a moment longer — not a
moment."
" I don't want to repeat anything," said
Liddy with womanly dignity of a diminu-
tive order; "but I don't wish to stay
with you. And, if you please, I'll go at
the end of the harvest, or this week, or
to-day. ... I don't see that I deserve to
be put upon and stormed at for noth-
ing ! " concluded the small woman, bigly.
" No, no, Liddy ; you must stay ! " said
Bathsheba, dropping from haughtiness to
entreaty with capricious inconsequence.
" You rhust not notice my being in a tak-
ing just now. You are not as a servant
— you are a companion to me. Dear,
dear — I don't know what I am doing
since this miserable ache o' my heart has
weighted and worn upon me so. What
shall I come to ! I suppose I shall die
quite young. Yes, I know I shall. I
wonder sometimes if I am doomed to die
in the Union. I am friendless enough,
God knows."
" I won't notice anything, nor will I
leave you ! " sobbed Liddy, impulsively
putting up her lips to Bathsheba's, and
kissing her.
Then Bathsheba kissed Liddy, and all
was smooth again.
" I don't often cry, do I, Lidd? but you
have made tears come into my eyes," she
said, a smile shining through the mois-
ture. " Try to think him a good man,
won't you, dear Liddy ? "
" I will, miss, indeed."
" He is a sort of steady man in a wild
way, you know. That's better than to be
as some are, wild in a steady way. I am
afraid that's how I am. And promise me
to keep my secret — do, Liddy ! And do
not let them know that I have been cry-
ing about him, because it will be dreadful
for me, and no good to him, poor thing ! "
"Death's head himself shan't wring it
from me, mistress, if I've a mind to keep
anything, and I'll always be your friend,"
replied Liddy, emphatically, at the same
time bringing a few more tears into her
own eyes, not from any particular neces-
sity, but from an artistic sense of miking
herself in keeping with the remainder of
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
297
the picture, which seems to influence
women at such times. "I think God
likes us to be good friends, don't you ? "
" Indeed I do."
^' And, dear miss, you won't harry me
and storm at mc, will you .'' because you
seem to swell so tall as a lion then, and it
frightens me. Do you know, I fancy you
would be a match for any man when you
are in one o' your takings."
"Never! do you?" said Bathsheba,
slightly laughing, though somewhat se-
riously alarmed by this Amazonian picture
of herself. " I hope I am not a bold sort
of maid — mannish?" she continued,
with some anxiety.
" Oh no, not mannish ; but so almighty
womanish that 'tis getting on that way
sometimes. Ah ! miss," she said, after
having drawn her breath very sadly in
and sent it very sadly out, " I wish I had
half your failing that way. 'Tis a great
protection to a poor maid in these days ! "
CHAPTER XXXI.
BLAME : FURY.
The next evening Bathsheba, with the
idea of getting out of the way of Mr.
Boldwood in the event of his returning to
answer her note in person, proceeded to
fulfil an engagement made with Liddy
some few hours earlier. Bathsheba's
companion, as a gage of their reconcilia-
tion, had been granted a week's holiday
to visit her sister, who was married to a
thriving hurdler and cattle crib-maker
living in a delightful labyrinth of hazel
copse not far from Yalbury. The ar-
rangement was that Miss Everdene should
honour them by coming there for a day
or two to inspect some ingenious contriv-
ances which this man of the woods had
introduced into his wares.
Leaving her instructions with Gabriel
and Maryann that they were to see every-
thing carefully locked up for the night,
she went out of the house just at the
close of a. timely thunder-shower, which
had refined the air, and daintily bathed
the mere coat of the land, all beneath be-
ing dry as ever. Freshness was exhaled
in an essence from the varied contours
of bank and hollow, as if the earth
breathed maiden breath, and the pleased
birds were hymning to the scene. Be-
fore her among the clouds there was a
contrast in the shape of lairs of fierce
hght which showed themselves in the
neighbourhood of a hidden sun, lingering
on to the farthest north-west corner of
the heavens that this midsummer season
allowed.
She had walked nearly three m'les of
her journey, watching how the day was
retreating, and thinking how the time of
deeds was quietly melting into the time
of thoughts, to give place in its turn to
the time of prayer and sleep, when she
beheld advancing over the hill the very
mm she sought so anxiously to elude.
Boldwood was stepping on, not with that
quiet tread of reserved strength which
was his customary gait, in which he always
seemed to be balancing two thoughts.
His manner was stunned and sluggish
now.
Boldwood had for the first time been
awakened to woman's privileges in the
practice of tergiversation without regard
to another's distraction and possible
blight. That Bathsheba was a firm and
positive girl, far less inconsequent than
her fellows, had been the very lung of his
hope ; for he had held that these quali-
ties would lead her to adhere to a straight
course for consistency's sake, and accept
him, though her fancy might not flood
him with the iridescent hues of uncriti-
cal love. But the argument now came
back as sorry gleams from a broken
mirror. The discovery was no less a
scourge than a surprise.
He came on looking upon the ground,
and did not see Bathsheba till they were
less than a stone's throw apart. He
looked up at the sound of her pit-pat, and
his changed appearance sufficiently de-
noted to her the depth and strength of
the feelings paralyzed by her letter.
" Oh ; is it you, Mr. Boldwood," she
faltered, a guilty warmth pulsing in her
face.
Those who have the power of reproach-
ing in silence may find it a means more
effective than words. There are accents
in the eye which are not on the tongue,
and more tales come from pale lips than
can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur
and the pain of the remoter moods that
they avoid the pathway of sound. Bold-
wood's look was unanswerable.
Seeing she turned a little aside, he
said, '' What, are you afraid of me ? "
" Why should you say that ? " said
Bathsheba.
" I fancied you looked so," said he.
" And it is most strange, because of its
contrast with my feeling for you."
She re ained self-possession, fixed her
eyes calmly, and waited.
" You know what that feeling is," con-
298
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
" A thing
by
tinued Boldwood deliberately,
strong as death. No dismissal
hasty letter affects that."
" I wish you did not feel so strongly
about me," she murmured. " It is gen-
erous of you and more than I deserve,
but I must not hear it now."
" Hear it ? Wljat do you think I have
to say, then ? I am not to marry you,
and that's enough. Your letter was ex-
cellently plain. I want you to hear noth-
ing— not I."
Bathsheba was unable to direct her will
into any definite groove for freeing her-
self from this fearfully awkward position.
She confusedly said, "Good evening,"
and was moving on. Boldwood walked
up to her heavily and dully.
"Bathsheba — darling — is it final in-
deed.?"
" Indeed it is."
" O, Bathsheba — have pity upon me ! "
Boldwood burst out. " God's sake, yes
— I am come to that low, lowest stage —
to ask a woman for pity ! Still, she is
you — she is you."
Bathsheba commanded herself well.
But she could hardly get a clear voice for
what came instinctively to her lips :
" There is little honour to the woman in
that speech." It was only whispered, for
something unutterably mournful no less
than distressing in this spectacle of a
man showing himself to be so entirely
the vane of a passion enervated the fem-
inine instinct for punctilios.
" I am beyond myself about this, and
am mad," he said. " I am no stoic at all
to be supplicating here ; but I do suppli-
cate to you. I wish you knew what is in
me of devotion to you ; but it is impossi-
ble, that. In bare human mercy to a
lonely man don't throw me off now ! "
"I don't throw you off — indeed, how
can I ? I never had you." In her noon-
clear sense that she had never loved him
she forgot for a moment her thoughtless
angle on that day in February.
"But there was a time when you
turned to me, before I thought of you.
I don't reproach you, for even now I feel
that the ignorant and cold darkness that
I should have lived in if you had not at-
tracted me by that letter — valentine you
call it — would, have been worse than my
knowledge of you, though it has brought
this misery. But, I say, there was a time
when I knew nothing of you, and cared
nothing for you, and yet you drew me on.
And if you say you gave me no encour-
agement I cannot but contradict you."
" What you call encouragement was
the childish game of an idle minute. I
have bitterly repented of it — ay, bitterly,
and in tears. Can you still go on re-
minding me .?"
" I don't accuse you of it — I deplore
it. I took for earnest what you insist
was jest, and now this that I pray to be
jest you say is awful wretched earnest.
Our moods meet at wrong places. I
wish your feeling was more like mine, or
my feeling more like yours ! O could I
but have foreseen the torture that trifling
trick was going to lead me into, how I
should have cursed you ; but only having
been able to see it since, I cannot do
that, for I love you too well ! But it is
weak, idle drivelling to go on like this.
. . . Bathsheba, you are the first woman
of any shade or nature that I have ever
looked at to love, and it is the having
been so near claiming you for my own
that makes this denial so hard to bear.
How nearly you promised me ! But I
don't speak now to move your heart, and
make you grieve because of my pain ; it
is no use, that. I must bear it ; my pain
would get no less by paining you."
" But I do pity you — deeply — oh so
deeply ! " she earnestly said.
"Do no such thing — do no such
thing. Your dear love, Bathsheba, is
such a vast thing beside your pity that
the loss of your pity as well as your love
is no great addition to my sorrow, nor
does the gain of your pity make it sensi-
bly less. Oh sweet — how dearly you
spoke to me behind the spear-bed at the
washing-pool, and in the barn at the
shearing, and that dearest last time in
the evening at your home ! Where are
your pleasant words all gone — your
earnest hope to be able to love me ?
Where is your firm conviction that you
would get to care for me very much ?
Really forgotten ? — really .?"
She checked emotion, looked him
quietly and clearly in the face, and said
in her low firm voice, " Mr. Boldwood, I
promised you nothing. Would you have
had me a woman of clay when you paid
me that furthest, highest compliment a
man can pay a woman — telling her he
loves her.? I was bound to show some
feeling, if I would not be a graceless
shrew. Yet each of those pleasures was
just for the day — the day just for the
pleasure. How was I to know that what
is a pastime to all other men was deith
to you ? Have reason, do, and think
more kindly of me ! "
"Well, never mind arguing — never
mind. One thing is sure : you were all
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
299
but mine, and now you are not nearly
mine. Everything is changed, and that
by you alone, remember. You were
nothing to me once, and I was contented ;
you are now nothing to me again, and how
different the second nothing is from the
first ! Would to God you had never
.taken me up, since it was only to throw
me down ! "
Bathsheba, in spite of her mettle, be-
gan to feel unmistakable signs that she
was inherently the weaker vessel. She
strove miserably against this femininity
which would insist upon supplying un-
bidden emotions in stronger and stronger
current. She had tried to elude agita-
tion by fixing her mind on the trees, sky,
any trivial object before her eyes, whilst
his reproaches fell, but ingenuity could
not save her now.
" I did not take you up — surely I did
not ! " she answered as heroically as she
could. " But don't be in this mood with
me. I can endure being told I am in the
wrong, if you will only tell it me gently !
Oh sir, will you not kindly forgive me,
and look at it cheerfully ?"
" Cheerfully ! Can a man fooled to
utter heartburning find a reason for be-
ing merry .'' If I have lost, how can I be
as if I had won ? Heavens, you must be
heartless quite ! Had I known what a
fearfully bitter sweet this was to be, how
I would have avoided you, and never
seen you, and been deaf to you. I tell
you all this, but what do you care ! You
don't care."
She returned silent and weak denials
to his charges, and swayed her head des-
perately, as if to thrust away the words
as they came showering about her ears
from the lips of the trembling man in the
climax of life, with his bronzed Roman
face, and fine frame.
" Dearest, dearest, I am wavering even
now between the two opposites of reck-
lessly renouncing you, and labouring
humbly for you again. Forget that you
have said No, and let it be as it was.
Say, Bathsheba, that you only wrote that
refusal to me in fun — come, say it to
me!"
" It would be untrue, and painful to
both of us. You overrate my capacity
for love. I don't possess half the warmth
of nature you believe me to have. An
unprotected childhood in a cold world
has beaten gentleness out of me."
He immediately said with more resent-
ment : " That may be true, somewhat ;
but ah, Miss Everdene, it won't do as a
reason! You are not the cold woman
you would have me believe. No, no. It
isn't because you have no feeling in you
that you don't love me. You naturally
would have me think so — you would
hide from me that you have a burning
heart like mine. You have love enough,
but it is turned into a new channel. I
know where."
The swift music of her heart became
hubbub now, and she throbbed to ex-
tremity. He was coming to Troy. He
did then know what had transpired ! And
the name fell from his lips the next mo-
ment.
" Why did Troy not leave my treasure
alone.'"' he asked, fiercely. "When I
had no thought of injuring him why did he
force himself upon your notice ! Before
he worried you your inclination was to
have me ; when next I should have come
to you your answer would have been Yes.
Can you deny it — I ask, can you deny
it ? "
She delayed the reply, but was too
honest to withhold it. " I cannot," she
whispered.
" I know you cannot. But he stole in
in my absence and robbed me. Why
didn't he win you away before, when no-
body would have been grieved ? — when
nobody would have been set tale-bearing.
Now the people sneer at me — the very
hills and sky seem to laugh at me till I
blush shamefully for my folly. I have
lost my respect, my good name, my stand-
ing— lost it, never to get it again. Go
and marry your man — go on ! "
" Oh sir — Mr. Bold wood ! "
" You may as well. I have no further
claim upon you. As for me, I had better
go somewhere alone, and hide, — and
pray. I loved a woman once. I am now
ashamed. When I am dead they'll say,
miserable, love-sick man Uiat he was.
Heaven — heaven — if I had got jilted
secretly, and the dishonour not known,
and my position kept ! But no matter, it
is gone, and the woman not gained.
Shame upon him — shame ! "
His unreasonable anger terrified her,
and she glided from him, without obvious-
ly moving, as she said, '' I am only a girl
— do not speak to me so ! "
"All the time\you knew — how very
well you knew — that your new freak was
my misery. Dazzled by brass and scar-
let— oh Bathsheba — this is woman's
folly indeed ! "
She fired up at once. " You are taking
too much upon yourself ! " she said, ve-
hemently. "Everybody is upon me —
everybody. It is' unmanly to attack a
300
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD;
woman so ! I have nobody in the world
to fight my battles for me, but no mercy
is shown. Yet if a thousand of vou sneer
and say things against me, I will not be
put down ! "
" You'll chatter with him doubtless
about me. Say to him, ' Boldvvood would
have died for me.' Yes, and you have
given way to him knowing him to be not
the man for you. He has kissed you —
claimed you as his. Do you hear, he has
kissed you. Deny it ! "
The most tragic woman is cowed by a
tragic man, and although Boldwood was,
in vehemence and glow, nearly her own
self rendered into another sex, Bath-
sheba's cheek quivered. She gasped,
"Leave me sir — leave me! I am noth-
ing to you. Let me go on ! "
" Deny that he has kissed you."
" I shall not."
" Ha — then he has ! " came hoarsely
from the farmer.
" He has," she said slowly, and in spite
of her fear, defiantly. " I am not ashamed
to speak the truth."
"Then curse him; and curse him!"
said Boldwood, breaking into a whispered
fury. " Whilst I would have given worlds
to touch your hand you have let a rake
come, in without right or ceremony and
— kiss you ! Heaven's mercy — kiss
you ! . . . Ah, a time of his life shall
come when he will have to repent — and
think wretchedly of the pain he has
caused another man ; and then may he
ache, and wish, and curse, and yearn —
as I do now ! "
"Don't, don't, oh don't pray down evil
upon him ! " she implored in a miserable
cry. "Anything but that — anything.
Oh be kind to him, sir, for I love him
dearly ! "
Boldwood's ideas had reached that
point of fusion at which outline and con-
sistency entirely disappear. The impend-
ing night appeared to concentrate in his
eye. He did not hear her at all now.
"I'll punish him — by my soul that
will I ! I'll meet him, soldier or no, and
I'll horsewhip the untimely stripling for
this reckless theft of my one delight. If
he were a hundred men I'd horsewhip
him . . ." He dropped his voice sudden-
ly and unnaturally. " Bathsheba, sweet
lost coquette, pardon me. I've been
blaming you, threatening you, behaving
like a churl to you, when he's the great-
est sinner. He stole your dear heart
away with his unfathomable lies ! ... It
is a fortunate thing for him that he's gone
back to his regiment — that he's in Mel-
chester, and not here ! I hope he may
not return here just yet. I pray God he
may not come into my sight, for I maybe
tempted beyond myself. Oh Bathsheba,
keep him away — yes, keep him away
from me ! "
For a moment Boldwood stood so in-
ertly after this that his soul seemed to
have been entirely exhaled with the breath
of his passionate words. He turned his
face away, and withdrew, and his form
was soon covered over by the twilight
as his footsteps mixed in with the low
hiss of the leafy trees.
Bathsheba, who had been standing mo-
tionless as a model all this latter time,
flung her hands to her face, and wildly
attempted to ponder on the exhibition
which had just passed away. Such as-
tounding wells of fevered feeling in a still
man like Mr. Boldwood were incompre-
hensible, dreadful. Instead of being a
man trained to repression he was — what
she had seen him.
The force of the farmer's threats lay in
their relation to a circumstance known at
present only to herself ; her lover was
coming back to Weatherbury the very
next day. Troy had not returned to Mel-
chester Barracks as Boldwood and others
supposed, but had merely gone for a day
or two to visit some acquaintance in
Bath, and had yet a week or more remain-
ing to his furlough.
She felt wretchedly certain that if he
revisited her just at this nick of time, and
came into contact with Boldvvood, a fierce
quarrel would be the consequence. She
panted with solicitude when she thought
of possible injury to Troy. The least
spark would kindle the farmer's swift
feelings of rage and jealousy ; he would
lose his self-mastery as he had this even-
ing ; Troy's blitheness might become
aggressive ; it might take the direction
of derision, and Boldwood's anger might
then take the direction of revenge.
With almost a morbid dread of being
thought a gushing girl, this guideless wo-
man too well concealed from the world
under a manner of carelessness the warm
depths of her strong emotions. But now
there was no reserve. In her distraction,
instead of advancing further, she walked
up and down, beating the air with her
fingers, pressing her brow, and sobbing
brokenly to herself. Then she sat down
on a heap of stones by the wayside to
think. There she remained long. The
dark rotundity of the earth approached
the foreshores and promontories of cop-
pery cloud which bounded a green and
PAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
301
pellucid expanse in the western sky, am-
aranthine glosses came over them then,
and the unresting world wheeled her
round to a contrasting prospect eastward,
in the sh.:pe of indecisive and palpitating
stars. She gazed upon their silent throes
amid the shades of space, but realized
none at all. Her troubled spirit was far
away with Troy.
CHAPTER XXXII.
NIGHT : HORSES TRAMPING.
The village of Weatherbury was quiet
as the graveyard in its midst, and the
living were lying well-nigh as still as the
dead. The church clock struck eleven.
The air was so empty of other sounds
that the whirr of the clockwork immedi-
ately before the strokes was distinct, and
so was also the click of the same at their
close. The notes flew forth with the
usual blind obtuseness of inanimate
things — flapping and rebounding among
walls, undulating against the scattered
clouds, spreading through their inter-
stices into unexplored miles of space.
Bathsheba's crannied and mouldy halls
were to-night occupied only by Maryann,
Liddy being, as was stated, with her sis-
ter, whom Bathsheba had set out to visit.
A few minutes after eleven had struck,
Maryann turned in her bed with a sense
of being disturbed. She was totally un-
conscious of the nature of the interrup-
tion to her sleep. It led to a dream, and
the dream to an awakening, with an un-
easy sensation that something had hap-
pened. She left her bed and looked out
of the window. The paddock abutted on
this end of the building, and in the pad-
dock she could just discern by the uncer-
tain gray a moving figure approaching the
horse that was feeding there. The fig-
ure seized the horse by the forelock, and,
led it to the corner of the field. Here
she could see some object which circum-
stances proved to be a vehicle, for after a
few minutes* spent apparently in harness-
ing, she heard the trot of the horse down
the road, mingled with the sound of lisfht
wheels.
Two varieties only of humanity could
have entered the paddock with the ghost-
like glide of that mysterious figure.
They were a woman and a gipsy man. A
woman was out of the question in such
an occupation at this hour, and the comer
could be no less than a thief, who might
probably have known the weakness of the
household on this particular night, and
have chosen it on that account for his
daring attempt. Moreover, to raise sus-
picion to conviction itself, there were
gipsies in Weatherbury Bottom.
Maryann, who had been afraid to shout
in the robber's presence, having seen
him depart, had no fear. She hastily
slipped on her clothes, stumped down
the disjointed staircase with its hundred
creaks, ran to Coggan's, the nearest
house, and raised an alarm. Coggan
called Gabriel, who now again lodged in
his house as at first, and together they
went to the paddock. Beyond all doubt
the horse was gone.
" Listen ! " said Gabriel.
They listened. Distinct upon the stag-
nant air came the sounds of a trotting
horse passing over Weatherbury Hill —
just beyond the gipsies' encampment in
Weatherbury Bottom.
" That's our Dainty — I'll swear to her
step," said Jan.
" Mighty me ! Won't mis'ess storm
and call us stupids when she comes
back ! " moaned Maryann. " How I
wish it had happened when she was at
home, and none of us had been answer-
able ! "
" We must ride after," said Gabriel,
decisively." " I'll be responsible to Miss
Everdene for what we do. Yes, we'll
follow."
" Faith, I don't see how," said Coggan.
"All our horses are too heavy for that
trick except little Poppet, and what's she
between two of us ? — If we only had
that pair over the hedge we might do
something."
" Which pair ? "
" Mr. Boldwood's Tidy and Moll."
"Then wait here till I come hither
again," said Gabriel. He ran down the
hill towards Farmer Boldwood's.
" Farmer Boldwood is not at home,"
said Maryann.
"All the better," said Coggan. "I
know what he's gone for."
Less than five minutes brought up Oak
again, running at the same pace, with two
halters dangling from his hand.
" Where did you find 'em ? " said Cog-
gan, turning round and leaping upon the
hedge without waiting for an answer.
" Under the eaves. I knew where they
were kept," said Gabriel, following him.
" Coggan, you can ride bare-backed ?
there's no time to look for saddles."
" Like a hero ! " said Jan.
" Maryann, you go to bed," Gabriel
shouted to her from the top of the hedge.
Springing down into Boldwood's pas-
tures, each pocketed his halter to hide it
302
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
from the horses, who, seeing the men
empty-handed, docilely allowed them-
selves to be seized by the mane, when
the halters were dexterously slipped on.
Having neither bit nor bridle, Oak and
Coggan extemporized the former by pass-
ing the rope in each case through the
animal's mouth and looping it on the
other side. Oak vaulted astride, and
Coggan clambered up by aid of the bank,
when they ascended to the gate and gal-
loped off in the direction taken by Bath-
sheba's horse and the robber. Whose
vehicle the horse had been harnessed to
was a matter of some uncertainty.
Weatherbury Bottom was reached in
three or four minutes. They scanned
the shady green patch by the roadside.
The gipsies were gone.
" The villains ! " said Gabriel. " Which
way have they gone, I wonder ? "
" Straight on, as sure as God made
little apples," said Jan.
" Very well ; we are better mounted,
and must overtake 'em," said Oak.
" Now, on at full speed ! "
No sound of the rider in their van
could now be discovered. The road-metal
grew softer and more clayey as Weath-
erbury was left behind, and the late rain
had wetted its surface to a somewhat
plastic, but not muddy state. They came
to cross-roads. Coggan suddenly pulled
up Moll and slipped off.
" What's the matter ? " said Gabriel.
"We must try to track 'em, since we
can't hear 'em," said Jan, fumbling in his
pockets. He struck a light, and held the
match to the ground. The rain had been
heavier here, and all foot and horse
tracks made previous to the storm had
been abraded and blurred by the drops,
and they were now so many little scoops
of water, which reflected the flame of the
match like eyes. One set of tracks was
fresh and had no water in them ; one pair
of ruts was also empty, and not small
canals, like the others. The footprints
forming this recent impression were full
of information as to pace; they were in
equidistant pairs, three or four feet apart,
the right and left foot of each pair being i
exactly opposite one another. !
" Straight on ! " Jan exclaimed. " Tracks
like that mean a stiff gallop. No wonder
we don't hear him. And the horse is
harnessed — look at the ruts. Ay, that's
our mare sure enough ! "
" How do you know ? "
" Old Jimmy Harris only shoed her last
week, and I'd swear to his make among
tea thousand."
" The rest of the gipsies must have
gone on earlier, or some other way," said
Oak. " You saw there were no other
tracks ? "
" Trew." They rode along silently for a
long weary time. Coggan's watch struck
one. He lighted another match, and ex-
amined the ground again.
" 'Tis a canter now," he said, " throw-
ing away the light. '• A twisty rickety pace
for a gig. The fact is, they overdrove
her at starting ; we shall catch them yet."
Again they hastened on. Coggan's
watch struck two. When they looked
again the hoof-marks were so spaced as
to form a sort of zig-zag if united, like
the lamps along a street.
" That's a trot, I know," said Gabriel.
" Only a trot now," said Coggan cheer-
fully. "We shall overtake him in time."
They pushed rapidly on for yet two or
three miles. " Ah ! a moment," said Jan.
"Let's see how she was driven up this
hill. 'Twill help us." A light was
promptly struck upon his gaiters as before,
and the examination made.
" Hurrah ! " said Coggan. " She
walked up here — and well she might.
We shall get them in two miles, for a
crown."
They rode three and listened. No
sound was to be heard save a mill-pond
trickling hoarsely through a hatch, and
suggesting gloomy possibilities of drown-
ing by jumping in. Gabriel dismounted
when they came to a turning. The tracks
were absolutely the only guide as to the
direction that they now had, and great
caution was necessary to avoid confusing
them with some others which had made
their appearance lately.
"What does this mean? — though I
guess," said Gabriel, looking up at Cog-
gan as he moved the match over the
ground about the turning. Coggan, who,
no less than the panting horses, had
latterly shown signs of weariness, again
scrutinized the mystic characters. This
time only three were of the regular horse-
shoe shape. Every fourth was a dot.
He screwed up his face, and emitted a
long " whew-w-w ! "
" Lame ? " said Oak.
" Yes. Dainty is lamed ; the near-
foot-afore," said Coggan slowly, staring
still at the footprints.
"We'll push on," said Gabriel, re-
mounting his humid steed.
Although the road along its greater
part had been as good as any turnpike-
road in the country it was nominally only
a byway. The last
turning had
brought
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
303
them into the high road leading to Bath.
Coggan recollected himself,
shall have him
now ! " he ex-
We
claimed.
" Where ? "
" Petiton Turnpike. The keeper of
that gate is the sleepiest man between
here and London — Dan Randall, that's
his name — knowed en for years, when
he was at Casterbridge gate. Between
the lameness and the gate 'tis a done
job."
They now advanced with extreme cau-
tion. Nothing was said until, against a
shady background of foliage, five white
bars were visible, crossing their route a
little way ahead.
" Hush — we are almost close ! " said
Gabriel.
" Amble on upon the grass," said Cog-
gan.
The white bars were blotted out in the
midst by a dark shape in front of them.
The silence of this lonely time was
pierced by an exclamation from that
quarter.
" Hoy-a-hoy ! Gate ! "
It appeared that there had been a pre-
vious call which they had not noticed, for
on their close approach the door of the
turnpike house opened, and the keeper
came out half-dressed, with a candle in
his hand. The rays illumined the whole
group.
" Keep the gate close ! " shouted Ga-
briel, " He has stolen the horse ! "
" Who ? " said the turnpike man.
Gabriel looked at the driver of the gig,
and saw a woman — Bathsheba, his mis-
tress.
On hearing his voice she had turned her
face away from the light. Coggan had,
however, caught sight of her in the mean-
while.
"Why, 'tis mistress — I'll take my
oath ! " he said, amazed.
Bathsheba it certainly was, and she
had by this time done the trick she could
do so well in crises not of love, namely,
mask a surprise by coolness of man-
ner.
" Well, Gabriel," she enquired quietly,
"where are you going ? "
" We thought " began Gabriel.
" I am driving to Bath," she said, tak-
ing for her own use the assurance that
Gabriel lacked. " An important matter
made it necessary for me to give up my
visit to Liddy, and go off at once. What,
then, were you following me .'' "
" We thought the horse was stole."
" Well — what a
thing !
How very
foolish of you not to know that I had taken
the trap and horse. I could neither
wake Maryann nor get into the house,
though I hammered for ten minutes
against her window-sill. Fortunately, I
could get the key of the coach-house, so
I troubled no one further. Didn't you
think it might be me .'"'
" Why should we, miss ? "
" Perhaps not. Why, those are never
Farmer Boldwood's horses ! Goodness
mercy! what have you been doing —
bringing trouble upon me in this way ?
What ! mustn't a lady move an inch from
her door without being dogged like a
thief ? "
" But how were we to know, if you left
no account of your doings," expostulated
Coggan, "and ladies don't drive at these
hours as a jineral rule of society."
"I did leave an account — and you
would have seen it in the morning. I
wrote in chalk on the coach-house doors
that I had come back for the horse and
gig, and driven off ; that I could arouse
nobody, and should return soon."
" But you'll consider, ma'am, that we
couldn't see that till it got daylight."
'• True," she said, and though vexed at
first she had too much sense to blame
them long or seriously for a devotion to
her that was as valuable as it was rare.
She added with a very pretty grace,
"Well, I really thank you heartily for
taking all this trouble ; but I wish you
had borrowed anybody's horses but Mr.
Boldwood's."
" Dainty is lame, miss," said Coggan.
" Can you go on ? "
" It was only a stone in her shoe. I
dismounted and pulled it out a hundred
yards back. I can manage very well,
thank you. I shall be in Bath by day-
light. Will you now return, please ? "
She turned her head — the gateman's
candle shimmering upon her quick, clear
eyes as she did so — passed through the
gate, and was soon wrapped in the em-
bowering shades of mysterious summer
boughs. Coggan and Gabriel put about
their horses, and, fanned by the velvety
air of this July night, retraced the road
by which they had come.
" A strange vagary, this of hers, isn't
it. Oak ? " said Coggan, curiously.
" Yes," said Gabriel, shortly. " Coggan,
suppose we keep this night's work as
quiet as we can ? "
" I am of one and the same mind."
" Very well. We shall be home by
three o'clock or so, and can creep into
the parish like lambs."
304
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
Bathsheba's perturbed meditations by
the roadside had ultimately evolved a
conclusion that there were only two
remedies for the present desperate state
of affairs. The firsf was merely to keep
Troy away from Weatherbury till Bold-
wood's indignation had cooled; the sec-
ond to listen to Oak's entreaties, and
Boldwood's denunciations, and give up
Troy altogether.
Alas! Could she give up this new
love — induce him to renounce her by
saying she did not like him — could no
more speak to him, and beg him, for her
good, to end his furlough in Bath, and see
her and Weatherbury no more ?
It was a picture full of misery, but for
a while she contemplated it firmly, allow-
ing herself, nevertheless, as girls will, to
dwell upon the happy life she would have
enjoyed had Troy been Boldwood, and
the path of love the path of duty — in-
flicting upon herself gratuitous tortures
by imagining him the lover of another
woman, after forgetting her ; for she had
penetrated Troy's nature so far as to
estimate his tendencies pretty accurately,
but unfortunately loved him no less in
thinking that he might soon cease to love
her — indeed considerably more.
She jumped to her feet. She would
see him at once. Yes, she would implore
him by word of mouth to assist her in
the dilemma. A letter to keep him away
could not reach him in time, even if he
should be disposed to listen to it.
Was Bathsheba altogether blind to the
obvious fact that the support of a lover's
arms is not of a kind best calculated to
assist a resolve to renounce him ? Or
was she sophistically sensible, with a
thrill of pleasure, that by adopting this
course of getting rid of him she was en-
suring a meeting with him, at any rate
once more ?
It was now dark, and the hour must
have been nearly ten. The only way to
accomplish her purpose was to give up
the idea of visiting Liddy at Yalbury, re-
turn to Weatherbury Farm, put the horse
into the gig, and drive at once to Bath.
The scheme seemed at first impossible :
the journey was a fearfully heavy one,
even for a strong horse ; it was most ven-
turesome for a woman, at night, and
alone.
But could she
leave things to
no, anything but that. Bathsheba was
full of a stimulating turbulence, beside
which caution vainly prayed for a hgar-
go on to Liddy's and
take their course ? No,
ing. She turned back towards the vil-
lage.
Her walk was slow, for she wished not
to enter Weatherbury till the cottagers
were in bed, and, particularly till Bold-
wood was secure. Her plan was now to
drive to Bath during the night, see Ser-
geant Troy in the morning before he set
out to come to her, bid him farewell, and
dismiss him : then to rest the horse thor-
oughly (herself to weep the while, she
thought), starting early the next morning
on her return journey. By this arrange-
ment she could trot Dainty gently all the
day, reach Liddy at Yalbury in the even-
ing, and come home to Weatherbury with
her whenever they chose — so nobody
would know that she had been to Bath at
all.
This idea she proceeded to carry out,
with what success we have already seen.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
IN THE SUN : A HARBINGER.
A WEEK passed, and there were no
tidings of Bathsheba ; nor was there any
explanation of her Gilpin's rig.
Then a note came for Maryann, stating
that the business which had called her
mistress to Bath still detained her there ;
but that she hoped to return in the course
of another week.
Another week passed. The oat-har-
vest began, and all the men were afield
under a monochromatic Lammas sky,
amid the trembling air and short shadows
of noon. In-doors nothing was to be
heard save the droning of blue-bottle flies ;
out-of-doors the whetting of scythes and
the hiss of tressy oat-ears rubbing to-
gether as their perpendicular stalks of
amber-yellow fell heavily to each swath.
Every drop of moisture not in the men's
bottles and flagons in the form of cider
was raining as perspiration from their
foreheads and cheeks. Drought was
everywhere else.
They were about to withdraw for a
while into the charitable shade of a tree
in the fence, when Coggan saw a figure
in a blue coat and brass buttons run-
ning to them across the field.
" I wonder who that is ? " he said.
" I hope nothing is wrong about mis-
tress," said Maryann, who with some
other women were tying the bundles
(oats being always sheafed on this farm),
"but an unlucky token came to me in-
doors this morning. I went to unlock
the door and dropped the key, and it fell
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
305
upon the stone floor and broke into two
pieces. Breaking a key is a dreadful
bodement. I wish mis'ess was home."
"'Tis Cain Ball," said Gabriel, pausing
from whetting his reaphook.
Oak was not bound by his agreement
to assist in the corn-field ; but the har-
vest-month is an anxious time for a
farmer, and the corn was Bathsheba's,
so he lent a hand.
" He's dressed up in his best clothes,"
said Matthew Moon. " He hev been
away from home for a few days, since
he's had that felon upon his finger ; for
a' said, since I can't work I'll have a
hollerday."
"A good time for one — an excellent
time," said Joseph Poorgrass, straighten-
ing his back ; for he, like some of the
others, had a way of resting a while from
his labour on such hot days for reasons
preternaturally small ; of which Cain
Ball's advent on a week-day in his Sun-
day clothes was one of the first magni-
tude. '"Twas a bad leg allowed me to
read the Pilgrim'' s Progress, and Mark
Clark learnt All-Fours in a whitlow."
" Ay, and my father put his arm out of
joint to have time to go courting," said
Jan Coggan in an eclipsing tone, wiping
his face with his shirt-sleeve and thrust-
ing back his hat upon the nape of his
neck.
By this time Cainy was nearing the
group of harvesters, and was perceived
to be carrying a large slice of bread and
ham in one hand, from which he took
mouthtuls as he ran, the other hand being
wrapped in a bandage. When he came
close, his mouth assumed the bell shape,
and he began to cough violently.
" Now, Cainy !" said Gabriel, sternly.
" How many more times must I tell you
to keep from running so fast when you
are eating ? You'll choke yourself some
day, that's what you'll do, Cain Ball."
" Hok-hok-hok ! " replied Cain. "A
crumb of my victuals went the wrong
way — hok-hok ! That's what 'tis. Mis-
ter 0-ik ! And I've been visiting to Bath
because I had a felon on my thumb ;
yes, and I've seen — ahok-hok ! "
Directly Cain mentioned Bath, they all
threw down their hooks and forks and
drew round him. Unfortunately the er-
ratic crumb did not improve his narrative
powers, and a supplementary hindrance
was that of a sneeze, jerking from his
pocket his rather large watch, which dan-
gled in front of the young man pendu-
lum-wise.
" Yes," he continued, directing his
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 332
thoughts to Bath and letting his eyes fol-
low, "I've seed the world at last — yes
— and I've seed our missis — ahok-hok-
hok ! "
" Bother the boy ! " said Gabriel.
" Something is always going the wrong
way down your throat, so that you can't
tell what's necessary to be told."
" Ahok ! there ! Please, Mister Oak, a
gnat have just flewed into my stomach,
and brought the cough on again ! "
" Yes, that's just it. Your mouth is
always open, you young rascal."
" 'Tis terrible bad to have a gnat fly
down yer throat, pore boy ! " said Mat-
thew Moon.
" Well, at Bath you saw " — prompted
Gabriel.
" I saw our mistress," continued the
junior shepherd, "and a soldier, walking
along. And bymeby they got closer and
closer, and then they went arm-in-crook,
like courting complete — hok-hok! like
courting complete — hok ! — courting
complete " Losing the thread of
his narrative at this point simultaneously
with his loss of breath, their informant
looked up and down the field apparently
for some clue to it. " Well, I see our
mis'ess and a soldier — a-ha-a-wk ! "
" D- the boy ! " said Gabriel.
"'Tis only my manner, Mister Oak, if
ye'll excuse it," said Cain Ball, looking
reproachfully at Oak, with eyes drenched
in their own dew.
"Here's some cider for him — that'll
cure his throat," said Jan Coggan, lifting
a flagon of cider, pulling out the cork, and
applying the hole to Cainy's mouth ;
Joseph Poorgrass, in the meantime, be*-
ginning to think apprehensively of the
serious consequences that would follow
Cainy BalKs strangulation in his cough,
and the history of his Bath adventure
dying with him.
" For my poor self, I always say
'please God,' afore I do anything," said
Joseph, in an unboastful voice ; " and so
' should you, Cain Ball. 'Tis a great safe-
guard, and might perhaps save you from
being choked to death some day."
Mr. Coggan poured the liquor with un-
stinted liberality at the suffering Cain's
circular mouth ; half of it running down
the side of the flagon, and half of what
reached his mouth running down outside
his throat, and half of what ran in going
the wrong way, and being coughed and
sneezed around the persons of the gath-
ered reapers in the form of a rarefied
cider fog, which for a moment hung in
the sunny air like a small exhalation.
3o6
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
" There's a great clumsy sneeze ! Why
can't ye have better manners, you young
said
Coggan,
withdrawing
the
dog ! "
flagon
" The cider went up my nose ! " cried
Cainy, as soon as he could speak ; "and
now 'tis gone down my neck, and into
tny poor dumb felon, and over my shiny
buttons and all my best cloze ! "
" The pore lad's cough is terrible un-
fortunate," said Matthew Moon. "And
a great history on hand, too. Bump his
back, shepherd."
" 'Tis my natur," mourned Cain.
" Mother says I always was so excitable
when my feelings were worked up to a
point."
" True, true," said Joseph Poorgrass.
"The Balls were always a very excitable
family. I knowed the boy's grandfather
— a truly nervous and modest man, even
to genteel refinement. 'Twas blush,
blusii with him, almost as much as 'tis
with me — not but that 'tis a fault in
me."
" Not at all, Master Poorgrass," said
Coggan. " 'Tis a very noble quality in
ye."
" Heh-heh ! well, I wish to noise noth-
ing abroad — nothing at all," murmured
Poorgrass diffidently. " But we are born
to things — that's true. Yet I would
rather my trifle were hid ; though, per-
haps, a high nature is a little high, and at
■my birth all things were possible to my
Maker and he may have begrudged no
gifts. . . . But under your bushel, Jo-
seph ! under your bushel with you ! A
strange desire, neighbours, this desire
.to hide, and no praise due. Yet there is
a Sermon on the Mount with a calendar
<of the blessed at the head, and certain
meek men may be named therein."
" Cainy's grandfather was a very clever
man," said Matthew Moon. " Invented
a apple-tree out of his own head, which is
called by his name to this day — the
Early Ball. You know 'em, Jan ? A
Quarrington grafted on a Tom Putt, and
a Rathe-ripe upon top o' that again.
'Tis trew a' used to bide about in a pub-
lic-house in a way he had no business to
by rights, but there — 'a were a very
clever man in the sense of the term."
" Now, then," said Gabriel impatiently,
" what did you see, Cain ? "
" I seed our mis'ess go into a sort of
a park place, where there's seats, and
shrubs, and flowers, arm-in-crook with a
soldier," continued Cainy firmly, and
with a dim sense that his words were
very effective as regarded Gabriel's emo-
tions. "And I
Sergeant Troy.
gether for more
think the soldier was
And they sat there to-
than half-an-hour, talk-
mg moving things, and she once was
crying almost to death. And when thev
came out her eyes were shining and she
was as white as a lily ; and they looked
into one another's faces, as desperately
friendly as a man and woman can be."
" Gabriel's features seemed to get
thinner. "Well, what did you see be-
sides ?"
" Oh, all sorts."
" White as a lily ? You are sure 'twas
she ? "
" Yes."
"Well, what besides ?"
" Great glass windows in the shops,
and great clouds in the sky, full of rain,
and old wooden trees in the country
round."
" You stun-poll ! What will ye say
next ! " said Coggan.
" Let en alone," interposed Joseph
Poorgrass. "The boy's maning is that
the sky and the earth in the kingdom of
Bath is not altogether different from ours
here. 'Tis for our good to gain knowl-
edge of strange cities, and as such the
boy's words should be suffered, so to
speak it."
" And the people of Bath," continued
Cain, "never need to light their fires ex-
cept as a luxury, for the water springs
up out of the earth ready boiled for use."
"'Tis true as the light," testified Mat-
thew Moon. " I've heard other naviga-
tors say the same thing."
" They drink nothing else there," said
Cain, "and seem to enjoy it, to see how
they s waller it down.''
"Well, it seems a barbarous practice
enough to us, but I daresay the natives
think nothing of it," said Matthew.
" And don't victuals spring up as wel
as drink ? " asked Coggan, twirling hi:
eye.
" No — I own to a blot there in Bath -
a true blot. God didn't provide 'em witl
victuals as well as drink, and 'twas
drawback I couldn't get over at all."
"Well 'tis a curious place, to say
least," observed Moon ; " and it must
a curious people that live therein."
" Miss Everdene and the soldier
walking about together, you say?"
Gabriel, returning to the group.
" Ay, and she wore a beautiful gol
colour silk gown, trimmed with blac
lace, that would have stood alone witho
inside if required. 'Twas a ve
th
St b .
I
legs
winsome sight
and her hair was brus
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
307
splendid. And when the sun shone upon
the bright gown and his red coat — my!
how handsome they looked. You could
see 'em all the length of the street."
" And then what ? " murmured Gabriel.
" And then I went into Griffin's to have
my boots hobbed, and then I went to
Ri'ggy's batty-cake shop, and asked 'em
for a penneth of the cheapest and nicest
stales, that were all but blue-mouldy but
not quite. And whilst I was chawing
'em down I walked on and seed a clock
with a face as big as a baking-trendle — "
" But that's, nothing to do with mis-
tress ! "
" I'm coming to that, if you'll leave me
alone. Mister Oak ! " remonstrated Cainy.
" If you excites me, perhaps you'll bring
on my cough, and then I shan't be able
to tell ye nothing."
"Yes — let him tell it his own way,"
said Coggan.
Gabriel settled into a despairing atti-
tude of patience, and Cainy went on : —
" And there were great large houses,
and more people all the week long than
at Weatherbury club-walking on White
Tuesdays. And I went to grand church-
es and chapels. And how the parson
would pray ! Yes, he would kneel down,
and put up his hands together, and make
the holy gold rings on his fingers gleam
and twinkle in yer eyes, that he'd earned
by praying so excellent well ! — ^ Ah yes, I
wish I lived there."
"Our poor Parson Thirdly can't get no
money to buy such rings," said Matthew
Moon thoughtfully. •" And as good a man
as ever walked. I don't believe poor
Thirdly have a single one, even of hum-
blest tin or copper. Such a great orna-
ment as they'd be to him on a dull after-
noon, when he's up in the pulpit lighted
by the wax candles ! But 'tis impossible,
poor man. Ah, to think how unequal
things be."
" Perhaps he's made of different stuff
than to wear 'em," said Gabriel, grimly.
" Well, that's enough of this. Go on,
Cainy — quick."
"Oh — and the new style of parsons
wear moustaches and long beards," con-
tinued the illustrious traveller, "and look
like Moses and Aaron complete, and
make we fokes in the congregation feel
all over like the children of Israel."
"A very right feeling — very," said
Joseph Poorgrass.
" And there's two religions going on in
the nation now — High Church and High
Chapel. And, thinks I, I'll play fair ; so
him,"
Cog-
I went to High Church in. the
and High Chapel in the afternoon.''
" A right and proper boy," said Joseph
Poorgrass.
" Well, at High Church they pray sing-
ing, and believe in all the colours of the
rainbow ; and at High Chapel they pray
preaching, and believe in drab and white-
wash only. And then — I didn't see' no
more of Miss Everdene at all."
" Why didn't you say so before, then ? "
exclaimed Oak, with much disappoint-
ment.
"Ah," said Matthew Moon, "she'll
wish her cake dough if so be she's over
intimate with that man."
" She's not over intimate with
said Gabriel, indignantly.
" She would know better," said
gan. " Our mis'ess has too much sense
under those knots of black hair to do such
a mad thing."
" You see, he's not a coarse ignorant
man, for he was well brought up," said
Matthew, dubiously. " 'Twas only wild-
ness that made him a soldier, and maids
rather like your man of sin."
" Now, Cain Ball," said Gabriel, rest-
lessly, " can you swear in the most awful
form that the woman you saw was Miss
Everdene ? "
" Cain Ball, you are no longer a babe
and suckling," said Joseph in the sepul-
chral tone the circumstances demanded,
"and you know what taking an oath is.
'Tis a horrible testament, mind ye, which
you say and seal with your blood-stone,
and the prophet Matthew tells us that on
whomsoever it shall fall it will grind him
to powder. Now, before all the work-
folk here assembled can you swear to
your word as the shepherd asks ye .'' "
" Please no. Mister Oak ! " said Cainy,
looking from one to the other with great
uneasiness at the spiritual magnitude of
the position. " I don't mind saying 'tis
true, but I don't like to say 'tis d
true, if that's what you mane."
" Cain, Cain, how can you ! " said Jo-
seph sternly. " You are asked to swear
in a holy manner, and you swear like
wicked Shimei, the son of Gera, who
cursed as he came. Young man, fie ! "
" No, I don't ! 'Tis you want to squan-
der a poor boy's soul, Joseph Poorgrass
— that's what 'tis ! "said Cain, beginning
to cry. "All I mane is that in common
truth 'twas Miss Everdene and Sergeant
Troy, but in the horrible so-help-me
truth that ye want to make of it perhaps
'twas somebody else."
3o8
THE CONVENT OF SAN MAPXO.
" There's no getting at the rights of it,"
said Gabriel, turning to his work.
" Cain Ball, you'll come to a bit of
bread ! " groaned Joseph Poorgrass.
Then the reapers' hooks were flourished
again, and the old sounds went on. Ga-
briel, without making any pretence of
being lively, did nothing to show that he
was particularly dull. However, Coggan
knew pretty nearly how the land lay,"and
when they were in a nook together he
said —
" Don't take on about her, Gabriel.
What difference does it make whose
sweetheart she is, since she can't be
yours ? "
" That's the very thing I say to my-
self," said Gabriel.
From Macmillan's Magazine.
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
— The Painter.
Among all the many historical places,
sacred by right of the feet that have trod-
den them, and the thoughts that have
taken origin within them, which attract the
spectator in the storied city of Florence,
there is not one, perhaps, more interest-
ing or attractive than the convent of St.
Mark, now, by a necessity of state which
some approve and some condemn,
emptied of its traditionary inhabitants.
No black and white monk now bars
smilingly to profane feminine feet the
entrance to the sunny cloister : no breth-
ren of Saint Dominic inhabit the hushed
and empty cells. Chapter-house, refec-
tory, library, all lie vacant and open — a
museum for the state — a blank piece of
public property, open to any chance
comer. It would be churlish to complain
of a freedom which makes so interesting
a place known to the many ; but it is
almost impossible not to regret the entire
disappearance of the old possessors, the
preachers of many a fervent age, the elo-
quent Order which in this very cloister
produced so great an example of the
orator's undying power. Savonarola's
convent, we cannot but feel, might have
been one of the few spared by the exi-
gencies of public poverty, that most
strenuous of all reformers. On this
point, however, whatever may be the
stranger's regrets, Italy of course must
be the the final judge, as we have all
been in our day ; and Italy has at least
the grace of accepting her position as
art-guardian and custodian of the pre-
cious things of the past, a point in which
other nations of the world have been less
careful. San Marco is empty, swept, and
garnished ; but at least it is left in per-
fect good order, and watched over as
becomes its importance in the history of
Florence and in that of Art. What stirr-
ing scenes, and what still ones, these old
walls have seen, disguising their antiqui-
ty as they do — but as scarcely any build-
ing of their date could do in England —
by the harmony of everything around,
the homogeneous character of the town !
It would be affectation for any observer
brought up in the faith, and bred in ihe
atmosphere, of Gothic art, to pretend to
any admiration of the external aspect
of the ordinary Italian basilica. There is
nothing in these buildings except their
associations, and sometimes the wealth
and splendour of their decorations, picto-
rial or otherwise, to charm or impress
eyes accustomed to Westminster and
Notre Dame. The white convent walls
shutting in everything that is remarkable
within, in straight lines of blank inclo-
sure, are scarcely less interesting outside
than is the lofty gable-end which forms
thefagade of most churches in Florence,
whether clothed in shining lines of mar-
ble or rugged coat of plaster. The
church of San Marco has not even the
distinction of this superficial splendour
or squalor. It does not appeal to the
sympathy of the beholder, as so many
Florentine churches did a few years
ago, and as the cathedral still does with
its stripped and unsightly fagade ; but
stands fast in respectable completeness,
looking out upon a sunshiny square,
arranged into the smooth prettiness of a
very ordinary garden by the new spirit of
good order which has come upon Italy.
It is difficult, in sight of the shrubs, and
flowers, and grass-plats, the peaceable
ordinary houses around, to realize that it
was here that Savonarola preached to
excited crowds, filling up every morsel of
standing-ground ; and that these homeh
convent walls, white and blank in the sun
shine, were once beseiged by mad Flor
ence, wildly seeking the blood of t\u
prophet who had not given it the miracle
it sought. The place is as still now a."
monotonous peace and calm can make it
Some wrecks of faded pictures keep thai
places upon the walls, the priests chan
their monotonous masses, the bad orgai
plays worse music — though this is mel
dious Italy, the country of song ; and tl
only thing that touches the heart in tl^
historical place is a sight that is commd
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
309
in every parish church throughout ahuost
all Catholic countries, at least through-
out all Italy — the sight of the handful
of homely people who in the midst of
their work come in to say their prayers,
or having a little leisure, sit down and
muse in the soft and consecrated silence.
I think no gorgeous funzione^ no Pon-
tifical High Mass, is half so affecting.
Their faces are towards the altar, but
nothing is doing there. What are they
about ? Not recalling the associations of
the place, thinking of Savonarola, as we
are ; but musing upon what is far more
close and intimate, their own daily trials
and temptations, their difficulties, their
anxieties. The coolness and dimness of
the place, a refuge from the blazing sun
without, now and then a monotonous
chanting, or the little tinkle of the bell
which rouses them from their thoughts for
a moment, and bids every beholder bend a
reverend knee in sympathy with what is
o-oing on somewhere behind those dim
pillars — some Low Mass in an unseen
chapel — all this forms a fit atmosphere
around those musing souls. And that
is the most interesting sight that is to be
seen in San Marco, though the strangers
who come from afar to visit Savonarola's
church and dwelling-place stray about the
side chapels and gaze at the pictures, and
take little enough note of the unpictu-
eresque devotion of to-day.
The history of the remarkable convent
and church which has thus fallen into the
blank uses of a museum on the one hand,
and the commonplace routine of a parish
on the other, has long ceased to be great ;
all that was most notable in it indeed —
its virtual foundation, or rebuilding, when
transferred to the Dominican order, its
decoration, its tragic climax of power
and closely following downfall — were all
summed up within the fifteenth century.
But it is one of the great charms of the
storied cities of Italy that they make the
fifteenth century (not to speak of ages
still more remote) as yesterday to the
spectator, placing him with a loving
sympathy in the very heart of the past.
I need not enter into the story of the
events which gained to the Dominican
order possession of San Marco, originally
the property of an order of Silvestrini ;
but may sum them up here, in a few
words. For various reasons, partly moral,
partly political, a community of Domini-
cans had been banished to Fiesole, where
they lived and longed for years, gazing at
their Florence from amons: the olive gar-
dens, and
settmg
naught
by all these
rural riches, and by the lovely prospect
that enchanted their eyes daily, in com-
parison with the happiness of getting
back again to their beloved town. The
vicissitudes of their exile, and the con-
nection of the brotherhood with the spe-
cial tumults of the time may all be found
in Padre Marchese's great work, " San
Marco Illustrato," but are at once too
detailed and too vague to be followed
here. In process of time they were al-
lowed to descend the hill to San Giorgio
on the other side of the Arno, which was
still a partial banishment ; and at last
regained popularity and influence so
completely that the naughty Silvestrini
were compelled to relinquish their larger
house, and marched out of San Marco
aggrieved and reluctant across the bridge,
while the Reformed Dominicans, with
joyful chanting of psalms, streamed across
in procession to the new home, which
was not only a commodious habitation,
but a prize of virtue. Perhaps this kind
of transfer was not exactly the wav to
make the brethren love each other ; but
history says nothing more of the Silves-
trini. The Dominicans do not seem to
have had, immediately at least, so pleas-
ant a removing as they hoped, for their
new convent was dilapidated, and scarcely
inhabitable. Cosmo de Medici, the first
great chief of that ambitious family, the
wily and wise founder of its fortunes, the
Pater Patriae, whom Florence not long
before had summoned back to guide and
rule the turbulent city, took the case of
the monks in hand. He rebuilt their
convent for them, while they encamped
in huts and watched over the work. And
when it was so far completed as to be
habitable, royal Cosmo gave a commis-
sion to a certain monk among them
skilled in such work, to decorate with
pictures the new walls. These decora-
tions, and the gentle, simple, uneventful
life of this monk and his brethren, fur-
nish a soft prelude to the stormy strain
of further story of which San Marco was
to be the subject. Its period of fame
and greatness, destined to conclude in
thunders of excommunication, in more
tangible thunders of assault and siege, in
popular violence, tragic anguish, and de-
struction, began thus with flutings of
angels, with soft triumphs of art, with
such serene, sweet quiet, and beautiful
industry, as may be exercised, who knows,
in the outer courts of heaven itself. A
stranger introduction to the passion and
struggle of Savonarola's prophetic career
could scarcely be, than that which is con-
310
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
tained in this gentle chapter of conven-
tual existence, at its fairest and brightest,
which no one can ignore who steps across
the storied threshold of San Marco, and
is led to the grave silence of Prior Giro-
lamo's cell between two lines of walls
from which soft faces look at him like
benedictions, fresh (or so it seems) from
Angelico's tender hand.
The painter whom we know by this
name, which is not his name any more
than it is the name of the Angelical doc-
tor, St. Thomas Aquinas, or the Angeli-
cal father. Saint Francis, was born in the
neighbourhood of Florence, in (as Padre
Marchese describes it) the fertile and fair
province of Mugello — in the latter part
of the fourteenth century. His name was
Guido di Pietro ; Guido, the son of Peter
— evidently not with any further dis-
tinction of lineage. Where he studied
his divine art, or by whom he was taught,
is not known. Vasari suggests that he
was a pupil of Stamina, and Eyre and
Cavalcaselle imagine that more likely the
Stamina traditions came to him through
Masolino or Masaccio, and that he formed
his style upon that of Orcagna. These,
however, do not seem much more than
conjectures, and the only facts known of
his simple history are that in 1407, when
he was twenty, his brother and he, taking
the names of Benedetto and Giovanni,
together entered the Dominican order in
the convent at Fiesole. This community
had a troubled life for some years, and
the young disciples were sent to Cortona,
where there are various pictures which
testify to the fact that Fra Giovanni was
already a painter of no mean power. All
the dates however of this early part of
his life are confused, and the story un-
certain ; for indeed it is probable no one
knew that the young monk was to be-
come the Angelican painter, the glory of
his convent, and one of the wonders of
his age. What is certain, however, is,
that he returned from Cortona, and lived
for many years in the convent of San
Dominico, half way up to Fiesole, upon
the sunny slopes where nothing ventures
to grow that does not bear fruit ; where
flowers are weeds, and roses form the
hedges, and the lovely cloudy foliage of
the olive affords both 'shade and wealth.
There is not very much record of the
painter in all those silent cloistered years.
Books which he is said to have illumi-
nated with exquisite grace and skill are
doubtfully appropriated by critics to his
brother or to humbler workers of their
school, and the few pictures which seem
to belong to this period have been injured
in some cases, and in others destroyed.
Fra Giovanni performed all his monastic
duties with the devotion of the humblest
brother; and lived little known, without
troubling himself about fame, watching
no doubt the nightly sunsets and moon-
rises over that glorious Val d'Arno which
shone and slumbered at his feet, and
noting silently how the mountain watch-
ers stood roundabout, and the little Tus-
can hills on a closer level stretched their
vine garlands like hands each to the
other, and drew near, a wistful friendly
band, to see what Florence was doing.
Florence, heart and soul of all, lay under
him, as he took his moonlight meditative
stroll on the terrace or gazed and mused
out of his narrow window. One can
fancy that the composition of that lovely
landscape stole into the painter's eye and
worked itself into his works, in almost
all of which some group of reverent spec-
tators, Dominican brethren with rapt
faces, or saintly women, or angel lookers-
on more ethereal still, stand by and watch
with adoring awe the sacred mysteries
transacted in their presence, with some-
thing of the same deep calm and hush
which breathes about the blue spectator
heights round the City of Flowers.
What Fra Giovanni saw was not what we
see. No noble dome had yet crowned
the Cathedral, and Giotto's Campanile,
divinely tall, fair and light as a lily stalk,
had not yet thrown itself up into mid air ;
nothing but the rugged grace of the old
Tower of the Signoria — contrasting now
in picturesque characteristic Tuscan hu-
manity with the more heavenly creations
that rival it — raised up then its protect-
ing standard from the lower level of an-
cient domes and lofty houses, soaring
above the B-irgello and the Badia, in the
days of the Angelical painter. But there
was enough in this, with all its summer
hazes and wintry brightness, with the
shadows that flit over the wide landscape
like some divine breath, and the bro id,
dazzling, rejoicing glow of the Italian
sun, and Arno glimmering througli the
midst like a silver thread, and white c:is-
tellos shining further and further off in
the blue distance up to the very skirt of
Apennine, to inspire his genius. In
those days men said little about N.iture,
and did not even love her, the criiics
think — rather had to find out how to
love her, when modern civilization came
to teach them how. But if Fra Giov.ini^B
j pacing his solitary walk upon that mou^P
of vision at San Dominico, evening after
i
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
31 r
evenino^, year after year, did not note
those lights and shades and atmospheric
changes, and lay up in his still soul a
hundred variations of sweet colour, soft
glooms, and heavenly shadows, then it is
hard to think where he got his lore, and
harder still that Heaven should be so
prodigal of a training which was not put
to use. Heaven is still prodigal, and na-
ture tints her pallet with as many hues
as ever ; but there is no Angelical paint-
er at the windows of San Dominico to
take advantage of them now.
The Florence to which these monks
were so eager to return, and where event-
ually they came, carrying their treasures
in procession, making the narrow hill-
side ways resound with psalms, and wind-
ing in long trains of black and white
through the streets of their regained
home — was at that time, amid all its
other tumults and agitations (and these
were neither few nor light), in the full
possession of that art-culture which
lasted as long as there was genius to keep
it up, and which has made the city now
one of the treasuries of the world. The
advent of a new painter was still some-
thing to stir the minds of a people who
had not so many ages before called one of
their streets " AUegri," because of the
joy and pride of the town over Cimabue's
sad Madonna. There is little evidence,
however, that Florence knew much of the
monk's work, who, as yet, was chiefly
distinguished, it would seem, as a minia-
turist and painter of beautiful manu-
scripts. But wily Cosmo, the father of
his country, could have done few things
more popular, and likely to enhance his
reputation, than his liberality in thus en-
couraging and developing another genius
for the delight and credit of the city. Al-
most before the cloister was finished,
historians suppose, Fra Giovanni had got
his hands on the smooth white wall, so
delightful to a painter's imagination. We
do not pretend to determine the succes-
sion of his work, and say where he be-
gan ; but it is to be supposed that the
cloister and chapter-house, as first com-
pleted, would afford him his first oppor-
tunity. No doubt there were many min-
gled motives in that noble and fine eager-
ness to decorate and make beautiful their
homes which possessed the minds of the
men of that gorgeous age, whether in the
world or the church. For the glory of
God, for the glory of the convent and
order, for the glory of Florence, which
every Florentine sought with almost more
than patriotic ardour — the passion of
patriotism gaining, as it were, in intensity
when circumscribed in the extent of its
object — the monks of San Marco must
have felt a glow of generous pride in
their growing gallery of unique and origi-
nal pictures. The artist himself, how-
ever, worked with a simple unity of mo-
tive, little known either in that or any
other age. He painted his pictures as he
said his prayers, out of pure devotion.
So far as we are informed, Fra Giovanni,
of the order of Preachers, was no preach-
er by word or doctrine. He had another
way of edifying the holy and convincing
the sinner. He could not argue or ex-
hort, but he could set before them the
sweetest heaven that ever appeared to
poetic vision, the tenderest friendly an-
gels, the gentlest and loveliest of virgin
mothers. Neither profit nor glory came
to the monk in his convent. He began
his work on his knees, appealing to his
God for the inspiration that so great an
undertaking required, and — carrying with
him the ddfauts de ses qualites^ as all
men of primitive virtue do — declined
with gentle obstinacy to make any change
or improvement after, in the works thus
conceived under the influence of Heaven.
While he was engaged in painting a cru-
cifix, Vasari tells us the tears would run
down his cheeks, in his vivid realization
of the Divine suffering therein expressed.
Thus it was with the full fervour of a man
who feels himself at last entered upon
the true mission of his life, and able,
once and for all, to preach in the most
acceptable way the truth that had been
dumb within him, that the Angelical
painter began his work. The soft and
heavenly inspiration in it has never been
questioned, and the mind of the looker-
on, after these long centuries, can
scarcely help expanding with a thrill of
human sympathy to realize the profound
and tender satisfaction of that gentle
soul, thus enabled to paint his best, to
preach his best, in the way God had en-
dowed him for, with the additional happi-
ness and favour of high heaven, that his
lovely visions were to be the inheritance
of his brethren and sons in the Church,
the Only succession an ecclesiastic could
hope for.
It would appear, however, that the in-
terior of San Marco must have been so
soon ready for Fra Giovanni's beautifying
hand, that he had but little time to ex-
pend himself on the cloisters which are
now bright with the works of inferior
artists. It would be difficult to convey tc/
any one who has not stood within an Ital-
312
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
ian cloister, and felt the warm brightness
of the pictured walls cheer his eyes and
his heart, even when the painters have
not been great, or the works ver)' re-
markable— the special charm and sweet-
ness of those frescoed decorations. The
outer cloister of San Marco glows with
pictures — not very fine, perhaps, yet
with an interest of their own. There the
stranger who has time, or cares to look at
the illustrations of a past age, may read
the story of Saint Antonino, who was
distinguished as the good Archbishop of
Florence, and canonized accordingly, to
the great glory of his order, and honour
of his convent. But Antonino himself
was one of the brethren who stood by
and watched and admired Fra Giovanni's
work on the new walls. Was the first of
all, perhaps, that crucifix which faces the
spectator as he enters, at the end of the
cloister, double expression of devotion to
Christ crucified and Dominic his ser-
vant ? It is the most important of An-
gelico's works in this outer inclosure.
Our gentle painter could not paint agony
or the passion of suffering, which was
alien to his heavenly nature. The figure
on the cross, here as elsewhere, is beau-
tiful in youthful resignation and patience,
no suffering Son of God, but a celestial
symbol of depths into which the painter
could not penetrate ; but the kneeling
figure, in the black and white robes of
the order, which clasps the cross in a
rapt embrace, and raises a face of earnest
and all-absorbing worship to the Divine
Sufferer, embodies the whole tradition of
monastic life in its best aspect. No son
of St. Dominic could look at that rapt
figure without a clearer sense of the utter
self-devotion required of himself as
Dominic's follower, the annihilation of
every lesser motive and lesser contempla-
tion than that of the great sacrifice of
Christianity — example and consecration
of all sacrifices, which his vow bound
him to follow and muse upon all his life
through. This picture fills something of
the same place as the blazon of a knightly
house over its warlike gates is meant to
do. It is the tradition, the glory, the
meaning of the order all in one, as seen
by Angelico's beauty-loving eyes, as well
as by those stern, glowing eyes of Sa-
vonarola, who was to come ; and perhaps
even in their dull, ferocious, mistaken
way by the Torquemados, who have
brought St. Dominic to evil fame. For
•Christ, and Christ alone, counting no
•cost ; thinking of nothing but conquering
•the world for Him ; conceiving of no ad-
vance but by the spreading of His king-
dom — yet, alas ! with only every indi-
vidual's narrow human notion of what
that kingdom was, and which the way of
spreading it. In Florence, happily, at
that moment, the Reformed Dominicans,
in the warmth of their revival, could ac-
cept the blazon of their Order thus set
forth with all their hearts. They had re-
newed their dedication of themselves to
that perpetual preaching of Christ's sacri-
fice and imitation of His self-renuncia-
tion, which was the highest meaning of
their vows ; and no doubt each obscure
father, each musing humble novice in his
white gown felt a glow of rapt enthusi-
asm as he watched the new picture grow
into life, and found in the absorbed face
of the holy founder of his Order, at once
the inspiration and reflection of his own.
The other little pictures in this cloister
which are pure Angelico are entirely con-
ventual, addressed to the brethren, as
was natural in this, the centre of their
common existence. Peter Martyr, one of
their most distinguished saints, stands
over one doorway, finger on lip suggest-
ing the silence that befitted a grave com-
munity devoted to the highest studies
and reflections. Over another door are
two Dominican brethren, receiving (it is
the guest-chamber of the monastery) the
Redeemer Himself, worn with travel,
to their hospitable shelter. Curiously
enough, the beautiful, gentle, young trav-
eller, with his pilgrim's hat falling from
his golden curls, which is the best repre-
sentation our gentle Angelico could make
— always angelical, like his name — of
the Lord of life, might almost have
served as model for that other beautiful,
gentle, young peasant Christ, whom an-
other great painter, late in this nine-
teenth century, has given forth to us as
all he knows of the central figure of the
world's history. Mr. Holman Hunt has
less excuse than the mild monk whose
very gospel was beauty, for so strange a
failure in conception. To some has been
given the power to make Christ, to others
contadini, as the two rival sculptors said
to each other. Angelico rarely advances
above this low ideal. His angels are
lovely beyond description ; he under-
stood the unity of a creature more ethe-
real than flesh and blood, yet made up
of soft submission, obedience, devoted-
ness — beautiful human qualities; but
the contact of the human with the di-
vine was beyond him — as, indeed,
might be said of most painters. There
can be little doubt that this difficulty of
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
3^3
representing anything that could satisfy
the mind as God in the aspect of full-
grown man, has helped more than any-
thing else to give to the group of the
Mother and the Child such universal ac-
ceptance in the realms of art — a pic-
torial necessity thus lending its aid in the
fixing of dogma, and still more in the
unanimous involuntary bias given to de-
votion. The Christ-child has proved
within the powers of many painters ; for,
indeed, there is something of the infinite
in every child — unfathomable possibili-
ties, the boundless charm of the unreali-
ized, in which everything may be, while yet
nothing certainly is. But who has ever
painted the Christ-man ? unless we may
take the pathetic shadow of that sorrow-
ful head in Leonardo's ruined Cenacolo —
the very imperfection of which helps us to
see a certain burdened divinity in its
melancholy lines — for success. Sorely
burdened indeed, and sad to death, is that
countenance, which is the only one we can
think of which bears anything of the dig-
nity of Godhead in the looks of man ; but it
is very different from the beautiful, weak,
fatigued young countryman who is so
often presented to us as the very effigy
of Him who is the King and Saviour of
humanity, as well as the Lamb of God.
Angelico never, or very rarely, got be-
yond this gentle ideal of suffering inno-
cence, enduring with unalterable patience.
Perhaps in his "Scourging" there may
be a gleam of higher meaning, or in that
crowned figure which crowns the humble
mother ; but the type is always the same.
It is curious to note how this incapacity
works. In the great picture in the chap-
ter-house of San Marco, which opens
from this cloister, and is the most import-
ant single work in the convent, the spec-
tator merely glances at the figure on the
cross, which ought to be the centre of the
picture. It really counts for nothing in
the composition. The attendant saints
are wonderfully noble, and full of varied
expression ; but the great act which at-
tracts their gaze is little more than a con-
ventional emblem of that event ; the
Virgin, it is true, swoons at the foot of
the cross, but the spectator sees no rea-
son except a historical one for her swoon,
for the cross itself is faint and secondary,
curiously behind the level of Ambrose,
and Augustine, and Francis, who look up
with faces full of life at that mysterious
abstraction. Underneath that solemn
assembly of fathers and founders — for
almost all are heads of orders, except the
Meuical saints Cosmo and Damian, who
hol-1 their place there in compliment to
the Medici — the monks of San Marco
have deliberated for four centuries.
There, no doubt, Pope Eugenius sat
with the pictured glory over him ; there
Savonarola presided over his followers,
and encouraged himself and them with
revelations and prophecy. If we may
venture to interpose among such historic
memories a scene of loftiest fiction, more
vivid than history — there the Prior of
San Marco received the noble Floren-
tine woman, Romola. The picture sur-
vives everything — long ages of peace,
brief storms of violence in which mo-
ments count for years ; and again the
silent ages — quiet, tranquillity, monot-
ony, tedium. Jerome and Augustine,
Francis and Dominic, with faces more
real than our own, have carried on a per-
petual adoration ever since, and never
drooped or failed.
The new dormitory, which Cosmo, the
father of his country, and his arc/itect,
Michelozzi, built for the monks, does not
seem originally to have been of the char-
acter which we usually assign to a con-
vent. It was one large room, like a ward
in a hospital — like the long chamber in
Eton College — with a row of small
arched windows on either side, each of
which apparently gave a little light and a
limited span of space to the monk whose
bed flanked the window. To decorate
this large, bare room seems to have been
the Angelical painter's next grand piece
of work. Other hands besides his were
engaged upon it. His brother, Fra Be-
nedetto, took some of the subjects in hand
— subjects, alas, passed by now by the
spectator, who takes but little interest
in Benedetto's renderings. How pleas-
ant is the imagination thus conjured up !
The bustling pleased community settling
itself in its new house, arranging its
homely crucifixes, its few books, its
tables for work, parchments and ink and
colours for its illuminated manuscripts,
great branch of monkish industry ; here
an active brother leaving a little room in
the beehive, going out upon the business
of the convent, aiding or watching the
workmen outside ; here a homely Fra
Predicatore meditating in his corner,
with what quiet was possible, his sermon
for next fast or festa ; there, bending
over their work with fine brush and care-
ful eye, the illuminators, the writers,
elaborating their perfect manuscript ;
and all the while — tempting many a
glance, many a criticism, many a whis-
pered communication — the picture going
314
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
on, in which one special brother or other
must have taken a lively, jealous interest,
seeing it was his special corner which
was being thus illustrated ! One won-
ders if the monks were jealous on whose
bit of wall Benedetto worked instead of
Giovanni — or whether there might be a
party in the convent who considered
Giovanni an over-rated brother, and be-
lieved Benedetto to have quite as good a
right to the title of " Angelico ' ? For
their own sakes let us hope it was so,
and that good Fra Benedetto painted
for his own set ; while at the same time
there can be little doubt that the differ-
ence between him and his brother would
be much less strongly marked then than
now. Thus all together the community
carried on its existence. Perhaps a hu-
morous recollection of the hum which
must have reached him as he stood paint-
ing on his little scaffolding, induced the
painter to plan that warning figure of the
martyred Peter over the doorway below,
serious, with finger on his lip ; for it
could scarcely be in human nature that
all those friars with consciences void of
offence, approved of by Pope and people
— a new house built for them, warm with
the light of princely favour ; and the sun-
shine shining in through all those arched
windows, throwing patches of brightness
over the new-laid tiles — and the Floren-
tine air, gay with summer, making merry
like ethereal wine their Tuscan souls —
should have kept silence like melancholy
Trappists of a later degenerate age. To
be a monk in those days was to be a
busy, well-occupied, and useful man, in
no way shut out from nature. I should
like to have stepped into that long room
when the bell called them all forth to
chapel, and noted where Angelico put
down his brush, how the scribe paused
in the midst of a letter, and the illumi-
nator in a gorgeous golden drapery, and
the preacher with a sentence half ended
— and nothing but the patches of sun-
shine, and the idle tools held possession
of the place. No thought then of thun-
ders which should shake all Florence, of
prophecies and prophets ; nothing but
gentle industry, calm work — that calm-
est work which leaves the artist so much
time for genile musing, for growth of
skill, poetic ihoughtfulness. And when
the scaffolding was removed, and another
and another picture fully disclosed in del-
icate sweet freshness of colour — soft
fair faces looking out of the blank wall,
clothing them with good company, with
solace and protection — what a flutter of
pleasure must have stolen through the
brotherhood, what pleasant excitement,
; what critical discussions, fine taste, en-
lightened and superior, against simple
'enthusiasm ! It is almost impossible not
1 to fear that there must have been some
'conflict of feeling between the brother
: who had but a saintly Annunciation, too
j like the public and common property of
'that picture called the "Capo le Scale"
'and him who was blest with the more
striking subject of the "Scourging," so
: quaint and fine ; or him who proudly felt
I himself the possessor of that picturesque
I glimpse into the invisible — the opened
; gates of Limbo, with the father of man-
jkind pressing to the Saviour's feet.
I Happy monks, busy and peaceable ! half
j of them no doubt at heart believed that
j his own beautiful page, decked by many
a gorgeous king and golden saint, would
last as long as the picture ; and so they
have done, as you may see in the glass-
cases in the library, where all those lovely
chorales and books of prayer are pre-
served ; but not like Angelico. There is
one glory of the sun, and another glory
of the stars.
It does not seem to be known at what
time this large dormitory was divided, as
we see it now, in a manner which scill
more closely recalls to us the boys' rooms
in a good " house " in Eton, into' separate
cells. No doubt it is more dignified,
more conventual, more likely to have pro-
moted the serious quiet which ought to
belong to monastic life ; but one cannot
help feeling that here and there a friend-
ly, simple-minded brother must have re-
gretted the change. Each cell has its
own little secluded window, deep in the
wall, its own patch of sunshine, its own
picture. There is no fireplace, or other
means of warming the little chamber be-
tween its thick walls ; but no doubt then,
as now, the monks had their scaldinos
full of wood embers, the poor Italian's
immemorial way of warming himself.
And between the window and the wall,
.on the left side, is the picture — dim — ■
often but dimly seen, faded out of its
past glory — sometimes less like a pic-
ture at all than some celestial shadow on
the grey old wall, some sweet phantas-
magoria of lovely things that have passed
there, and cannot be quite effaced from
the very stones that once saw them. For
my own part, I turn from all Angelico's
more perfect efforts, from the " Madonna
della Stella," glistening in gold, which is
so dear to the traveller, and all the well-
preserved examples with their glittering
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
315
backgrounds, to those heavenly shadows
in the empty cells — scratched, defaced,
and faded as so many of them are. The
gentle old monk comes near to the mod-
ern spectator, the pilgrim who has
crossed hills and seas to see all that is
left of what was done in such a broad
and spontaneous flood of inspiration.
Those saints, with their devout looks, the
musing Virgin, the rapt Dominic ; those
sweet spectator angels, so tenderly cu-
rious, sympathetic, wistful, serviceable ;
those lovely soft embodiments of woman-
ly humbleness, yet exultation, the Celes-
tial Mother bending to receive her crown.
They are not pictures, but visions painted
on the dim conscious air not by vulgar
colour and pencil, but by prayers and
gentle thoughts.
There are two other separate cells in
San Marco more important than these,
yet closely belonging to this same early
and peaceful chapter of the convent's
story. We do not speak of the line of
little chambers each blazoned with a
copy of the crucifix below in the cloister
with the kneeling St. Dominic, which are
called the cells of the Giovinati or Nov-
ices, and which conclude in the sacred
spot where Savonarola's great existence
passed. That is a totally different period
of the tale, requiring different treatment,
and calling forth other emotions. We do
not look that way in this preliminary
sketch, but rather turn to the other hand
where Saint Antonino lived as Arch-
bishop, and where still some relics of
him remain, glorious vestments of cloth
of gold beside the hair shirt, instrument
of deepest mortification ; and to the lit-
tle chamber which if is reported Cosmo
de Medici built for himself, and where
he came when he wished to discourse
in quiet with the Archbishop, whose
shrewd, acute, and somewhat humour-
ous countenance looks down upon us
from the wall. This chamber is adorned
with one of Angelico's finest works,
" The Adoration of the Magi," a noble
composition, and has besides in a niche
a pathetic Christ painted over a little
altar sunk in the deep wall. Here Cos-
mo came to consult with his Archbishop
(the best, they say, that Florence had then
had), and, in earlier days, to talk to his
Angelical painter as the works went on,
which Cosmo was wise to see would
throw some gleam of fame upon him-
self as well as on the convent. With all
the monks together in the long room
where Angelico painted his frescoes it
may well be imagined that this place of
retirement was essential ; and when that
long-headed and far-seeing father of his
country had been taken, no doubt with
an admiring following of monks, to see
the last new picture, as one after another
was completed, and had given his opin-
ion and the praise which was expected of
him, no doubt both painter and prince
were glad of the quiet retirement where
they could talk over what remained to do,
and plan perhaps a greater work here and
there — the throned Madonna in the cor-
ridor, with again the Medician saints,
holy physicians, Cosmo and Damian, at
her feet — or discuss the hopeful pupils
whom Angelico was training, Benozzo
Gozzoli, for instance, thereafter known to
fame.
All is peaceful, tranquil, softly melo-
dious in this beginning of the conventual
existence. Pope Eugenius himself came,
at the instance of the Pater Patrice, to
consecrate the new-built house, and lived
in these very rooms, to the glory and
pride of the community. Thus every-
thing set out in an ideal circle of good-
ness and graciousness ; a majestic Pope,
humble enough to dwell in the very clois-
ter with the Dominicans^ blessing their
home for them ; a wise prince coming on
frequent visits, half living among them,
with a cell called by his name where he
might talk with his monkish friends ; a
great painter working lowly and busy
among the humblest of the brethren,
taking no state upon him — though a
great painter was as a prince in art-lov-
ing Florence ; and when the time to give
San Marco the highest of honours came,
another brother taken from among them
to be Archbishop of the great city ;
while all the time those pictures, for
which princes would have striven, grew
at each monk's bedhead, his dear espe-
cial property, gladdening his eyes and
watching over his slumbers. Was there
ever a more genial, peaceful beginning, a
more prosperous, pleasant house ?
The way in which Antonino came to
be Archbishop is very characteristic, too.
At the period of his visit, no doubt, Pope
Eugenius learned to know Angelico, and
to admire the works which he must have
seen growing under the master's hand ;
nor could he have failed to know the de-
votion of which those pictures were the
expressive language, the intense celes-
tial piety of the modest Frate. Accord-
ingly, when the Pope went back to Rome
he called the Angelical painter to him to
execute some work there, and with the
primitive certainty of his age that excel-
3i6
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
lence in one thing must mean excellence
in all, offered to Fra Giovanni the vacant
see if Florence. Modest Fra Giovanni
knew that, though it was in him to paint,
it was not in him to govern monks and j
men, to steer his way through politics
and public questions, and rule a self-
opinionated race like those hard-headed
Tuscans. He told the head of the Church
that this was not his vocation, but that
in his convent there was another Frate
whose shoulders were equal to the bur-
den. The Pope took his advice, as any
calif in story might have taken the rec-
ommendation of a newly chosen vizier ;
such things were possible in primitive
times ; and Antonino was forthwith
called out of his cell, and from simple
monk was made Archbishop, his charac-
ter, there is little doubt, being well
enough known to give force to Angelico's
representation in his favour. This event
would seem to have happened in the
year 1445, three years after the visit of
Eugenius to San Marco, and it seems
doubtful whether Angelico ever returned
to Florence after his comrade's elevation
to this dignity. He stayed and painted
in Rome till the death of Eugenius —
then appeared a little while in Orvieto,
where he seems to have been accompa-
nied by his pupil Benozzo, and then re-
turned to Rome to execute some com-
missions for the new Pope Nicholas.
San Marco had been finished before this,
with greater pomp and beauty than I have
attempted to tell ; for the great altar-
piece has gone out of the church, and
other works have fallen into decay or
have been removed, and now dvvell,
dimmed by restoration and cleaning, in
the academy of the Belli Arti, where it is
not my business to follow them, my in-
terest lying in San Marco only. At
Rome the gentle Angelico died, having
painted to the end of his life with all the
freshness of youth. He was fifty when
he came down the slopes from Fiesole,
singing among his brethren, to make his
new convent beautiful ; he was sixty-
eight when he died at Rome, but with no
failing strength or skill. The Angelical
painter lies not in his own San Marco, but
in the church of Santa Maria sopra Min-
erva at Rome ; but all the same he lives
in Florence within the walls he loved, in
the cells he filled full of beauty and pen-
sive celestial grace — and which now are
dedicated to him, and hold his memory
fresh as in a shrine ; dedicated to him —
and to one other memory as different
from his as morning is from evening.
Few people are equally interested in the
two spirits which dwell within the empty
convent ; to some Angelico is all its past
contains — to some Savonarola ; but both
are full of the highest meaning, and the
one does not interfere with the other.
The prophet-martyr holds a distinct place
from that of the painter-monk. The two
stories are separate, one sweet and soft
as the ''hidden brook" in the "leafy
month of June," with the sound of which
the poet consoles his breathless reader
after straininsf his nerves to awe and ter-
ror. Like Handel's Pastoral Symphony
piping under the moonlight, amid the
dewy fields, full of heavenly subdued
gladness and triumph, is the prelude
which this gentle chapter of art and
peace makes to the tragedy to follow.
Angelico, with all his skill, prepared and
made beautiful the house in which —
with aims more splendid than his and a
mark more high, but not more devout or
pure — another Frate was to bring art
and beauty to the tribunal of Christ and
judge them, as Angelico himself, had his
painter-heart permitted him, would have
done as stoutly, rejecting the loveliness
that was against God's ways and laws
no less than Savonarola. Their ways of
serving were different, their inspiration
the same.
The traditions of the Angelical paint-
er's pious life which Vasari, the primary
authority on the subject, has left to us,
are very beautiful. The simple old nar-
rative of the first art-historian, always
when it is possible to be so, is laudatory,
and finally bursts into a strain of almost
musical eulogy in the description of the
gentle Frate. " He was of simple and
pious manners," he tells us. " He
shunned the worldly in all things, and
during his pure and simple life was such
a friend to the poor that I think his soul
must be now in heaven. He painted in-
cessantly, but never would lay his hand
to any subject not saintly. He might
have had wealth, but he scorned it, and
used to say that true riches are to be
found in contentment. He might have
ruled over many, but would not, saying
that obedience was easier and less liable
to error. He might have enjoyed digni-
ties among his brethren, and beyond.
He disdained them, affirming that he
sought for none other than might be con-
sistent with a successful avoidance of
Hell and the attainment of Paradise.
Humane and sober, he lived chastely,
avoiding the errors of the world, and he
was wont to say that the pursuit of art
'JOSH BILLINGS IN ENGLISH.
3^7
required rest and a life of holy thoughts ; dancing in a ring, into the flowery gar
that he who illustrates the acts of Christ
should live with Christ. He was never
known to indulge in anger with his breth-
ren— a great, and to my opinion all but
unattainable, quality ; and he never ad-
monished but with a smile. With won-
derful kindness he would tell those who
sought his work, that if they got the con-
sent of the prior he should not fail. . . .
He never retouched or altered anything
he had once finished, but left it as it had
turned out, the will of God being that it
should be so." Such is the touching pic-
ture which the old biographer of painters
has left to us. His facts it seems proba-
ble (or so at least Padre Marchese thinks,
the living historian of the order) came
from one of the brotherhood of San Mar-
co, Fra Eustatius, an eminent miniaturist
of the convent. These details, vague
though they are, bring before us the gen-
tle painter — peaceable, modest, kind, yet
endowed with a gentle obstinacy, and
limited, as is natural to a monk, within
the strait horizon of his community. It
is told of him that when invited to break-
fast with Pope Nicholas, t'le simple-
minded brother was uneasy not to be
able to ask his prior's permission to eat
meat, the prior being for him a greater
authority than the Pope, in whose hand
(Angelico forgot) was the primary power
of all indulgences. There could not be a
better instance of the soft, submissive,
almost domestic narrowness of the great
painter, like a child froni home, to whom
the licence given by a king would have
no such reassuring authority as the per-
mission of father or mother. This beau-
tiful narrow-mindedness — for in such a
case it is permissible to unite the two
words — told, however, on a more extend-
ed scale even on his genius. The An-
gelical monk was as incapable of under-
standing evil as a child. His atmosphere
was innocence, holiness, and purity.^ To
pure and holy persons he could give a
noble and beautiful individuality ; but ab-
solute ugliness, grotesque and unreal, was
all the notion he had of the wicked. To
his cloistered soul the higher mystery of
beautiful evil was unknown, and his sim-
ple nature ignored the many shades of
that pathetic side of moral downfall in
which an unsuccessful struggle has pre-
ceded destruction. He had no pity for,
because he had no knowledge of, no more
than a child, the agony of failure, or those
faint tints of difference which sometimes
separate the victors from the vanquished.
While the fair circle of the saved glide,
dens of Paradise — a very " Decameron"
group of holy joy, in his great " Last
Judgment " the lost fly hopeless to the
depths of hell, ugly, distorted, without a
redeeming feature. It was his primitive
way of representing evil — hideous, re-
pulsive, as to his mind it could not but
appear. He loathed ugliness as he
loathed vice, and what so natural as that
they should go together ? Fra Giovanni
showed his impartiality by mingling
among his groups of the lost, here and
there, a miired bishop and cowled monk,
to show that even a profession of religion
was not infallible : but he had not the
higher impartiality of permitting to those
huddled masses any comeliness or charm
of sorrow, but damned them frankly as a
child does, and in his innocence knew no
ruth.
Thus ends the first chapter of the his-
tory of St. Mark's convent at Florence —
a story without a discordant note in it,
which has leit nothing behind but melo-
dious memories and relics full of beauty.
It is of this the stranger must chiefly
think as he strays through the silent,
empty cells, peopled only by saints and
angels ; 'until indeed he turns a corner
of the dim corridor, and finds himself in
presence of a mightier spirit. Let us
leave tiie gentle preface in its holy calm.
The historian may well pause before he
begins the sterner but nobler strain.
From The Spectator.
"JOSH BILLINGS" IN ENGLISH.
Educated Americans often express
some astonishment at the liking displayed
by the British public for the American
"humourists," — men in whom, they say,
they find little except some common-place
extravagance and much bad spelling.
With the exception of the " Heathen Chi-
nee," which made an immense hit, and
exercised a permanent influence on pub-
lic opinion, they do not, we are told, gen-
uinely admire any of the comic produc-
tions Englishmen find so racy. They
prefer Mr. Lowell's serious poems, which,
sweet as they are, will scarcely live, to the
" Biglovv Papers," which will last as long
as their dialect remains intelligible ;
scarcely estimate Leland at English valu-
ation, wonder at the fuss made about
Mark Twain, and hold Artemus Ward to
have been a low comedian. As the
Americans are, in their way, more hu-
3i8
morous than the English, and as they
produce these professional humourists,
this want of appreciation of them would
be hard to understand, or even to admit,
were it not visible also among the Scotch,
half of whom are full of a racy humour
which the other half seem unable to com-
prehend. We never met a Scotchman
yet — and we have tried the experiment
several times — who fully enjoyed Arte-
mus Ward, or understood why the ab-
surd incongruity of his sayings with the
shrewdness embodied in his thought,
made Englishmen shake with laughter
such as no English humour seemed in
any equal degree to provoke. There
must be two publics in America, just as
there are in Scotland, and one of them
despises the laughter which the other en-
joys. One cause of the contempt is, we
suspect, the artificiality into which all
humourists who trade on their humour
are apt to fall ; another, the weariness of
Americans of the shrewd sayings in which
much of their humour is embodied ; and
a third, the preposterous use some of the
comic aphorists make- of bad spelling.
Artemus Ward made his bad spelling
funny, the absolute difference between
the method of conjugating one 'expected
and the method he tried, exciting of itself
the sense of incongruity, which is the
first cause of laughter; but his imitators
have lost his art, such as it was, almost
or quite completely. The person who
calls himself " Josh Billings " has entirely.
Chancing to take up the book at a railway-
station, the writer decided during a ten
minutes' run that "Josh Billings's" wit
and humour was, on the whole, the most
contemptibly vulgar trash he had ever had
in his hand, — worse by many degrees
than the worst failure of the old London
Comic School, — quite as bad, in fact, as
its cover, which represented a paunchy fool
tumbling on his hands, and lifting with
his feet a white hat with a mourning crape
all round it. Having, however, to travel
farther, and no other book being at hand,
he tried to read it steadily, and discov-
ered, in a painful half-hour, this curious
fact. "Josh Billings" is the nickname
of some unknown person, apparently well
educated, with the mind, if one could im-
agine such a mind, of a Dissenting Syd-
ney Smith. He has not, of course, the
full power of the witty divine ; he has in-
jured such power as he has by using it
up, apparently, as we guess from his dedi-
cation, to earn his bread, and his topics
are usually inferior; but he has in a high
degree the power Sydney Smith possessed
"JOSH billings" in ENGLISH.
of saying odd things which, like common
proverbs, embody in a line the experience
of ages or the reasoning of a life. He
can do nothing else. He cannot tell a
story, or write a parody, or teach a lesson
in politics, and the one faculty he pos-
sesses is overlaid, by his own or his ori-
ginal publisher's folly, till it is almost in-
visible. Half of the book is rubbish, the
mere dregs of his better work, cooked up,
we suppose, for a market which had en-
joyed some of his racier oddities, and has
kept on hoping for some more long after
the supply was exhausted. About a tenth
is made up of weak platitudes, and about
a twentieth of Christian maxim.s of the
most savagely orthodox type, which seem
usually, with an exception or two, wretch-
edly out of place, though we must add,
strange as it may be, they appear to have
come from the inmost convictions of the
writer, who has covered all alike — pious
advice, common-place rubbish, keen epi-
grams, and "pawky" proverbs — in an
impenetrable veil of bad spelling. What
the object of this spelling can be we are
utterly unable to discover. It is not com-
ic, as Artemus Ward's often was. It is
not intended to express any dialect, as
Leland's was, or if it is, it does not suc-
ceed. It is not phonetic, it is not ingen-
ious, it is, in fact, a motiveless absurdity,
all the more to be condemned because
such wit as "Josh Billings" possesses is
entirely of the sub-allusive kind, which is
so seldom liked except among the edu-
cated. The real man is not "Josh Bil-
lings," but to compare small things with
great, an American Montaigne. This
sentence, for instance, " We have made
justice a luxury of civilization," is es-
sentially of the Sydney-Smith type, and
is not made more subtle, but only un-
intelligible, by ridiculous spelling. It
would be hardly possible to express the
truth that civilization has secured justice,
but has not secured it to the poor, in a
terser or more biting form, but its pithi-
ness is just of the kind which a reader
capable of spelling "is" as "iz " would
never comprehend, any more than he
would this curious and quite true ob-
servation in natural history, " Monkeys
never grow any older in expression. A
young monkey looks exactly like his
grandpapa melted up and born again ; "
or this, " No man can be a healthy jester
unless he has been nursed at the breast
of wisdom," a sentence which contains
the whole difference between the humour
of a man like Sydney Smith or Charles
Lamb and the humour of Mr. Lear.
JOSH BILLINGS IN ENGLISH.
319
Where, again, is the sense, not to say the
taste or the propriety, of misspelling a
fine sentence like this? — "Humour
must fall out of a man's mouth like music
out of a bobolink," which is intelligible
only to those to whom bad spelling, and
especially artificial bad spelling, is a mere
cause of disgust. There is a world of
wisdom in the saying, " It is easier to be
a harmless dove than a decent serpent,"
— that is, to be a man constitutionally
outside temptation, than a man who,
keenly feeling temptation, yet resists ;
but in what way is the wisdom flavoured
by spelling a dove a "duv" ? The bit-
ter, worldly experience of this remark,
which Rochefoucauld might have made,
and Prosper Merimde would have written
to I'Inconnue, if he had thought of it, is
utterly lost in a cloud of bad spelling : —
" Some men marry to get rid of them-
selves, and find that the game is one that
two can play at, and neither win." All the
following are suggestive shrewdnesses,
much better than Franklin's, whose
"Poor Richard " Americans are so in-
clined to praise ; but they are not the
more biting, or the more popular, or even
the more racy of the soil, for being in-
jured by a farcical spelling : —
Time is money, and many people pay their
debts with it.
Ignorance is the wet-nurse of prejudice.
Wit without sense is a razor without a
handle.
Half the discomfort of life is the result of
getting tired of ourselves.
Benevolence is the cream on the milk of
human kindness.
People of good-sense are those whose
opinions agree with ours.
Face all things ; even Adversity is polite to
a man's face.
Passion always lowers a great man, but
sometimes elevates a little one.
Style is everything for a sinner, and a little
of it will not hurt a saint.
Men now-a-days are divided into slow
Christians and wide-awake sinners.
There are people who expect to escape Hell
because of the crowd going there.
Most men are like eggs, too full of them-
selves to hold anything else.
Even when the sayings contain an ele-
ment of grotesquerie, they are improved
by ordinary printing : —
It is little trouble to a graven image to be
patient, even in fly-time.
Old age increases us in wisdom — and in
rheumatism.
A mule is a bad pun on a horse.
Health is a loan at call.
Wheat is a serial. I am glad of it.
Manner is a great deal more attractive than
matter, — especially in a monkey.
Adversity to a man is like training to a
pugilist. It reduces him to his fighting weight.
Pleasure is like treacle. Too much of it
spoils the taste for everything.
Necessity is the mother of invention, but
Patent Right is the father.
Did you ever hear a very rich man sing ?
Beware of the man with half-shut eyes.
He's not dreaming.
Man was built after all other things had
been made and pronounced good. If not, he
would have insisted on giving his orders as to
the rest of the job.
Mice fatten slow in a church. They can't
live on religion, any more than ministers can.
Fashion cheats the eccentric with the clap-
trap of freedom, and makes them serve her in
the habiliments of the harlequin.
There are farmers so full of science that
they won't set a gate-post till they have had
the earth under the gate-post analyzed.
When lambs get through being lambs they
become sheep. This takes tJu sentiment out of
them.
Clearly printed, one sees why the cyni-
cal, shrewdly observant man became pop-
ular among a people who love proverbs,
and is still popular among another people
who have a yearning for laughter and
cannot find the excuse for it, but his
work requires clear printing and a good
deal of condensation. We do not ad-
vise anybody to read "Josh Billings," for
the plums in his writing are embedded in
a great deal too much dough, but still we
are glad to find and to show that a book
which sells everywhere is not such a
mass of folly and vulgarity as at first
sight it appears to be. Of vulgarity there
is none at all, or none except in a line
probably misprinted ; it is a keen, clever
reporter or minister who has taken, for
unintelligible reasons, to tumbling before
the world.
We shall certainly have severe measure I bones. We are using all the coal in the earth
dealt out to us by posterity, and it is fortunate at an ever-increasing rate, and it now appears
that those who come after us will be able to that sulphur, in Europe at least, will not hoid
vent their spite only on our memories or our | out much longer. It is estimated that the
320
MISCELLANY.
sulphur in Sicily will be exhausted in from
fifty to sixty years. There are about 250
sulphur-mines in the island, producing about
1,800,000 quintals yearly, beside the enormous
quantity which is lost through defective
methods of working. In 187 1, 1,725,000
quintals were exported, of which England
took from 500,000 to 600,000, and France
about 400,000 quintals. The ore contains
from 15 to 40 per cent, of pure sulphur, but
the average amount extracted is only 14 per
cent. The sulphur fetches at the pit's mouth
about 6 fr. 60 c. The estimate of the ap-
proaching failure of the supply in Sicily ap-
pears to be well-founded, as may be gathered
from an article in the Revue des Deicx Mojides,
summarizing a report addressed by Signor
Parodi to the Italian Government.
Happily, the place of sulphur is in great
part supplied by pyrites of iron, which is very
cheap and widely diffused, and 800,000 tons of
which are used in Europe annually. Pyrites
is used for the manufacture of sulphuric acid,
and though the iron extracted from it is of
very inferior quality, it often yields a con-
siderable quantity of copper, which doubles its
commercial value. Again, large quantities of
sulphuric acid are used in various manufac-
tures, and pass into the refuse ; if this refuse
be chemically treated, perhaps as much as
1,000,000 quintals of pure sulphur might be
extracted from it. Directly and indirectly,
therefore, pyrites will supply the place of sul-
phur, if the latter fail, as fail it undoubtedly
must in Sicily in little more than half a cen-
tury. Academy.
sighted as they who are old and infirme, yet wee can
not repreive them, without appearing to denye the very
being of witches, which as it is contrary to law, so I
think it would be ill for his Maties service, for it may
give the faction occasion to set afoot the old trade of
witchfinding yt may cost many innocent persons their
lives, wh this justice will prevent." Academy.
The Freezing of Alcoholic Liquids. —
M. Melsens has made some experiments
(" Naturforscher," 1873. ^o- 39) o^"* the effect
of low temperatures on brandy and wine, and
his results accord completely with those of
Horrath, who noticed an unexpectedly slight
degree of sensation of cold in alcohol which
had been exposed to a low temperature.
Melsens finds that when brandy is cooled
to 20^ and even 30^ or 35" below zero,
it can be swallowed without any discom-
fort, provided only it be taken from wooden
vessels. At 30*^ it is viscid and opalescent,
and contains about 50 per cent, of alcohol.
At — 40^ or — 50'' the strong alcoholic liquid
becomes a solid, and if placed in the mouth in
this state the pasty mass as it melts on the
tongue appears less cold than ordinary ice.
It has to be cooled to — 60'' to produce any
impression of cold, and then is but rarely
accounted very cold. The coldest portion
prepared by Melsens had a temperature of
— 71'*, and this produced in the mouth a sen-
sation resembling that experienced on taking
a spoonful of hot soup. He also describes the
effect of great cold on effervescing wines.
Ironical commentators on our progress
and civilization are very fond of pointing out
that the barbarous laws against conjuration
and witchcraft were not repealed until the
reign of George II. A curious illustration of
the working of these laws nearly two centuries
ago is contained in the following extract from
a letter, preserved amongst the unpublished
State papers of Francis North, afterwards
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal. At the time
of writing North was a Lord Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas ; he was at Exeter on cir-
cuit, and writes from there on August 19,
1682, to Sir Leoline Jenkins : —
" Here have been 3 old women condemned for vintch-
craft ; your curiosity will make you enquire of their cir-
cumstances. I shall only tell you, what I had from my
Brother Raymond before whom they were tried, that
they were the most old decrepid despicable miserable
creatures yt he ever saw, a painter would have chosen
them out of the whole country for figures of that kind
to have drawn by, the evidence against them was very
full & fancifull, but their own confessions exceeded it —
they appeared not only weary of their lives but to have
a great deal of skill to convict themselves ; their de-
scriptions of the sucking devills with sawcer eyes was
so naturall, that the jury could not chuse but beleeve
them. Sr. I find the countrey so fully possessed
against them, that though some of the virtuosi may
think these things the effects of confederacy melancholy
or delusion, & that young f olkes are altogether as quick-
Through the courtesy of Dr. Daniel, we
have lately seen some recipes once in the
possession of Mr. Pepys, all methodically en-
dorsed. Among them are : " Mr. Boyle's
Bitter Drink or Stomachical Tincture," dated
Decembers, 1690, and "given mee by Mr.
Evelin," — another, " given mee by my Lord
Chancellour," — a prescription from Dr. Dick-
enson, accompanied by a letter addressed " For
my much Houned Friend, Mr. Pepys, at his
house in York buildings," — another is en-
dorsed, " Taken from one Gierke, a pretender
and putter forth of Bills for this Cure, living
upon Fleet Ditch, on ye further side over
against Bridewell. I gave him a Guinny for
it, myselfe being to find and prepare ye medi-
cine, he only undertaking for ye success there-
of." The handwriting of this note seems not
to be in Pepys's handwriting ; but, apparently,
the recipe is. Athensum.
We understand that the Greek Government
have agreed to build a museum at Athens for
the reception of the antiquities lately discov-
ered at Troy by Dr. Schliemann, who has pre-
sented them for that purpose. Atheu.-eum.
LITTELL'S LIVIN'G AGE.
Fifth Series, \
Volume VII. 5
No. 1574.— August 8, 1874.
From Beginning,
Vol. cixii.
CONTENTS.
I. On the Personal History of Lord Ma-
CAULAY, JVew Quarterly Review,
II. Alice Lorraine. A Tale of the South
Downs. Part VI I. , Blackwood's Magazine,
III. "Latent Thought,"
IV. A Rose in June. Part VIIL, .
V. The Place of Homer in History and in
Egyptian Chronology, ....
VI. The Tasmanian Blue Gum Tree,
VII. Combs,
VIII. A Curious Product,
IX. The Moon's Figure as Obtained in the
Stereoscope. By Chas. J. Wister, .
POETRY.
Three Angels, 322 1 The Mist, 322
Requiescit 322 1 Thrice, 322
Contemporary Review, ,
Cornhill Magazine,
Contemporary Review, .
Chambers' Journal,
Chambers'' Journal,
Macmillan^s Magazine,
323
336
347
353
361
376
378
380
Journal of The Franklin Institute, 383
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
LITTELL & G^AY, BOSTON.
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
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LiTTELL & Gay.
322
THREE ANGELS, ETC.
THREE ANGELS.
They say this life is barren, drear, and cold,
Ever the same sad song was sung of old,
Ever the same long weary tale is told,
And to our lips is held the cup of strife ;
And yet — a little love can sweeten life.
They say our hands may grasp but joys
destroyed,
Youth has but dreams, and age an aching void
Which Dead-Sea fruit long, long ago has
cloyed.
Whose night with wild tempestuous storms is
rife ;
And yet — a little hope can brighten life.
They say we fling ourselves in wild despair
Amidst the broken treasures scattered there
Where all is wrecked, where all once promised
fair,
And stab ourselves with sorrow's two-edged
knife ;
And yet — a little patience strengthens life.
Is it then true, this tale of bitter grief,
Of mortal anguish finding no relief ?
Lo ! midst the winter shines the laurel's leaf :
Three Angels share the lot of human strife,
Three Angels glorify the path of life —
Love, Hope, and Patience cheer us on our
way;
Love, Hope, and Patience form our spirits'
stay ;
Love, Hope, and Patiencfe watch us day by
day.
And bid the desert bloom with beauty vernal
Until the earthly fades in the eternal.
Eraser's Magazine. K. F. M. S.
REQUIESCIT.
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince ;
And flights of angels sing thee tn thy rest !
Hamlet, Act v. Scene 2.
O NOBLE heart ! full heavy on thee lay
Life's grievous burden ; for thy soul was
fair.
And found but foulness in this earthly air ;
For freedom found a varnished slavery.
Falsehood for truth, and seeming for to be.
. Yet didst thou struggle on, though worn
with care.
And ever strong enticements to despair.
In darkness, yet still bent the way to see.
And now, the striving over, there is peace ;
For thee are no more " questions ; " not again
Shalt thou wail out for respite from the pain
Of this world's " uses ; " where the mean-
■ souled cease
From troubling, thou shalt haven, spirit blest.
And "flights of angels sing thee tothy rest."
Macmillan's Magazine. J* W. HaLES.
THE MIST.
The mist crept over the valley
Heavy, and chill, and gray ;
The mist crept into the chamber
Where she sitteth alone alway.
The rnist crept over the mountain
Which loomed through its shadow dark
And kissed with its cold embraces '
The old oak's gnarled bark.
She cowered close to the fire.
The flames shot clear and fair,
They flashed on her pallid features.
And they saw that the mist was there —
A mist that is born of sorrow,
A cloud that is formed of dread.
Like the faint gray shade that gathers
Over the face of the dead.
On them 'tis the sign that showeth
Life's conqueror hath descended ;
On her the mark that telleth
The life of life is ended.
The mist will pass off from the valley
When spring's first pulses stir ;
But the mist that rests on her spirit
Will never pass off from her.
Eraser's Magazine.
K. F. M. S.
THRICE
A FAIR child in the standing com
Upon a gleamy summer morn.
Red poppies in her bosom borne ;
Her hair pale gold of dawning skies,
Blue depths of innocence her eyes.
Stirred with a sudden light surprise
II.
A maiden standing pensively
Beside a silver flashing sea.
She beareth ocean-flowerets three :
A sweet face on a stainless heaven.
Bright hair upon the bright wind driven,
A foam-bow with its colours seven.
III.
A gray sky o'er a river-mead,
A waving wall of flowery reed.
White gleams that o'er the low plain sj^ecd.
Hark ! some one singeth sweetly there,
White water-lilies in her hair.
The song's words are of promise fair.
Victoria Magazine. A. Le G.
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
323
From The New Quarterly Review.
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD
MACAULAY.
I PROPOSE to gather up some notes,
mainly derived from public sources, which
I have made from time to time, on the
personal history of Lord Macaulay. He
was one of whom it was repeatedly said
that he lived his life in public, and his
private life was only thinly separated
from his public career. We had hoped
that before now some family biography
would have appeared, which might possi-
bly include not only the Indian journals,
but the unpublished poem of Waterloo,
some collections towards the History of
the French Revolution of 1830, which at
one time he contemplated writing, and
some additional deciphered fragments of
the History. By the lamented death of
Lady Trevelyan, the prospect seems still
further removed, unless the honourable
member for the Border Boroughs should
take the task in hand. As Mr. Gladstone
truly said, the English public has an in-
satiable interest in everything belonging
to Lord Macaulay. There are one or two
points both in the earlier and latter part
of his career, which it would be interest-
ing to see traced out. Macaulay was a
Liberal of the Liberals, but there was a
time when he was a Tory of the Tories.
Looking over the reports of the Union
debates at Cambridge some time ago, I
observe that in earlier times he took a
strong Tory line. He always took a
strong Tory line during the Queen Caro-
line agitation. The noticeable point is
the suddenness and completeness of his
alteration of views. The remarkable In-
dian career of Lord Macaulay, during
which he was enabled to give very import-
ant practical effect to his views on edu-
cation and legislation, is a chapter of
personal and political history little known
except to some individuals in some Asia
Minor of Bath or Cheltenham, where old
Indians conjrres:ate. We have some
notes on this head, but the subject might
well demand an essay as full as one of
his own Indian essays. India occupied
the centre of his life, and proved the
turning point of his career. We believe
that in his last days, when his health was
broken, and his sister was absent in
Madras, before Sir Charles Trevelyan's
unworthy recall, he had seriously con-
templated rejoining her, and might so
have closed his life on Indian soil.
His father, Zachary Macaulay, will
have his own niche in history, hardly be-
low his son's. His mother's father was
Mr. Thomas Mills, bookseller and pub-
lisher, of Bristol ; the name is a well-
known Bristol name. Thomas Mills had
a shop in the High Street, just opposite
that amiable bibliopole's, Mr. Cottle, who
proved such a sturdy friend to Southey
and Coleridge. His printing place was
in a street off Small Street. The site of
the place of business is now occupied by
a bank, the shop having been burnt
down. The impression of my informant
was that this conflagration happened in
Mr. Mills' time, and we find him with
more than one business residence. Ma-
caulay most probably received his first
name from his grandfather, Thomas Mills.
His sister (Lady Trevelyan) received the
name of Hannah More from the wonder-
ful old lady who was so closely con-
nected both with the Mills and the
Macaulays. The Misses Mills became
Hannah More's successors in the school
in Park Street. The old lady passed the
last years of her life at Windsor Terrace,
Clifton, where she died, where Macaulay
would visit her during his occasional so-
journs in Clifton.
Macaulay was of Scotch descent, and
many peculiarities of the Scottish mind
— especially the clearness and sim-
plicity of what stood for his mental
science — show clearly forth. His grand-
father was that Mr. John Macaulay, who
is mentioned in " BoswelFs Life of John-
son," and whom Johnson told, with
characteristic brusqueness, that he was
grossly ignorant of human nature. The
father of this Macaulay was a minister of
an obscure parish in the Western Isles,
and from this obscurity the plain pedi-
gree starts. Zachary Macaulay, the fa-
ther of the historian, mos< characteristi-
cally possessed the perfervidiim in-
genium Scotoric7n. Macaulay, unlike Mr.
Gladstone, who prides himself on his
' Scotch descent, carefully guarded him-
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
324
self against being called a Scotchman.
'• I had not the honour of being born in
Scotland, neither was I educated there,''
he once remarked on a public occasion.
And again he says, " I am not a Scotch-
man by birth or education." And once
more, "That he only visited Scotland as
a stranger and traveller." We should
have thought that it would have been
with very different feelings that he would
have visited the home of his fathers, and
the cradle of his race. The Greek airoLKog
would have looked on Scotland as the
mother land, but Macaulay speaks of it
pretty much as he might of Kamts-
chatka. The family connection on which
he most prided himself was merely an
accidental one with the ancient family of
the Leicestershire Babingtons, one of
whom had married his aunt Jean. He
was born at the family mansion of Roth-
ley Temple, and in his autobiographical
poem, written after his defeat at Edin-
burgh, he alludes to the " ancient cham-
ber " of the " old mansion." The house
once belonged to the Knights Templars,
and was reputed to be " in the parish of
Jerusalem." The intermarriages of the
family are recorded on stained glass on a
large bow window. The family are en-
titled to a set of rooms at Cambridge,
which cannot be otherwise disposed of
without their permission. In the house
are preserved the ancient rapier and hel-
met and constable's staff with which the
Babingtons of the day went out at the
time of the Armada. This may have in-
fluenced his writing the fine poem of the
Armada. At the extreme end of the
great hall of Trinity are the royal arms,
and below is Queen Elizabeth's motto,
Semper eadem. " The glorious Semper
eadem, the banner of our pride," as he
calls it.
Bristol was a place with which he
maintained his associations from first to
last. His mother had been a pupil of
Hannah More's, her last pupil, before
she gave up her school. As a child he
used to visit Hannah More, and the old
lady thought that there was no schoolboy,
no young man like him. " He ought to
have competitors. He is like the prince
who refused to play with anything but
kings." The design had been to senrf
him to Westminster School. At this
date, however, men of evangelical princi-
ples were shy of the great public schools,
perhaps because the great evangelical
poet had written the "Tirocinium." So
he went to one or two private schools ;
and one of his masters exultingly showed
a friend the very Horace that he used.
Hannah More wished that " Tom might
be in Parliament, for then he would beat
them all." He and Hannah More did
not always get on very well together.
She could not approve of all that he said
and did when he was in Parliament, and
is believed to have told him so very
plainly. But when he stayed at Clifton
for his health, in his latter days, he would
speak of her with affection, and point
out the house where she lived. Ill
though he was, he would go out and see
"the St. Vincent Rocks in all their
beauty," as he said in one of his letters
to the late Mr. Black who kindly gave
me permission to make some use of Ma-
caulay's letters to him. At Clifton he
would visit his relations, the Mills, who
conducted a very respectable local news-
paper.
Although he came up to Cambridge, in
his eighteenth year, with none of the
eclat which a public school can confer,
when lie first rose up to construe in class
— it was a passage in the Perscs of ^s-
chylus — he was pointed out as likely to
be the first man of his year. It is inter-
esting to observe, that one year he ob-
tained a prize for the best essay on the
conduct and character of William the
Third — an incident which may have
helped towards his future line of study.
In his reading, he widely diverged from
the course of Cambridge mathematical
study, which in those days had the unfair
effect of debarring him from the highest
classical honours. He distinguished him-
self in literature and oratory, and Lord
Brougham sent him, through his father, a
good deal of advice about oratory, which
young Macaulay studied and surpassed.
There is a book, now very scarce, entitled
Conversations at Cainbridge^ which pur-
ports to give some specimens of Macau-
lay's Union speeches. The declamation
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
325
against Cromwell belongs to those very
early days in which he was a Tory. Its
internal evidence places the authorship
beyond a doubt, and it becomes a ques-
tion how the speeches found their way
into this obscure book. Either they
must have been furnished by Macaulay,
or they were reprinted as a pamphlet
for private circulation, as I have known
done at the Oxford Union. This is not,
however, the impression of the author
of the book, who told me, that in the
lapse of years he had forgotten the
sources from which he obtained these
speeches. To his contributions at this
date to Knighfs Quarterly Magazine^ so
great is the value attached, that nearly all
his juvenile pieces, as in the case of
Tennyson, have been reprinted. His por-
trait is sketched at this time by his friend
Mr. Moultrie, in one of his poems : —
Little graced
With aught of manly beauty — short, obese,
Rough featured, coarse complexion, with lank
hair
And small grey eyes . . . his voice abrupt,
Unmusical.
He was not over scrupulous ; to him
There was no pain like silence — no constraint
So dull as unanimity.
His heart was pure and simple as a child's
Unbreathed on by the world — in friendship
warm,
Confiding, generous, constant.
Nor was it only in literature that he made
his debut. Between taking his degree
and achieving his fellowship he made a
great anti-slavery speech at the Freema-
sons' Hall, which, though unreported by
the Times, was alluded to both by the
Quarterly and the Edinburgh. Alto-
gether, this is a very remarkable position
for a young Bachelor of Arts to have
taken up before he attained his fellowship.
He was called to the bar in 1826, and
went the Northern Circuit. Those were
the great days of the Northern Circuit,
when it was attended by Brougham, Scar-
lett, Tindal, Williams, Coltman, Alder-
son. He also went to Quarter Sessions,
which had then the character, which it is
fast losing, of being an avenue to dis-
tinction at the bar. His business, how-
ever, was of the scantiest. He convicted
a boy of stealing a parcel of cocks and
hens, and that was about the amount of
it. Still Macaulay belonged to the polit-
ical party that was now prosperous, and
it was determined to do something for
him. We have no doubt but his father
Zachary, and the friends with whom he
acted, were perfectly sincere in their zeal
for the abolition of slaver}', and would
have been true to the cause, as in years
ofone bv, amid all difficulties and obsta-
cles. But Abolition was found to be an
exceedingly popular election cry, and it
was turned to sharp political purposes.
"Young Macaulay" was described in
those days as the son of " old Macaulay ; "
and in course of time, when their friends
were in, both "young Macaulay" and
"old Macaulay" got places. Sidney
Smith asked Lady Grey to get the Whigs
to make Macaulay Solicitor-general.
That legal experience about the cocks
and hens furnished too narrow a basis for
such a distinction. But he was made one
of the seventy Commissioners of Bank-
ruptcy— Lord Westbury once said they
were called the Chancellor's Septuagint
— and it must be said that this system of
commissioners, though derided and abol-
ished, did the bankruptcy work at least
as well as it has ever been done since.
His great legal appointment was when he
was made Legal Member of the Supreme
Court of Calcutta ; but I believe he al-
ways consistently denied the soft im-
peachment that he was a lawyer.
In the old days young men of con-
spicuous ability were sought for as po-
litical recruits by leaders of parties, and
at times promising young men at the
universities were watched, marked out
for future eminence, and returned to
Parliament by political sponsors and pa-
trons. Reform legislation, with many at-
tendant advantages, has closed the doors
of the House to this class of political as-
pirants— young men who are thinkers
and readers, and have taken to politics as
the serious business of their lives. It is
hard to see how men of the character and
belongings of Macaulay, Canning, and
Gladstone, can have a political career
open to them in the future, in what some
326
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
think is fast becoming a " Chamber of
Mediocrity."
Returned for Calne, for which, as Mr.
Bright once said, Lord Lansdowne could
send up his coachman or valet, he soon
laid the foundation of a solid Parliament-
ary reputation. In his second Session
the Reform agitation, owing mainly to
the French Revolution, had reached its
height. For two years Macaulay was a
great popular orator. He had not '* Scor-
pion Stanley's " inborn genius for de-
bates, but for a set oration there was no
man who excelled him. Amid all the
flood of Reform oratory his are the onl}'^
speeches that have taken permanent rank
in literature, and are still worthy of care-
ful study. There was no orator more
distinctly and emphatically before the
country ; there was no one for whom
there existed a larger amount of sympa-
thy and admiration. If he had continued
in this country, he might have had a real
chance of becoming Premier, a much
better chance than the then member for
Shrewsbury, Mr. Disraeli, who was much
slower in achieving Parliamentary dis-
tinction.
In the general election after the pass-
ing of the Reform Bill, Mr. Macaulay was
elected to Leeds. The circumstances
were remarkable, and gave rise to a good
deal of Macaulay correspondence. It
was known for a year and a half that
Leeds was to have its representative, and
for all this long time there was a process
of electioneering. There are several
batches of Macaulay correspondence to
which we shall, in order of date, briefly
call attention. Electioneerins: corre-
spondence, mainly at Leeds, forms one
batch ; correspondence with Mr. Glad-
stone is another ; correspondence with
Bishop Phillpots is another; corres-
pondence with Mr. Lathbury is another ;
correspondence with the late Mr. Black
is another. This mass of correspondence
— where we deal with the personal
though not the private element — has re-
ceived publication ; but in such diverse
and sometimes recondite ways, that it
has never been examined as a whole. I
unearthed the first set of letters, with a
good deal of parallel electioneering speak-
ing, in the Leeds local papers. These
letters, with the accompanying speeches
and incidents, would be valuable ele-
ments in Me moires pour servir a VHis-
tcire^ and give a striking view of a con-
tested election before the comparative
quietude of our ballot day. It must be
recollected that Macaulay was a coura-
geous and consistent supporter of the
ballot in days when it was regarded as the
most extreme and dangerous of political
experiments. The correspondence shows
a curious and remarkable phase of the
election. Mr. Macaulay writes long let-
ters to one or other of his supporters.
Those letters are promptly reprinted, and
become virtually addresses to the elect-
ors. They are as long as Mr. Gladstone's
recent address to the electors of Green-
wich. They illustrate his own saying
that the tendency of letters from the In-
dia Office — where he then held an ap-
pointment— is to become essay writing.
There is an amount of argumentation, an
elevation of tone, in these letters almost
without a parallel in the history of elec-
tions, unless we except Burke's letter to
the electors of Bristol.
On one occasion he writes :
I do not wish to obtain a single vote under
false pretences. Under the old system, I
have never been the flatterer of the great ;
under the new system I will not be the flatterer
of the people. The truth, or what appears to
me to be such, may sometimes be distasteful
to those whose good opinion I most value. I
shall nevertheless always abide by it, and
trust to their good sense, to their second J
thoughts, to the force of reason, and the prog- ^
ress of time. If, after all, their decision
should be unfavourable to me, I shall submit
to that decision with fortitude and good hu-
mour. It is not necessary to my happiness
that I should sit in Parliament ; but it is
necessary to my happiness that I should pos-
sess, in Parliament or out of it, the conscious-
ness of havinpr done what is right.
This language is very similar to that
which he subsequently held towards the
electors of Edinburgh.
In the contest for Leeds he was pitted
against Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler, who
ought always to be gratefully remembered
by the operative classes in this country
as the author of the Ten Hours' Bill.
Macaulay had handled him roughly in
the Edinburgh Review, and handled him
roughly in the contest. " I look on the
Factory Bill," he said, " though I admit
the propriety of regulating the labour of
children, as a quack medicine." In this
election all the old amenities were pre-
served. On one occasion Macaulay
spoke from the top of a coach, and when
people began to climb the coach, though
with coats completely rent, he had to beat
a retreat. He repeatedly spoke in the
town and in the out townships ; at times
with the accompaniment of a band of
music and a free fight. Before the elec-
k
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
Z^7
tion came off he was advanced to the
post of Secretary to the Board of Con-
trol with ;!^i8oo a-year, and was, of course,
represented by his opponents as a " place-
man " and a " hireling." The nomina-
tion day was in the finest old British
style. Brickbats and bludgeons were
freely used ; a huge skeleton was dis-
played on a banner, holding up the Anat-
omy Bill, which he had supported ; a
band struck up to drown his voice, which
caused him to reduce his speech to a
bow, and the statement that he should
reserve his remarks ; and finally there
was a tremendous riot, which Macaulay
attributed to the Blues, and the Blues to
the Yellows. Finally he stood second on
the poll, with a majority of several
hundreds over Sadler, and the Yellows
rejfjced at their public dinners over their
"superhuman member."
They were rather annoyed when the
"superhuman member" vacated his seat
at the end of the first Session of the re-
formed Parliament. In that Session, and
in its immense and important agitation,
he had greatly distinguished himself. On
one occasion he grappled with O'Connell
himself in an entirely exteiJipore speech,
which elicited a storm of applause. He
seems to have lost the faculty of extem-
poraneous speech after his long absence
in India, and to have confined himself to
set orations. He had a most important
share in the great Indian legislation of
1833. ^^"^ the House of Commons will
never take a proper interest in India, and
his speech — both O'Connell and the
Speaker extolled it as one of the best
ever heard — was delivered to almost
empty benches. He was now a special
authority on India, and was offered very
high office there if he chose to go out.
Mr. Macaulay went out to India in
1834. It has been sometimes erroneous-
ly said, that his office had been specially
created for him by the East India Act of
the preceding year. He was the Legal
Member of the Council, and was after-
wards nominated Chief of the Law Com-
mission. This is an office which, in re-
cent years, Mr. Forsyth has declined,
and Mr. Fitzjames Stevens resigned.
The complaint made about him from the
very first, when expressed in homely
phrase, was, that he was bumptious. The
directors gave him a dinner on the eve-
ning of the day when he was sworn in ;
and one who was present observed that
he rather gave himself the air of Lycur-
gus, as if he were about, for the first
time, to favour the anxious natives of
India with the blessings of legislation.
He seems not to have fully grasped Hin-
doo character, for on an early occasion
he said, that the phenomenon which
struck an observer, and most damped his
hope of being able to serve the people,
was their own apathy and passiveness.
The observer was, no doubt, himself. He
went out in the "Asia," accompanied by
his sister, the late Lady Trevelyan. A
lady, on board ship with him on one of
his voyages, tells me that he much ir-
ritated some young men by graciously
telling them they might smoke if tney
liked, which they were quite prepared to
do, without " Bab Mac Bahauder's " per-
mission. He was also accredited with
having said, within forty-eight hours of
his landing, that, if he had his own way,
not a court of English law should exist
in India. The Indian paper traced him
from Madras to the Neilgherries, and
from the Neilgherries to Calcutta. The
society of Calcutta is bright with vaude-
villes, operas, and all the European amuse-
ments ; and Mrs. Atkinson's musical re-
union is thinly attended in consequence
of a dinner party at Mr. Macaulay's.
We hear how his Higlmess the Nabob of
the Carnatic paid him a visit, and how he
went to an entertainment at our Dvvarko-
nath Tagore, who gave ices, champagne,
coloured lights, in "rooms, rich in more
than the fabled magnificence of the East,
combined with the statuary and decora-
tions of Western art." One of the In-
dian papers says of his career: — "Mr.
Macaulay had no privacy, if we may use
the term. He was always as if before
the public, and whether at the Town-hall,
or a Berra Kounah in Chovvringee, he
was ever the same — it was always talkee
for talkee with him. It maybe, however,
that he possessed one grand redeeming
feature : he was frank and open in his
dislike or indifference. He contemned
public opinion, and was indifferent to, or
disliked society, and he took no pains to
conceal the one or the other." At the
same time, some of his after-dinner
speeches, notably one that he made on
St. Andrew's day, were as genial and elo-
quent as any which he published himself,
or which others published for him. He
took almost unnecessary pains to explain
that he had only visited Scotland as a
stranger and a traveller ; but then he
proceeds to speak eloquently of its
beauties. One sentence appears to have
particularly struck his Calcutta auditory.
The newspaper report says, that its con-
clusion was lost amid cheers ; but in the
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
328
next number the rhetorical sentence is
complete, and makes one suspect that
Macaulay good-naturedly helped the re-
porter : "The common traveller, as he
wanders through that country, follows
the course of some meandering brook,
which, in one place, he finds surrounded
by scenes of the rudest and wildest
nature ; and, going a little further, he
finds the water of the same brook the
moving principle of a vast manufactory,
and the roar of the cataract mingling with
the thunders of mechanical power."
Still Macaulay was by far the most un-
popular legal member of council ever sent
out to Calcutta. The journalists con-
sidered themselves slighted by him ;
probably Macaulay considered that there
was an immeasurable difference between
a Calcutta journalist and an " Edinburgh
Reviewer." In these days he was still
working for the "Edinburgh;" he sent
his Bacon article across the seas. The
legislation for which he was justly held
mainly responsible, was very obnoxious
to many. The Act, technically known as
Act number Eleven, and popularly known
as the Black Act, caused much umbrage.
It was a law rescinding the former statute
law, whereby the right of appeal by Brit-
ish-born subjects to the supreme court
was affirmed. The effect of this revision
would be that Indian and British subjects
would stand on the same legal footing.
We have no doubt that Macaulay would
especially rejoice in any obloquy that
might be occasioned by this just, liberal,
. and impartial enactment. Ever since the
time of Warren Hastings, it had been a
favourite idea with Indian malcontents to
threaten impeachment against men high
:in office ; and although this was not act-
ually done in Macaulay's case, indigna-
tion meetings were held, funds were
^raised, and a paid agent was sent to Eng-
land to protest and remonstrate. The
" Times " subsequently thus summed up
the matter: — "The learned gentleman
has so contrived it, that, by virtue of the
exercise of his power as a whig-radical
codifier, he has thrown the whole Euro-
pean community of British India into a
state of exasperation and confusion ;
leaving the scene of his reckless experi-
ment, and his unblushing emolument, with
the renown of being, as a member of
society more disliked, and as a public
tfunctionary more execrated, than any
^Englishman who ever left the shores of
the Thames to visit those of the Ganges."
In a separate work I have given some
: account and analysis of that famous piece
of jurisprudence, the Penal Code, which
Macaulay mainly and in most part entire-
ly drew up. This occupied his best at-
tention for some of the best years of his
life, and was about the only practical di-
rection in which he turned his immense
powers. This Code has never been
printed in a popular form, and exists only
as a Blue Book, but it contains some of
Macauley's most characteristic writing.
This important document consists of (i)
Prefatory Letter to the Governor-Gen-
eral, (2) the body of the Code, with ex-
planations, exceptions, and illustra-
tion, (3) Notes numbered from A. to R.
The copious use of illustrations is
pointed out as a striking peculiarity
of the Code, which was designed to be
at once a Statute Book, and a collection
of decided cases. We suppose, however,
that this was the first time in legal^is-
tor}'', in which a set of imaginary cases,
which might almost be called " Sketches
of Stories," were deliberately given as
legal precedents. The illustrations strike
us as indicating very strongly that Ma-
caulay had not a judicial mind in the
same way that the judicial faculty could
have been predicated of Jeremy Ben-
tham or John Austin. Some of these
illustrations, which are to be considered
as decided cases, offend against the wise
maxim, '■* de minhnis noii curat /<?:ry"
some refer in most serious tragic spirit to
practical jokes ; others are merely sensa-
tional and picturesque bits of stories.
The legislation respecting practical jokes
is simply absurd. We believe that in his
youth Macaulay was subjected to annoy-
ances of this kind ; there is a story of his
having been forcibly held down and
shaved by some of his schoolfellows.
Z is sitting in a moored boat on a river. A
unfastened the moorings, and thus intention-
ally causes the boat to drift down the stream.
Here A intentionally causes motion to Z, and
he does this by disposing substances in such a
manner that the motion is produced without
any other act on any person's part. A has
therefore intentionally used force to Z, and if
he has done this without Z's consent, in orders
to the committing of any offence, or intending!
or knowing it to be likely that this use o£|
force may cause injury, fear, or annoyance toj
Z, A has committed an assault.
Here are some further instances of- thel
sorrows of Z, and the ruffianism of A : — j
A threatens to set a savage dog at Z, if
goes along a path along which Z has a right
to go. Z is thus prevented going along tha'
path. A wrongfully restrains Z.
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
329
In the last illustration, if the dog be not
really savage, but if A vohintarily causes Z to
think that it is savage, and thereby prevents Z
from going along the path, A wrongfully re-
strains Z.
Z is bathing, A pours into the bath water
which he knows to be boiling. Here A in-
tentionally, by his own bodily power, causes
such motion in the boiling water as brings
that water into contact with Z, or with other
water so situated that such contact must
affect Z's sense of feeling. A has therefore
intentionally used force to Z, and if he has
done this without Z's consent, intending or
knowing it to be likely that he may thereby
cause injury, fear, or annoyance to Z, A has
committed an assault.
Here is the case of Lady Macbeth care-
fully transferred to the law book : —
A, after wounding a person with a knife
goes into the room where Z is sleeping, smears
Z's clothes with blood, and lays the knife
under Z's pillow, intending not only that sus-
picion may be turned away from himtjelf, but
also that Z may be convicted of voluntarily
causing grievous hurt. A is liable to punish-
ment as a fabricator of false evidence.
The following might serve as a sensa-
tional incident in one of Miss Braddon's
novels. In fact, we believe that more
than one story-teller has used it : —
Suppose it to be proved to the entire con-
viction of a criminal court that Z, the deceased,
was in a very critical state of health ; that A,
the heir to Z's property, had been informed by
Z's physicians that Z's recovery absolutely de-
pended on his being kept quiet in mind, and
that the smallest mental excitement would en-
danger his life ; that A immediately broke into
Z's sick-room, and told him a dreadful piece
of intelligence, which was a pure invention;
that Z went into fits, and died on the spot ;
that A had afterwards boasted of having
cleared the way for himself to a good property
by this artifice ; these things being fully
proved, no judge could doubt that A had vol-
untarily caused the death of Z ; nor do we
perceive any reason for not punishing A in
the same manner in which he would have been
punished if he had mixed arsenic in Z's medi-
cine.
Here are one or two bookish offences
which have a strong Macaulay tinge
about them : —
A being exasperared at a passage in a book
which is lying on the counter of Z, a book-
seller, snatches it up and tears it to pieces.
A has not committed theft, as he has not
acted fraudulently, though he may have com-
mitted criminal trespass and mischief.
A takes up a book belonging to Z, and reads
it, not having any right over the book, and not
having the consent of any person entitled to
authorize A so to do. A trespasses.
This strikes us as hard lines upon A,
and a sort of rule which would fall heavily
on all bookworms, Macaulay himself in-
cluded.
On the whole, we are not very greatly
impressed with the Code. A high legal
authority pronounced it "impracticable,
faulty, in short, absolutely valueless."
In point of fact, it slumbered for a long
time, and a writer in the Calcutta Eng-
lishman says, that, had his Penal Code
been put in force at the time he draughted
it, instead of being beneficial, it would
have been mischievous in its effects ; and
had it at any time been adopted iu the
form in which he left it, it would have
broken down almost as soon as it was
promulgated.
In another direction, however, Macau-
lay permanently set his mark on Indian
institutions. When he arrived in Cal-
cutta, the education question was ex-
citing as much keen discussion as re-
cently did the 25th clause among our-
selves. The contest was between the
Anglicists and the Orientalists on the
Board of Public Instruction. Before
his arrival, the Orientalists had had
it all their own way, but he completely
reversed the tables. Ten thousand a
year had been spent in publishing Ori-
ental texts, in translating English books
into Arabic and Sanscrit, and remunerat-
ing learned natives. The Orientalists were
for maintaining the statu quo. The An-
glicists held that it would be a good thing
if all the Sanscrit and Arabic books were
destroyed, and the learned natives " them-
selves eliminated," and urged that the
funds should be spent on the promotion
of Western literature, languages, and sci-
ence. Macaulay threw himself with char-
acteristic vehemence into the Anglicists'
side. Macaulay had been in India only
a few months, when on Feb. 2, 1835, he
issued his celebrated Education Minute,
"A minute which will live in the memory
of all interested in the education of the
people of India, probably as long as the
language in which it was written." " I
conceive," he said, "that we have at
present no right to the respectable name
of a Board of Public Instruction. We
are a Board for wasting public money ;
for printing books which are of less value
than the paper on which they are printed
was while it was blank ; for giving artifi-
cial encouragement to absurd history,
absurd metaphysics, absurd physic, and
absurd theology ; for raising up a band
of scholars who find their scholarships
an incumbrance and a blemish, who live
330
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
on the public while they are receiving
their education, and whose education is
so utterly useless, that when they have
received it, they must either starve or
live on the public all the rest of their
lives." He speaks of the value of mod-
ern literature in a manner remarkably
parallel with his language on the same
subject in his essay on Sir William Tem-
ple. He appeals as an example to Rus-
sia, " which in the time of our grand-
fathers was probably behind the Punjab,
may, in the time of our grandchildren, be
pressing close on France and Britain in
this career of improvement. And how
was this change effected ? Not by flat-
tering national prejudices, not by feeding
the mind of young Muscovites with the
old woman's stories which his rude
fathers had believed ; not by filling his
head with lying legends about St. Nicho-
las ; not by encouraging him to study the
great question, whether the world was or
was not created on the 13th of Septem-
ber ; not by calling him a learned native
when he has mastered all these points of
knowledge ; but by teaching him those
foreign languages in which the greatest
mass of information had been laid up,
and thus- putting all that information
within his reach. The languages of
Western Europe civilized Russia : I can-
not doubt that they will do for the Hin-
doo what they have done for the Tartar."
Macaulay carried the day. He trium-
phantly carried the Governor-General
and the Council along with him, and
an ordinance was promulgated which
changed the entire system. It was
through his influence that a system of
Public Instruction was promulgated,
which with the railway and the telegraph
have changed the face of this country,
and the natives can now enter the civil
service and sit on the bench with Eng-
lish judges. This was a great achieve-
ment, and we see that the most active
years of his life, so far from being practi-
cally fruitless as some imperfectly in-
formed writers have said, have been
fraught with far-reaching results. The
people of India have lived under the in-
fluence of the famous Education Minute
ever since Lord Auckland's time. At
the same time that its great material
benefits have been admitted, it has also
been sharply criticised. It did what
ou":ht to have been done, but at the same
time it discarded what ought not to have
been discarded. Macaulay obviously did
wrong in looking at the question as one
of the comparative value of literatures.
To discard Sanscrit and Arabic from In-
dian studies, would be like discarding
Norman-French and Anglo-Saxon from
English literature, and the natives of In-
dia had a right to insist that their early
language and literature should be re-
spected, preserved, and studied. This
should have been done, and might not
necessarily have prevented the encour-
agement and development of the study of
Western literature.
While Mr. Macaulay was making his
homeward voyage from India, he had the
misfortune of losing his father, the cele-
brated Zachary Macaulay. He came to
England by the "Lord Hungerford," in
June, 1838, shortly before the coronation ;
his father had died in the previous month.
He very soon went abroad, and travelled
for a time in Italy. During this Italian
tour he carefully worked up the localities-
which are mentioned in the " Lays of
Ancient Rome." This was characteristic
of Macaulay. The readers of the History
will recall various localities, such as the
shores of Torbay, Sedgemoor, Glencoe,
which are carefully sketched from mi-
nute personal observation. He would
sometimes take up his abode for weeks
together, an unnoted visitant, in the
neighbourhood of famous sites. All our
realistic historians do the same thing, as
may easily be seen in the cases of such
writers as Froude and Freeman. The
Italian tour was merely a prelude to the
return to public life. He was gathering
up his energies for a spring. He had
not been at home many months before
he was offered the post of Judge Advo-
cate. This was declined, and it was
stated in the papers that he would accept
nothing that did not bring with it a seat
in the Cabinet. In the meantime he was
brought in for Edinburgh. He told Mr.
Black that he would not spend more than
£soo on the election, and he did not in
the least care if he was not elected. '* I
dislike the restraints of official life ; I love
freedom, leisure, and letters. Salary is
no object to me, for my income, though
small, is sufficient for a man who has no
ostentatious tastes."
He had only been in Parliament one
session when he became Secretary-at-
War in the recess. He and Mr. Shiel,
who had also accepted high office, went
to Windsor Castle to be sworn in as
members of the Privy Council. '• These
men Privy Councillors!" exclaimed the
" Times." '• These men petted at Wind-
sor Castle ! Faugh ! Why, they are
hardly nt to fill up the vacancies that
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
3S^
have occurred by the lamented deaths of
her Majesty's two favourite monkeys."
We have certainly improved the style of
our political amenities since that date.
His seat being vacated by his acceptance
of office, he had to seek re-election at
Edinburgh, and dated his address " Wind-
sor Castle, October i, 1839." This was
rather in bad taste. The papers talked
about Mr. Macaulay's "little place in
Berkshire." Sir Robert Peel alluded
with much irony to it. " From the proud
keep of Windsor you proclaimed your
fidelity to them, not from the gratifi-
cation of any vulgar personal vanity,
but from the firm resolution that truth
should be spoken in high places, and
that from the palace of kings the comfort-
able tidings of Radical Reform should be
conveyed by a voice of authority." Sir
Robert described Mr. Macaulay as
"panting for distinction." In this de-
bate on vote of want of confidence, Ma-
caulay unguardedly spoke of himself as
"the first Cabinet Minister who had ad-
dressed the House," and Lord Stanley
raised a cheer and laugh by alluding to
the "first Cabinet Minister."
In the recess Lord Holland died. Ma-
caulay's famous description of Holland
House will be recollected, and Holland
House has no more brilliant memories
than his own. Judge Talfourd describes
him then as one "in whose vast and joy-
ous memory all the mighty past lived and
glowed anew." Macaulay was a prince
in what is now almost the lost art of con-
versation. His power consisted in the
knowledge of detail, the unrivalled col-
location of facts, the picturesque group-
ing of historical and literary circum-
stances, and a certain bow-ivoiu style, in
which he was not very different from the
sesquipedalian Johnson. In the recent
charming work on Holland House, the
Princess Marie Lichstenstein tells us
how Lady Holland could snub him, who
could snub every one else. She would
tap the table, and say, " Now, Macaulay,
we have had enough of this." Macau-
lay's talk had a tendency to run into mon-
ologue. There are authentic stories how
people have been known to go to sleep
under it. Sydney Smith called him a book
in breeches, and thought it a matter of
congratulation that he had sometimes bril-
liant fiashes of silence. Macaulay could
seldom produce a boii mot such as Syd-
ney Smith could throw off in profusion.
One rather good thing I remember. A
man I know was discussing with him the
merits of a certain popular preacher.
The preacher was rather of the Charles
Honeyman kind, noted for ringletted
hair, and a waving of hands. " He is a
hypocrite," said Macaulay. " No," an-
swered his friend, "he is not that ; he is
only affected." " And what is affecta-
tion," answered Macaulay, "but hypoc-
risy in trifles 1 " It was chiefiy by the
eloquence of his conversation and by his
varied infinite information, that Macau-
lay's table-talk might vie with Selden'sor
Coleridge's. When he was staying at
Glasgow once, the conversation at his
host's table turned on the subject of jew-
els. Macaulay gave a minute account of
all the regalia of Europe. He prided
himself on his memory, and perhaps
nothing mortified him more than a fail-
ure of memory. He has been seen to
shed tears when he could not finish a
quotation which he had commenced.
This happened once when he was stay-
ing at Cambridge. He delighted in re-
calling his Cambridge days, and especial-
ly in talking about poor " Walker of
Trinity." He told the story of the Cole
Deiun church. It is rather a good one.
A man named Cole left some money to a
church, on condition that his name ap-
peared on the sacred edifice. This ap-
peared to be an insuperable difficulty, but
it was solved by a Cambridge wit sug-
gesting that the words Cole l3eum might
be an appropriate inscription above the
porch. And so it remains.
The general election of 1841 went very
distinctly against the Ministry, even more
so than the election of 1874. It was
hopeless to raise any further difficulties
about the Ladies of the Bedchamber.
They had to go at last. He said, that at
the final dinner, when the Queen and the
ladies were present, scarcely a word was
spoken, and that tears and regrets after-
wards broke forth without restraint. Mr.
Macaulay was re-elected without a con-
test ; more fortunate than many of the
late Ministerialists ; more fortunate than
he was in later years. Next year he
brought out the " Lays." They had been
written, not inappropriately, in the War
Office. A great deal of literature — nota-
bly that by the two Mills — has been pro- '
duced in public offices, between ten and
four. Very soon after the meeting of
Parliament, the question of the Corn
Laws cropped up, on which he spoke at
some length. It is remarkable that he
was quite silent when the question still
more prominently emerged in the last
session of this memorable Parliament.
He spoke much about India ; and on this
332
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
subject he would speak with peculiar
authority. He vehemently attacked Lord
Eilenborough, and counselled the Board
of Directors not to hesitate to recall
him ; and the Directors practically acted
on his advice.
Coming back to the connection be-
tween Edinburgh and Macaulay, it must
be owned that Edinburgh stultified itself
completely. While both its members
voted in favour of the Maynooth grant, it
was only against Mr. Macaulay that its
chief wrath was excited. He was re-
elected on taking office in 1847, but it
was known that the great fight would
come off at the general election close at
hand. The " bray of Exeter Hall " was
not forgotten. It was a singularly ungra-
cious remark, especially when we recol-
lect that, speaking historically, his own
father had been one of the brayers of
Exeter Hall, and that in younger days he
himself had brayed a little on his own ac-
count, in company with the now despised
Evangelicals. He was thrown out by a
very large majority. In his farewell letter
to the electors, he said, " I shall always
be proud to think that I once enjoyed
your favour, but permit me to say, I shall
remember not less proudly how I risked
and how I lost it." He felt very keenly
that day of "tumult, strife, defeat." In
the autobiographical poem written on the
occasion, he makes his good genius say,
with more spiteful expression than such
a personage should employ —
Amidst the din of all things fell and vile,
Hate's veil, and envy's hiss, and folly's bray,
Remember me ; and with an unforced smile
See riches, baubles, flatterers, pass away.
He could easily have been returned for
another place, but he was resolved that
if he could not sit for Edinburgh, he
would not sit at all — very different to
Mr. Gladstone, who, with much common
sense, hardly cares for what place he
sits, and would have sat for Oxford with
a majority of one. Six years later, Ed-
inburgh condemned and stultified itself
by returning him, without solicitation, at
the head of the poll.
Every one was glad when Macaulay
was returned once more, and most people
thought that he had been unworthily ex-
cluded. But Edinburgh, as a municipal-
ity, had exhibited the most absurd incon-
sistency. We believe that Macaulay felt
his exclusion very keenly, although he pro-
fessed to be even content. It was almost
a national disaster that he should be ab-
sent from Parliament during the few re-
maining years in which he might hav(
mingled actively in its councils. Aiiei
his return, he only made two speeches ii
the House. It was a curious and excite
ing scene — indeed, one of the mosi
memorable occasions in Parliamentarj;
history — when he rose once more, an(
by his single influence threw out a bil
which had nearly reached its last stage
He only made one other speech ; and
is remarkable that his final subject waj
India, and his final words recall the lani
guage of the Education Minute : " I cai
only say for m\'self, with regard to this
question, that, in my opinion, we shall
not secure or prolong our dominion ii
India by attempting to exclude the na-j
tives of that country from a share in iti
government, or by attempting to discour^
age their study of Western learning ; anc
I will only say further that, however tha^
may be, I will never consent to kee\
them ignorant in order to keep them mani
ageable, or to govern them in ignoranc<
in order to govern them long." Once o|
twice he had intended to speak in tW
House of Lords, but he never did so.
I have made some reference to Lore
Macaulay's published correspondence,
and a few additional notes may be per-
mitted. I once submitted a letter of his
to a person who professed to tell charac-
ter by the handwriting. According to
this individual, the handwriting was that
of a dull, ignorant person, and the dis-
may was great when I raised my hand
and showed the name of the writer. The
late Mr. Lathbury, of Bristol, a great
authority on the subject of the " Nonju-
ror," showed me an extremely interesting
correspondence that passed between him
and Lord Macaulay on this subject. By
my advice, the " Correspondence " was
published in the old " Literary Gazette,"
where it may be disinterred by the curi-
ous. The remarkable circumstance about
it is that Macaulay, who, as Lord Mel-
bourne said, "always made so cocksure "
about everything, made some distinct ad-
missions of fallibility. Mr. Lathbury, a
learned, quiet, hard-working man, was
much pleased in showing me Macaulay's
letters, and the copy of the '* History "
which he sent him. Mr. Gladstone, in
his " Chapter of Autobiography," gives a
brief but interesting correspondence be-
tween him and Macaulay. The essay
followed by the letter seems somewhat
to have disturbed Mr. Gladstone's mind
on the subject of Church and State, but
even in 1S68 he does not fully coincide
with his reasoning. The year after Ma-
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
333
caulay's death, the late Bishop of Exeter, ' that it was read through in a day, per-
Dr. Phillpotts, published a rather long haps, with a certain proportion of " skip."
and very interesting correspondence be- Lord Orrery begins with giving a char-
tween himself and Macaulay. The two acter of Swift from his own reminis-
great men exchanged the most profuse cences, and Lord Macaulay has written
compliments, and the Bishop warmly on the margin, " This seems a fair char-
pressed Macaulay to visit him at that ex- acter." This is the only civil remark he
quisite villa on Anstis Cove, so well makes. At the end of the first chapter
known to all sojourners at Torquay, he writes, " Wretchedly written." Lord
PJacaulay answers : " Before another ; Orrery begins one letter to his son, " My
edition of my book appears, I shall have dear Ham," and Macaulay annotates,
time to weigh your observations care- | " One would think this was a letter from
fully, and to examine the works to which [ Noah." He even sneers at the author's
you' have called my attention. You have social rank, little thinking that he would
convinced me of the propriety of making one day be a lord himself. "A most
some alteration. But I hope that you eail-like performance." "Off, off, my
will not accuse me of pertinacity if I add , lord ! " "A learned nobleman — ' stap
that, as far as I can at present judge, the [ my vitals ! ' — eloquent for a lord ! "
alterations will be slight, and that on the Again : "Wretched pedantry," " Trash,"
great point at issue my opinion is un- i " Folly," "Shame — shame," "May the
changed." The Bishop is dissatisfied ; Lord help thee, thou art a great fool."
with this very scanty amount of retracta- ; Lord Orrery finds fault with the orthog-
tion — could he ever have expected that raphy of the day, and Macaulay writes,
Macaulay would have given more ? — and j " His lordship's lamentations over our
returns manfully to the charge. Our im- • language remind me of Colonel Turner's
pression is that the Bishop certainly has \ last dying speech and confession." He
the best of the argument, but Macaulay | writes opposite the narrative about Stella:
was a very unlikely person to be con- j "A good story made ridiculous by Lord
vinced. The old Bishop says : " Do not i Orrery's way of telling it." Orrery says
think me very angry, when I say that a ; he cannot recollect scarcely a couplet of
person ivillingio come to such a conclu- '.. Swift's to Bolingbroke ; Macaulay anno-
sion would make an invaluable foreman | tates : " I recollect a good many couplets,
of a jury to convict another Algernon | and some of the finest passages of Swift's
Sidney. Sincerely, I never met so mon- , prose." On one page he scribbles, "A
strous an attempt to support a foregone | most prodigious ass ; " on another,
conclusion." Here Dr. Phillpotts is evi- j " Really, this book makes one ashamed
dently losing his temper. He is using of being a human being." Lord Orrery
those more trenchant weapons of contro- 1 very truly says, "The voyage to the
versy which none could use more power- ; Houyhnhnms " is a real insult to man-
fully than Macaulay. But perhaps from j kind ;" Macaulay catches him up, and
courtesy, perhaps from the consciousness says, " This book is a real insult to man-
of a weak cause which could not be , kind, I think." Macaulay writes against
effectually supported by strong language, I one acute remark, " Stolen." On another
he gave no reply, and we do not hear of passage he says, "This is so well said
another invitation to Bishopstowe. j that I can hardly think it was Orrery's
Macaulay, indeed, was always noted i own thought." He sometimes writes
for his hard, dogmatic belief in his own : down, ratlier after a young lady's fashion,
infallibility, and the sledge-hammer vio- " sublime," "delicately expressed," "a
lence with which he rebuked a literary, as ! grand style," where he ought to have
if it had been a moral, error. This weak- ' added, like Artemus Ward, " N.B. — This
ness almost approached the character of is wrote sarcastic." Lord Orrery tells
\ moral blot, an intellectual fault ; this his son that he means to treat on " such
tendency to scornful encounter, to the : subjects as will teach you to follow some
Jse of rough and rude language. I have moral virtue, or to shun some moral evil."
now before me several books from Lord Macaulay annotates, " Well said, old
Macaulay's library, on which he made Noah." Lord Orrery uses the phrase,
rough notes as he read. The most char- " I am of opinion ; " " An important
icteristically marked is Lord Orrery's fact," sneers Macaulay. " I am induced
Letters to his Son, Hamilton Boyle, on to believe ; " " What induced you ? "
Swift's Life and Writings. Both on the asks his unsympathetic reader. Lord
first and last page we have a date given, Orrery says, " The style of the whole
July 23,1835, so that we may suppose pamphlet" — meaning one of Swift's —
334
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
"is impartial ; " " What the deuce is an
impartial style ?" asks Macaulay.
Lord Orrery apologizes for having in-
serted these " scraps of letters," Ma-
caulay annotates : " To think of the im-
pudence of a fellow who makes an apol-
ogy for printing these interesting letters
of eminent men, and makes none for in-
flicting 300 pages of his own trash on
us." He writes against Orrery's criticism
of " Gulliver's Travels : " " All nonsense
together. You have not the faintest no-
tion of S.'s design." At times he appears
to relent. He owns that some lines of
Orrery's are better than he expected, and
writes at one place that this is the first
sensible remark he has seen. But his
general verdict on the last page is "most
contemptible trash." Lord Orrery says
of his great relative, " Who could pre-
vail upon himself to ridicule so good a
man as Mr. Boyle ? " Macaulay an-
notates : " There is a Boyle who is en-
titled to no such protection."
These marginalia have some genuine
contributions to the subject. On one
statement of the author's Macaulay says .
"Orrery was very ill informed. The
minister would doubtless have been glad
to do anything for S., but I am inclined
to think that the place which S. occupied
in the Tory party, though far higher than
that which Orrery assigns to him, was
below that which he stated, and perhaps
fancied that he occupied." On turning
to another book annotated by Macaulay,
" Harris's Hermes," we find that he does
not at all go into the subject matter, for
which he had little mental affinity, but
indulges after his manner in verbal criti-
cisms. He has written on the title page,
"a poor, bad book." This it certainly is
not ; Lord Malmesbury has no. such rea-
son to be ashamed of his ancestor. It
never seems to have occurred to his
mind that he might himself be exposed
to the same merciless criticism- that he
was always so ready to bestow on others.
Yet there is a large and increasing body of
criticism that has steadily fastened upon
Lord Macaulay's writings ; has impugned
various of his statements and conclusions,
and threatens seriously to impeach his
character for fairness and impartiality.
A good deal of interest has been ex-
cited on the subject of Lord Macaulay's
religion. A clergyman wrote a book
after his decease, in which he said that
the question of his eternal salvation was
a matter "of much interest." Mr. Pres-
ton, his evangelical tutor, reported how
reverence for religion what he could wish.
In his reputed Cambridge speech on
Oliver Cromwell he says, " It was the
opinion of Baxter, that at one period of
his life, he was sincere. But, sir, I be-
lieve that a thirst for personal aggran-
dizement never yet accompanied true re-
ligion. The Chrstian aims at power — if
he aims at it at all — not for his own
sake, but for others. Cromwell might at
some time have been influenced by reli-
gious feeling ; but the great idol of his
heart was ambition ; this, like the Ur of
the Chaldeans, devoured all the rest.".
A curious scene happened during the
Leeds election. An elector wished to
know the religious creed of Messrs. Mar-
shall and Macaulay. Macaulav rose
hastily from his seat, and called out,
" Who calls for that ? May I see him
stand up.?" Macaulay insisted that the
individual should stand up upon a form,
and after a great row the individual did
so, and was recognized as a local preacher
of the Methodist connection. " I do
most deeply regret that any person
should think it necessary to make a
meeting like this an arena for theological
discussion. My answer is short and in
one word — I regret that it should be
necessary to utter it — Gentlemen, I am
a Christian ... It never shall be said if
my election for Leeds depended on it
alone, that I was the first person to in-
troduce discussion upon such a ques-
tion." Macaulay once said that he
hoped the State would never support
Christianity in India. This is a preva-
lent opinion among Indian politicians,
and very good Christians might hold it,
but it is not the opinion of such men as
Sir Henry Lawrence, and it may be ques-
tioned whether this is the opinion which
will be eventually accepted.
It is a remarkable fact that he used to
say that he intended to give some years
special attention to religious subjects
This is singular, as no man can be cer
tain that he will have the years, or tha
he will really be able to devote them ir
the way that he intends. Where he wen
to reside, at Holly Lodge, Kensington -
which is carefully to be distinguishe
from Holly Lodge, Highgate — he ap
plied for sittings at that old parish churc
at Kensington which has now disaf
peared. There was only a single sittin:
in the building that could be spared, an
that one was placed at his disposal,
wished that the vicar's collector w<
call on him, and explain all about
that his disposition was good, and his charities, and he became a generous coi
i
ON THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF LORD MACAULAY.
335
tributor. But large-heartedness and gen-
erosity were of the very essence of his
character. He used to give a sum of money
towards the education of a number of
young children who might be supposed
to have some slight claim on him. The
children grew up, and his help was not,
strictly speaking, any longer required.
This fact was communicated to him by
the clergyman who had been the channel
of his benevolence. Macaulay however
wrote back to say that he should be glad
to be allowed to contribute as heretofore,
to the good of these young people. I
knew a German gentleman whose wife's
researches into early English history had
been full of interest to Macaulay. By a
sudden reverse he lost all his property,
and was eventually obliged to become a
teacher of languages. What grieved him
most of all was the utter indifference
with which the story of his fallen for-
tunes was received by former friends.
The case was very different with Ma-
caulay. He received him with the hearti-
est kindness, and made him accept a
large sum of money. But Macaulay's
outgoings far exceeded the scriptural
tithe. It is calculated that he gave away
a quarter of his means. No man's per-
sonal character stood higher than his.
On one occasion Lord John Russell came
down to consult him on a critical ques-
tion, and told the House of Commons
how he had been guided by his opinion.
His kind of excellence belonged, how- }
ever, to a very different order than that .
of his father, Zachary, who, leaving letters
to his son, devoted himself to the work i
of practical benevolence. There was '
about the son an intense self-conscious-
ness, a thirst for glory, an impatience of
the least dimming of his fame very for- ,
eign to his father's character, and it may
almost be tiiought that the root and
spring of character lay in self, and not in :
things external to self. i
There are several public appearances '
which Macaulay made beyond those
noted which are full of interest. The ad- 1
dress which he gave the students of the
University of Glasgow, as Lord Rector —
which he read with a wonderful manage-
; ment of voice — occasioned a most re-
; markable scene. As he went about Glas-
\ govv, crowds followed him everywhere,
Ijust to catch a look of him, just to see his
autograph when he wrote his name on
, the books of some public institution.
I The citizens gave him the freedom of the
city m a gold box, at a mighty gathering
'vithin the great City Hall. On this occa-
sion he showed an unwonted degree of
emotion. " This box, my lord, I shall
prize as long as I live, and when I am
gone" — here his voice faltered with
deep emotion — "it will be prized by
those dearest to me." In a high-pitched
tone he said, " The feelings which con-
tention and rivalry naturally call forth,
and from which I do not pretend to have
been exempted, have had time to cool
down. I look on the events in which I
bore a part, as calmly, I think, as on the
events of the last century." But this was
not so. A few years later he was ad-
dressing a rattling party-speech to the
electors of Edinburgh. He is a thorough
partisan ; a partisan even in the History,
where we see the advocate and not the
chief-justice. Once in the House he
called himself a Conservative as well as
a Liberal, whereat the Conservatives
" sornewhat grimly smiled."
Lord Macaulay's state of health was
not favourable to public appearances, and
abbreviated the hours he could spend on
his History. His complaint was, we un-
derstand, that very common one of
chronic bronchitis with heart symptoms.
Like too many chronic patients he be-
came at times careless, and did not ob-
serve the conditions on which his health
depended. One day he was met in
Bloomsbury, in bitter wind and weather,
on his way to the British M-iseum. He
did not work in the Reading-room, as we
have seen Archbishop Trench and other
scholars do, but had a special place ap-
propriated to himself. He was .met on
his road there by a relative, who was
amazed at seeing him on foot in such
health, and at such a season. Macaulay
explained that he wanted to save the
horses. It is not uncommon to meet peo-
ple who are more careful about their
horses than about themselves. His rela-
tive persuaded him to take a cab and go
home at once. The infirm state of health
continued. After his re-election to Edin-
burgh, a rumour spread that he was dead ;
he had invited the electors to meet him,
but he was unable to address them.
After his first great speech in Parliament,
he was almost overcome by the effort, and
as he was seen strolling down Piccadilly
muttering half aloud the sentences which
were "destined one day to astonish and
delight the world," those who watched
the great man, saw with concern the sick-
liness of his aspect.
In 1858 he was made High Steward of
Cambridge. He came down for the oc-
casion, but he was evidently in great ill-
33^
ALICE LORRAINE.
health, and his voice was hardly audible.
His words were few, as he said he must
reserve his strength for another occasion.
That occasion was the banquet which cel-
ebrated his inauguration. In returning
thanks, he said, " You will not regard my
thanks as the less sincere, because
uttered in a very few words ; there was a
time when I could have commanded a
hearing in much larger and stormier as-
semblies, but that time is passed ; and I
feel that if I can now do anything to
serve my country, it will be best done in
the quiet retirement of my own library.
It is now five years since I raised my
voice in public, and it is not likely, un-
less there be some special call of duty,
that I shall ever raise it in public again."
The words were prophetic. He never
spoke in public again, and died, some-
what suddenly, at the close of the follow-
ing year. It was the kind of end of
which Young writes : " Beware, Lorenzo,
the slow, sudden death." We are re-
minded of the final lines of the final frag-
ments of his History, how William the
Third felt his time was short, and grieved
with a grief such as noble spirits feel, to
think that he must leave his work only
half finished.
Lord Macaulay's will, a laconic legal
document, was made about a year before
his death. The property was sworn
under eighty thousand, but it was neces-
sary afterwards that it should be re-
sworn under seventy thousand. The per-
son first named, is his brother, the late
Rev. John Macaulay ; his brother Charles,
a half-brother, a sister, two nephews, two
nieces. His executor has a legacy — no
legacy is under a thousand pounds — and
leave to select a hundred books from his
library. With the exception of these few
legacies, the whole of the property went
to the Trevelyans, the children taking
twenty thousand pounds among them,
and Lady Trevelyan the remainder, and
all rights. It is a careful, thoughtful,
just will. By the death of Lady Trevel- '
yan, great and most interesting bequests
of his copyrights and MSS. fell into other
hands. By the law of copyright — a law
which he himself settled — the copyright
of his earlier essays have expired, and
they are now reprinted at almost nomi-
nal prices. The other copyrights expire
in their course, but it is hardly likely
that in any other form his writings will
enjoy the popularity which they possessed
in his lifetime. The blot of the History
was its Brobdingnagian proportions ; he
exhausted his strength on the foundation,
and we have hardly the half-raised walh
of the superstructure. F. Arnold.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.
A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.
CHAPTER XXV.
In the village of West Lorraine, which
lies at the foot of the South Down ridge,
there lived at this moment, and had lived
for three generations of common people,
an extraordinary old woman of the name
of Nanny Stilgoe. She may have been
mentioned before, because it was next tc
impossible to keep out of her, whenever
anybody whosoever wanted to speak of
the neighbourhood. For miles and miles
around, she was acknowledged to know
everything; and the only complaint about
her was concerning her humility. She
would not pretend to be a witch ; while
everybody felt that she ought to be, and
most people were sure that she was one.
Alice Lorraine was well-accustomed to
have many talks with Nanny ; listening
to her queer old sayings, and with young
eyes gazing at the wisdom or folly of the
bygone days. Nanny, of course, was
pleased with this ; still she was too old
to make a favourite now of any one. Peo-
ple going slowly upward towards a better
region, have a vested interest still in
earth, but in mankind a mere shiftin^j re-
mainder.
Therefore all the grace of Alice and
her clever ways and sweetness, and even
half a pound of tea and an ounce and a
half of tobacco, could not tempt old
Nanny Stilgoe to say what was not inside
of her. Everybody made her much more
positive in everything (according as the
months went on, and she knew less and
less what became of them) by calling
upon her, at every new moon, to declare
to them something or other. It was no
in her nature to pretend to deceive any
body, and she found it harder, from daj
to day, to be right in all their trifles.
But her best exertions were always
forthcoming on behalf of Coombe Lor
raine, both as containing the most con
spicuous people of the neighbourhood
and also because in her early days shi
had been a trusty servant under Lad
Valeria. Old Nanny's age had becom
by this time almost an unknown quantity
several years being placed to her cred'
(as is almost always done), to which sh
i
ALICE LORRAINE.
337
was not entitled. But, at any rate, she
looked back upon her former mistress.
Lady Valeria, as comparatively a chicken,
andfelt some contempt for her judgment,
because it could not have grown ripe as
yet. Therefore the venerable Mrs. Stil-
goe (proclaimed by the public voice as
having long since completed her century),
cannot have been much under ninety in
the year of grace 1811.
Being of a rather stiff and decided —
not to say crabbed — turn of mind, this
old woman kept a small cottage to herself
at the bend of the road beyond the black-
smith's, close to the well of St. Hagydor.
This cottage was not only free of rent,
but her own for the term of her natural
life, by deed of gift from Sir Roger Lor-
raine, in gratitude for a brave thing she
Ijad done when Roland was a baby. Hav-
ing received this desirable cottage, and
finding it followed by no others, she
naturally felt that she had not been
treated altogether well by the family.
And her pension of three half-crowns a-
week, and her Sunday dinner in a basin,
made an old woman of her before her
time, and only set people talking.
In spite of all this, Nanny was full of
goodwill to the family, forgiving them all
their kindness to her, and even her own
dependence upon them ; foretelling their
troubles plentifully, and never failing to
dwell upon them. And now on the very
day after young Hilary's conflict with his
father, she had the good luck to meet
Alice Lorraine, on her way to the rectory,
to consult Uncle Struan, or beg him to
intercede. For the young man had taken
his father at his word, concluding that
the door, not only of the room, but also
of the house, was open for him, on the
inhospitable side ; and, casting off his
native dust from his gaiters, he had taken
the evening stage to London, after a talk
with his favourite Alice.
Old Nanny Stilgoe had just been out to
gather a few sticks to boil her kettle, and
was hobbling home with the fagot in one
hand, and in the other a stout staff chosen
from it, which she had taken to help her
along. She wore' no bonnet or cap on
her head, but an old red kerchief tied
round it, from which a scanty iron-grey
lock escaped, and fluttered now and then
across the rugged features and hasforard
cheeks. Her eyes, though sunken, were
bright and keen, and few girls in the
parish could thread a fine needle as quick-
ly as she could. But extreme old age
was shown in the countless seams and
puckers of her face, in the knobby pro-
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 334
tuberance where bones met, and, above
all, in the dull wan surface of skin whence
the life was retiring.
" Now, Nanny, I hope you are well to-
day," Alice said, kindly, though by no
means eager to hold discourse with her
just now; "you are working hard, I see,
as usual."
" Ay, ay, working hard, the same as us
all be born to, and goes out of the world
with the sweat of our brow. Not the
likes of you. Miss Alice. All the world
be made to fit you, the same as a pudding
do to a basin."
" Now, Nanny, you ought to know
better than that. There is nobody born
to such luck, and to keep it. Shall I
carry your fagot for you ? How cleverly
you do tie them ! "
" 'Ee may carr the fagot as far as 'ee
wool. 'Ee wunt goo very far, I count.
The skin of thee isn't thick enow. There,
set 'un down now beside of the well.
What be all this news about Haylery ? "
" News about Hilary, Nanny Stilgoe !
Why, who has told you anything .?"
" There's many a thing as comes to my
knowledge without no need of telling.
He have broken with his father, haven't
he ? Ho, ho, ho ! "
" Nanny, you never should talk like
that. As if you thought it a very fine
thing, after all you have had to do with
us!"
" And all I owes you ! Oh yes, yes ;
no need to be bringing it to my mind,
when I gets it in a basin every Sunday."
" Now, Mrs. Stilgoe, you must remem-
ber that it was your own wish to have it
so. You complained that the gravy was
gone into grease, and did we expect
you to have a great fire, and you came up
and chose a brown basin yourself, and
the cloth it was to be tied in ; and you
said that then you would be satisfied."
"Well, well, you know it all by heart.
I never pays heed to them little things.
I leaves all of that for the great folk.
Howsever, I have a good right to be told
what doth not consarn no strangers."
" You said that you knew it all without
telling ! The story, however, is too true
this time. But I hope it may be for a
short time only."
"All along of a chield of a girl —
warn't it all along of that ? Boys thinks
they be sugar-plums always, till they
knows 'en better."
" Why, Nanny, now, how rude you are !
What am I but a child of a girl ? Much
better, I hope, than a sugar-plum."
" Don't tell me ! Now, you; see the
33^
water in that well. Clear and bright, and
not so deep as this here stick of mine is."
" Beautifully cool and sparkling even
after the long hot weather. How I wish
we had such a well on the hill ! What a
comfort it must be to you ! "
" Holy water, they calls it, don't 'em ?
Holy water, tino ! But it do well enough
to boil the kittle, when there be no frogs
in it. My father told me that his grand-
father, or one of his forebears afore him,
seed this well in the middle of a great
roaring torrent, ten feet over top of this
here top step. It came all the way from
your hill, he said. It fetched more water
than Adur river ; and the track of it can
be followed now."
" I have heard of it," answered Alice,
with a little shiver of superstition ; " I
have always longed to know more about
it."
" The less you knows of it the better
for 'ee. Pray to the Lord every night,
young woman, that you may never see it."
" Oh, that is all superstition, Nanny.
I should like to see it particularly. I
never could understand how it came ;
though it seems to be clear that it does
come. It has only come twice in five
hundred years, according to what they
say. I have heard the old rhyme about
it ever — oh, ever since I can remember."
" So have I beered. But they never
gets things right now ; they be so care-
less. How have you heered of it, Miss
Alice?"
"Like this — as near as I can remem-
ber : —
When the Woeburn brake the plain,
111 it boded for Lorraine.
When the Woeburn came again,
Death and dearth it brought Lorraine.
If it ever floweth more,
Reign of the Lorraines is o'er.
Did I say it right now, Nanny ? "
'• Yes, child, near enough, leastways.
But you haven't said the last verse at all,
Only this can save Lorraine,
One must plunge to rescue twain.
" Why, I never heard those two lines,
Nanny !"
" Like enough. They never cares to
finish anything nowadays. But that
there verse belongeth to it, as certain as
any of the Psalms is. I've heered my fa-
ther say it scores of times, and he had it
from his grandfather. Sit you down on
the stone, child, a minute, while I go in
and start the fire up. Scarcely a bit of
wood fit to burn round any of the hedges
ALICE LORRAINE.
now, they thieving children goes every-
where. Makes my poor back stiff, it
doth, to get enow to boil a cow's foot or
a rind of bakkon."
Old Nanny had her own good reasons
for not wanting Alice in her cottage just
then. Because she was going to have
for dinner a rind of bacon truly, but also
as companion thereto a nice young rabbit
with onion sauce ; a rabbit fee-simple
whereof was legally vested in Sir Roland
Lorraine. But Bottler the pigman took
seizin thereof, vi ef armz's, and conveyed
it habendum^ coquendiuji, et vorandinn, to
Mrs. Nanny Stilgoe, in payment for a
pig-charm.
Meanwhile, Alice thought sadly over
the many uncomfortable legends concern-
ing her ancient and dwindled race. The
first outbreak of the "Woeburn," in the
time of Edward the Second, was said to
have brought forth deadly poison from
the hillside whence it sprang. It ran for
seven months, according to the story to
be found in one of their earliest records,
confirmed by an inscription in the
church ; and the Earl of Lorraine and his
seven children died of the *' black death "
within that time. Only a posthumous
son was left, to carry on the lineage. The
fatal water then subsided for about a
century and a half, when it broke forth
suddenly in greater volume, and ran for
three months only. But in that short
time the fortune of the family fell from
its loftiest to its lowest ; and never
thenceforth was it restored to the ancient
eminence and wealth. On Towton field,
in as bloody a battle as ever was fought
in England, the Lorraines, though accus-
tomed to driving snow, perished like a
snowdrift. The bill of attainder, passed
with hot speed by a slavish Parliament,
took away family rank and lands, and left
the last of them an outcast, with the block
prepared for him.
Nanny having set that coney boiling,
and carefully latched the cottage door,
hobbled at her best pace back to Alice,
and resumed her subject.
" Holy water ! Oh, ho, ho ! Holy to
old Nick, I reckon ; and that be why her
boileth over so. Three wells there be in
a row, you know. Miss, all from that
same spring I count ; the well in Parson's
garden, and this, and the uppest one,
under the foot of your hill, above where
that gypsy boy harboureth. That be
where the Woeburn breaketh ground."
"You mean where the moss, and the
cotton-grass is. But you can scarcely call
it a well there now."
ALICE LORRAINE.
339
" It dothn't run much, very like ; and I
haven't been up that way for a year or
more. But only you try to walk over it,
child ; and you'd walk into your grave,
I hold. The time is nigh up for it to
come out, according to what they tells
of it."
" Very well, Nanny, let it come out.
What a treat it would be this hot sum-
mer ! The Adur is almost dry, and the
shepherd-pits everywhere are empty."
" Then you never have heered, child,
what is to come of it, if it ever comes out
again. Worse than ever corned afore to
such a lot as you be."
" I cannot well see how it could be
worse than death, and dearth, and slaugh-
ter, Nanny."
" Now, that shows how young girls
will talk, without any thought of anything.
To us poor folk it be wise and right to
put life afore anything, according to na-
tur' ; and arter that the things as must
go inside of us. There let me think, let
me think a bit. I forgets things now ;
but I know there be some'at as you great
folk counts more than life, and victuals,
and natur', and everythin'. But I forgets
the word you uses for it."
" Honour, Nanny, I suppose you mean
— the honour, of course, of the family."
" May be, some'at of that sort, as you
builds up your mind upon. Well, that be
running into danger now, if the old words
has any truth in 'em."
"Nonsense, Nanny, I'll not listen to
you. Which of us is likely to disgrace
our name, pray ? I am tired of all these
nursery stories. Good-bye, Mrs. Stil-
goe."
" It'll not be you, at any rate ; " the
old woman muttered wrathfully, as Alice
with sparkling eyes, and a quick firm
step, set off for the rectory: "if ever
there was a proud piece of goods — even
my bacco her'll never think of in her tan-
trums now ! Ah well ! ah well ! We
lives, and we learns to hold our tongues
in the end, no doubt." The old lady's
judgment of the world was a little too
harsh in this case, however ; for Alice
Lorraine, on her homeward way, left the
usual shilling's-worth of tobacco on old
Nanny's window-sill.
CHAPTER XXVI.
" It is worse than useless to talk any
more," Sir Roland said to Mr. Hales,
who by entreaty of Alice had come to
dine there that day and to soften things :
" Struan, you know that I have not one
atom of obstinacy about me. I often
doubt what is right, and wonder at peo
pie who are so positive. In this case
there is no room for doubt. Were you
pleased with your badger, yesterday 1 "
"A capital brock, a most wonderful
brock ! His teeth were like a rat-trap.
Fo3t, however, was too much for him.
The dear^little dog, how he did go in ! I
gave the ten guineas to my three girls.
Good girls, thoroughly good girls all.
They never fall in love with anybody.
And when have they had a new dress —
although they are getting now quite old
enough ? "
" I never notice those things much,"
Sir Roland (who had given them many
dresses) ansvvered, most inhumanly ;
" but they always look very good and
pretty. Struan, let us drink their healths,
and happy wedlock to them."
The Rector looked at Sir Roland with
a surprise of geniality. His custom was
always to help himself ; while his host
enjoyed by proxy. This went against his
fine feelings sadly. Still it was better to
have to help himself, than be unhelped
altogether.
" But about that young fellow," Mr.
Hales continued, after the toast had been
duly honoured ; " it is possible to be too
hard, you know."
" That sentiment is not new to me.
Struan, you like a capeling with your
port."
" Better than any olive always. And
now there are no olives to be had. Wars
everywhere, wars universal ! The pow-
ers of hell gat hold of me. Antichrist in
triumph roaring ! Bloodshed weltering
everywhere ! And I am too old myself ;
and I have no son to — to fight for Old
England."
" A melancholy thought ! But you
were always pugnacious, Struan."
" Now, Roland, Roland, you know me
better. 'To seek peace and to ensue it'
is my text and my tactic everywhere.
And with them that be of one household,
what saith St. Paul the apostle in his
Epistle to the Ephesians .? You think
that I know no theology, Roland, because
I can sit a horse and shoot ?"
" Nay, nay, Struan, be not thus hurt by
imaginary lesions. The great range of
your powers is well known to me, as it is
to every one. Particularly to that boy
whom you shot in the hedge last season."
" No more of that, an you love me. I
believe the little rascal peppered himself
to get a guinea out of me. But as to
Hilary, will you allow me to say a few
words without any offence ? I am his
340
ALICE LORRAINE.
own mother's brother, as you seem very
often to forget, and I cannot bear to see a
fine young fellow condemned and turned
oat of house and home for what any
young fellow is sure to do. Boys are
sure to go falling in love until their
whiskers are fully grown. And the very
way to turn fools into heroes (in their own
opinion) is to be violent with them,"
" Perhaps those truths are not new to
me. But I was not violent — I never
am."
" At any rate you were harsh and stern.
And who are you to find fault with him ?
I care not if I offend you, Roland, until
your better sense returns. But did you
marry exactly in your own rank of life,
yourself ? "
" I married a lady, Struan Hales —
your sister — unless I am misinformed."
" To be sure, to be sure ! I know well
enough what you mean by that ; though
you have the most infernal way of keep-
ing your temper and hinting things.
What you mean is that I am making lit-
tle of my own sister's memory by saying
that she was not your equal."
" I meant nothing of the sort. How
very hot your temper is ! I showed my
respect for your family, Struan, and sim-
ply implied that it was not graceful, at
any rate, on your part "
" Graceful be hanged ! Sir Roland, I
cannot express myself as you can — and
perhaps I ought to thank God for that —
but none the less for all that, I know
when I am in the right. I feel when I
am in the right, sir, and I snap my fin-
gers at every one."
" That is right. You have an un-
equalled power of explosion in your
thumb-joint — I heard it through three
oaken doors the last time you were at all
in a passion ; and now it will go through
a wall at least. Nature has granted you
this power to exhibit your contempt of
wrong."
" Roland, I have no power at all. I do
not pretend to be clever at words ; and I
know that you laugh at my preaching. I
am but a peg in a hole, I know, compared
with all your learning, though my church-
warden, Gates, won't hear of it. What
did he say last Sunday 1 "
" Something very good, of course.
Help yourself, Struan, and out with it."
" Well, it was nothing very wonderful.
And as he holds under vou, Sir Ro-
land "
" I will not turn him out for even the
most brilliant flash of his bramble-hook."
" You never turn anybody out. I wish
to goodness you would sometimes. You
don't care about your rents. But I do
care about my tithes."
"This is deeply disappointing after the
wit you were laden with. What was the
epigram of Churchwarden Gates ? "
" Never you mind. That will keep —
like some of your own mysteries. You
want to know everything and tell noth-
ing, as the old fox did in the fable."
" It is an ancient aphorism," Sir Ro-
land answered, gently, " that knowledge
is tenfold better than speech. Let us
endeavour to know things, Struan, and to
satisfy ourselves with knowledge."
" Yes, yes, let us know things, Roland.
But you never want us to know anything.
That is just the point, you see. Now, as
sure as I hold this glass in my hand, you
will grieve for what you are doing."
" I am doing nothing, Struan ; only
wondering at your excitement."
" Doing nothing ! Do you call it noth-
ing to drive your only son from your
doors, and to exasperate your brother-in-
law until he blames the Lord for being
the incumbent instead of a curate, to
swear more freely ? There, there ! I will
say no more. None but my own people
ever seem to know what is inside of me.
No more wine. Sir Roland, thank you.
Not so much as a single drop more ! I will
go while there is good light down the
hill."
" You will do nothing of the kind,
Struan Hales," his host replied, in that
clear voice which is so certain to have its
own clear way ; " you will sit down and
take another glass of port, and talk with
me in a friendly manner."
" Well, well, anything to please you.
You are marvellous hard to please of
late."
" You will find me most easy to please,
if only without any further reproaches,
or hinting at things which cannot con-
cern you, you will favour me with your
calm opinion in this foolish affair of poor
Hilary."
" The whole thing is one. You so
limit me," said the parson, delighted to
give advice, but loath to be too cheap
with it ; " you must perceive, Roland,
that all this matter is bound up, so to
speak, altogether. You shake your head ?
Well, then, let us suppose that poor Hil-
ary stands on his own floor only. Every
tub on its own bottom. Then what I
should do about him would be this: I
would not write him a single line, but
let him abide in his breaches or breeches
— whichever the true version is — and
ALICE LORRAINE.
341
there he will soon have no half-pence to
rattle, and therefore must grow penitent.
Meanwhile I should send into Kent an
envoy, a man of penetration, to see what
manner of people it is that he is so taken
up with. And according to his report I
should act. And thus we might very
soon break it off ; without any action for
damages. You know what those blessed
attorneys are."
Sir Roland thought for a little while ;
and then he answered pleasantly.
" Struan, your advice is good. I had
thought of that course before you came.
The stupid boy soon will be brought to
reason ; because he is frightened of
credit now ; he was so singed at Oxford.
And I can trust him to do nothing dis-
honourable or cold-blooded. But the
difficulty of the whole plan is this.
Whom have I that I can trust to go into
Kent, and give a fair report about this
mercenary grower and his crafty daugh-
ter?"
" Could you trust me. Roland ? "
" Of course I could. But, Struan, you
never would do such a thing ? "
" Why not ? I should like to know,
why not ? I could get to the place in
two days' time ; and the change would
do me a world of good. You laity never
can understand what it is to be a parson.
A deacon would come for a guinea, and
take my Sunday morning duty, and the
congregation for the afternoon would re-
joice to be disappointed. And when I
come back, they will dwell on my words,
because the other man will have preached
so much worse. Times are hard with
me, Roland, just now. If I go, will you
pay the piper .'* "
"Not only that, Struan ; but I shall
thank you to the uttermost stretch of
gratitude."
" There will be no gratitude on either
side. I am bound to look after my
nephew's affairs : and I sadly want to
get away from home. I have heard that
there is a nice trout-stream there. If
Hilary, who knows all he knows from me,
could catch a fine fish, as Alice told me,
— what am I likely to do, after panting up
in this red-hot chalk so long ? Roland,
I must have a pipe, though you hate it. I i
let you sneeze ; and you must let me
blow."
" Well, Struan, you can do what you
like, for this once. This is so very kind
of you."
" I beheve if you had let that boy Hil-
ary smoke," said the Rector, warming
unto his pipe, "you never would have
had all this bother with him about this
trumpery love-affair. Cupid hates to-
bacco."
CHAPTER XXVII.
On the second evening after the above
discourse, a solitary horseman might have
been seen, or to put it more indicatively,
a single ponyman was seen pricking gal-
lantly over the plains, and into the good
town of Tonbridge, in the land of Kent.
Behind him, and strapped to his saddle,
he bore what used to be called a " vady "
— a corruption, perpaps, of "vade me-
cum," — that is to say, a small leather cyl-
inder, containing change of raiment, and
other small comforts of the traveller.
The pony he bestrode was black, with a
white star on her forehead, a sturdy
trudger, of a spirited nature, and proud
of the name of " Maggie." She had now
recovered entirely from her ten-guinea
feast of dahlias, and was as pleased as
the Rector himself, to whisk her tail in a
change of air. Her pace was still gal-
lant, and her ears well pricked, especially
when she smelled the smell which all
country towns have of horses, and of rub-
bing down, hissing, and bucketing, and
(best of all) of good oats jumping in a
sieve among the chaff.
Maggie was proud of her master, and
thought him the noblest man that ever
cracked a whip, having imbibed this
opinion from the young smart hunter,
who was up to everything. And it might
have fared ill with Jack the donkey, if
Maggie had carried her master when that
vile assault was perpetrated. But if
Maggie was now in good spirits, what
lofty .flight of words can rise to the ela-
tion of her rider ?
The Rector now, week after week, had
been longing for a bit of sport. His open
and jovial nature had been shut up,
pinched, and almost poisoned, for want
of proper outlet. He hated books, and
he hated a pen, and he hated doing noth-
ing ; and he never would have horse-
whipped Bonny, if he had been as he
ought to be. Moreover, he had been
greatly bothered, although he could not
clearly put it, by all those reports about
Coombe Lorraine, and Sir Roland's man-
ner of scorning them. But now here he
was, in a wayfaring dress, free from the
knowledge of any one, able to turn to the
right or the left, as either side might pre-
dominate ; with a bagful of guineas to
spend as his own, and yet feel no re-
morse about them. Tush ! that does not
express it at all. With a bagful of
342
ALICE LORRAINE.
guineas to spend as he chose, and rejoice
in the knowledge that he was spending
another man's money, for his own good,
and the benefit of humanity. This is a
fine feeling, and a rare one to get the
luck of. Therefore, whosoever gets it,
let him lift up his heart and be joyful.
Whether from that fine diffidence
which so surely accompanies merit, or
from honourable economy in the distri-
bution of trust-funds, or from whatever
other cause it was, — in the face of all the
town of Tonbridge, this desirable travel-
ler turned his pony into the quiet yard of
that old-fashioned inn, "the Chequers."
All the other ostlers grunted disappro-
bation, and chewed straws ; while the one
ostler of "the Chequers" rattled his pail
with a swing of his elbow, hissed in the
most enticing attitude, and made-believe
to expect it.
Mr. Hales, in the manner of a cattle-
jobber (which was his presentment now),
lifted his right leg over the mane of the
pony, and so came downward. Every-
body in the yard at once knew thorough-
ly well what his business was. And no-
body attempted to cheat him in the inn ;
because it is known to be a hopeless
thing to cheat a cattle-jobber in any other
way than by gambling. So that with lit-
tle to say, or be said, this unclerkly clerk
had a good supper, and smoked a wise
pipe with his landlord.
Of course he made earnest inquiries
about all the farmers of the neighbour-
hood, and led the conversation gently to
the Grower and his affairs ; and as this
chanced to be Master Lovejoy's own
"house of call" at Tonbridge, the land-
lord gave him the highest character, and
even the title of " Esquire."
" Ah, yes," he exclaimed, with his rum-
mer in one hand, and waving his pipe with
the other ; " there be very few in these
here parts to compare with Squire Love-
joy. One of the true old Kentish stock,
sir ; none of your come-and-go bagmen.
I have heered say that that land have
been a thousand year in the family."
" Lord bless me ! " cried Mr. Hales ;
"why, we get back to the time of the
Danes and the Saxons ! "
" There now ! " said the landlord, giv-
ing him a poke of admiration with his
pipe ; " you knows all about it as well as
if I had told 'ee. And his family brought
up so respectable ! None of your sitting
on pillions. A horse for his self, and a
horse for his son, and a horse for his
pretty darter. Ah, if I were a young man
again — but there she be above me alto-
gether ! Though the Chequers, to m)
thinking, is more to the purpose than i
bigger inn might be, sir."
" You are right, I believe," replied his
guest. " How far may it be to Old Ap'
plewood farm .?"
" Well, sir, how far ? Why, let me
see : a matter of about five mile perhaps
You've heered tell of the garden of Eden
perhaps .? "
" To be sure ! Don't I read about it'
— he was going to say "every Sunday,'
but stopped in time to dissemble the par-
son.
"And the finest ten mile of turnpike in
England. You turns off from it about
four miles out. And then you keeps on
straight-forrard."
" Thank you, my good friend. I shall
ask the way to-morrow. Your excellent
punch is as good as a night-cap. But I
want to combine a little pleasure with
business, if I can, to-morrow. I am a bit
of a sportsman, in a small way. Would
Mr. Lovejoy allow me to cast a fly in his
water, think you ? "
" Ay, that he will, if you only tell him
that you be staying at the Chequers Inn."
The Rector went to bed that night in a
placid humour with himself, and his land-
lord, and all the county. And sleeping
well after change of air, a long ride, and
a good supper, he awoke in the morning,
as fresh as a lark, in a good state of mind
for his breakfast.
Old Applewood farm was just " taking
it easy " in the betwixt and between of
hard work. The berry season was over
now, and the hay was stacked, and the
hops were dressed ; John Shorne and his
horses were resting freely, and gathering
strength for another campaign — to can-
nonade London with apples and pears.
All things had the smell of summer, pass-
ing rich, and the smell of autumn, with-
out its weight leaning over the air. The
nights were as warm as the days almost,
yet soft with a mellow briskness ; and
any young man who looked out of his
window said it was a shame to go to bed
Some people have called this the "sad
dest time of the whole sad twelvemonth ; '
the middle or end of July, when all thing-'
droop with heavy leafiness. But who bt
these to find fault with the richest ^i
goodliest prime of nature's strengBj
Peradventure the fault is in themselves
All seasons of the year are good to thosi
who bring their seasoning. And now
when field, and wood, and hedge, st^-
up in their flush of summering, and e\«|
bird, and bat, and insect of our Br
A
ALICE LORRAINE.
343
island is as active as he ought to be (and
sometimes much too much so) ; also,
when good people look at one another
in hot weather, and feel that they may
have worked too hard, or been too snap-
pish when the frosts were on (which they
always are except in July), and then begin
to wonder whether their children would
like to play with the children of one an-
other, because they cannot catch cold in
such weather ; and after that, begin to
speak of a rubber in the bower, and a
great spread of delightfulness, — when all
this comes to pass, what right have we
to make the worst of it ?
That is neither here nor there. Only
one thing is certain, that our good par-
son, looking as unlike a parson as he
could — and he had a good deal of capa-
city in that way — steered his pony Mag-
gie round the corner into the Grower's
yard, and looked about to see how the
land lay. The appearance of everything
pleased him well, for comfort, simplicity,
and hospitality shared the good quarters
between them. Even a captious man
could hardly, if he understood the mat-
ter, find much fault with anything. The
parson was not a captious man, and he
knew what a good farmyard should be,
and so he said " Capital, capital ! " twice,
before he handed Maggie's bridle to Pad-
dy from Cork, who of course had run out
with a sanguine sense of a
rived.
" Is Squire Lovejoy at home ? " asked
the visitor, being determined to "spake
the biggest," as Paddy described it after-
wards. For t'le moment, however, he
only stared, while the parson repeated
the question.
" Is it the maisther ye mane ? " said
Paddy ; " faix then, I'll go and ax the
missus."
But before there was time to do this,
the Grower appeared with a spud on his
shoulder. He had been in the hop-
ground ; and hearing a horse, came up
to know what was toward. The two men
looked at one another with mutual ap-
proval. The parson tall, and strong, and
lusty, and with that straightforward as-
pect which is conferred, or at least con-
firmed, by life in the open air, field sports,
good living, and social gatherings. His
features, too, were clear and bold, and
his jaws just obstinate enough to manage
a parish ; without that heavy squareness
which sets the whole church by the ears.
The Grower was of moderate height, and
sturdy, and thoroughly useful ; his face
told of many dealings with the world ;
shilling ar-
but his eyes were frank, and his mouth
was pleasant. His custom was to let
other people have their say before he
spoke ; and now he saluted Mr. Hales
in silence, and waited for him to begin.
" I hope," said his visitor, " you will
excuse my freedom in coming to see you
thus. I am trying this part of the coun-
try for the first time for a holiday. And
the landlord of the Chequers Inn at Ton-
bridge, where I am staying for a day or"
two, told me that you perhaps would al-
low me to try for a fish in your river,
sir."
" In our little brook ! There be none
left, I think. You are kindly welcome to
try, sir. But I fear you will have a fool's
errand of it. We have had a young gen-
tleman from London here, a wonderful
angler, sure enough, and I do believe he
hath caught every one."
"Well, sir, with your kind permission,
there can be no harm in trying," said the
Rector, laughing in his sleeve at Hilary's
crude art compared with his own. " The
day is not very promising, and the water
of course is strange to me. But have I
your leave to do my best ? "
" Ay, ay, as long* as you like. My
ground goes as far up as there is any
water, and down the brook to the turn-
pike road. We will see to your nag ;
and if you would like a bit to eat, sir, we
dine at one, and we sup at seven, and there
be always a bit in the larder 'tween whiles.
Wil't come into house before starting ?"
" I thank you for the kind offer ; but I
think I'd better ask you the way, and be
off. There is just a nice little coil of
cloud now ; in an hour it may be gone,
and the brook, of course, is very low and
clear. Whatever my sport is, I shall call
in and thank you when I come back for
my pony. My name is Hales, sir, a clerk
from Sussex ; very much at your service
and obliged to you."
" The same to you. Master Halls ; and
I wish you more sport than you will get,
sir. Your best way is over that stile ;
and then when you come to the water, go
where you will."
" One more question, which I always
ask ; what size do you allow your fish to
be taken ? "
" What size ? Why, as big, to be sure,
as ever you can catch them. The bigger
they are, the less bones they have."
With a laugh at this answer, the parson
set off, with his old fly-book in his pocket,
and a rod in his hand which he had bor-
rowed (by grace of his landlord) in Ton-
bridge. His step was brisk, and his eyes
344
ALICE LORRAINE.
were bright, and he thought much more
of the sport in prospect than of the busi-
ness that brought him there.
"Aha ! " he exclaimed, as he hit on the
brook, where an elbow of bank jutted
over it, " very fine tackle will be wanted
here, and one fly is quite enough for it.
It must be fished downward, of course,
because it cannot be fished upward. It
will take all I know to tackle them."
So it did, and a great deal more than he
knew. He changed his fly every quarter
of an hour, and he tried every dodge of
experience ; he even tried dapping with
the natural fly, and then the blue-bottle
and grasshopper, but not a trout could
he get to rise, or even to hesitate, or show
the very least sign of temptation.
So great was his annoyance (from surety
of his own skill, and vain use of it), that
after fishing for about ten hours and
catching a new-born minnow, the Rector
vehemently came to a halt, and repented
that he had exhausted already his whole
stock of strong language. When a good
man has done this, a kind of reaction
(either of the stomach or conscience)
arises, and leads him astray from his
usual sign-posts, whether of speech, or
deed, or thought.
The Rev. Struan Hales sate down, mar-
velling if he were a clumsy oaf, and gave
Hilary no small credit for catching such
deeply sagacious and wary trout. Then
he dwelled bitterly over his fate for hav-
ing to go and fetch his pony, and let every
yokel look into his basket and grin at its
beautiful emptiness. Moreover, he found
himself face to face with starvation of the
saddest kind ; that which a man has chal-
lenged, and superciliously talked about,
and then has to meet very quietly.
Not to exaggerate — if that were pos-
sible— the Rev. Struan found his inner
man (thus rashly exposed to new Kentish
air) "absolutely barking at him," as he
strongly expressed it to his wife, the mo-
ment he found himself at home again.
But here he was fifty miles from home,
with not a fishing-basket only, but a much
nearer and dearer receptacle full of the
purest vacuity. "This is very sad," he
said, and all his system echoed it.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
While the Rector still was sitting thus,
on the mossy hump of an apple-tree,
weary and disconsolate, listening to the
murmuring brook, with louder murmur-
ings of his own, he espied a light well-
balanced figure crossing the water on a
narrow plank some hundred yards -up the
stream way.
" A pretty girl ! " said the parson ; " I
am sure of it, by the way she carries her-
self. Plain girls never walk like that.
Oh that she were coming to my relief !
But the place is rather dangerous. I
must go and help her. Ah, here she
comes ! What a quick light foot ! My
stars, if she hasn't got a basket ! Noth-
ing for me, of course. No such luck on
this most luckless of all days."
Meanwhile she was making the best of
her way, as straight as the winding stream
allowed, towards this ungrateful and
sceptical grumbler ; and presently she
turned full upon him, and looked at him,
and he at her.
" What a lovely creature ! " thought
Mr. Hales, " and how wonderfully her
dress becomes her ! Why, the mere sight
of her hat is enough to drive a young fel-
low out of his mind almost ! Now I
should like to make her acquaintance, if
I were not starving so. 'Acrior ilium
cura domat,' as Sir Roland says."
" If you please, sir," the maiden began,
with a bright and modestly playful glance,
"are you Mr. Halls, who asked my father
for leave to fish this morning ? "
"Hales, fair mistress, is my name, a
poor and unworthy clerk from Sussex."
"Then, Mr. Hales, you must not be
angry with me for thinking that you
might be hungry."
" And — and thirsty ! " gasped
Rector. " Goodness me, if you
knew my condition, how you would
me!"
" It occurred to me that you might be
thirsty too," she answered, as she took
out of her basket, a napkin, a plate, a
knife and fork, half a loaf, and something
tied up in a cloth whose fragrance went
to the bottom of the parson's heart, and
then a stone pipkin, and a half-pint horn,
and after that a pinch of salt. All these
she spread on a natural table of grass,
which her clever eyes discovered over
against a mossy seat.
" I never was so thankful in all my life
— I never was, I never was. My pretty
dear, what is your name, that I may bless
you every night ? "
" My name is Mabel Lovejoy, sir. And
I hope that you will excuse me for having
nothing better to bring than this. Most
fishermen prefer duck, I know ; but we
happened only to have in the larder this
half, or so, of a young roast goose ■ "
"A goose! An infinitely finer bird.
And so much more upon it ! Thank God
the
only
pity
J
ALICE LORRAINE.
345
that it wasn't a duck, my dear. Half a
duck would scarcely be large enough to
set my poor mouth watering. For good-
ness' sake, give me a drop to drink !
What is it — water ? "
" No sir, ale ; some of our own brew-
ing. But you must please to eat a mouth-
ful first. I have heard that it is bad to
begin with a drink."
" Right speedily will I qualify," said
the parson, with his mouth full of goose ;
" delicious — most delicious ! You must
be the good Samaritan, my dear ; or at
any rate you ought to be his wife. Your
very best health. Mistress Mabel Love-
joy ; may you never do a worse action
than you have done this day ; and I never
shall forget your kindness."
" Oh, I am so glad to see you enjoy it.
But you must not talk till you have eaten
every mouthful. Why, you ought to be
quite famishing."
"In that respect I fulfil my duty. Nay
more, I am downright famished."
" There is a little stuffing in here, sir ;
let me show you ; underneath the apron.
I put it there myself, and so I know."
" What most noble, most glorious, most
transcendent stuffing ! Whoever made
that was born to benefit, retrieve, and
exalt humanity.
" You must not say that, sir ; because
I made it."
" Oh, Dea^ certe ! I recover my Latin
under such enchantment. But how
could you have found me out ? And
what made you so generously think of
me?"
"Well, sir, I take the greatest interest
in fishermen, because — oh, because of
my brother Charlie ; and one of our men
passed you this afternoon, and he said he
was sure that you had caught nothing,
because he heard you — he thought he
heard you "
" No, no, come now, complaining mild-
ly,— not 'swearing,' don't say 'swear-
ing.' "
" I was not going to say ' swearing,'
sir. What made you think of such a
thing ? I am sure you never could have
done it ; could you ? And so when you
did not even come to supper, it came
into my head that you must want re-
freshment ; especially if you had caught
no fish, to comfort you for so many hours.
And then I thought of a plan for that,
which I would tell you, in case I should
find you unlucky enough to deserve it."
" I am unlucky enough to deserve it
thoroughly ; only look here, pretty Mis-
tress Mabel." With these words he lifted
the flap of his basket, and showed its pite-
ous emptiness.
" West Lorraine ! " she cried — "West
Lorraine ! " For his name and address
were painted on the inside wicker of the
lid. " Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Hales :
I had no right to notice it."
" Yes, you had. But you have no right
to turn away your head so. What harm
has West Lorraine done you, that you
won't even look at its rector ? "
" Oh, please not ; oh, please don't ! I
never would have come, if I could have
only dreamed "
" If you could have dreamed what ?
Pretty Mistress Mabel, a parson has a
right to an explanation, when he makes a
young lady blush so."
" Oh, it was so cruel of you ? You
said you were a clerk, of the name of
' Halls ' ! "
" So I am, a clerk in holy orders ; but
not of the name of ' Halls.' That was
your father's mistake. I gave my true
name ; and here you see me very much
at your service, ma'am. The uncle of a
fine young fellow, whose name you never
heard, I daresay. Have you ever hap-
pened to hear of a youth called Hilary
Lorraine .'* "
" Oh, now I know why you are come !
oh dear ! It was not for the fishing,
after all ! And perhaps you never fished
before. And everything must be going
wrong. And you are come to tell me
what they think of me. And very likely
you would be glad if you could put me in
prison ! "
"That would be nice gratitude ; would
it not ? You are wrong in almost every
point. It happens that I have fished be-
fore ; and that I did come for the fishing
partly. It happens that nothing is going
wrong ; and I am not come to say what
they think of you ; but to see what I
think of you — which is a very different
thing."
"And what do you think of me?"
asked Mabel, casting down her eyes,
standing saucily, and yet with such a de-
mure expression, that his first impulse
was to kiss her.
" I think that you are rogue enough to
turn the head of anybody. And I think
that you are good enough to make him
happy ever afterwards."
" I am not at all sure of that," she an-
swered, raising her sweet eyes, and
openly blushing ; " I only know that I
would try. But every one is not like a
clergyman, to understand good stuffing.
But if I had only known who you were, I
34^
would never have brought you any din-
ner, sir."
" What a disloyal thing to say ! Please
to tell me why I ought to starve for being
Hilary's uncle."
" Because you would think that I want-
ed to coax you to — to be on my side, at
least."
" To make a goose of me, with your
goose ! Well, you have me at your
mercy, Mabel. I shall congratulate Hil-
ary on having won the heart of the loveli-
est, best, and cleverest girl in the county
of Kent."
" Oh no, sir, you must not say that, be-
cause I am nothing of the sort, and you
must not laugh at me, like that. And
how do you know that he has done it ?
And what will every one say, when they
hear that he — that he would like to
marry the daughter of a Grower ? "
" What does his father say ? That is
the point. It matters very little what
others say. And I will not conceal from
you, pretty Mabel, that his father is bit-
terly set against it, and turned him out of
doors, when he heard of it."
" Oh, that is why he has never written.
He did not know how to break it to me.
I was sure there was something bad.
But of course I could expect nothing
else. Poor, poor sillies, both of us ! I
must give him up, I see I must. I felt
all along that I should have to do it."
" Don't cry so ; don't cry, my dear,
like that. There is plenty of time to talk
of it. Tilings will come right in the end,
no doubt. But what does your father
say to it ? "
" I scarcely know whether he knows it
yet. Hilary wanted to tell him ; but I
persuaded him to leave it altogether to
me. And so I told my mother first ; and
she thought we had better not disturb
my father about it, until we heard from
Hilary. But I am almost sure sometimes
that he knows it, and is not at all pleased
about it, for he looks at me very strange-
ly. He is the best and the kindest man
living almost ; but he has very odd ways
sometimes ; and it is most difficult to
turn him."
" So it is with most men who are worth
their salt. I despise a weathercock.
Would you like me to come in and see
him ; or shall I fish a little more first ? I
am quite a new man since you fed me so
well ; and I scarcely can put up with this
disgrace."
" If you would like to fish a little
longer," said Mabel, following the loving
gaze, which (with true angling obstinacy)
ALICE LORRAINE.
lingered still on the coy fair stream ;
" there is plenty of time to spare. My
father rode off to Maidstone, as soon as
he found that you were not coming in to
supper ; and he will not be back till it is
quite dark. And I should have time for
a talk with my mother, while you are at-
tempting to catch a trout."
" Now, Mabel, Mabel, you are too dis-
dainful. Because I am not my own
nephew (who learned what little he
knows altogether from me), and because
I have been so unsuccessful, you think
that I know nothing ; women always
judge by the event, having taken the trick
from their fathers perhaps. But you
were going to tell me something to make
up for my want of skill."
" Yes ; but you must promise not to
tell any one else, upon any account. My
brother Charlie found it out ; and I have
not told even Hilary of it, because he
could catch fish without it."
" You most insulting of all pretty maid-
ens, if you despise my science thus, I
will tell Sir Roland that you are vain and
haughty."
" Oh dear ! "
" Very ill-tempered."
" No, now, you never could say that."
" Clumsy, ill-dressed, and slatternly."
" Well done, well done, Mr. Hales !"
" Yes, and very ugly."
" Oh ! "
" Aha ! I have taken your breath away
with absolute amazement. I wish Hilary
could see you now ; he'd steal something
very delightful, and then knock his ex-
cellent uncle down. But now, make it
up, like a dear good girl ; and tell me this
great secret."
" It is the simplest thing in the world.
You just take a little bit of this — see
here, I have some in my basket ; and cut
a little delicate strip, and whip it on the
lower part of your fly. I have done it for
Charlie many a time. I will do one for
you, if you like, sir."
"Very well. I will try it, to please
you ; and for the sake of an experiment.
Good-bye, good-bye till dark, my dear.
We shall see whether a clerk can catch
fish or no."
When Mr. Hales returned at night to
the hospitable old farm-house, he carried
on his ample back between two and three
dozen goodly trout ; for many of which
he confessed himself indebted to Mabel's
clever fingers. Mrs. Lovejoy had been
prepared by her daughter to receive him ;
but the Grower was not yet come home
from Maidstone ; which on the whole
"latent thought."
was a fortunate thing. For thus the
Rector had time enough to settle with his
hostess what should be done on his part
and on hers, towards the removal, or at
any rate the gradual reduction, of the
many stumbling-blocks that lay, as usual,
upon true love's course. For both fore-
saw that if the franklin's pride should
once be wounded, he would be certain to
bar the way more sternly than even the
baronet himself. And even without that
he could hardly be expected to forego all
in a moment his favourite scheme above
described, that Mabel's husband should
carry on the ancestral farm, and the
growth of fruit. In his blunt old fashion,
he cared very little for baronets, or for
Norman blood ; and like a son of Tuscan
soil, was well content to lead his life in
cleaving paternal fields with the hoe, and
nourishing household gods, and hearth.
From The Contemporary Review.
" LATENT THOUGHT."
It has struck me that a loose and
somewhat obscure mode of speaking of
" latent thought," and, indeed, of the
intellect generally as an automatic ma-
chine independent of consciousness, has
grown up of late, — a mode of speaking
which is but an hypothesis, and, I believe,
an unwarranted one, for accounting for a
few mental phenomena, no doubt of the
first importance, but quite inadequate for
the purpose of establishing the very
startling conclusion that you can reach
some of the highest and best results of
thought without thinking. My object, in
the present paper, is briefly to classify
the phenomena referred to, and maintain
that they do not imply what they are sup-
posed to imply, and what I do not think
they could be supposed to imply if we
realized fully the meaning of our words,
— namely, that the brain, as distinct from
the mind, is a sort of intellectual weav-
ing-machine, from which, if you supply
it with the raw materials of a mental
problem, you may hope to take out the
finished article without the exercise of
any intellectual judgment or reflection.
I don't think you can get the results of
thinking without thought, of judging
without judgment, of creative effort with-
out the conscious adaptation of means to
ends. And I don't think that the phe-
nomena— the real existence of which, of
course, I fully accept — alleged as prov-
ing that this is possible, prove, or even
347
legitimately suggest, so strange a conclu-
sion.
(i.) One of the most remarkable evi-
dences of what is called " latent thought "
is furnished by the laws of perception.
It is quite certain that there is for ev-
ery person a vtinimiim visibile or audi-
bile, or generally a 7Jiinitnujn sensibile (to
use somewhat bad Latin), anything less
than which does not affect his perceptive
faculties at all, but less than which yet is,
of course, an essential part of that mini-
mum itself. If the line I am writing on
could be cut up into such a number of
distinct spots that each of them was a
trifle less than my inmiiniufi visibile^ and
if these spots were then removed to some
distance from each other, I should not
perceive their existence at all. But if
any two of them were brought together, I
should then become aware of the exist-
ence of a spot. It is clear, therefore,
that there are such things as physical
constituents of an object of perception
which, taken alone, are not perceived,
and yet which are essential elements of
something that is perceived. If this is
"latent perception," on the ground that
one of these spots taken alone must
affect me in some degree, though not in
a degree sufficient to excite perception
without combining with another of them,
— then latent perception only means " a
latent physical condition of perception ;"
and that there are innumerable such
latent physical conditions, — conditions
which only become patent in conjunction
with other conditions, — I suppose every
observant man would admit. The colour
of the spot, for instance, may be such a
latent physical condition of perception,
since a much smaller spot of bright colour
can be seen on a dark ground, or a much
smaller spot of dark colour on a bright
ground, than could be perceived if the col-
our of the spot were more similar to that of
the background. Hence the redness of
the two halves of the minimum visibile
may be a latent physical condition of
their being perceived when they coalesce
into one, just as much as their size.
The latent physical conditions not only
of perception, but of feeling and thought,
— the conditions of the nervous system
essential to feeling and thought, — are
probably innumerable. But no one will
say that unobserved — /.<?., latent — phj^s-
ical conditions of feelings and thoughts,
are feelings and thoughts, or we should
be using language quite without that
definiteness and appropriateness which
are the main uses of language. The case
348
"latent thought."
I am now discussing is not one of latent
perception, but of a latent physical con-
dition of future perception. It consti-
tutes no proof that you perceive without
perception, though it may constitute a
proof, to use Sir William Hamilton's
language, that " what we are conscious
of is constructed out of what we are not
conscious of," — a very different thing,
though even that seems to me a little
inaccurately stated, for it would be bet-
ter to say, that what we are conscious
of is constructed out of what we could
not be conscious of without the occur-
rence of other conditions. Surely we are
conscious of the whole niinimutn visi-
bile; — though not of each half, yet of
both halves. In the doctrine, then, of
latent physical conditions of perception,
I see no justification for the phrase,
latent perception. There is either per-
ception or no perception. What is un-
perceived is not perceived, though it may
be quite essential to something that is to
be perceived. That something may be
happening in my brain, to my optic
nerve, for example, even when only half
the mininiujit visibile is opposite to my
eye, and that this something is quite es-
sential to what happens as soon as the
whole is there, I am willing to admit.
But the half does not cause a latent per-
ception, though it is a latent physical
condition of perception.
(2.) Dr. Carpenter, in his learned and
instructive book on " Mental Physiology,"
speaks of the phenomena of recollection
as proving a kind of activity of the brain
or mind, — he guards himself against ap-
plying the term " thought " to anything
of which we are not conscious, but I am
not quite sure how far he thinks the dis-
tinction to be more than a question of
words, — which is often even stimulated
by our giving up the effort to recollect,
and passing to other subjects. And he
gives us many striking instances of phe-
nomena of which we have all, probably,
seen less striking instances, in which the
effort to recollect being futile, the missing
memory flashes back upon us soon after
we have relinquished the search. Far-
ther, he expresses his belief that when
phenomenon A is connected with C, but
only, as far as our consciousness is cott-
cerned, through B, A frequently suggests
C directly, without any even momentary
flash of B upon the memory, the substi-
tute for B being the cerebral or nervous
state formerly connected with B, though
not, in this instance, serving to bring B
back into consciousness. I have no doubt
at all that that is often a perfectly true
account of the missing links in a chain of
memory. There can be no doubt that
the restoration of a former state of con-
sciousness may be accomplished by any
avenue whatever which leads back to it }
and that if phenomenon A be a flash of
light causing a particular nerve to vibrate,
which nerve, again, is in the same sheath
with two others, one closely connected-
with phenomenon B, and the other with
phenomenon C, it might well happen that
the second nerve might set the third in
motion, without itself suggesting phe-
nomenon B, before the attention had been
riveted by phenomenon C ? The sight of
a certain species of chocolate always
suggests to me the jaundice, but I have
no doubt that originally the missing link
between these two conceptions was a par-
ticular sensation in the mouth or stom-
ach, which, as far as I know, I have never
consciously recalled, but which the choc-
olate caused at a time when an attack of
jaundice was coming on. It is quite pos-
sible that some very faint recurrence of
that sensation — so faint as never to chal-
lenge conscious attention — was the miss-
ing link between the two impressions in
my mind. But here, again, I see nothing
like latent orunthought thought, but only
unthought physical conditions of thought.
Clearly Dr. Carpenter is right in saying
that to leave off attempting to recollect
and to rely on the trains of suggestions
set going in the first effort, after the
(probably misleading) control of the will
has been withdrawn, is frequently the
best chance we have for recovering a
missing impression. But Miss Cobbe's
and Mr. Wendell Holmes's suggestion,
to which Dr. Carpenter will be, I believe,
misunderstood by many, as lending in his
book a certain amount of countenance,
that this recovery is due to some myste-
rious so-to-say subterranean intelligence
working beneath our consciousness, as a
Secretary hunts up a quotation for his su-
perior, seems to me baseless. Any man
who observes his own mind, will notice
that if he stirs up thoroughly any sub-
ject whatever, by ransacking its intellec-
tual neighbourhood, so to speak, he will
for days afterwards have all sorts of cross-
associations with it flashing up at times
in his mind, — and this whether he is in
search of a missing impression or not.
When you take down an old shelf of
College books, you have, for days after,
waifs and strays of College memories
haunting your mind, some of them com-
ing by direct, some by quite inscrutably
"latent thought."
349
indirect and subtle paths of association.
Of course it is not remarkable that when
one of these impressions happens to be
missing, it will come back to you on some
such line of association. But all that
this seems to me to signify, is that mem-
ory depends on a number of latent and
involuntary physical conditions, as well
as a number of conscious and equally in-
voluntary mental conditions, and that
when you have exhausted the latter un-
successfully, you had better fall back on
the chance of help from the former.
Man being made up of body and mind,
there is nothing astonishing in the fact
that there are bodily links, of which he
may often be unconscious, between states
of mind not otherwise associated. But
this is not latent or unthought thought^
it is a latent or unthought physical condi-
tion of suggestion. And that such con-
ditions exist, I think every psychologist
will admit. It does not the least follow
from thus admitting that the conditions
of memory are rooted in involuntary phys-
ical as well as mental laws, that the pro-
cess of inference or judgment, of analysis
or synthesis, or even of recollection it-
self, could be unconsciously performed.
Yet, as I shall show, the theory appears
to be held, even by a very distinguished
man, that you may recollect without rec-
ollecting— i.e.^ recollect elaborately with
your muscles what has not yet emerged
into recognition by your mind.
Again (3), there are such things as auto-
matic habits, which, once formed, require
exceedingly little thought or attention, so
that you may read aloud, or play on the
piano, or walk through a crowded street,
absorbed all the time in a train of intense
thought or feeling, as widely removed as
the Poles asunder from your immediate
action. Such habits seem to be in some
sense mental analogies of the first law of
motion, — seem to show, that is, that
even a law of change, once established in
our minds, tends to persevere, in the ab-
sence of any resisting force. But are
these cases of unconscious thought, of
latent intellectual effort ? I think not.
They show with how little conscious ef-
fort you can do that which it took you a
great conscious effort to begin to do, but *
not tliat an under-i7iind\s working with-
out your knowing it, while the upper-mind
works at something else. If an under-
mind were working at reading aloud, for
instance, while the upper-mind were
* ** Not an under-mind, but an under-party^^ says
Dr. Carpenter. — Editor C. R.
dwelling on a totally different train of
ideas, then it would follow that the drift
of what you had been reading might be
recovered by you in some future mental
state. Now it is true, I think, that this
sort of unconscious reading does some-
times impress the sound ox\ your memory ;
the ear will retain what the ear hears,
and sometimes a sentence comes after-
wards back on you verbally^ and then
for the first time, if you take in the
words, you apprehend what it means, and
just as freshly as if you were then hear-
ing it for the first time ; but what one
has read thus automatically is never ap-
prehended by the mind, and consequently
never recollected, unless it be indirectly
by the lingering of the sounds in the
memory, which sounds are not translated
into their import till some future time.
It seems to me that these automatic
habits imply no more than this, — that
what takes but little effort and attention
may be done simultaneously with what
takes much. But this is no case of "la-
tent thought." It is a case of giving ex-
ceedingly little thought to a thing which
now requires little, and a great deal to
another thing which requires much ; the
power of recalling afterwards, being gen-
erally proportional to the amount of at-
tention given. That you cannot do even
these semi-automatic acts without some
attention is shown by the fact that if in
such automatic reading you get to a new
and difficult word, you have to break
your chain of thought to read it, or else
you break down, — and that if in your
walk in a crowded street you get to a
barricade, you must recall your mind to
circumvent it. These seem to me phe-
nomena not of latent thought, but of a
minimum of thought. Dr. Carpenter
holds that the power some remarkable
calculators have of adding up a long col-
umn of figures almost at a glance, shows
that the brain operates without the con-
sciousness, inasmuch as there is not time
to receive a distinct conscious impression
of every figure. But that view surely ex-
plains a great deal too much. If any one
figure were changed, unquestionably the
result would be differently given, if it
were rightly given. Either, then, the
mind takes account of every figure,
though so rapidly as not to be able to re-
call it afterwards, or it does not take ac-
count of any, and the whole operation is
unconscious, — which seems to me a
much wilder supposition than the former.
To say that a man cerebrates a sum more
quickly than he could calculate it, seems
350
like saying that an intellectual habit
which, by practice and faculty, has be-
come astonishingly easy and sure, has
ceased to be intellectual by reason of its
economy of effort. But surely to require
less effort and attention to a given
achievement is not less, but more of a
triumph of intellect, than to require more.
What is called " cerebration " is, I think,
only a mental operation marked by great
economy of intellect and effort. But why
is such an operation more a case of
"cerebration" than the same operation
slowly carried through all its stages ?
Where is the evidence that the less the
amount of intellectual efEort, the greater
is the amount of brain activity ? As far
as I can see, the "cerebrational " as-
sumption assumes that there can be no
real economy of brain-effort at all, that as
soon as we have less mental trouble over
an operation, there must be some com-
pensation for the saving, in the shape of
great relegation of activity to brain-
processes of which we are not conscious.
I should have expected just the reverse,
— that the greatest amount of "cerebra-
tion " goes with the greatest amount of
conscious attention and effort, and the
least "cerebration " with the least. Dr.
Carpenter teaches us (see p. 475 of the
work referred to) that semi-automatic
habits are due to the mechanism of a
different set of nerves from those which
are called into play when we first pain-
fully learn our lesson : —
Now, since [he says] in those cases in which
man acquires powers that are original or intui-
tive in the lower animals, there is the strongest
reason for believing that a mechanism forms
itself in him which is equivalent to that con-
genitally possessed by them, we seem fully
justified in the belief that in those more
special forms of activity which are the result
of prolonged " training," the Sensorimotor
apparatus grows-to the mode in which it is
habitually exercised, so as to become fit for
the immediate execution of the mandate it
receives (§ 194) : it being often found to act
not only without intehigent direction, but
without any consciousness of exertion, in im-
mediate response to some particular kind of
stimulus, — just as an Automaton that exe-
cutes one motion when a certain spring is
touched, will execute a very different one
when set going in some other way.
But admit that animal movements fol-
low each other without any consciousness
Vihen a certain spring in the nervous sys-
tem has been once touched, and that
those animal movements are as well
adapted as a locomotive with steam on to
"latent thought."
move a train, for the purpose which you
had in view in starting them, — still this
does not prove in the least that the re-
sults of thought can be obtained without
thought, except in the sense in which it
is always true of a mechanism properly
prepared, — the said locomotive, for in-
stance,— that after you have ceased to
think, it will, when properly set in motion
by human purpose, do what it had been
adapted to do. But havewQ a logical or
calculating machine, like Professor Jev-
ons's and the late Mr. Babbage's, in our
brains, which will, when properly manipu-
lated, draw inferences, and calculate
arithmetical problems, without intelli-
gence 1 I see no sign of it at all. I
have no means of drawing an inference
without understanding the premisses ; I
have no means of telling what the sin.
30'', is without knowing what a sine
means, and what 30° mean. That ma-
chines may be devised to wtitate to some
extent the methods of human thought,
does not in the least prove that we pos-
sess such machines in our own brains, in
addition to the original intelligence which
suggested them. And I don't think we
do. My only quarrel is with the notion
that you can get all the results of calcu-
lation out of your brain without discrim-
inating 2 from 5 ; that you can have all
the fruits of recollection while your
memory is a blank ; that you can infer
without a conscious act of attention ; that
you can judge without a trace of any
weighing of the pros and cons. And this
is the view which a small part of Dr.
Carpenter's doctrine seems to me at
least to countenance.
For instance (4). Dr. Carpenter gives as
a tenable explanation of certain supposed
facts adduced by spiritualists, that a per-
son present at a seance, having some
time ago known certain facts reported by
the movements of the table, but having
quite forgotten them, had yet involun-
tarily and unconsciously caused the table
to move so as to assert them, they being
at the moment, in this person's own be-
lief, not only false, but completely ima-
ginary : —
Another instance, supplied by Mr. Dibdin
{op. cit.), affords yet more remarkable evidence
to the same effect ; especially as being related ^
by a firm believer in the " diabolical " origin '
of Table-talking : — A gentleman, who was at '
the time a believer in the "spiritual " agency
of his table, assured Mr. Dibdin that he had]
raised a good spirit instead of evil ones — that,
I namely, of Edward Young, the poet. Thai
I " spirit " having been desired to prove hisj
I
LATENT THOUGHT.
351
identity by citing a line of his poetry, the
table spelled out, "Man was not made to
question, but adore." "Is that in your
' Night Thoughts ? ' " was then asked. " No."
" Where is it, then ? " The reply was "Jo b."
Not being familiar with Young's poems, the
questioner did not know what this meant ; but
the next day he bought a copy of them ; and
at the end of the " Night Thoughts " he found
a paraphrase of the Book of Job, the last line
of which is " Man was not made to question,
but adore." Of course he was very much
astonished ; but not long afterwards he came
to Mr. Dibdin, and assured him that he had
satisfied himself that the whole thing was a
delusion — numerous answers he had obtained
being obviously the results of an influence un-
consciously exerted on the table by those who
had their hands upon it ; and when asked by
Mr. Dibdin how he :accounted for the dicta-
tion of the line by the spirit of Young, he very
honestly confessed, " Well, the fact is, I must
tell you, that I had the book in my house all
the tim.e, although I bought another copy;
and I found that I had read it before. My
opinion is that it was a latent idea^ and that
the table brought it out."
Now, Dr. Carpenter does not vouch for
this fact, and of course it is not the fact
itself which I am either accepting or
questioning, but only the validity of the
explanation suggested, if the fact itself
be assumed. That explanation seems to
me even less credible than the so-called
spiritualist explanation. It is, at least,
possible that invisible intelligences may
correct our blunders of memory. But to
ask us to believe that one and the same
person can have, at one and the same
moment, nervous arrangements for re-
calling accurately by the mediation of his
muscles, j^/ without any act of metnory,
how a thing i;eally happened, while he is
making, by an act of recollection, an er-
roneous statement on the same subject
through his consciousness and his voice,
is, I think, to ask us to believe a much
more improbable explanation in order to
avoid a less improbable one. And this is
why I think the former improbability the
less. If the fact were as related, we
should clearly have evidence that the
table's movements were due to some
agency which understood the structure
of language and its meaning. Now, if
that agency were that of th^ person who,
after having once read Young's "Job,"
had forgotten completely both the exist-
ence of the book and the line in question,
it would follow that at the same moment
of time, within the limits of the same or-
ganization, there existed two distinct
agencies, both able to use language as a
means of conveying rational meaning,
one of them, however, — the one appar-
ently in command of the speech and the
brain, — without any memory of Dr.
Young's "Job," and of the particular line
quoted from it, and the other of them, —
which must have had a certain control
over the spinal cord and the system of
reflex action, — retaining that memory
perfectly. Now, while we have ample
experience of successive phenomena of
this kind within the limits of the same
individual's experience, surely not only-
have we no experience whatever of simul-
taneous phenomena of the kind, but if we
had, our ideas of moral responsibility-
would be extraordinarily confused. Which
of these two intellectual agencies is to
be identified with the person of the indi-
vidual who was the source of both ? The
one which remembered correctly and tel-
egraphed the accurate memory through
the table, or the one with a defective
memory which asserted its accurate mem-
ory by the voice ? If my spinal cord
holds one view, and my cerebrum anoth-
er, as to the events of my past life, the
one might turn Queen's evidence against
the other ; but how one of them could be
hanged, while the other received a free
pardon, would be an embarrassing prob-
lem. Speaking seriously, it seems to me
that this doctrine of a " latent " memory
capable of articulate telegraphy, in direct
contradiction to the conscious memory,
— which denies simultaneously all knowl-
edge of the matter so telegraphed, —
passes infinitely beyond any hypothesis
warranted by the class of facts I have
hitherto dealt with, and could hardly be
true without our constantly coming across
ample evidence of its truth. That men
forget a thing one moment and remember
it the next, is certain ; but while they
forget, they forget, and have, as far as
we know, no oracle to consult in that part
of their system to which the reflex actions
are due, by the help of which the forgot-
ten facts can be recalled. If some part
of my body cannot only recover its hold
of a story I have forgotten, but put it into
human speech, while I continue quite
sincerely to disown it, it seems to me per-
fectly clear that there are two intellectual
agents under cover of my organization,
and not one. But that is far more sur-
prising than the spiritualist hypothesis
itself. It is conceivable at least, that an
invisible intelligence might use my
hands to transmit ideas of which I am
not the originator, just as any one strong
enough to do so may guide my hand
when I am blindfolded, so as to write a
"latent thought."
352
letter, of the contents of which I am ;
ignorant. But it is hardly conceivable '
that I myself can do sOj without sharing '.
the knowledge communicated by the j
means in question. If that could be,
then " latent thought " n:ust mean
thought which can be communicated and
made intelligible to others without any
one to think it ; for / don't think it, I
deny thinking it ; and the automatic
apparatus which communicates it does
not i/iink it, for, by the hypothesis, it is
not attended by consciousness at all, and
on appeal being made to consciousness,
it is promptly disowned. Now, what is
there in the facts which are universally
admitted as to the latent physical condi-
tions of perception and memory, and as
to the half automatic character of habit-
ual actions, to justify so astounding a
challenge to all experience as this ?
Observe that what seems so incredible in
this theory is the use of language implying
co7iscious thought without any conscious-
ness behind it. I should not deny of
course that ?l physical habit, say a nervous
twitch in the fingers, might testify even
agai?ist2i man's own conscious memory, to
the truth of a story in which was to be
found the explanation of the origin of that
twitch, a story, that is, which the man
himself had quite forgotten. Just so a
scar is often a physical record of a blow
of which the conscious memory holds no
trace. But if letters were selected, one
by one, to spell out the word "Job," and
the line quoted from it, " Man was not
made to question, but adore," there would
be far 7nore evidence of consciousness
somewhere than there would be, even if
the line had been merely spoken. It is
possible enough that in the case, for
instance, of any one who repeats a
given cry thousands of times in the same
day, like a newspaper boy or an old
clothesman in the London streets, the
muscles of speech may take so fixed a
habit as to pronounce significant words
without any corresponding thought to
put them in motion. But suppose the
mode of communication to be suddenly
changed to a new one, like the individual
selection of the letters, one by one, which
goto make up the words, — and surely
the hypothesis which denies conscious-
ness to the agency selecting these letters,
becomes utterly untenable. It is quite
conceivable, of course, that in some ab-
normal sleep, under the influence of a
different set of physical or mental sug-
gestions, I might recall and correctly re-
peat a line I had completely forgotten,
and refer it to its right author, while in
my waking state I fail to recall it. But
if I am at the very same moment to be
both in an abnormal trance afid awake,
with a distinct mechanism for communi-
cating my dreams and my recollections,
with an inconsistent set of statements to
communicate, and with only one con-
sciousness, — which lends its imprimatur
to the wrong set of the two, even while I
am carefully comparing them, — then I
conceive that no beam of light doubly
refracted by Iceland spar could be in a
worse condition for tracing its historical
identity than I.
(5.) I do not even attempt in this paper
to explain the curious facts on which the
doctrine of "unconscious cerebration"
is chiefly rested, — for a very good rea-
son, because I can't. But a good many
of them surely indicate a very differ-
ent explanation, — namely, discontinuous
states of active thought, in which both
brain and consciousness must have in
every sense fully co-operated, but the link
between which has for some reason, con-
nected more with physical than men-
tal causes, been temporarily lost. Dr.
Carpenter has collected in his very valu-
able book many most curious illustrations
of the way in which a great shock to the
nervous system will utterly annihilate
memory for a time, so that the sufferer
has to begin to learn even the rudiments
of knowledge anew, and often makes
great progress, when another physical
change in his or her brain suddenly re-
stores all the former knowledge, but
obliterates completely the memory of the
painfully reacquired knowledge of the
intermediate period. No one even sug-
gests that the intellectual processes of
the intermediate period were not con-
sciously performed, though they are sepj
arated by a film of complete oblivion froi
the normal consciousness. Again, DrJ
Carpenter gives us some very curious
illustrations of the successful solutioi
during sleep of problems unsuccessfully^
attempted during waking. Take this, foi
example, among many of the sam(
kind : —
The first case is given by Dr. Abercrombie|
on the authority of the family of a distini
guished Scottish lawyer of the last age
" This eminent person had been consulte
respecting a case of great importance ar
much difficulty ; and he had been studying
with intense anxiety and attention. Aft^
several days had been occupied in this mat
ner, he was observed by his wife to rise from
his bed in the night, and go to a writing-c"
A ROSE IN JUNE.
353
which stood in the bed-room. He then sat
down, and wrote a long paper which he care-
fully put by in his desk, and returned to bed.
The following morning he told his wife that
he had had a most interesting dream ; that he
had dreamt of delivering a clear and luminous
opinion respecting a case which had exceed-
ingly perplexed him ; and that he would give
anything to recover the train of thought which
had passed before him in his dream. She
then directed him to the writing-desk, where
he found the opinion clearly and fully written
out ; and this was afterwards found to be per-
fectly correct." (^Intellectual Powers ^ 5th Edit.,
p. 306.)
It cannot reasonably be asserted that
thoughts which were so completely in
possession of this person's mind, as to
have partially survived sleep, were not
real and vivid exercises of the thinking
power. Clearly here is a case of genuine
and concentrated thought almost com-
pletely forgotten, in consequence of the
cessation of the physical state in which the
train of ideas was elaborated. In various
other instances given by Dr. Carpenter
the oblivion is more complete, but there
is not less evidence of real thought (as
distinguished from the mere train of sug-
gestions which can alone be plausibly re-
ferred to " cerebration "). If now in
these cases it is quite certain that, be the
cerebral process what you please, there
was as real and as conscious thought as
any thinking man can ever boast of, and
yet that very often the forgetfulness was
nearly or quite complete, is it not fair to
conclude that in a great many of the cases
on which Dr. Carpenter appears to insist
so much, — those in which, after a long
apparent mental rest, we return to a sub-
ject to find it taking quite new and very
much clearer shape in our minds, — the
progress is probably due not to " uncon-
scious cerebration," but to forgotten
intervals of conscious intellectual work ?
For my own part, I am persuaded that
this very often is the case. The side-
glances one gives to a subject which is
not exactly before the mind, but which is
resting in it in comparative abeyance, are,
I am sure, though seldom remembered,
extremely fruitful. It is these which tell
you where you have been pressing a
favourite crotchet too hard, which set
the balance of the judgment right, and
which open up new and important tracks
of consideration that had been well-nigh
neglected under the pressure of too
much eagerness. When one remembers
that such side-glances may, for many
men, take place in sleep no less than in
waking hours, and would, without being
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 335
individually recalled, alter completely the
aspect in which a subject presents itself,
I confess I see in facts of this kind no
excuse for the startling hypothesis that
you ever attain to a distinct conclusion
without any conscious consideration of
the conditions, that you ever " cerebrate "
a sum without mathematical process, or
that you ever attest articulately a fact
which at that very moment you have quite
forgotten. R. H. Hutton.
From The Cornhill Magazine. •
A ROSE IN JUNE.
CHAPTER XIII.
There is no such picturesque incident
in life as the sudden changes of fortune
which make a complete revolution in the
fate of families or individuals without
either action or merit of their own. That
which we are most familiar with is the
change from comfort to poverty, which so
often takes place, as it had done with the
Damerels, when the head of a house,
either incautious or unfortunate, goes
out of this world leaving not only sorrow,
but misery, behind him, and the bereave-
ment is intensifiied by social downfall and
all the trials that accompany loss of
means. But for the prospect of Mr.
Incledon's backing up, this would have
implied a total change in the prospects
and condition of the entire household,
for all hope of higher education must
have been given up for the boys ; they
must have dropped into any poor occupa-
tion whicli happened to be within their
reach, with gratitude that they were able
to maintain themselves ; and as for the
girls, what could they do, poor children,
unless by some lucky chance of mar-
riage ? This poor hope would have given
them one remaining chance not possible
to their brothers ; but, except that, what
had they all to look forward to ? This
was Mrs. Damerel's excuse for urging
Rose's unwilling consent to Mr. Incle-
don's proposal. But lo ! all this was
changed as by a magician's wand. The
clouds rolled off the sky, the sunshine
came out again, the family recovered its
prospects, its hopes, its position, its free-
dom, and all this in a moment, Mrs.
Damerel's old uncle Edward had been an
original who had quarrelled with all his
family. She had not seen him since she
was a child, and none of her children had
seen him at all — and she never knew
exactly what it was that made him. select
354
A ROSE IN JUNE.
her for his heir. ' Probably it was pity ;
probably admiration for the brave stand
she was making against poverty — per-
haps only caprice, or because she had
never asked anything from him ; but,
whatever the cause was, there was the
happy result. In the evening anxiety,
care, discouragement, bitter humiliation,
and pain ; in the morning sudden ease,
comfort, happiness — for, in the absence
of anything better, it is a great happiness
to have money enough for all your needs,
and to be able to give your children what
they want, and pay your bills and owe
no man anything. In the thought of
being rich enough to do all this Mrs.
Damerel's heart leapt up in her breast,
like the heart of a child. Next moment
she remembered, and with a pang of sud-
den anguish asked herself, oh, why —
why had not this come sooner, when he,
who would have enjoyed it so much,
might have had the enjoyment ? This
feeling sprang up by instinct in her mind,
notwithstanding her bitter consciousness
of all she had suffered from her husband's
carelessness and self-regard — for love is
the strangest of all sentiments, and can
indulge and condemn in a breath, without
any sense of inconsistency. This was
the pervading thought in Mrs. Damerel's
mind as the news spread through the
awakened house, making even the chil-
dren giddy with hopes of they knew not
what. How he would have enjoyed it all
— the added luxury, the added conse-
quence!— far more than she would en-
joy it, notwithstanding that it came to her
like life to the dying. She had taken no
notice of Rose's exclamation, nor of the
flush of joy which the girl betrayed. I
am not sure, indeed, that she observed
them, being absorbed in her own feelings,
which come first even in the most gen-
erous minds, at such a crisis and revolu-
tion of fate.
As for Rose, it was the very giddiness
of delight that she felt, unreasoning and
even unfeeling. Her sacrifice had be-
come unnecessary — she was free! So
she thought, poor child, with a total in-
difference to honour and her word, which
I do not attempt to excuse. She never
once thought of her word, or of the en-
gagement she had come under, or of the
man who had been so kind to her, and
loved her so faithfully. The children had
holiday on that blessed morning, and
Rose ran out with them into the garden,
and ran wild with pure excess of joy.
This was the first day that Mr. Nolan
had visited them since he went to his
new duties, and as the Curate came into
the garden, somewhat tired after a long
walk, and expecting to find his friends
something as he had left them — if not
mourning, yet subdued as true mourners
continue after the sharpness of their grief
is ended — he was struck with absolute
dismay to meet Rose, flushed and joyous,
with one of the children mounted on her
shoulders, and pursued by the rest, in
the highest of high romps, the spring air
resounding with their shouts. Rose
blushed a little when she saw him. She
put down her little brother from her
shoulder, and came forward beaming
with happiness and kindness.
" Oh, how glad I am that you have
come to-day," she said, and explained
forthwith all the circumstances with the
frank, diffuse explanatoriness of youth.
" Now we are rich again ; and oh, Mr.
Nolan, I am so happy ! " she cried, her
soft eyes glowing with an excess of light
which dazzled the Curate.
People who have never been rich them-
selves, and never have any chance of
being rich, find it difficult sometimes to
understand how others are affected in
these unwonted circumstances. He was
confounded by her frank rapture, the joy
which seemed to him so much more than
was necessary.
" I'm glad to see you so happy," he
said, bewildered ; " no doubt money's a
blessing, and ye've felt the pinch, my
poor child, or ye wouldn't be so full of
your joy."
" Oh, Mr. Nolan, how I have felt it ! "
she said, her eyes filling with tears. A
cloud fell over her face for the space of a
moment, and then she laughed, and cried
out joyously, " But thank heaven that is
all over now."
Mrs. Damerel was writing in the draw-
ing-room, writing to her boys to tell them
the wonderful news. Rose led the visit-
or in, pushing open the window which
opened on the garden. " I have told him
all about it, and how happy we are." she
said, going up to her mother with all the
confidence of happiness, and giving her,
with unwonted demonstration, a kiss upon
her forehead, before she danced out again
to the sunny garden. Mrs. Damerel w,
a great deal more sober in her exultati
which relieved the Curate. She told hi
how it had all come about, and what a
deliverance it was ; then cried a little,
having full confidence in his sympathy,
over that unremovable regret that it had
not come sooner. " How happy it would
have made him — and relieved all his anxi-
»
i
A ROSE IN JUNE.
355
ety about us," she said. Mr. Nolan made
some inarticulate sound, which she took
for assent ; or, at least, which it pleased
her to mistake for assent. In her pres-
ent mood it was sweet to think that her
husband had been anxious, and the Curate
knew human nature too well to contradict
her. And then she gave him a little his-
tory of the past three months during
which he had been absent, and of Rose's
engagement, and all Mr. Incledon's good
qualities. " He would have done any-
thing for us," said Mrs. Damerel ; " but
oh, how glad I am we shall not want any-
thing— only Rose's happiness, which in
his hands is secure."
" Mr. Incledon ? " said the Curate, with
a little wonder in his voice. " Ah, and so
that is it. I thought it couldn't be noth-
ing but money that made the child so
pleased."
" You thought she looked very happy ? "
said the mother, with a sudden fright.
" Happy ! she looked like her name —
nothing is so happy as that but the inno-
cent creatures of God ; and sure I did
her injustice thinking 'twas the money,"
the Curate said, with mingled compunc-
tion and wonder ; for the story altogether
sounded very strange to him, and he could
not but marvel at the thought that Mr.
Incledon's love, once so evidently indif-
ferent to her, should light such lamps of
joy now in Rose's eyes.
Mrs. Damerel changed the subject ab-
ruptly. A mist of something like care
came over her face. " I have had a great
deal of trouble and much to think about
since I saw you," she said ; " but I must
not enter upon that now that it is over.
Tell me about yourself."
He shrugfored his shoulders as he told
her how little there was to tell. A new
parish,- with other poor folk much like
those he had left, and other rich folk not
far dissimilar — the one knowing as little
about the other as the two classes gener-
ally do. " That is about all my life is
ever likely to be," he said, with a half
smile, " between the two, with no great
hold on either. I miss Agatha, and l3ick,
and little Patty — and you to come and
talk to most of all," he said, looking at
her with an affectionate wistfulness that
went to her heart. Not that Mr. Nolan
was " in love " with Mrs. Damerel, as
vulgar persons would say, laughing ; but
the loss of her house and society was a
great loss to the middle-aged Curate,
never likely to have a house of his own.
" We must make it up as much as we
can by talking all day long now you are
here," she said, with kind smiles ; but the
Curate, though he was fond of her, was
quick to see that she avoided the subject
of Mr. Incledon, and was ready to talk of
anything rather than that ; though, in-
deed, the first love and first proposed
marriage in a family has generally an
interest exceeding everything else to the
young heroine's immediate friends.
They had the merriest dinner at two
o'clock, according to the habit of their
humility, with roast mutton, which was
the only joint Mary Jane could not spoil;
simple fare, which contented the Curate
as well as a French c/ief could have done.
He told them funny stories of his new
people, at which the children shouted
with laughter, and described the musical
parties at the vicarage, and the solemn
little dinners, and all the dreary enter-
tainments of a small town. The White
House had not heard so much innocent
laughter, so many pleasant foolish jokes,
for years — and I don't think that Rose
had ever so distinguished herself in the
domestic circle. She had been generally
considered too old for fun among the
children — too dignified, more on mam-
ma's side — giving herself up to poetry
and other such solemn occupations ; but
to-day the suppressed fountain burst
forth. Even Mrs. Damerel did not es-
cape the infection of that laughter which
rang like silver bells. The deep mourn-
ing they all wore, the poor little rusty
black frocks trimmed still with crape,
perhaps reproached the laughter now and
then ; but fathers and mothers cannot
expect to be mourned for a whole year,
and, indeed, the Rector to these little
ones at least had not been much more
than a name.
" Rose," said Mrs. Damerel, when the
meal was over, and they had returned
into the drawing-room, '* I think we had
better arrange to go up to town one of
these days to see about your things. I
have been putting off, and putting off,
on account of our poverty ; but it is full
time to think of your trousseau now."
Rose stood still as if she had been sud-
denly struck by some mortal blow. She
looked at her mother with eyes opening
wide, lips falling apart, and a sudden
deadly paleness coming over her face.
From the fresh sweetness of that rose
tint which had come back to her she be-
came all at once ashy-grey, like an old
woman. "My — what, mamma?" she
faltered, putting her hands upon the table
to support herself. "I — did not hear —
what you said."
356
A ROSE IN JUNE.
" You'll find me in the garden, ladies,
when you want me," said the Curate, with
a man's usual cowardice, " bolting," as he
himself expressed it, through the open
window.
Mrs. Damerel looked up from where
she had seated herself at the table, and
looked her daughter in the face.
" Your trousseau," she said, calmly,
" what else should it be ? "
Rose gave a great and sudden cry.
" That's all over, mamma, all over, isn't
it?" she said eagerly; then hastening
round to her mother's side, fell on her
knees by her chair, and caught her hand
and arm, which she embraced and held
close to her breast. " Mamma ! speak to
me — it's all over — all over ! You said
the sacrifices we made would be required
no longer. It is not needed any more,
and it's all over. Oh, say so, with your
own lips, mamma ! "
" Rose, are you mad ? " said her moth-
er, drawing away her hand ; " rise up,
and do not let me think my child is a fool.
Over ! is honour over, and the word you
have pledged, and the engagement you
have made ? "
" Honour ! " said Rose, with white lips ;
"but it was for you I did it, and you
do not require it any more."
" Rose,," cried Mrs. Damerel, " you will
drive me distracted. I have often heard
that women have no sense of honour,
but I did not expect to see it proved in
your person. Can you go and tell the
man who loves you that you will not
marry him because we are no longer beg-
gars ? He would have helped us when
we were penniless — is that a reason for
casting him off now ?"
Rose let her mother's hand go, but she
remained on her knees by the side of the
chair, as if unable to move, looking up
in Mrs. Damerel's face with eyes twice
their usual size.
"Then am I to be none the better —
none the better ? " she cried piteously,
" are they all to be saved, all rescued, ex-
cept me ? "
" Get up, Rose," said Mrs. Damerel
impatiently, "and do not let me hear any
more of this folly. Saved ! from an ex-
cellent man who loves you a great deal
better than you deserve — from a lot that
a queen might envy — everything that is
beautiful, and pleasant, and good ! You
are the most ungrateful girl alive, or you
would not venture to speak so to me."
Rose did not make any answer. She
did not rise, but kept still by her moth-
er'$ side, as if paralyzed. After a mo-
ment Mrs. Damerel, in angry impatience,
turned from her and resumed her writing,
and there the girl continued to kneel,
making no movement, heart-stricken,
turned into marble. At length, after an
interval, she pulled timidly at her moth-
er's dress, looking at her with eyes so
full of entreaty, that they forced Mrs.
Damerel, against her will, to turn round
and meet that pathetic gaze.
" Mamma," she said, under her breath,
her voice having failed her, "just one
word — is there no hope for me, can you
do nothing for me ? Oh, have a little
pity ! You could do something if you
would but try."
" Are you mad, child ? " cried the
mother again — " do something for you ?
what can I do ? You promised to marry
him of your own will ; you were not
forced to do it. You told me you
liked him not so long ago. How does
this change the matter, except to m.ake
vou more fit to be his wife ? Are you
mad ? "
" Perhaps," said Rose softly ; " if be-
ing very miserable is being mad, then I
am mad, as you say."
" But you were not very miserable
yesterday ; you were cheerful enough."
" Oh, mamma, then there was no hope,"
cried Rose, "I had to do it — there was
no help ; but now hope has come — and
must every one share it, every one get
deliverance, but me ? "
" Rose," said Mrs. Damerel, " when
you are Mr. Incledon's wife every one of
these wild words will rise up in your
mind and shame you. Why should you
make yourself unhappy by constant dis-
cussions ? you will be sorry enough after
for all you have allowed yourself to say.
You have promised Mr. Incledon to mar-
ry him, and you must marry him. If I
had six times Uncle Edward's money, it
would still be a great match for you."
" Oh, what do I care for a great
match ! "
" But I do," said Mrs. Damerel, " and
whether you care or not has nothing to
do with it. You have pledged your word
and your honour, and you cannot with-
draw from them. Rose, your marriage is
fixed for the end of July. We must have
no more of this."
" Three months," she said, with a little
convulsive shudder. She was thinking
that perhaps even yet something might
happen to save her in so long a time |ta
three months. ^1
" Not quite three months," said Mrs
Damerel, whose thoughts were rum
Linnin^
■
A ROSE IN JUNE.
357
on the many things that had to be done in
the interval. " Rose, shake off this fool-
ish repining, which is unworthy of you,
and go out to good Mr. Nolan, who must
be dull with only the children. Talk to
him and amuse him till I am ready. I
am going to take him up to Whitton to
show him the house."
Rose went out without a word ; she
went and sat down in the little shady
summer-house where Mr. Nolan had
taken refuge from the sun and from the
mirth of the children. He had already
seen there was something wrong, and was
prepared with his sympathy ; whoever
was the offender Mr. Nolan was sorry
for that one ; it was a way he had ; his
sympathies did not go so much with the
immaculate and always virtuous ; but he
was sorry for whosoever had erred or
strayed, and was repenting of the same.
Poor Rose — he began to feel himself
Rose's champion, because he felt sure
that it was Rose, young, thoughtless, and
inconsiderate, who must be in the wrong.
Rose sat down by his side with a heart-
broken look in her face, but did not say
anything. She began to beat with her
fingers on the table as if she were beat-
ing time to a march. She was still such
a child to him, so young, so much like
what he remembered her in pinafores
that his heart ached for her. " You are
in some little bit of trouble .'' " he said
at last.
"Oh, not a little bit," cried Rose, "a
great, very great trouble ! " She was so
full of it that she could not talk of any-
thing else. And the feeling in her mind
was that she must speak or die. She be-
gan to tell her story in the woody arbour
with the gay noise of the children close
at hand, but hearing a cry among them
that Mr. Incledon was coming, started up
and tied on her hat, and seizing Mr. No-
lan's arm, dragged him out by the garden
door. " I cannot see him to-day ! " she
cried, and led the Curate away, dragging
him after her to a quiet byway over the
fields in which she thought they would
be safe. Rose had no doubt whatever of
the full sympathy of this old friend. She
was not afraid even of his disapproval. It
seemed certain to her that he must pity
at least if not help. And to Rose, in her
youthful confidence in others, there was
nothing in this world which was unalter-
able of its nature ; no trouble, except
death, which could not be got rid of by
the intervention of friends.
It chilled her a little, however, as she
went on, to see the Curate's face grow
have done it.
How could I
oh now, dear
to do ! Will
longer and longer, graver and graver.
" You should not have done it," he said,
shaking his head, when Rose told him
how she had been brought to give her
consent.
" I know I ought not to
but it was not my doing,
help myself.-^ And now,
Mr. Nolan, tell me what
you speak to mamma ? Though she will
not listen to me she might hear you."
" But I don't see what your mamma
has to do with it," said the Curate. " It
is not to her you are engaged — nor is it
she who has given her word ; you must
keep your word, we are all bound to do
that."
" But a great many people don't do it,"
said Rose, driven to the worst of argu-
ments in sheer despair of her cause.
" Yott must," said Mr. Nolan. " The peo-
ple who don't are not people to be fol-
lowed. You have bound yourself and you
must stand by it. He is a good man and
you must make the best of it. To a great
many it would not seem hard at all. You
have accepted him, and you must stand
by him. I do not see what else can be
done now."
" Oh, Mr. Nolan, you speak as if I were
married, and there was no hope."
" It is very much the same thing," said
the Curate ; " you have given your word.
Rose, you would not like to be a jilt ; you
must either keep your word or be called
a jilt — and called truly. It is not a
pleasant character to have."
" But it would not be true ! "
" I think it would be true. Mr. Incle-
don, poor man, would have good reason
to think so. Let us look at it seriously.
Rose. What is there so very bad in it
that you should do a good man such an
injury ? He is not old. He is very
agreeable and very rich. He would make
you a great lady. Rose."
" Mr. Nolan, do vou think I care for
that t "
"A great many people care for it, and
so do all who belong to you. Your poor
father wished it. It had gone out of my
mind, but I can recollect very well now ;
and your mother wishes it — and for you
it would be a great thing, you don't know
how great. Rose, you must try to put all
this reluctance out of your mind, and
think only of how many advantages it
has."
" I care nothing for the advantages,"
said Rose, " the only one thing was for
the sake of the others. He promised to
be good to the boys and to help mamma ;
358
A ROSE IN JUNE.
and now we don't need his help any
more,"
'• A good reason, an admirable reason,"
cried the Curate with unwonted sarcasm,
" for casting him off now. Few people
state it so frankly, but it is the way of the
world."
Rose gave him a look so full of won-
dering that the good man's heart was
touched. " Come," he said, " you had
made up your mind to it yesterday. It
cannot be so very bad after all. At your
age nothing can be very bad, for you can
always adapt yourself to what is new.
So long as there's nobody else in the
way that's more to your mind," he said,
turning upon her with a penetrating
glance.
Rose said nothing in reply. She put;
up her hands to her face, covering it, and j
choking the cry which came to her lips.
How could she to a man, to one so far
separated from love and youth as was
Mr. Nolan, make this last confession of
all ?
The Curate went away that night with
a painful impression on his mind. He
did not go to Whitton, as Mrs. Damerel
had promised, to see Rose's future home,
but he saw the master of it, who, disap-
pointed by the headache with which Rose
had retreated to her room, on her return
from her walk with the Curate, did not
show in his best aspect. None of the
party indeed did ; perhaps the excite-
ment and commotion of the news had
produced a bad result — for nothing
could be flatter or more deadly-lively than
the evening which followed. Even the
children were cross and peevish and had
to be sent to bed in disgrace ; and Rose
had hidden herself in her room, and lines
of care and irritation were on Mrs.
Damerel's forehead. The great good
fortune which had befallen them did not,
for the moment at least, bring happiness
in its train.
CHAPTER XIV.
Rose did not go downstairs that night.
She had a headache, which is the pre-
scriptive right of a woman in trouble.
She took the cup of tea which Agatha
brought her, at the door of her room, and
be2:g:ed that mamma would not trouble to
come to see her, as she was going to bed.
She was afraid of another discussion,
and shrank even from seeing any one.
She had passed through a great many
different moods of mind in respect to Mr.
Incledon, but this one was different from
ail the rest. All the softening of feeling
of which she had been conscious died out
of her mind ; his very name became in-
tolerable to her. That which she had
proposed to do, as the last sacrifice a girl
could make for her family, an absolute
renunciation of self and voluntary mar-
tyrdom for them, changed its character
altogether when they no longer required
it. Why should she do what was worse
than death, when the object for which she
was willing to die was no longer before
her ; when there was, indeed, no need
for doing it at all ? Would Iphigenia
have died for her word's sake, had there
been no need for her sacrifice ? and why
should Rose do more than she ? In this
there was, the reader will perceive, a cer-
tain change of sentiment ; for though
Rose had made up her mind sadly and
reluctantly to marry Mr. Incledon, yet
she had not thought the alternative worse
than death. She had felt while she did
it the ennobling sense of having given up
her own will to make others happy, and
had even recosfnized the far-off and faint
possibility that the happiness which she
thus gave to others might, some time or
other, rebound upon herself. But the
moment her great inducement was re-
moved, a flood of different sentiment
came in. She began to hate Mr. Incle-
don, to feel that he had taken advantage
of her circumstances, that her mother had
taken advantage of her, that every one
had used her as a tool to promote their
own purpose, with no more consideration
for her than had she been altogether
without feeling. This thought went
through her mind like a hot breath from
a furnace, searing and scorching every-
thing. And now that their purpose was
served without her, she must still make
this sacrifice — for honour! For hon-
our ! Perhaps it is true that women
hold this motive more lightly than men,
though indeed the honour that is in-
volved in a promise of marriage does
not seem to influence either sex very
deeply in ordinary cases. I am afraid
poor Rose did not feel its weight at all.^
She might be forced to keep her word^f
but her whole soul revolted against il
She had ceased to be sad and resigne(
She was rebellious and indignant, and
hundred wild schemes and notions begal
to flit through her mind. To jump il
such a crisis as this from the tender res
ignation of a martyr for love into tM
bitter and painful resistance of a domes
tic rebel who feels that no one loves hei
is easy to the young mind in the unrea^
ity which more or less envelopes everj
A ROSE IN JUNE.
359
thing to youth. From the one to the
other was but a step. Yesterday she had
been the centre of all the family plans,
the foundation of comfort, the chief object
of their thoughts, Now she was in reality
only Rose the eldest daughter, who was
about to make a brilliant marriage, and
therefore was much in the foreground,
but no more loved or noticed than any
one else. In reality this change had
actually come, but she imagined a still
greater change ; and fancy showed her to
herself as the rebellious daughter, the
one who had never fully done her duty,
never been quite in sympathy with her
mother, -and whom all would be glad to
get rid of, in marriage or any other way,
as interfering with the harmony of the
house. Such of us as have been young
may remember how easy these revolu-
tions of feeling were, and with what
quick facility we could identify ourselves
as almost adored or almost hated, as the
foremost object of everybody's regard or
an intruder in everybody's way. Rose
passed a very miserable night, and the
next day was, I think, more miserable
still. Mrs. Damerel did not say a word
to her on the subject which filled her
thoughts, but told her that she had de-
cided to go to London in the beginning
of the next week, to look after the
"things" which were necessary. As
they were in mourning already, there was
no more trouble of that description ne-
cessary on Uncle Edward's account, but
only new congratulations to receive,
which poured in on every side.
" I need not go through the form of
condoling, for I know you did not have
much intercourse with him, poor old
gentleman," one lady laid ; and another
caught Rose by both hands and ex-
claimed on the good luck of the family in
general.
" Blessings, like troubles, never come
alone," she said. " To think you should
have a fortune tumbling down upon you
on one side, and on the other this chit of
a girl carrying off the best match in the
county ! "
" I hope we are sufficiently grateful for
all the good things Providence sends us,"
said Mrs. Damerel, fixing her eyes se-
verely upon Rose.
Oh, if she had but had the courage to
take up the glove thus thrown down to
her ! But she was not yet screwed up
to that desperate pitch.
Mr. Incledon came later, and in his joy
at seeing her was more lover-like than he
had yet permitted himself to be.
" Why I have not seen you since this
good news came ! " he cried, fondly kiss-
ing her in his delight and heartiness of
congratulation, a thing he had ne-ver done
before. Rose broke from him and rushed
out of the room, white with fright and re-
sentment.
" Oh, how dared he ! how dared he ! "
she cried, rubbing the spot upon her
cheek which his lips had touched with
wild exaggeration of dismay.
And how angry Mrs. Damerel was !
She went upstairs after the girl, and
spoke to her as Rose had never yet been
spoken to in all her soft life — upbraid-
ing her with her heartlessness, her disre-
gard of other people's feelings, her indif-
ference to her own honour and plighted
word. Once more Rose remained up-
stairs, refusing to come down, and the
house was aghast at the first quarrel
which had ever disturbed its decorum.
Mr. Incledon went away bewildered
and unhappy, not knowing whether to be-
lieve this was a mere ebullition of tem-
per, such as Rose had never shown be-
fore, which would have been a venial of-
fence, rather amusing than otherwise to
his indulgent fondness ; or whether it
meant something more, some surging up-
wards of the old reluctance to accept
him, which he had believed himself to
have overcome. This doubt chilled him
to the heart, and gave him much to think
of as he took his somewhat dreary
walk home — for failure, after there has
been an appearance of success, is more
discouraging still than when there has
been no opening at all in the clouded
skies. And Agatha knocked at Rose's
locked door, and bade her good-night
through the keyhole with a mixture of
horror and respect — horror for the wick-
edness, yet veneration for the courage
which could venture thus to beard all
constituted authorities. Mrs. Damerel
herself said no good-night to the rebel.
She passed Rose's door steadily without
allowing herself to be led away by the
impulse which tugged at her heart to go
in and give the kiss of grace, notwith-
standing the impenitent condition of the
offender. Had the mother done this, I
think all that followed might have been
averted, and that Mrs. Damerel would
have been able eventually to carry out
her programme and arrange the girl's
life as she wished. But she thought it
right to show her displeasure, though her
heart almost failed her.
Rose had shut herself up in wild mis-
ery and passion. She had declared to
360
A ROSE IN JUNE.
herself that she wanted to see no one ;
that she would not open her door, nor
subject herself over again to such re-
proaches as had been poured upon her.
But yet when she heard her mother pass
without even a word, all the springs of
the girl's being seemed to stand still.
She could not believe it. Never before
in all her life had such a terrible occur-
rence taken place. Last night, when she
had gone to bed to escape remark, Mrs.
Damerel had come in ere she went to
her own room and asked after the pre-
tended headache, and kissed her, and
bade her keep quite still and be better
to-morrow. Rose got up from where she
was sitting, expecting her mother's ap-
peal and intending to resist, and went to
the door and put her ear against it and
listened. All was quiet. Mrs. Damerel
had gone steadily along the corridor, had
entered the rooms of the other children,
and now shut her own door — sure signal
that the day was over. When this inex-
orable sound met her ears, R.ose crept
back again to her seat and wept bitterly,
with an aching and vacancy in her heart
which it is beyond words to tell. It
seemed to her that she was abandoned,
cut off from the family love, thrown aside
like a waif and stray, and that things
would never be again as they had been.
This terrible conclusion always comes in
to aggravate the miseries of girls and
boys. Things could never mend, never
again be as they liad been. She cried
till she exhausted herself, till her head
ached in dire reality, and she was sick
and faint with misery and the sense of
desolation ; and then wild schemes and
fancies came into her mind. She could
not bear it — scarcely for those dark help-
less hours of the night could she bear it
— but must be still till daylight; then,
poor forlorn child, cast off by every one,
abandoned even by her mother, with no
hope before her but this marriage, which
she hated, and no prospect but wretched-
ness— then she made up her mind she
would go away. She took out her little
purse and found a few shillings in it, suf-
ficient to carry her to the refuge which
she had suddenly thought of. I think
she would have liked to fly out of sight
and ken and hide herself forever, or at
least until all who had been unkind to
her had broken their hearts about her, as
she had read in novels of unhappy hero-
ines doing. But she was too timid to take
such a daring step, and she had no
money, except the ten shillings in her
poor little pretty purse, which was not
meant to hold much. When she had
made up her mind, as she thought, or to
speak more truly, when she had been
quite taken possession of by this wild pur-
pose, she put a few necessaries into a
bag to be ready for her flight, taking her
little prayer-book last of all, which she
kissed and cried over with a heart
wrung with many pangs. Her father had
given it her on the day she was nineteen
— not a year since. Ah, why was not
she with him, who always understsood
her, or why was not he here ? He would
never have driven her to such a step as
this. He was kind, whatever any one
might say of him. If he neglected some
things, he was never hard upon any one
— at least never hard upon Rose — and
he would have understood her now.
With an anguish of sudden sorrow, min-
gled with all the previous misery in her
heart, she kissed the little book and put it
into ber bag. Poor child ! it was well for
her that her imagination had that sad
asylum at least to take refuge in, and
that the Rector had not lived long enough
to show how hard in worldliness a soft
and self-indulgent man can be.
Rose did not go to bed. She had a
short, uneasy sleep, against her will, in
her chair — dropping into constrained
and feverish slumber for an hour or so in
the dead of the night. When she woke
the dawn was blue in the window, mak-
ing the branches of the honeysuckle visi-
ble through the narrow panes. There
was no sound in heaven or earth except
the birds chirping, but the world seemed
full of that ; for all the domestic chat has
to be got over in all the nests before men
awake and drown the delicious babble in
harsher commotions, of their own. Rose
got up and bathed her pale face and red
eyes, and put on her hat. She was cold,
and glad to draw a shawl rOund her and
get some consolation and strength from
its warmth ; and then she took her bag
in her hand, and opening her door, noise-
lessly stole out. There was a very early
train which passed the Dingle station,
two miles from Dinglefield, at about five
o'clock, on its way to London ; and
Rose hoped, by being in time for that, tq_
escape all pursuit. How strange it \Vc~
going out like a thief into the house,
still and shut up, with its windows close!
barred, the shutters up, and a still, unna)
ural half-light gleaming in through th
crevices ! As she stole downstairs h(
very breathing, the sound of her ow
steps, frightened Rose ; and when si
looked in at the open door of the dra\
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
361
ing-room and saw all the traces of last
night's peaceful occupations, a strange
feeling that all the rest were dead and
she a fugitive stealing guiltily away, came
on her so strongly that she could scarcely
convince herself it was not true. It was
like the half-light that had been in all
the rooms when her father lay dead in
the house, and made her shiver. Feeling
more and more like a thief, she opened
the fastenings of the hall door, which
were rusty and gave her some trouble.
It was difficult to open them, still more
difficult to close it softly without alarm-
ing the house ; and this occupied her
mind, so that she made the last step al-
most without thinking what she was do-
ing. When she had succeeded in shut-
ting the door, then it suddenly flashed
upon her, rushed upon her like a flood —
the consciousness of what she had done.
She had left home, and all help and love
and protection; and — heaven help her
— here she was out of doors in the-open-
eyed day, which looked at her with a se-
vere, pale calm — desolate and alone !
She held by the pillars of the porch to
support her for one dizzy, bewildered
moment ; but now was not the time to
break down or let her terrors, her feel-
ings, overcome her. She had taken the
decisive step and must go on now.
Mrs. Damerel, disturbed perhaps by
the sound of the closing door, though
she did not make out what it was, got
up and looked out frpm the window in
the early morning, and, at the end of the
road which led to the Green, saw a soli-
tary figure walking, which reminded her
of Rose. She had half-forgotten Rose's
perverseness, in her sleep, and I think
the first thing that came into her mind
had been rather the great deliverance
sent to her in the shape of Uncle Ed-
ward's fortune, than the naughtiness —
though it was almost too serious to be
called naughtiness — of her child. And
though it struck her for the moment with
some surprise to see the slim young fig-
ure^ on the road so early, and a passing
notion crossed her mind that something
in the walk and outline was like Rose,
yet it never occurred to her to connect
that unusual appearance with her daugh-
ter. She lay down again when she had
opened the window with a little half-wish.
her subjects of thought, but did not fill
her whole mind. She had so many other
children, and so much to consider about
them all !
half-prayer, that Rose might "come to
her senses " speedily. It was too early to
get up, and though Mrs. Damerel could
not sleep, she had plenty to think about,
and this morning leisure was the best
time for it. Rose prevailed largely among
From The Contemporary Review.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY AND
IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
• III. — THE THEBAN LINK.
Even without reference to Egvptian
discovery, the references in the Homeric
poems to Egyptian Thebes are remark-
able. They seemed, however, rather to
'be brought into question than illustrated
by the fact that we also heard of a Theb^
in Boiotia, connected with the Kadmeian
famUy and with Phoenicia, and of a Theb^
of King Eetion, the city of those Kilikes
who dwelt near Troas. There was no
tie between the three, until we came to
know something of the great Egyptian
empire, and of its close relations with the
Phoinikes,* which must have gone far to
identify in contemporary Greek reports
what was Egyptian and what was Phoeni-
cian.
But these passages have acquired a
new importance in relation to my present
design, from our having learned that the
fame and greatness of Egyptian Thebes
belong to a particular, though a length-
ened, period of the history of the country.f
The old monarchy, before the great in-
vasion of the Shepherd kings, had Mem-
phis for its seat. Thebes is known to
have existed under its later dynasties,
and also under the Shepherds. But it
became the capital of the country only
after their expulsion by Ahmes, the first
sovereign of the Eighteenth dynasty. At
this date the principal monuments of
the city begin.J This is indeed the The-
ban monarchy, a phrase synchronous
with the splendour of Egypt. It lasts
through this Dynasty of Triumph, and
through the Nineteenth Dynasty of
Struggle. In the Twentieth,' the Dy-
nasty of Decline, the supremacy passes
away from Thebes,§ which is etymologi-
cally the city of the head, or capital.||
According to Mr. P. Smith's chronology,
this supremacy of Thebes embraces t"he
period (approximately) between B.C. 1530
* See also the conjectures explained in Smith's Anc.
Hist, of the iLast, p. 8i.
t Smith's Anc. Hist, of the East, chap. iv.
t Ibid. p. 63.
§ F. Lenormant, Premieres Civilisations, vol. i. p.
224. *^
II lb. p. 25.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
362
and B.C. 1 100. He adopts in substance
the computations of Mr. Poole, and I be-
lieve of Sir G. Wilkinson. Mr. Poole
thinks the Eighteenth Dynasty began not
later than 1525 B.C., and the Nineteenth
not later than 1322. The computations
followed by Lenormant carry us nearly a
century further back, for the commence-
ment of the period, but with no great dif-
ference towards the close ; and it is on
these that my figures have been based.
But the substantial proposition which I
submit is this : that the references in the
Poems to Egyptian Thebes prove that
they belong to the period when that city
was supreme in Egypt, and was in effect
the first city of the world. The first of
them is in II. IX., where Achilles declares
that no amount of gift or treasure which
Agamemnon can offer or obtain for 'him
will induce him to compliance : " Not if
he gave ten times, twenty times what he
offers ; not if all he has, or all he might
have." Then he proceeds : —
011^ bcf eg 'Opx6{j.Evov TrpoTivlaoeraL, ovd" oca
Qijiiag
AlyvTrriag, odi TrZeiora SofXoic tv KT^ftara Kelrat,
al 6' £KaT6fi7rv?U)i eiat, dcjjKoaioi d' av' eKUGTTjv
uvepec k^oixvevat avv ltckolglv koX oxea(j>Lv.*
The whole passage, as to the gifts of
Agamemnon, is in the nature of a climax ;
passing from the actual offers to the en-
tire property of the King, the speaker il-
lustrates this transition by referring to
Orchemenos, then a wealthy city of the
Boiotoi, and from hence, to crown his ar-
gument, he moves onwards and upwards
to Thebes of Egypt, as the city which
contained the greatest treasures in the
world. This is wholly inapplicable and
unintelligible, except with regard to the
period of the actual supremacy of that
Egyptian capital.
Next, the Egyptian Thebes is Thebes
of the hundred gates. This is not a sta-
tistical epithet, more than are those
which describe Crete as the land of
an hundred.f or of| ninety, cities. Nor
does the word Hecatombe in Homer lit-
erally signify an hundred oxen : in truth,
it seems to have become a mere phrase
designating a solemn and splendid Sac-
rifice. But there is little doubt that in
the other cases, where Homer was not
using a customary phrase, but a poetical
expression of his own, he intended to
signify a very large or indefinite number.
A much smaller number, as I have else-
* II. ix. 381-4.
t II. ii. 649.
i Od. xix. 174.
where endeavoured to show,* is indef-
initely larger for Homer, than for us.
There is, then, something singular, and
requiring explanation, in this account of
a city with a multitude of gates. If we
take even the largest walled cities, like
Rome, which may have some ten or
twelve, it is difficult to conceive how the
epithet could be applicable to gates in
the ordinary sense. This difficulty seems
to have been felt of old, and Diodorus-[
explained it as referring to the propiilaia
of the temples. I have understood that
the structural forms within the city to
this day exhibit what, existing in large
numbers, might very well have passed in
rumour as gates of the city, and might
have been so represented to and by the
Poet.
But, besides the primacy of wealth and
the number of gates. Homer character-
izes Thebes of Egypt by a reference to
the horse, and what is more, to the horse
not as an animal of draught or burden,
nor as an animal used for riding, but as
driven in the chariots used for war, of
which he represents that there were an
enormous number, literally twenty thou-
sand, in use at Thebes. That is to say,
as to the mode of using the animal, he
represents a stage of development in
Egypt corresponding with what we know
prevailed in the Greece of his day, where
the main and characteristic purpose for
which horses were used was the traction
of the chariot of war ; another great pur-
pose, that of riding, being altogether sec-
ondary and rare.
In the text of Homer generally, the
horse stands in special relation with the
East and with Poseidon. But it also
stands in connection with the name of
the Phoinikes. As to this name, we must
remember that it includes all those for-
eigners who had intercourse with Greece
through ships, and since the Phoenician
mariners were the medium of this inter-
course as carriers, their name comes to
cover what is Eastern generally. This,
again, means in a great degree what was
Egyptian, in common with what was
properly Phoenician. If, then, we ask
whether the horse of Homer was chiefiy
related, as far as the text informs us, to
Phoenicia or to Egypt, there is one strong
reason in favour of the last-named coun-
try. It is this, that the Phaiaikes of
Scheria are evidently intended, from their
great wealth and maritime habits, to pi*e-
* Studies on Homer, vol. iii. Aoidos, sect. iii.
t Diod. Sic. i. 45.
I
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
sent to us a picture of Phoenicians prop-
er ; and that among them there is not the
smallest reference to the horse.
Now, on turning to the Egyptian rec-
ords, we find that the horse was not in-
digenous to Egypt, and was unknown
there during the Old Pre-Theban Mon-
archy. It seems to have been introduced
by the Shepherd Kings. But, under the
warlike Theban kings of the Eighteenth
Dynasty, the value of these animals was
appreciated, and they were obtained from
Asia in immense numbers in payment of
tribute,* as well as doubtless by com-
merce : so that Egypt became a great
horse-market,f and the horse a charac-
teristic of Egypt. Accordingly, as it was
an object of the Mosaic legislation (de-
livered about the time of Merepthah) to
check intercourse with that country, we
find it written: — "But he (the king)
shall not multiply horses to himself, nor
cause the people to return to Egypt, to
the intent that he should multiply hor-
ses."!
And Solomon, who first in Israel had
large numbers of horses, obtained them
from Egypt. § Enormous ranges of sta-
bling, we learn from Diodorus,|| subsisted
in Thebes. Thus the reference of Homer
to the chariots of Egypt is peculiarly ap-
propriate to Thebes, and to the Theban
period. But the non-mention of riding
concurs with the mention of enormous
chariot driving, to give yet more of char-
acter to the passage. For the monu-
ments of the Theban kings, which abound
in pictures of the horse chariot, but sel-
dom represent equitation,^ The use of
the animal for agricultural draught also
made a beginning at this period. It is
called by the name of kava, and it is sup-
posed to be derived from the root repre-
sented in the Sanscrit, agva.**
Since, then, very personal and charac-
teristic description, when found to be also
most accurate, is a strong indication of
contemporary standing, the passage of
the Iliad which we have been considering
affords evidence of the composition of
the Poems during the period of the great
Theban Dynasties.
There remains the passage from the
Odyssey :
* Chabas, Etudes, p. 441.
t Chabas, p. 443.
t Deut. xvii. 16, The ass, not the horse, was the
animal of personal use from Moses to David.
§ I Kings X. 28.
II i-,45-
„.^.,P'^^^^s, Etudes, p. 430; F. Lenormant, Prem.
Civilisations, i. 307, setp'.
** F. Lenormant, Ibid. p. 322.
^y/lw & apyvpeov Tokapov ^epe, tov ol eduKsv
'AAKavdptj, UoXviSoto dd/xap- bg evac' kvl QfjiSrig
Aiyvivrlyg, odt TrXelara do/jtotg kv KTTjfiaTa KsiTac*
It then proceeds to relate how, while
presenting this silver work-basket to
Helen, Polubos gave to Menelaos two
baths of silver, two cauldrons or tripods,
and ten talents of gold ; while the wife
of Polubos made a set of separate pres-
ents to his Queen ; namely, the afore-
said basket of silver mounted on wheels,
and a golden distaff.
This passage both corroborates and en-
larges the evidence drawn from that on
which we were last ensraged. The state-
ment that Thebes contained in its dwell-
ings the largest amount of stored wealth,
which might have passed for a mere figure
in the fervid oratory of Achilles, reap-
pears here in the calm narrative of this
Poet as the simple statement of a fact,
and pretty clearly exhibits him as con-
temporary with the greatness of Thebes.
But again, Polubos dwelt in Thebes ; it
was in Thebes itself that these presents
were given. But Thebes is not on the
Egyptian coast ; it is removed from it by
a distance of above three hundred miles.
Why did Menelaos, a traveller by sea,
penetrate so far inwards ? or, rather, why
is he represented as having visited
Thebes, and as having there received the
trophies of Egyptian hospitality ? Surely
because it was the actual capital of the
country. The visit of Menelaos must
then be referred to a period not later than
the close of the Twentieth Dynasty, for
after this period " Tanite and Bubastite
Pharaohs," as Mr. Donne f remarks, were
lords of the Nile valley ; and the policy
and wars of Egypt probably made it ex-
pedient to move the seat of government
to a point nearer the Syrian frontier.
But even the Twentieth Dynasty, after
the Third Rameses, witnessed, amidst
much vicissitude, times of confusion and
rapid decay, which warrant the belief that
the Homeric allusions to Thebes must
belong to a period, if not before, yet at
latest scarcely after the reign of that sov-
ereign. In effect, we should refer the
passages (always in relation with the
Egyptian Chronology) at least to the early
part of the thirteenth century B.C., even
though the sovereigns did not fall into
insignificance, nor the Empire lose at
least its titular sovereignty in Asia, un-
til the latter part of the twelfth. It was
* Od. iv. 125-7.
t Thebaj /Egypti, In Smith's Diet, of Geography;
F. Lenormant, i. 450.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
364
this decadence of Egypt which gave
scope even to the small kingdom of the
Hebrews, under Kings David and Solo-
mon, for rising during a brief space into
considerable power.
When we have been thus enabled to
connect the references in Homer to
Egyptian Thebes with a given historic
period, the passages which touch other
cities of the same name acquire a fresh
interest. We may reasonably suppose
that this name, discovered in Asia Minor
or in Greece, indicates a foundation ef-
fected by settlers belonging to the great
Egyptian Empire, and emigrating at some
time during the Theban period.
The Thebes of Eetion is mentioned or
referred to in the Iliad several times.
In II. I. 366, it is the sacred city of
Eetion (lep^ TzoXig). It is connected, as we
have already seen, with special excel-
lence of horses ; and lastly, it has lofty
gates {vipLTcvlog^ II. IV. 416). It is surely
remarkable that we find all these three
characteristics reproduced in the Kad-
meian Thebes of Boeotia. It is sacred
(lepu TTpoc reixea Qfjj3T]g, II. IV. 378). It is
most closely associated with the horse ;
for to the Kadmeioi alone, besides the
Trojans, does Homer give the designa-
tion of KEVTopeg Irnrcjv^ II. IV. 391. It is
also remarkable for its gates, being the
seven-gated Thebes, II. IV. 406, Od. XI.
263. Both cities, too, were rich : Thebes
of Eetion is evvaceracjaa, or flourishing (II.
VI. 415), as to its territory, a.nd evKTifisvov
TtToTuedpov, a well-built city, in itself (II. II.
505) ; while Kadmeian Thebes is ebpbxopog
(Od. XI. 265). The three pointed char-
acteristics, as well as the fourth, all be-
longed to the great mother city in Egypt,
She had the hundred gates ; she horsed
twenty thousand chariots ; and she was
eminently a sacred city, for she was the
centre of the Ammon-worship.
Of the period of the foundation of Hu-
poplakian Thebes, we know nothing.
Nor can the Kadmeian genealogy be
made out from Homer, who tells us' that
Amphion and Zethos first settled and for-
tified, not the actual, existing city, but the
site it6og, Od. XL 263) ; and that Eurua-
los, who contended in the Funeral Games
of the Iliad, had also beaten all the Kad-
meians at Thebes on the occasion of the
obsequies of Oidipous. All that the text
does here is to throw back the advent of
Kadmos, or of the settlers indicated by
his name* (which we are told means im-
migrant or stranger), for several genera-
* Renan, Langues Semitiques, p. 44.
tions. So that it shows the Theban
name had remained in vogue for a long
period before the war ; and as to this in-
dication it is evidently in accord with the
facts of history.
IV. — THE SIDONIAN LINK.
The names of Phoinik^ and Phoinikes
are, it will be remembered, names affixed
by Greek foreigners, and having no root
in the country to which they refer. Of
Canaan, the true indigenous name of
Phoenicia, we have no trace in the Poems.
But we have in eight passages of the Iliad
and Odyssey the name of Sidon and Si-
donid, or that of its inhabitants, called
Sidones and Sidonioi. This name is
given us in the tenth chapter of Genesis,
— which is, I believe, acknowledged by
the best authorities to be the most valua-
ble document of ancient Ethnography in
the world, — as the name of the first-born
son of Canaan, who is himself named
fourth among the sons of Ham (Gen. x.
6, 15) ; and there is no doubt of its local
character, and its great antiquity. Twice
named in the tenth chapter of Genesis,
Sidon appears again in the nineteenth
chapter of Joshua, which, with the eigh-
teenth, gives us the delimitation of the
tribes of Israel on their settlement, as
"great Sidon " (v. 28). So in Joshua xi.
8, the children of Israel chased their ene-
mies unto "great Sidon." In the later
Scriptural notices of the name, this epi-
thet disappears. The two persons of Ca-
naan and Sidon in the earliest notices
may probably be regarded as the epony-
mists, or typical fathers of races.*
Tyre, on the other hand, is not men-
tioned in Scripture, except twice, before
the epoch of Solomon. First in the
nineteenth chapter of Joshua, already
mentioned (v. 29), as a fortified city ;
and again in 2 Samuel, xxiv. 7, when we
have reached the reign of David, or the
eleventh century B.C.
If the Exodus from Egypt took plac
under Merepthah in the fourteenth cen
tury B.C., are we to treat the reference t
Tyre as proving that it had been built
and fortified before that period ? In Mr.
Espin's Preface to the Book of Joshua,t
there are remarks on the geographical
lists as exhibiting much and now incura-
ble imperfection : and of names, lik
numbers, it is exceedingly difficult to relj
upon a perfectly faithful transmission i
ancient records, because the figures a
not, like words, generally interwoven wi
* Movers, Phonizische Alberthum, i. 9.
t Speaker's Bible, vol. ii. p. 8
1
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY,
the grammatical sense of the context. It
would be hazardous, then, to assert the
existence of Tyre as a fortified city in
the fourteenth century B.C., on the sole
ground of this passage. Nor can any
strong reliance be placed on the report
given by the Priests* of the temple of
Heracles to Herodotus in the fifth cen-
tury B.C., who then claimed for it an ex-
istence of 2300 years. There is no trace
in Homer of the City of Tyre, except a
single and slight one. Turo was the
grandmother of Nestor, and a descend-
ant of Poseidon. Her extraction, there-
fore, links her with the East : and it is
probably connected with the existence,
at least, of Tyre at the time.
But plainly the text of the Poems im-
plies that Sidon was the great and leading
city of Canaan or Phoinik^. And in this
respect they are in entire accordance
with the books of the Old Testament.
The Sidonians of Homer do not ap-
pear before us as a purely maritime peo-
ple. In the Fourth Odyssey, we have a
list of the countries and peoples visited
by Menelaos, where the Sidonioi stand
apart from Phoinik^. When Homer
mentions navigators from that quarter,
they are commonly Phoinikes ; but the
Sidonians appear, when there is any spe-
cial mark, in connection with works of
art. At the Games, Achilles produces, as
the prize of the footrace, a six-metre
wrought silver bowl {rervyidvov)^ which ex-
ceeded in beauty all others known : for it
was worked by the Sidones, who are
called 'p:olv6al6a7.oi^ workers in a highly or-
namental style. But Phoenician naviga-
tors brought it over sea, and gave it to
King Thoas.f Another like bowl was
presented by Phaidimos, King of the
Sidonians (whose name is another indica-
tion of their wealth and fame), to Mene-
laos.J Sidon is described as abounding
in copper,§ and Sidoni^ as flourishing
(evvaio/iievTj), Also, in the Sixth Iliad He-
cab^ repairs to her store of embroidered
robes, the works of the women of Sidon,
which Paris had brought to Troy.|| The
Sidonians represent a distinct part of that
material, as distinct from moral, civiliza-
tion, which appears the oldest in the his-
tory of man,^ and marks what may prop-
erly be called the Hamitic or in part the
Poseidonian races.
* Herod, ii. 43, 4.
t II. xxiii. 740-5.
t Od. iv. 615-9, and xv. 115-9.
§ Od. XV. 424.
II II. vi. 288-91.
II Renan, Langues S^mitiques, p. 502.
3^5
We have, then, two facts historically
certain, that Sidon was very great and
wealthy in the primitive period of the his-
tory of Canaan, and that it was complete-
ly overshadowed by Tyre at a subsequent,
though still early, date. And the evi-
dence of the Homeric text is that the
Poems belong to the period of the pre-
dominance of Sidon, not to that when
Tyre was paramount.
Tradition supplies us with a date, as
that at which the change from the one to
the other period occurred. Justin states
that Sidon was the city first founded by
the Phoenicians, and that after a long
time its inhabitants were expelled by the
King of Ascalon, and built (that may mean
resettled and extended) Tyre in the year
before the capture of Troy.* Josephus
placed this settlement of Tyre at 240
years before the dedication of Solomon's
Temple. The exact date of that event is
disputed ; if we take the latest year given
for it, or 969 B.C., the overthrow of the
power of Sidon took place in 1209 B.C.,
which may be the year intended by Jus-
tin : though according to the Poems the
greatness of Sidon survived, if only for a
short period, the fall of Troy.f Movers
treats the Sidonian period as having be-
gun not later than 1600 B.C., and as hav-
ing ended with the transference of power
to Tyre. For this he does not fix a date,
but refers to the foundation of Gades and
Utica as colonies sent out from Tyre,
after the depression of Sidon, in the end
of the twelfth century.^ This supposes
that Tyre had come into possession of
considerable power some time before.
Again, it may be observed that Sidon
was overthrown from Ascalon, a city of
the Philistines. It is held by Lenor-
mant that the Philistines were the same
people with the " Pelestaof the mid-sea,"
who entered Syria in the reign of Rame-
ses HI,, and whose fleet was defeated by
a Phoenician navy, acting under and for
the Egyptian monarch ; and that this de-
feat of the warriors was avenged a cen-
tury after by the destruction of Sidon.§
In any case, if we rightly assume the
identity of name between Pelesta and
Philistia, it follows that the fall of Sidon
was subsequent to the War of Rameses
III.
Upon the whole, it may be stated that,
* Justin xviii. 3.
t Kenrick's Phoenicia, p. 343. Smith's Diet., Art.
Phoenicia.
t Mover's Phon. alt. B. i. ch. 8. (Theil. ii. p. 257.)
§ F. Lenormant in The Academy of March 28,
1874.
366
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
while the references to Sidon and the
Sidonians very closely associate the
Poems with the Sidonian Period, there is
nothing unreasonable in the traditional
opinion that that period closed by the
virtual overthrow of Sidon late in the
thirteenth century B.C.
V. — THE LEGEND OF MEMNON, AND THE
KETEIANS OF THE ELEVENTH ODYSSEY.
Nothing can be more improbable than
the common tradition respecting Mem-
non, that he came from Egypt to take
part in the war against Troy. It was
only at the height of its power that the
Egyptian dominion or influence could
have reached so far as to the Dardanelles,
or indeed, according to our information,
into Asia Minor. Again, the relation of
subordination, which had probably once
subsisted, laid the foundations not of alli-
ance but of hostility, as we see from the
participation of the Dardanians in the
Asiatic combination against Rameses II.
Further, if the interference of the Egyp-
tian empire in the Trojan war was im-
probable, still less was it likely that an
empire of that magnitude should, if tak-
ing any part at all, take one so insignifi-
cant as by sending a single chief, with a
mere contingent, to aid the side which
had all along been the losing one : and
this, again, only towards the close of the
contest. The local tradition, connecting
Memnon with Egypt through his sup-
posed statue, is exploded by the knowl-
edge now obtained that this was known
historically in the country as the statue
of Amenophis 1 1 1.,* the son of Thothmes
III., who lived before the close, as it
seems, of the sixteenth century B.C. To
suppose, with others, that Memnon came
from the Cushite kingdom, lying to the
south of Egypt, would be yet more ex-
travagant ; for it was not from the ends
of the known earth that contingents were
supplied for Troy. Next, we have no
reason to presume hostility between
Egpyt and the Greeks at the period of
the Troica^ for we find Menelaos visiting
Egypt as a friend, and so received there,
while he pays no visits at all, according
to the Homeric record, along the coast,
so much less remote, which had supplied
military aid to Priam. Nor are we aware
of any maritime means by which Mem-
non could have had access to Troas, as
the Phcenicians appear to have main-
tained neutrality, and there was no power
* Rawllnson's Empire, i. 48.
the East, p. 94.
P. Smith, Hist, of
in the North .^gean to cope with the
Greeks by sea. Improbable on general
grounds, the connection of Memnon with
Egypt itself is at direct variance with
Homer. He calls Memnon 'HoDj- 6atwriq
dy?i^6f vidf (Od. IV. 1 88). But Homer no-
where associates Egypt directly with the
East ; the dwelling of Kirk^ and the
avrokal ^He?uoto are evidently in the Euxine.
Professor Rawlinson * has enumerated
some of the countries which set up in
after times a claim to be associated with
Memnon. These were Egypt, Ethiopia
on the Nile, and Assyria at Susa. Again,
his tomb was shown on the Aisepos, at
Ptolemais, and at Palton in Syria ; and
his sword at Nicomedeia in Bithynia.f
The meaning of all this appears to be,
that, from the great and permanent fame
of the Trojan War, there arose a natural
tendency, in various countries, to claim a
share in it, where tradition afforded any
sort of handle for the purpose. Memnon
was associated by Homer with the East,
and the East with dark skin : and he did
what no properly Trojan chief is ever re-
lated to have done ; he killed a leading
Greek warrior, seemingly in fair fight.J
Hence connection with him was honour-
able, and was liable to be very freely
claimed. But, as regards Assyria and
Susa, his making the long land journey
from thence to Troy is, perhaps, as im-
probable as a similar journey from Egypt,
which indeed had much more to do, than
had Assyria, with the intervening coun-
tries of Syria and Palestine. In the en-
deavour to examine the case of Memnon,
it should all along be borne in mind that
the Egyptian monuments and inscriptions
now open to us, are entirely without any
trace of him.§
There are but two passages in which
Homer refers to Memnon. In the fourth
Odyssey, he is described as the slayer of
Antilochos, and as the famous son of the
bright East. In the eleventh Odyssey,
he is named for his personal beauty, in
the following lines, where Odysseus de-
scribes to the Shade of Achilles the war-
like exploits of his son : —
'AAZ' oloi> rov TTjXecptdriv Karevf/paTO x<^^(f>
"Hpu' EvpVTTvTiOV' TTO?u?iOl 6' UlK^t avTuv ETCUpOC
KTj'eiot KTEtvovTO, yvvaicov elvEna dupuv.
Kelvov 6t] KaTJuarov idov fisTu Mifivova 6tdv.\\
First, let us consider the tribute thus
paid to Memnon for his personal beauty.
* Ancient Monarchies, vol. i. p. 48, ed. 1871.
t Paus. iii. 3-6.
t Od. iv. 186-8.
§ Lauch, Homer und .^gypten, p. 3 1.
[ II Od. xi. 519-22.
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
When Homer compares men on this
ground, it is always within the limits of
some race. He does not compare the
beauty of a Greek with that of a Trojan,
but with that of other Greeks. In the
second Iliad, Nireus is the most beautiful
among all the Danaoi, who went to Troy,
after the glorious Acliilles.* After him,
the prince and paragon of men, the Tela-
monian Ajax, was the noblest in form
again among all the Danaoi, as well as
the greatest in martial achievements.!
This last quoted declaration comes with-
in less than thirty lines after the pas-
sage in which it is stated that Euru-
pulos was the most beautiful warrior after
Memnon. When, therefore, the Poet
says that Eurupulos, who led the Ke-
teians, was the most beautiful person he
had seen except the surpassing Mem-
non, analogy clearly leads us to suppose
that Eurupulos and Memnon were of the
same race, and that they both were Asiat-
ics of the same region and associations ;
probably, then, both were Keteians.
In the Hippodamion at Olympia there
was, as Pausanias informs us, a tablet
which J represented Memnon as standing
over against or fighting with Achilles,
and which thus supported the tradition
of his great fame in war : suggesting tha^
like so many more, he went down before
the sword and spear of that unrivalled
warrior. We have no direct testimony
on this subject from Homer ; but we may
observe, from the passage under consid-
eration, that Odysseus does not give any
information about Eurupulos and Mem-
non to Achilles, but speaks of both as
if they were well known already to his
interlocutor, only calling Eurupulos tov
T7j?.e^idTjv^ " I mean him the son of Tele-
phos," as if to distinguish him from the
Greek Eurupulos, who commanded the
contingent from Ormenion,§ so that the
passage reads as if Memnon had been
the original commander of the Keteians,
and on his death Eurupulos had suc-
ceeded him.
Who, then, were these Keteians ? and
can we, through the traditions respecting
Eurupulos or his father Telephos, obtain
any light in regard to them, or to Mem-
non, whether as connected with them or
otherwise ?
With regard to Memnon, son of the
Morning, we know that he must have
come from some country to the east of
♦ II. ii. 674.
t Od. xi. 55a
i Pans. V. 22, p. 435.
§ II. ii. 734.
Troas, in order to obtain that appella-
tion. But, are we to look for the Keteioi
in the same direction ?
We may, in the first place, observe, it
is probable that they came from a dis-
tance. First, because we find that, as
was natural, Priam had already obtained,
at the beginning of the war, or at least,
before the period of the action of the
Iliad, assistance from all his nearer neigh-
bours, in geographical order, associated
together in a great international struggle.
The only distinct notice we have of a new
arrival of allies during the war is in the
case of the Thracians, under their king,
Rhesos.* Now, the Thracians of the
Trojan catalogue were those only who
bordered upon the current, i.e., the straits
of the Hellespont.! It cannot, then, be
doubted that the Thracians of Rhesos
were those who came from the inland
country towards Mount Haimos, and who
were thus drawn in as the struggle, be-
ing prolonged, and growing more ardu-
ous, led to greater efforts on the part of
the losing side. But we have another
sign that the Keteioi came from a dis-
tance. It is, that they entered into the
war only for a consideration : receiving
the gifts of Priam (yvvaiuv elvcKa dwpwv),
which probably may have been presented
to the Queen, or some chief woman of
their nation. f As we find Kinures of Cy-
prus,§ at the farthest point to which Aga-
memnon's political influence could "be
stretched, sending him a valuable gift, in
order, apparently, to be excused from
serving, yet to maintain friendship, so we
can well understand how, when service
was obtained under great necessity from
a distance, where community of interest
would be less strongly felt, gifts should
pass to those who rendered it.
The next observation to be made is,
that Strabo witnesses to the existence of
a river in the Eleatis, called Keteios,
which falls into the Kaikos, in Mysia,||
but as a mere mountain stream ; which,
besides that the formation would not be
regular, was hardly likely to give its name
to a race, if it might receive one from
some members of a race. Who the Ke-
teioi were, he frankly avows himself quite
ignorant ; and he treats as fables the cur-
rent explanations of the learned. The
* II. X. 434.
t II. ii. 845.
+ In Egypt, as we find from the records, women in
some very remarkable instances administered the gov-
ernment.
§ II. xi. 20.
11 Strabo, b. 13, p. 616.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
368
lengthened commentary of Eustathius *
on the passage, in which he inclines to
derive the word from KrjTog, adds nothing
to our knowledge, though he has got hold
of the idea that these Keteioi were mer-
cenaries.
If we look at the name in itself, it ad-
mits, by the aid of recent Egyptian
discoveries, of a perfectly simple and
natural identification. In the Book of
Genesis, we hear of the children of Heth,
the second born son of Canaan, who are
afterwards called the Hittites.f Of this
race, one, and that the smaller, portion,
was in immediate contact with the Jews.
The great body of the nation occupied
northern Syria, and the lower valley of
the Orontes : a branch, apparently, of the
great Hamitic family, which supplied, in
the earliest times, the bulk of the Syrian
population.
This warlike and powerful race formed
both the great barrier in the north
against the extension of Egyptian power,
and the centre of military confederations,
created for the purpose of repressing it.
The name Heth, in Scripture, is repre-
sented by Kheta of the Egyptian monu-
ments, and by the Khatti, of the Assyrian
inscriptions ; J and it is principally from
the former of these that an accurate idea
of their position is to be derived. The
Kheta of the Egyptians may well be, as
far as the name is concerned, the Keteioi
of Homer : indeed, it is not easy to sug-
gest any other rendering, so simple and
so obvious, of their name in the Greek
tongue.
In the reign of the great Rameses II.,
when the Egyptian Monarchy was be-
ginning to assume a defensive attitude,
the Kheta, or Hethites, made war upon
that monarch, § with a wide support, both
from East and West ; although of the
Phoenicians, they were joined by the town
of Arados alone. But, from Asia Minor,
they counted as allies, among others, the
people of Mysia, and the Dardanians of
Troas ; indeed, as the inscription is read,
of Ilios and Pedasos. This alliance
shows that relations existed between the
Kheta and the North-west corner of the
Fore- Asia (Vorder-Asiens) as it is con-
veniently called by the Germans.
But there are other signs which tend to
show an ethnical, as well as a political,
connection between these two quarters.
* P. 1697.
t Gen. X. 15.
% Smith's Ancient Hist, of the East, p. 6.
§ Lenormant's Manual del'Histoire de 1' Orient, b.
iii- S> 4.
The immediate neighbours of the Kheta
on the West, were the Cilicians. Ac-
cording to the mythical genealogy of
ApoUodorus,* and others, Kilix was the
brother of Phoinix, and the grandson of
Poseidon, the great Hamitic deity. When
the Kilikes are called Semitic, it is, per-
haps, in a sense in which the term is also
applied to the Phoenicians ; that is to say,
their language, so far as it is known by
inscriptions, belonged to a family which
appears to have been used in common by
the Semites and the Asiatic Hamites of
the great migration from the head of
the Persian Gulf.f Next, what appears
to be most clearly established is their
immediate relationship to the Phoeni-
cians, with whose equipment in the navy
of Xerxes theirs nearly agreed.^ This
similarity would, without doubt, be pro-
moted by their maritime habits. On the
other hand, the access by land into their
country, from the East and South, was
round the Gulf of Issus, through the pass
of Mount Amanus ; and if not identical
in composition with the Kheta, the Ki-
likes must have been in the closest rela-
tions with that nation.
But if we turn to the Troad, we find
that it had in its immediate neighbour-
hood its own race of Kilikes, reckoned,
probably, among the neighbouring My-
sians. Eetion, father of Andromache,
dwelt under Plakos,
Ki}uKeacf uydpsaotv avaaauv,^
and Achilles, destroying the city, is thus
described : —
EK 6e 'Kokiv Tcspaev KcMkuv evvaLerdoxTav.W
Strabo, moreover, records the traditions,
which as well as etymology, connect the
Kilikes of Mysia with the Kihkes of Ci-jBl
licia.^ »
Again, there are reasons why we should
look for the presence of non-Aryan races
other than the Kares in the Trojan circle
of allies. In the Catalogue, Homer calls
the Kares Bap^apo^uvoL** the speakers of
a strange tongue. And they are the only
race so named. But in the fourth Book,
after describing the bleating, so to call it,
of the Trojan Army, a broken and vari-
ous noise, as when each sheep answers
its lamb, he gives as a reason, —
* Apollod. ii. r. 4.
t Lenormant, b. i. 5, 3.
i Herod, vii. 89, 91 ; Smith, Anc. Hist, of East, p.
430.
§ II. VI. 397 ; Strabo, xiv. p. 667.
II II, vi. 415.
IF Strabo, pp. 6, 7.
** II. ii. 867.
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
3^9
ov yap TTuvTuv Tjev ofLog dpoog av6^ la y^pvg
a?jiu yTicJoa'' £/j£/u,ckto, ttoTivkXt^toc d' eaav uv-
dpec.*
We may, therefore, well look for some
others besides Kares to justify, by their
foreign speech, this general description.
It may be that the contingent from Lycia,
which was clearly under commanders of
Phoenician extraction, likewise used the
PhcEnician tongue. But knowing as we
do, that there were Kilikes in the neigh-
bourhood of Troy, apparently dwelling
among the people of Mysia, we seem jus-
tified in pointing to these also, since they
were of the Hamitic stock if they were
of the Cilician race ; and the sense of the
passage we are considering therefore
tends to support this presumption of
identity between the two sets of Kilikes.
The Khita would certainly have been,
to Homer, barbarians in speech. It ap-
pears probable, to say the least, that
these Kilikes were the same. There are
several marks which connect Eetion,
their sovereign, with Poseidon, and,
therefore, with the Poseidon-worship-
ping races. One is the name of his city,
Thebe ;t and another, the excellence of
his horses.J We are not, however, called
upon to reject the common explanation
of the passage in Od. XI. 519-22, which is
probably true, but not the whole truth.
There might be Keteioi in Mysia and on
the Orontes, as there were Kilikes in
Mysia and in Cilicia, and as there were
Lukioi in Troas and in Lycia ; and as we
know that another branch of the Hethite
or Hittite race dwelt among the seven
nations of Canaan, at a distance from the
parent stock ; and as we also find a town
founded by this same race in Cyprus,
namely the Citium of the Romans.
In the traditional report of the swarth-
iness of Memnon, there is nothing to
raise a presumption that he was not one
of the Khita. They were Canaanites and
Hamites, worshippers of Poseidon ; and
it is easy to show, from Homer, through
the hair, how remarkably he associated
darkness of skin with all that was East-
ern.
Now, if Memnon were leader of the
Keteioi, it may be observed, in the first
place, that his country lay in the same
parallel of latitude as Southern Greece,
and he might therefore, with ample con-
sistency, be called by the Poet, son of
* }]• iv. 437.
t The son of a Thebaios fights on the Trojan side,
II. vni, 120
t II. viii. 136 ; xvi. 153,
LIVING AGE. VOL.
VII.
336
the Morning. And, most certainly, the
Homeric statement that Memnon was
the famous son of the Morning, would
be in thorough accordance both with the
Poet's geographical idea of the East and
sunrise, which the Odyssey by no means
carries far towards the South, and with
the fame to which the Khita, as the res-
olute and somewhat successful oppo-
nents of the vast Egyptian power, had
attained.
Of the two questions I have been con-
sidering in conjunction, the legend of
Memnon and the true interpretation of
the Keteian name in the Eleventh Odys-
sey, the latter is of the greater import-
ance in relation to the date of Homer, as
it connects him with the period of that
nation's prosperity and power. But if
we can do anything to identify the po-
sition of Memnon, it adds a stone to the
fabric. And an old Greek monument
enables us to take a further step in this
direction. The Lycians under Sarpedon
are the most remote towards the south
and east of Priam's Allies at the period
of the Catalogue. Next to them lie the
Kilikes, who, as I contend, are associat-
ed with the Kheta. If, then, I am right
about Memnon, he and Sarpedon were
territorial neighbours. Now Pausanias *
gives us a description in detail of the
paintings of Polugnotos in the Lesch^, or
place of resort for conversation, at
Delphi. In one portion of these paint-
ings,! the figure of Sarpedon is intro-
duced in a pensive position, his head'
leaning upon his hands. Next to Sar-
pedon is placed Memnon, with one of his
hands placed on the shoulder of Sarpe-
don ; which must mark, if not consola-
tion, at least friendly relation of some
sort. And what can this be ? Sarpe-
don is slain during the action of the
Iliad, before Memnon has come to Troas.
The picture then does not relate to a
personal friendship and intercourse in
Troas. Is it not a reasonable explana-
tion that the position indicates the
friendly territorial neighbourhood of na-
tions, which it is pretty certain had been
united in resistance to a foreign suprem-
acy ?
There is yet another presumption bear-
ing on the subject of the Keteioi, which
arises from the text of Homer. In the
Fourth Odyssey, Menelaos describes to
Telemachos and his friend his own ex-
periences since quitting Troas : —
* X. 25, sef.
t Paus. X. 31, p. 875.
37°
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
1] yap TToXXa Ttaduv kqI ttoTJi hTcaJ.Tjdeig
^Hyayo/xriv ev vrjval koI bydociTu erei TjXdov'
Kv-pOV ^OiVtKTjV TE KOL k.i^'VTVTLOVQ eTtaK.7]delc,
Aldioirug 0' tKOftTjv koI IiLdoviovg koL ^Ep£fJ,!3ovc
Kal Ai^VTjv iva r' apveg ucpap Kepaol Te)\£dovaLV.*
Did we but know in a Menelaid the de-
tails of this eight years' tour! Evidently
it approached to, though it might not
equal, the tour of Odysse'us. It differs
in this among other respects, that it does
not lie so completely beyond the limits of
Hellenic navigation and experience, for
Egypt and Phoenicia were in some sense
known countries, inasmuch as, to say the
least, the Greeks were assured of the ex-
istence and character of such cities as
Thebes and Sidon ; while Kupros or Cy-
prus was, as we see from the Eleventh
Iliad, partially within the Hellenic circle
of political influence.
Still, the very same expression which
Menelaos uses to describe his wander-
ings, is employed by the seer Theoclume-
nos in the Fifteenth Odyssey, and again
by Eumaios, to describe those of Odys-
seus : " He is one who underwent much,
and travelled much." f
Now, bearing in mind that the naviga-
tion of the ancients was as far as possible
coast navigation, the question arises.
How was it that Menelaos is represented
as not having touched land anywhere
along the great distance between Troas
and Phoinik^, except at Kupros, which
•we know to have been a friendly coun-
:try 1 As to Phoinike, it appears plain,
■from the Poems, that the Phoenicians took
mo side in the war ; and the visit of
.Menelaos to Egypt proves it to have been
. at the time either neutral or friendly. Evi-
'dently he avoids the western and southern
• coast of Asia Minor as far as Lycia, be-
. cause we know it from the Trojan Cata-
.logue to have been hostile. But, after
what we have seen of the presence of Kili-
:kes in Mysia, and of Musoi in Cilicia, we
at once account for his avoiding the Cili-
cian coast on the same ground, namely,
that it was held by a hostile population.
There is still an intervening link, the
coast of Northern Syria beyond Troas,
which was in the country of the Hethites
or Kheta. Is it not a fair presumption
that this coast was avoided on the same
ground ? and therefore that the Kheta
were also the Keteioi of the Eleventh
V Odyssey .''
That the Phoenicians did not take part
lin the war is readily accounted for, not
* Od. iv. 81-5.
t Od. XV. 176, 400.
only by their distance, but by their posi-
tion as the chief traders of the Mediter-
ranean, whose business it was, with a due
allowance for the liberty of kidnapping, to
be at peace with both sides. Hence
probably it was that they chose to remain
all along in a modified subordination to
the great Egyptian empire, rather than to
avail themselves of their considerable
natural advantages for resistance. That
Paris had visited Sidon * before the war
proves nothing adverse to this supposi-
tion, as he was then on the most friendly
terms also with Greece itself.
To sum up what has been said : we thus
find Homer, with respect to the Memno-
nian tradition, in contact and full con-
sistency, upon a reasonable and probable
interpretation of his text, with the facts
of real history. Memnon, with whose
personality we need not be troubled, was
for him the son of the East. Therefore
he could not well be Egyptian : yet Egypt
might afterwards claim him, in fond con-
nection with the traditions of a period
when she had proudly possessed the Em-
pire of the East. He could hardly come
from Susiana or Assyria, with which
there is no trace of social or political re-
lations. Yet he probably came from out-
side the circle of the earlier Trojan alli-
ances, and therefore from beyond Lycia,
and the countries of the Musoi and Kili-
kes. There lie the Kheta ; and the Poet
supplies us with their name, Keteioi.
These warriors were separated from the
Phoenicians generally, and therefore from
relations with Greece, by their hostility
to Egypt : and with this historic fact their
supplying aid to Troy is in complete har-
mony.
VI. — THE LEGEND OF THE PSEUDODYS-
SEUS. — THE VOYAGE OF THE SHIP
ARGO.
It is not the object of this inquiry to
draw out from the Poems all the traces
of connection between Greece of the
heroic age and the great Egyptian Em
pire ; but only such of them as tenc
towards defining the chronological limit;
within which, so far as we are enabled t(
judge from the Egyptian records or othe
positive testimony, the War of Troy his
torically falls.
Having now set forth the principal point
of contact between the Homeric text am
the Egyptian and Phoenician history,
proceed to mention one or two other
of minor moment, which are, howe^
* II. vi.
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
371
distinctly subsidiary to those already
named.
(I.) In the Fourteenth Odyssey, Odys-
seus has availed himself, on his return to
Ithaca, of the hospitality of Eumaios, to
whom he remains unknown. Eumaios
desires to learn who he is, and how and
why he came to Ithaca. This demand
Odysseus meets by a fictitious narrative,
which I have termed the Legend of the
Pseudodysseus.
He describes himself as a Cretan of
high extraction, not given to industrious
habits, but to war and buccaneering. By
this, as a sea-rover, he had greatly pros-
pered ; but had afterwards been obliged
to take part as a Cretan leader in the
Achaian war with Troy. On his return,
after only a month of rest at home, he
prepared an expedition against Egypt.
It consisted of nine ships, and the people
readily took service in it.*
A fair wind brought them in five days
to Egypt ; and he proceeds in the follow-
ing terms : —
" I moored in the River Aiguptos. I
bid mv gallant men stay where they were,
and haul the vessel ashore, while I sent
out scouts for a survey of the land. But
they, unable to restrain their eagerness
and wantonness, at once fell to making
havock of the well-tilled fields of the men
of Egypt, slaying the full-grown males,
and carrying off the women and young
children. But the din soon reached the
city. And the inhabitants hearing it,
came down at the following dawn. The
whole plain was filled with chariots and
with foot-soldiery, and with the blaze of
armour. And Zeus, lover of the thunder-
bolt, struck my comrades with a misera-
ble panic, nor did a man of them stand
firm, for mischief gathered on all sides.
There they slew many of us with the
sharp edge of weapons ; and some they
took alive to become their bondsmen. . .'f
"As for me, I went straight to meet
the king in his chariot, and held and
kissed his knees. He raised me and
pitied me, and placing me in the chariot,
carried me weeping to his home. Many,
indeed, rushed at me with spears, for in
truth they were vehemently exasperated ;
but he kept them off, for he had regard
to the displeasure of Zeus Xeinios, the
great avenger of ill-deeds."
Then he relates how he abode for
years in Egypt, receiving kind gifts, and
acquiring wealth, until a Phoenician rogue
* Od. xiv. 199-248.
t Od. xiv. 258-72.
induced him to abscond ; when he went
to Phoinik^, and from thence, after a
year, embarked for Libya, when they fell
into ill weather which destroyed their
vessel, and new adventures followed
which are not to the present purpose.*
Is it possible to read this narrative in
the light of the Egyytian discoveries, and
not to receive the impression that it was
by no means a pure and arbitrary inven-
tion, but one adapted to the law of likeli-
hood, and related to some known facts ?
The first, because Odysseus was not
merely entertaining the itching ears of a
simpleton, but putting a very shrewd and
intelligent man in possession of what he
was to take for a real biography. The
second, because of the remarkable points
of resemblance with what we now know
from the Egyptian records. Let us ob-
serve : —
(i) How eminently Egypt is, in this
tale, the land of horses, and of horses in
chariots, when they are specifically men-
tioned as having come out in the tumultu-
ary muster of the population against a
small band of freebooters.
(2) How the general course of the nar-
rative agrees with that of the Libyan co-
alition ; an aggressive invasion, success
in the first instance, severe suffering in-
flicted, the ruin of the expedition through
a decisive battle, great slaughter and a
residue of prisoners. Even the mercy
shown to Odysseus agrees with what we
are told happened in the same case,
when a number of the invaders were al-
lowed to remain as subjects.
(3) There is something strange, and
not agreeable to Achaian habits, in the
remarkable clemency of the Egyptian
king to his suppliant prisoner. But Sir
G. Wilkinson, commenting on Herod, ii.
I02,f speaks of the comparative clem-
ency of the Egyptians, and of the honour
paid by Sesostris to those who gallantly
withstood him.
(4) Still more remarkable is the case of
the escape. A Phoenician induced him
to escape from Egpyt, and in escaping to
go with him to Phoinike, which was the
nearest place of refuge. This is per-
fectly explicable. But next, he persuades
the supposed Cretan to go on to Libya,
when we should have expected him to
seek his own country, Crete. The ex-
planation is supplied by the Egyptian
records, thous^h we have no sign from
the Poems of anything like ordinary
* Od. xiv. 278-309.
t In Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii. p. i68.
372
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
commerce or other intercourse between
Greece and the coast of Africa ; the re-
sort of a Greek to that country ceases to
be inexplicable, when we find that its
people had recently been engaged in a
common enterprise with the Achaians
against Egypt.
It is evidently the expedition against
Merepthah to which this Legend thus in
many important points corresponds ; and
it supports the view, which the use of the
word Achaians suggests, that that expe-
dition took place at a time shortly before
the War of Troy.
It may indeed be said that the Legend
represents a buccaneering raid, whereas
the invasion was conducted by a coalition
of nations. The answer is tolerably plain ;
the Egyptian records are unhappily want-
ing at the place where they should give
the numbers of the Achaian contingents ;
but they show with sufficient clearness
that the numerical force of the invading
army was mainly African. The Libyans
(or Lebu) recorded as killed were 6359.
Of another nation whose name is blank,
there were 61 11, and of a third, also
blank, 2370.* As the record gives 91 11
daggers or knives taken from the Max-
j-'es, the larger of these two numbers, it
would seem, belongs to them, and the
third may be that of the Kahakas. The
Maxyes were much more nearly united
with the Libyans than the Achaians were
(though all were probably Aryan races) ;
and were comprehended with them in the
general designation of Tahennu, which
included all the neighbours of Egypt on
the West.f But when we come to the
transmarine contingents, we find the
Achaian name given, with the numbers
blank : the Sikels, who have but 222
killed, and the Tursha, or supposed
Etruscans, whose slain are 542. From
this it appears probable, though not cer-
tain, that rtie Achaian force in the war
against Merepthah was on a scale not
widely different from that which we find
in the very curious legend of the Pseudo-
dysseus.
(IL) Though i! cannot be said that the
Records of Egypt throw any direct light
upon the voyage of the ship Argo, yet in-
directly they suggest a sense and mean-
ing for a legend which it has been here-
tofore so difficult to supply with a prob-
able basis of fact.
We have long, indeed, been in posses-
sion of most curious information respect-
* Chabas, pp. 199, 200.
t De Roug^^s M^moire, pp. 14, 15.
ing the Colchians. Pindar* calls them
the dark-faced (/ce/loivwrref). Herodotus
states that a colony detached from the
Army of Sesostris settled on the Phasis.
He has no doubt that the Colchians are
an Egyptian race. He found that tradi-
tion subsisting among them. He relies
partly on their having black skin and wool-
ly hair, but very much more on their prac-
tising circumcision. The Egyptians and
the Colchians use a manner of weaving
unknown elsewhere. f I do not refer to
the less weighty authorities of Diodorus
and other late witnesses. But I may
mention that the language of old Colchis,
now Mingrelia, is Turanian.^
There were but two great events, ante-
cedent to the Troica, and known to us
by the general tradition of the country,
in which Greece had an interest truly
national. Homer, who gives us so largely
the adventures of Phoinix, and the local
war of Nestor, alludes to the events I
speak of in a manner bearing no propor-
tion to their historical moment. He was
too great an artist to bring upon the stage
any figure which could vie with the sub-
ject of his song ; and it is probable that
the Legends of the War of Thebes and
of the ship Argo were competing legends
with the War of Troy. Of the War of
Thebes he gives us only glances, and
those incidentally to the character and
position of Diomed.§ The ship Argo is
named but once in the Poem.||
We have recently, I think, begun to
perceive that the expedition against
Thebes was a national expedition ; an
expedition, as Homer phrases it, of
Achaians against- Kadmeians. Mitford
had noticed it as "the first instance of a
league among Grecian Princes." ^ The
Theban country was the grand seat of
foreign immigration and influence in
Middle and Southern Greece. Elsewhere
there had been individuals or families
settUng in the country, rather than com-
1
* Pyth. iv. 377.
t Herod, ii. 103-5.
i Max Miiller, Languages of the Seat of War,
112-4.
§ II. iv. 370-400 ; II, V. 80&-8.
I! Od. xii. 70.
il Mitford, chap. i. sect. 3. Notwithstanding
prejudices, Mitford is an author whom no one need
even at this day be ashamed to consult or quote. Fifty
years ago he enjoyed a monopoly of authority ; he is
now perhaps unduly depressed. He surely marks one
of the advancing stages of Greek historiography. I do
not find the subject noticed in the work of Bishop Thirl-
wall. Mr. Grote's view of the legendary period, which
as coming from him carries great authority, w.^s not
favourable to the admission of the too realistic idea of
nationality as among the motives which prompted
mythical ornamentation. It is set forth in his Six-
teenth Chapter.
i
/
/
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
373
munities. Here there appears to have
been a real colony, and a colony which
perhaps displaced or supplanted a prior
settlement by Amphion and Zethos.*
The War against Thebes has notes which
indicate that it was probably an early
effort of the nation, just awaking, under
its Achaian name, to self-consciousness
and independence, in which the domestic
dissensions of the ruling families of
Thebes were used as the occasion for
putting down an element of power in the
country, which was or had been formid-
able by reason of its derivation from the
great though declining Egyptian Empire.
The tenacious vitality of the motives
from which it sprang would seem to
show that it was far more than a personal
quarrel. The expedition of the Epigonoi
took place after Poluneikes, the person
by whom the movement was originally
prompted, was already dead. It is men-
tioned but slightly in Homer.f Yet the
completeness of its success seems to be
attested by the decentralized condition in
which the Boiotians mustered for the
Trojan war, not as a monarchy, but under
five apparently equal leaders. J
Now I would suggest that the voyage
of the ship Argo was probably a manifes-
tation, and an effort, at a very slightly
earlier date, of the same feeling. As it
stands in the framework of ordinary
Greek legend, it has been found by the
ablest critics extremely difficult either to
accept as history, or to etherealize and
translate as myth.§ Mitford || refers it to
the ambition of Jason to obtain distinc-
tion by a freebooting expedition to a more
remote quarter than any theretofore mo-
lested. Bishop Thirlwall laments that
when the marvellous is stripped off, and
only a dry husk left, the story appears
only more meagre and not more intelligi-
ble.^ Mr. Grote treats the inquiry as
hopeless whether there be in the Legend
any basis of fact or not. But it is plain
that when once we are able to show an
historic link between Egypt and Greece,
importing supremacy at a given period
on one side, and dependence on the
other, there is nothing forced or improb-
able in the hypothesis that the Greeks,
when the yoke had ceased to press them,
might have been attracted by the love of
booty and the hope of revenge to any
* Od. xi. 260-5.
t II. iv. 406.
i II. ii. 494.
§ Thirlwall' s Greece, chap. v. vol. 1. pp. 132-9, i2ino.
edition.
|i Chap. V. p. 143,
1[ Part i. chap. xiii. pp. 332-4.
point where Egyptian authority was rep-
resented feebly enough to invite attack.
Sir G. Wilkinson * considers that the
object of the Argonautic expedition may
have been to obtain a share of the lucra-
tive trade with the East which flourished
on the eastern coast of the Black Sea.
But that expedition preceded the Ho-
meric Poems, and it is surely evident
that even at their date the Greeks had not
attained to any such development of their
commercial conceptions. Indeed, the
whole tale, unlike that of the War against
Thebes, presents circumstances of im-
probability which, in the absence of any
specific answer are most startling. In
the whole of the Poems we never hear of
a merchant ship of the Greeks. The
Argo, if it existed, must have been a pure
sea-rover's vessel fitted for booty. As a
single vessel, she could not be meant for
war in the sense of the Trojan expedi-
tion. But if she was meant for booty
only, why did she seek it at so great a
distance, in a sea as yet untraversed by
the Greeks .-* And why, above all, if she
were but a pirate, was she an object of
intense national feeling to the people of
her own time, or why did she take so
high and lasting a place in the recollec-
tions of the race .'' If, as we know from
the records, Egypt was now no longer a
maritime power in the Mediterranean,
and the Achaian people were disposed to
retaliate ; and if, as tradition, together
with many signs, assures us, there was
in the Black Sea a weak Egyptian out-
post, showing probably, in Greek eyes,
some of the wealth but little of the force
of the old Empire ; then I think, and
perhaps then only, do we attain to a ra-
tional hypothesis as to the motive and
character of the Argonautic expedition.
• Now, slight as is the notice in the
Odyssey, it gives us assistance on at
least two points. While declaring that
Argo, and she only, had passed through
the dangerous Sumplegades, or the Bos-
phorus on her voyage, it calls her Tracriui'
hwaa — an object of universal, i.e., na-
tional interest ; and it stales that she
never would have effected the passage,
except by means of the love of Her6 for
Jason.f
Why did Her^ thus love Jason, not
with a passionate or mortal, but with a
divine and protecting love .'' Among the
surest indications in Homer, are those
afforded by the introduction of a deity in
* In Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. iL p. 169.
t Od. xii. 69-72.
374
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY
connection with some special person or
purpose. Now, Her^ is by a peculiar
and exclusive excellence, the great Acha-
ian goddess. Not like Zeus and Apollo,
who are wholly liberated from merely na-
tional affections ; or Poseidon, who every-
where holds fast by those of his own
race or longitude ; or Atheri^, whose
sympathies in the war are given to in-
dividuals rather than to a race or coun-
try : the basis of her national action
seeming to lie exclusively in that offence
of Paris, which she had suffered together
with Here.* It is Her^ and Her^ only,
on whose inner heart is written in deep
characters the Achaian name ; whose
energy on behalf of the army never
ceases, who beguiles Zeus, who compels
the Sun to set when he wishes to con-
tinue shining, who gives her sympathy
to all that is Greek, and nothing that is
not Greek, whose central worship through
the historic ages was in Argos, a district
of Achaian settlement, and the centre of
Achaian power. When Homer says that
Afgo passed the Straits in safety because
Here guided her, out of her care for Jason
{tnel (^IXog r]ev 'li]ao)v)^ I read him as mean-
ing that Jason was engaged in a true
national enterprise, so the goddess proper
to the nation kept him scathless. —
Much more might be said on the con-
nection between the Greece of Homer and
Egypt. Who is the Homeric Minos 1
Who is the Aiguptios of Ithaca ? What
share has Egypt in all the notices of the
Phoenician name, and the numberless and
interesting associations connected with
it ? Why is it that, while the later and
uncertified Greek tradition testifies to
Egyptian influence and settlement over
heroic Greece in forms so numerous that
we cannot refer them all to a casual origin,
the direct traces of the connection are so
faintly marked in the Poems ? Why is
Minos Judge in the Underworld of the
Odyssey ? Was he the Egyptian Menes,
and are the imagery and personages of
that underworld borrowed from what
Homer might have gathered respecting
the religion of Egypt ? Lauch, in his
'' Homer und yEgypten," has pursued in
much curious and interesting detail the
search in the Egyptian records for names
which we find in the Poems. I will only
here say, in relation to the questions I
have raised, that if, when Homer sang,
there was the memory of a time still re-
cent, during which the young nation, now
grown so strong in self-consciousness,
* II. xxiv. 27.
energy, and hope, had been in political
subordination to Egypt, that of itself was
reason enough for a Poet with the intense
Hellenism of Homer to suppress or re-
duce as much as possible the direct tokens
of the connection.
I have been thus far more or less upon
the ground of history ; I conclude with
offering what is certainly pure conjecture ;
and yet, I think, conjecture not unreason-
able.
Of the great Egyptian empire of Ram-
eses II. and the Nineteenth Dynasty,
Homer, or at least Hellas, must, human-
ly speaking, have known something, on
account of their relation to continental
and yet more certainly to insular Greece.
But considering the military greatness of
that empire, its numerous expeditions to
Syria, and the concern of the Phoeni-
cians, in all such things the sole or main
informants to the Greeks, in its affairs,
some te7iuis aura, some breath, at least,
of the renown of the Egyptian kings and
warriors, must have passed into the at-
mosphere of Greece. With respect to
Thebes, we have seen that the single al-
lusion of the kind is one apparently
founded not on vague rumour, but upon
real tidings truly characteristic of their
subject. There was probably some cor-
responding knowledge of other things
and persons. Rameses II., as we are
I told, enjoyed what other great men be-
: fore Agamemnon wanted — namely, the
; advantageous chance for fame which the
I muse confers.* The contemporary epic
of Pentaour has recorded, and doubtless
enlarged, his deeds. It was probably
due to this poem, either alone or with
I other causes, that in tradition he outgrew
predecessors whose real achievements, or
! at least whose real power was greater,
and that he not only outgrew, but even
' absorbed them ; for with the world out-
\ side of Egypt, down even to our time,
■ Sesostris was the hero of that country,
and Sesostris was Rameses II. And
; this great but shadowy name was the
sole but much questioned testimony to
: the fact that the supremacy over human-
' kind had once belonged to a great Egyp-
tian empire. According to the Pentaour,
: this monarch personally performed in the
I war with the Kheta such prodigies of
valour as may fairly be deemed without
example, and considered to approximate
to the superhuman. Was it the echo of
these deeds, or of this resounding cele-
* Lenormant, i. 411, and Premieres Civilisations
vol. i. p. 287.
I
AND IN EGYPTIAN CHRONOLOGY.
375
bration of them, that suggested to Homer
the colossal scale of his Achilles ? a war-
rior against whom, while heroic strength
and prowess secured but an impar con-
gressus, mere numbers, however accumu-
lated, were but as dust in the balance ;
and the very apparition of his form dis-
comfited an army * The Poet is notably
in correspondence with the account of
Rameses, Avho is represented as sur-
rounded when alone by 2,500 chariots of
the enemy, as making his appeal to Am-
mon, and as cutting his way through the
hostile army, with great glory to the
horses who drew his chariot ; all singu-
larly in sympathy and accordance with
the spirit of the Homeric picture and its
preter-human element.f
But Rameses was also, and this ac-
cording to the inscriptions, a portentous
sensualist.^ In a long life, we are told
he had 166 children, of whom fifty-nine
were sons. It was perhaps this extraor-
dinary form of human excess — and if
not it was almost certainly some similar
exorbitancy — that may have suggested
to the Poet a picture so intensely foreign,
and so repulsive to the Greek manners,
as that of Priam ; who had fifty sons,
with a number of daughters, nowhere
mentioned; but twelve were married in-
mates of his palace.§ And his vast pro-
geny proceeded from a number of
mothers about which we are in the dark,
three only being expressly named ; and
nineteen of the sons being credited to
Hecabe.||
The argument for these conjectures
maybe summed up thus: — Contempo-
rary Hellas was subject, after the man-
ner of an eastern empire, to the Egyp-
tian Sovereign of the Eighteenth Dynas-
ty, and, titularly at least, perhaps also to
the Nineteenth. On this account it must
have had some information as to extra-
ordinary characters and events connected
with the great empire whose yoke —
probably a light one from the remoteness
of the seat of power — it bore.
The force of this consideration is
heightened, when we recollect that the
tribes or nation who constituted the mar-
itime arm of this great Empire were also
the race who, described in Homer and
by the Greeks as Phoinikes, were their
principal and perhaps almost sole in-
* Horn., II. xviii. 215-29.
t Lenormant, Prem. Civ. i. pp. 289-294.
X Lenormant, Hist. i. 423.
§ 11. 24, 493, b. 248. See Studies on Homer, vol. iii.
p. 210, seq.
li II. XXIV. 496.
formants concerning occurrences which
took place at a distance from their own
coasts.
Now this Rameses the Second was
evidently reputed to be a person of the
most marked individuality ; a man so ex-
traordinary— at least in the verse of his
Bard — that though he does not repre-
sent the climax of Egyptian power, which
in his reign was beginning to decline,
yet he cast both his successors and his
more potent predecessors into the shade
through his heroic force and prominence ;
and he passed into the general tradition
of the world with a name which reached
the historic tines as that of a great con-
queror, while they were forgotten beyond
the bounds of Egypt itself.
In the Poems of Homer, while we have
much that is remarkable indeed, but still
within the limits of human experience,
two pictures only are presented to us
which surpassed them : the character of
Achilles, in its colossal dimensions both
of sentiment and action ; and the menage
of Priam, in its Asiastic multiformity so
strangely contrasted with the modesty of
early Greek life. And the hint or sug-
gestion of both these representations is
found in the character of Rameses the
Second.
I will now bring together the figures
which are yielded by the three wars
against Egypt under Rameses II., his son
Merepthah, and Rameses III. The dates
of the attacks are taken in the two first,
approximately at 1406 and 1345 B.C.; for
the third exactly, as M. Lenormant in-
forms us, at 1306 B.C.
The characteristic names of the three
expeditions, which supply the links with
Greek history, are respectively Dardani-
ans, Achaians, and Danaans. The first
expedition was certainly, and the second
probably, before the War 'of Troy ; the
third must in all likelihood have been
later than the War. The ranges of time
which I have computed from the facts of
the attacks, would give us the following
limits within which the Siege of Troy
must, according to the Egyptian records,
have fallen.
Earliest. Latest.
From the expedition against
Rameses II. 1316 B.C. 1226 B.C.
From the expedition against
Merepthah 1345 " 1285 "
From the expedition against
Rameses III. 1387 " 1307 "
The years between 1316 B.C. and 1307
B.C. would satisfy the conditions of all
376
THE TASMANIAN BLUE GUM TREE.
these computations. And the latest year
which any of them will allow, it will be
observed, is 1226 b. c, a date earlier than
the important catastrophe which deposed
the city of Sidon from its primacy in
Canaan.
The names used in Homer, which bear
directly on the argument, are six —
1. The Dardanian. 4. The Sidonian.
2. The Achaian. 5. The Keteian.
3. The Danaan. 6. The Theban.
And the evidence which the text yields
in connection with each and all of them
converges, positively or negativeh', upon
the same point. The general effect is, to
throw back the Fall of Troy somewhat,
but not greatly, further than according to
the common computation. Some, how-
ever, as we have seen, bring the i8th,
19th, and 20th Dynasties slightly lower
down than the writers whose figures I
have provisionally adopted. Mr. Poole's
or Mr. P. Smith's figures would not great-
ly affect any date to be assigned on the
strength of an argument such as this to
the War or Fall of Troy. There is no
method of handling the evidence in de-
tail, as far as I can see, which will not
throw the Troica back at least as far as
the middle of the Thirteenth Century B.C.
But the whole, it must be remembered,
depends on the substantial acceptance of
the Egyptian computations.
The opinions which were current on
this subject before it was capable of
illustration by Egyptology, were learned-
ly discussed and summed up by Clinton.*
Diintzerf observes, that Herodotus in his
history adopts the date of 1270 B.C., and
by some the event was carried as high as
1353 B.C., while others placed it as low as
1 1 20 B.C.
One word, before closing, on the extra-
ordinary interest which, if my presenta-
tion of this early history be generally
correct, attaches to the warlike incidents
of the infancy of Greece. Sic fortis
Etriiria crevit. We have examples in
modern times, and in the most recent
experience, of great States, which owe
all their greatness to successful war.
The spectacle offered to a calm review by
this process is a, mixed, sometimes a
painful one. So, too, it seems that the
early life of the most wonderful people
whom the world has ever seen, was greatly
spent in the use of the strong hand against
the foreigner. That people was nursed.
* Fasti Helleiiici, Introduction, sect. vi. p. 123.
t Homerische Fragen, p. 122.
and its hardy character was foVmed, in the
continuing stress of danger and difficulty.
But the voyage of Argo, the Seven
against Kadmeian Thebes, the trium-
phant attack of the Epigonoi, the enor-
mous and prolonged effort of the War of
Troy, the Achaian and so-called Danaan
attempts against Egypt, were not wars of
conquest. They were not waged in or-
der to impose the yoke upon the necks of
others. And yet, though varied in time,
in magnitude, in local destination, they
seem, with some likelihood at least, to
present to us a common character. They
speak with one voice of one gn^^at theme :
a dedication of nascent force, upon the
whole noble in its aim, as well as deter-
mined and masculine in its execution.
For the end it had in view, during a
course of effort sustained through so
many generations, was the worthy, nay,
the paramount end of establishing, on a
firm and lasting basis, the national life,
cohesion, and independence.
1874. W. E. Gladstone.
Note. — I have to withdraw a statement too hastily
made in the first part of this paper that Homer does
not call Troy large or broad-wayed. This is incorrect ;
see II. ii. 141, 332, and elsewhere. But in the sub-
stance of my statement, with regard to the population
of Troy, I have nothing to qualify. — June 12.
From Chambers' Journal.
THE TASMANIAN BLUE GUM TREE.
Some time ago (Dec. 6, 1873), we had
a short article on the Eucalyptus globu-
lus, or Tasmanian Blue Gum Tree, and its
alleged marvellous properties as regards
the drying of marshes and prevention of
malarious disease. We ventured to ask
for precise and trustworthy information
on the subject ; and the following has
been sent to us by a correspondent,
which we submit to our readers :
Much interest, he proceeds, has re-
cently been excited among men of sci-
ence, especially in France, concerning
the Tasmanian Blue Gum Tree {Eucalyp-
tus globulus), in consequence of the
power which it seems to possess of pre-
venting intermittent fever in the most
swampy and malarious districts. There
is a large amount of evidence to shew that
it possesses this power in a high degree,
so that not only is intermittent fever
unknown where it naturally grows in
abundance, although in situations and in
a climate where its prevalence might be
expected, but places previously most sub-
THE TASMANIAN BLUE GUM TREE.
377
ject to that afflictive malady, cease to be
so when this tree is planted there. If
all this is confirmed, as there is good
reason to hope it will be, the Tasmanian
Blue Gum Tree must be deemed one of
the most valuable trees in the world, and
to many countries it will prove an inesti-
mable boon.
The Gum Trees, forming the genus
Eucalyptus of botanists, which belongs
to the great natural order Myrtacece, are
almost exclusively natives of Australia
and Tasmania. A few species are found
farther north in the islands of the Malay-
an Archipelago and in the Eastern Penin-
sula. Although ranked in a natural or-
der of which the Myrtle is the type,
they are very unlike myrtles in their gen-
eral appearance, and constitute a charac-
teristic and most peculiar feature of
Australian vegetation. Scattered over
the face of the country, as the trees of
Australia generally are, growing singly
or in clumps, like trees in a lawn, instead
of being congregated in thick forests,
like the trees of most other parts of
the world, they differ from other trees
by a remarkable peculiarity of foliage.
The leaves have not one face turned to
the sun and the other to the earth, as
trees and plants of all kinds generally
have, but they stand with their edges
upwards and downwards, so that each
surface is equally presented to the sun.
There are some species in which this is
not the case, but they are only a few
among the numerous species of the genus.
The leaves of all the Gum Trees are
leathery and undivided, and abound in
a volatile oil, which has an aromatic and
not unpleasant odour. Many of the spe-
cies abound in resinous secretions, from
which they receive the name of Gum
Trees. Some of them attain a great size,
with trunks sixteen feet in diameter.
They are remarkable for their very rapid
growth, and are easily felled, split, and
sawn ; the timber, when green, being very
soft, although it becomes very hard after
exposure to the air, and is then useful
for many purposes, amongst which is that
of ship-building. The Iro7i Bark Tree
and the Stringy Bark Tree of Australia
are among the species of this genus most
important for their uses as timber trees.
Botany Bay Kino is a resinous secretion
of another species, of some value in medi-
cine.
The Tasmanian Blue Gum Tree grows
plentifully in the valleys and on the lovyer
mountain slopes of Tasmania. It attains
a height of 200 feet, and sometimes more,
and a diameter of stem at the base of 11
to 22 feet. The stem is naked as a
granite column, almost to the top, where
it sends out branches forming a small
crown, with thin foliage. The leaves are
lanceolate, or ovato-lanceolate, generally
twisted, and of a dark bluish-green col-
our, with a camphor-like odour. The
timber has an aromatic odour, and is
scarcely liable to rot, however long ex-
posed to the action of water. It is there-
fore much used for ship-building, for
piers, and for a great variety of other pur-
poses, and is a considerable article of ex-
port from Tasmania.
Various medicinal uses have been as-
cribed to the leaves of this tree, a prepa-
ration of which has been represented as
even more efficacious than quinine in the
cure of intermittent fever. But this and
other alleged medicinal properties require
further investigation.
There seems, however, to be good rea-
son for believing that this tree acts as a
preventive of the miasmata which pro-
duce fever and ague. That Tasmania is
free from this malady, or nearly so, whilst
in almost all other countries of similar
climate it is sadly prevalent, is of itself a
significant circumstance ; but it could not
be inferred from this alone that this par-
ticular tree is the cause of its immunity.
However, a number of considerations
having led to the opinion that this is
probably the case, the tree has been in-
troduced elsewhere, and the experiment
tried in circumstances in which the result
must be regarded as affording very con-
clusive evidence. Some unhealthy local-
ities at the Cape of Good Hope were ren-
dered perfectly salubrious, apparently
through the influence of the Blue Gum
Tree, within a few years after plantations
of it had been made. It was then tried
in Algeria, and on a pretty large scale, in
different parts of the country ; and places
that previously had been almost uninhab-
itable in the fever season, became at once
exempt from all such disease, even in the
first year of the grovvth of the trees. The
colonists and their families now enjoy ex-
cellent health, where the climate for sev-
eral months of the year used to be abso-
lutely pestilential. Similar results have
followed the introduction of this tree in
Cuba and in Mexico. Even in the South
of France it has been productive of most
beneficial effects. A station-house at the
end of a railway viaduct in the department
of Var was so unhealthy, that the officials
378 COMBS.
had to be changed every year, but forty
of these trees having been planted, its
unhealthiness entirely ceased.
There is hope, therefore, for the Cam-
pagna di Roma that its cultivation may
yet be carried on with the greatest facility
and advantage, and the natural fertility of
its soil turned to the utmost account.
But if so, there is hope also of speedy
immunity from sore distress for the in-
habitants of many parts of the world,
where intermittent fevers prevail at cer-
tain seasons of every year. How happy
would many North American farmers be,
if by planting a few hundreds of Blue
Gum Trees, they could secure probable
exemption from this disease for them-
selves and their families ! The range
within which this tree can be made avail-
able must, however, be limited by cli-
mate. It does not bear the winter even
of the south of England, except when
the season is unusually mild ; and great
part of North America, where intermit-
tent fever is very prevalent every year
during the summer months in all low
grounds, and on the slopes adjacent to
them, is subject to a severity of cold in
winter which would certainly destroy
every plant of this species. But in the
Gulf States of North America, and to
some extent northwards in the valleys of
the Mississippi and other rivers, and
along the coasts of Florida, Georgia, and
Carolina, its introduction may probably
be found in the highest degree beneficial,
as also in the West Indian islands and
tropical parts of America. It may, per-
haps, be doubted if the climate of the west
coast of Africa would not prove too warm
for it, although its successful introduction
in Cuba seems to prove that it is capable
of enduring the heat of the tropics ; and
as the fevers of that region constitute
the chief difficulty in the way of Euro-
pean colonization there, the acquirement
of the means of preventing them would
open up prospects entirely new. It will
probably not be long till the powers of
the tree are fully tested in India, and if
they are found to be as great as French
naturalists seem at present to believe, its
introduction will probably hasten the cul-
tivation of many a jungle, besides pre-
serving the health and saving the life of
many a civilian and many a soldier. One
great tract in the North of India seems
especially to demand its introduction, and
to be in climate perfectly adapted to it —
the Terai — which stretches along the
whole base of the Himalaya, where they
slope down to the plains, a tract in many
parts extremely beautiful, finely undulat-
ing, and rich both in grass and trees, but
exceptionally dangerous from the mias-
mata which it exhales, for which science
has not yet been able well to account.
The JBlue Gum Tree has been sup-
posed to exert its influence by the aro-
matic odour which it diffuses in the
atmosphere. But there seems to be
much reason for thinking that the secret
of its power lies in part, at least, in the
extreme rapidity of its growth, requiring
an extraordinary consumption of water,
so that it thoroughly drains the soil
around it. A marsh near Constantia, in
Algeria, was found to be completely dried
in a very short time by a plantation of
Gum Trees. Such is the rapidity of
growth of the tree, that seedlings raised
on a hot-bed and planted out in the open
air in the south of England, have been
known to attain a height of ten feet in
the same year. In a warmer climate, the
growth is probably still more rapid ; but
we know of no other instance of such
rapidity of growth in the case of any
valuable timber tree of the temperate
parts of the world.
From Chambers' Journal.
COMBS.
Combs are of prodigious antiquity.
Rudely made, they are found among the
earliest relics of art. A bronze comb,
which has been pictured both by Sir John
Lubbock in his P?'ehistork Ti^nes, and
also by M. Figuier, was found in one of
three coffins in a tumulus near Ribe, in
Jutland, opened by Worsaae, the great
Danish archaeologist : from other findings
in the same coffin, it was plainly the
property, not of a lady, but of a fighting-
man of the bronze epoch. In Jutland we
are close upon the footsteps of our own
ancestors and of our Danish cousins and
invaders. The earlier Celtic tribes seem
to have buried their combs as well as
their swords in the graves of their war-,
I riors. Such customs, indeed, are com-j
! mon to all races in one stage of their cul-
I ture ; his pipe and tobacco-bag were
j placed beside the dead American In-
j dian, in case he should want to smoke
I upon his passage. The custom was pro-
longed, in some cases into Christiar
times. When the body of the greai
Bishop Cuthbert was carried in the boat
by his monks and clergy to the island o|
Lindisfarne, they deposited his ivorV
COMBS.
379
comb, " pecten eburneus," in the stone
cottia beside his corpse. According to
Reginald's description of St. Cuthbert's
comb, it was of a now unusual shape,
broader than it was long.
St. Cuthbert's comb was probably an
episcopal one. This popular national
saint of Northern England died at the
end of the seventh century ; but at least
a century earlier in the Galilean Church
the comb appears to have formed a part
of the appliances used at a solemn high
mass, especially if sung by a bishop.
These church combs were usually of
ivory ; sometimes they were quite plain,
sometimes elaborately carved and deco-
rated with gems. Specimens of them are
to be seen in the sacristies and treasuries
of a few of the greater churches on the
continent ; and the inventories of the
prizes seized from our own churches at
the Reformation epoch, prove that they
were once as plentiful amongst us. In
the treasury of the cathedral of Sens,
they show a large ivory comb inlaid with
precious stones and carved with figures
of animals : on it is cut the inscription,
" Pecten St. Lupi." Lupus, the French
St. Loup, was the most famous of the
archbishops of that important see in the
Merovingian times. Amongst the relics
hanging round the shrine of St. Cuth-
bert in the end of the fourteenth century,
the pilgrims saw three combs : one was
said to have belonged to St. Dunstan, an-
other to Archbishop Malachi, and the
third was called " the comb of St. Boysit
the priest." At the Reformation, these
and all such portable treasures disap-
peared, to the loss of the historians of
art and manners. Henry VI IL carried
from the wealthy Abbey of Glastonbury,
"a combe of golde, garnished with small
turquases and other coarse stones, weigh-
ing with the stones eight ounces."
The episcopal comb was used in the
church, after the following fashion. If a
bishop was the celebrant at the eucha-
rist, the deacon and sub-deacon combed
his hair while he sat upon the faldstool,
immediately after the putting on of the
episcopal sandals. A towel was placed
round the bishop's neck during the op-
eration. The old offices contain prayers
to be used by the celebrant at his suc-
cessive assumption of each article of
vesture ; but I do not know whether any
prayer during the combing of the hair is
extant. The process is described in a
pontifical writen in the tenth century by
order of an abbot of Corbey. In an Ordo
Romamis of the end of the thirteenth
century, the proper division of the labour
is marked out; the deacon is to comb
the right side of the bishop's head, the
sub-deacon the left side : they are or-
dered to do their work lightly and decently
(" leviter et decenter "). Perhaps some
refractory clerks were inclined to use the
opportunity, by punishing their spiritual
father with a severe dig of the comb.
From a ritual of the fourteenth centur}'-,
belonging to the Cathedral Church of
Viviers, it appears that the bishop's hair,
at least in that diocese, was first combed
by the deacon in the vestry ; and then,
not merely once, but three several times
during the progress of the mass — after
the Kyrie, after the Gloria in Excelsis,
and after the Creed. No rule as to gen-
eral European custom, or even national
custom, can be drawn from local rituals
and pontificals, as every bishop was the
ordinary of ceremonies and uses for his
own diocese.
The combs figured in our English
manuscripts (many of which have been
copied by the historians of manners) are
nearly always of great bulk, and have
coarse teeth. The medieval and renais-
sance combs were often double — that is,
in shape though not in size, like modern
small-tooth combs. In a representation
of the arrival of a guest (painted in the
fourteenth century), one of the welcom-
ing attendants is pulling off his shoes,
while another is combing his hair. The
comb in this picture is truly immense.
Our old English books of courtesy are
full of references to the use of the comb.
It was a part of the page's duty to comb
his lord's hair: directions "for combing
your sovereign's head " are given by
John Russell in his Boke of Nurture^ also
by Wynkyn de Worde in The Boke of
Kervinge. Carving was the principal
duty of the youth, and all other details of
his work are included under it as a kind
of general title. The duty of combing, as
culture widens, begins to be treated by
the writers on etiquette as a duty towards
one's self, and not merely towards one's
lord. Andrew Borde, in 1557, recom-
mends the frequent use of the comb :
" Kayme your heade oft, and do so dyvirs
times in the day." William Vaughan, in
his Fifteen Directions to preserve Healthy
published in 1602, prescribes combing for
its intellectual benefits : it must be done
"softly and easily, with an ivory comb,"
he writes, "for nothing recreateth the
memory more." Sir John Harrington in
his section on "the dyes for every
day," of his School of Saterne {iGZi^), gives
38o
A CURIOUS PRODUCT.
the simple instruction : " Comb your head
well with an ivory comb from the fore-
head to the back-part, drawing the comb
some forty times at the least." It would
seem from the preciseness of his advice,
that English gentlemen were still a little
slovenly in their own treatment of their
hair; when they wished it to be properly
treated, they put themselves under the
hands of the barber. There is little doubt
that the close-cropped hair of the Presby-
terian and Independent Roundheads was
more cleanly than the long hair of the
cavalier with its artificial love-locks. It
was a part of the extreme protest of
George Fox, the founder of Quakerism,
against all the fashions of the earlier
Puritan sects, who were masters in Eng-
land when he began his mission, to wear
long hair. When he was preaching in
Flintshire, in 1651. he says that "one
called a lady " sent tor him. " She kept a
preacher in her house. I went to her
house, but found both her and her
preacher very light and airy. In her
lightness, she came and asked me if she
should cut my hair. But I was moved to
reprove her, and bid her cut down the
corruptions in herself with the Sword of
the Spirit of God." He learned after-
wards that this lady boasted that she had
gone-behind him and "cut off the curl"
of his hair. At Dorchester, the con-
stables made him take off his hat, to see
if he were not shaved at the top of his
head ; they were sure that so fierce an
opponent of the Puritan clergy must be a
Jesuit. The long hair of the father of
Quakerism, like that of the Frankish
kings and chieftains, was necessarily
often in need of the comb ; and it comes
out incidentally, in his journal of the year
1662, that George Fox was so careful of
personal neatness as to carry a comb-case
in his pocket. When he was seized by
Lord Beaumont and the soldiers in Lei-
cestershire as a suspected rebel, that
nobleman " put his hands into my
pocket," says Fox, "and plucked out my
comb-case ; and then commanded one of
his officers to search for letters."
The cavalier gentry, who took the
Quaker patriarch for a plotter, were great
employers of the comb. The huge peruke
came in with Charles II.; and a fashion
arose amongst the gallants of combing
their huge head-dresses in public : it is
often noticed by the dramatists of the
Restoration. It is one of the stage di-
rections, in Killigrew's Parson's Weddhtg,
for a group of fashionable gentlemen of
the year 1663 : " They comb their heads
I and talk." As ladies used the fan in their
j flirtations with gentlemen, so the artificial
! swains of the period wielded the comb in
j their languishing addresses to their shep-
herdesses. Dodsley has a long note on
this custom in the eleventh volume of his
Old Plays, and cites a number of illus-
I trations. In his Prologue to the second
I part of Almanzor and Al?nahide, written
i in 1670, Dryden refers to the ostentatious
public use of the comb by the would-be
wits in the pit of the theatre. From the
Epilogue to the Wrangling Lovers, of
1677, it appears that this free public
combing was a distinction which marked
off the man of the town from the dull
country cousin :
How we rejoiced to see them in our pit !
What difference, methought, there was
Betwixt a country gallant and a wit.
When you did order periwig with comb,
They only used four fingers and a thumb.
The comb has now been for so long an
implement in all hands, and has become
so cheap in price, that it is scarcely possi-
ble to realize the unkempt condition of
our ancestors in some out-of-the-way
places only a hundred years ago. In the
Autobiography of Thomas Wright of
Birkenshaw, written at the close of the
last century, he says, that half a century
earlier, in the village of Oakenshaw, about
four miles from Bradford, the people were
so rude that their manners became a by-
word throughout the district. It was
reported of them, that they kept their
heads in such a shock-headed condition
from Sunday to Sunday, that an iron comb
was chained to a tree which stood in the
middle of the village for the use of the
whole parish. What have been the ad-
vances in the use and manufacture of
combs since this period need not be par-
ticularized.
From Macraillan's Magazine.
A CURIOUS PRODUCT.
I AM a child of the times, and am sorry
to be unable to congratulate my Parent.
It is not that I am at all disreputable.
My vices entitle me to no distinction.
To begin by doing justice, I am perfectly
free from vanity and may therefore be the
more easily believed w^hen I say that
probably few men being bachelors and
under thirty are better loved and be-
friended than I am. The number of per-
sons who take a warm interest in me is
A
A CURIOUS PRODUCT.
astonishing and troublesome. There are
homes where, unless dissimulation be car-
ried to the height of genius, I am always
a welcome guest, and am, on entering,
affectionately greeted by old and young,
mistress and maid.
The fathers and mothers look upon me
as a young man who has been well
brought up, and who, though not pre-
cisely the product his education might
have been expected to yield, is yet never-
theless, in a season of doubts and per-
plexities, a person worthy of commenda-
tion. As for the daughters of the house,
I am not aware that I flutter their sus-
ceptibilities, and should think it unlikely,
because in the first place I studiously
avoid attempting to do so, and in the sec-
ond place I am not too disposed to be-
lieve that they have any susceptibilities
to flutter ; but I more than pass with
them, for I can quote poetry to those who
like to listen to good poetry well quoted,
and there are a few who do ; I can pre-
tend to talk philosophy to those who pre-
tend to like philosophy, and they are
many ; and though I can't talk religion,
yet I can listen very contentedly to it ;
and if a lady is High Church, and is doing
battle with some person more enthusias-
tic-than I am, I can quietly, and without
binding myself in any way, come to the
fair combatant's rescue, whenever sore
pressed, with a sentence from Dr. New-
man, or a line from Faber, and be re-
warded with a grateful smile ; whilst,
again, if the lady be more Genevan in
her faith, my memory is equally well
stored with the sayings of divines and
hymn-writers who have grasped with an
enviable tenacity the simple and grand
doctrines of Calvin and his successors.
For the sons of the house, when I say
that I smoke, and am not at all scrupu-
lous about what sort of stories I hear
and tell, it will be at once understood how
perfect is my sympathy with them.
But in the meantime, what of myself.''
Am I as easily satisfied ? I can't say I
am dissatisfied, that is such a very
strong word ; but I may say that I am
often very much provoked. It would be
annoying for a cold man to gaze stead-
fastly into a blazing fire and yet remain
chill. It is provoking to be able nicely
to estimate and accurately to appreciate
emotions, affections, martyrdoms, hero-
isms, to perceive the force which natural-
ly belongs to certain feelings and con-
victions, and yet to remain cool, impas-
sive, and inert. Would to God that I
could stir myself up to believe in any of
38'
them ; and yet as I write this I blush. I
have used a passionate imprecation, and
yet my hand glides as calmly over the
paper, and my heart beats as placidly
within my breast as if I had just put
down in my account-book the amount of
my last week's washing-bill.
This inertia, in a great measure, re-
sults from the fatal gift of sympathy un-
checked by spiritual or moral pressure.
It is all very well, indeed it is most de-
lightful in matters of taste, to be able to
say, as Charles Lamb does of style, that
for him Jonathan Wild is not too coarse,
nor Shaftesbury too elegant. Thank
Heaven, I can say that too ; but in mat-
ters of morals and religion this catholi-
city becomes serious. To find yourself
extending the same degree of sympathy
to, say, both the Newmans — to read, in
the course of one summer's day, and with
the same unfeigned delight, Liddon and
Martineau — to stroll out into the woods
and meadows, careless whether it is
Keble or Matthew Arnold you have
slipped into your pocket — this, too, is a
very delightful catholicity, but I am not
sure that I ought to thank Heaveti for it.
I wonder how often in the course of a
year Dr. Johnson's saying to Sir Joshua
is quoted — "I love a good hater." That
it should be so often quoted is a proof
that the Doctor's feeling is largely shared
by his countrymen. I am sure I share it,
and nobody can accuse me of self-love in
doing so — for I hate nobody. I haven't
brought myself to this painful state with-
out a hard struggle. For a long time I
made myself very happy in the thought
that I hated Professor Huxley. How
carefully I nursed my wrath ! By dint of
never speaking of the Professor, except
in terms of the strongest opprobrium,
and never reading a word he had ever
written, I kept the happy delusion alive
for several years. I had at times, it is
true, an uneasy suspicion that it was all
nonsense ; but I was so conscious how
necessary it was to my happiness that I
should hate somebody, that I always
resolutely suppressed the rising doubt in
an ocean of superlatives expressive of
the supposed qualities of this mischiev-
ous Professor. But one day, in a luck-
less hour, I opened a magazine at hap-
hazard, and began in a listless fashion to
read an article about I knew not what,
and written by I knew not whom, and
speedily grew interested in it. The style
was so lucid and urbane, the diction so
vigorous and expressive, the tone so free
from exaggeration and extravagance, and
382
A CURIOUS PRODUCT.
the substance so far from uninteresting,
that my fated symathies began to swell
up, and when half-way down the next
column I saw awaiting me one of my fa-
vourite quotations from Goethe, I men-
tally embraced the author and hastily
turned to the end to see what favoured
man was writing so well, and there, lo
and behold ! was appended the name of
the only man I had ever hated. Of course
the illusion could not be put together
again, and the chair once filled by the
learned Professor stands empty. The
other day I made an effort to raise Arch-
bishop Manning to it. He has not the
playful humour, the exquisite urbanity of
the great modern Pervert, but I have
heard him preach, he has the accents of
sincerity and conviction, and represents
what I believe to be in a great degree in-
destructible on this earth. Failing the
Archbishop, the name of Fitzjames
Stephen occurred to me, but as he him-
self has told us, he has so many claims to
distinction that it would be a shame to
hate him; and, after all, I am nearer his
position by many a mile than I am to the
Archbishop's, and so in despair I have
given up the attempt of finding a suc-
cessor to Professor Huxley, and repeat
that, poor limping Christian as I am, I
hate nobody. Why not read your Car-
lyle ? it will be indignantly asked. Is not
" Sartor Resartus " upon your shelves ?
Why bless me ! hear the man talk ! Car-
lyle is my favourite prose author. I have
all his books, in the nice old editions,
round about me, and not only have read
them all, but am constantly reading them.
You won't outdo me in my admiration
for the old man. I think his address to
the Scotch students, if bound up within
the covers of the New Testament would
not be the least effective piece of writing
there. Carlyle has long taught me this
— to lay no flattering unction to my soul,
and to go about my business. He has
tried to do more than this, and at times I
have almost thought he has done more,
but it is not for man to beget a faith.
Carlyle has planted, he has digged, he has
watered, but there has been no one to
give the increase. He has taught us, like
the Greek Tragic Poets, "moral pru-
dence," and to behave ourselves decently
and after a dignified fashion between
Two eternities, and for a time I thought
I had learnt the lesson, but I am at pres-
ent a good deal agitated by a dangerous
symptom and a painful problem.
The dangerous symptom is that noth-
ing pains me. I don't mean physically
or aesthetically, for I am very sensitive in
both these quarters, but morally. There
was a time when I did draw a line with
my jokes and stories, never a very steady
line, but still a line, I now disport my-
self at large, and a joke — if good qua
joke — causes me to shake my sides,
even though it outrages religion, which I
believe to be indestructible on this earth,
and morality, which I believe to be essen-
tial to our well-being upon it.
The painful problem arises in connec-
tion with quite another subject. Al-
though not in love, I have some idea of
prosecuting a little suit of mine in a cer-
tain direction, and have to own that at
odd hours and spare seasons, when my
thoughts are left to follow their own bent
I find them dwelling upon, lingering over,
returning to, a face, which though no
artist on beholding, would be led to ex-
claim —
A face to lose youth for, occupy age
With the dream of, meet death with,
is yet in my opinion, a very pleasant and
companionable face, one well suited to
spend life with, which is after all what
you want a wife for. This is not the
painful problem — that comes on a step
later. Supposing I was married, and
blessed, as, after all, most men are, with
children, how on earth shall I educate
them to keep them out of Newgate .-*
"Bolts and shackles!" as Sir Toby
Belch exclaimed — the thought is bewil-
dering. If I, educated on Watts's Hymns
and the New Testament, am yet so hazy
on moral points and distinctions, which
can hardly be described as nice, such as
paying my bills, using profane language,
going to Church, and the like, my son,
brought up on Walter Scott and George
Eliot, and the writers of his own day,
will surely never pay his bills at all, his
oaths will be atrocious, and he will die
incapable of telling the nave from the
transept — and how I am to teach hitn
better I really do not see. The old
rigime was particularly strong on this
point ; and if one could only bring one'
conscience to it, the difficulty is at an
end, and the education of children, so
long at any rate as they are in the nurs-
ery or the schoolroom, goes forward
quite easily and naturally.
If anybody has had the patience to
wade so far in my company, he will prob-
ably here exclaim, " My dear sir, you
must have been abominably educated
yourself ; " and though I don't altogether
deny the statement, I can't allow it t
J
MOONS FIGURE AS OBTAINED IN THE STEREOSCOPE.
3^3
think it is
sweet, and
THE
I
pnss unchallenged. I remember at school I for money,
a boy, whom it happened to be the fashion ' my second
of the day to torment, bearing with a
wonderful patience the jeers and witti-
cisms of half a score of his companions,
until one of them made some remark,
boldly reflecting upon the character of
the boy's father, whereupon he at once,
clenching his puny fist, bravely advanced
upon the last speaker, exclaiming, " You
may insult me as much as you like, but
you shan't insult my parents." So, in
my case, you may call me as many hard
names as you like, but you mustn't blame
anybody else, but the Time-spirit — if
the Time-spirit is a body — (and really,
body or no body, it is the fashion now to
speak of it as if it were the most potent
of beings, dwelling far above argument or
analogy). I had what is called every ad-
vantage. Religion was presented to me
in its most pleasing aspect, living illus-
trations of its power and virtuous effects
moved around me, my taste was carefully
guarded from vitiating influences. Our
house was crowded with books, all of
which were left open to us, because there
were none that could harm us ; money,
which was far from plentiful, was lav-
ished on education and books, and on
these alone. How on earth did the Time-
spirit enter into that happy Christian
home ? Had it not done so, I might now
have been living in the Eden of Belief,
and spending my days " bottling moon-
shine," like the rest of my brethren.
But enter it did, and from almost the very
first it subtly mixed itself with all spir-
itual observances, which, though it did not
then venture to attack, it yet awaited to
neutralize. No ! my education was a
very costly one ; even in point of money
a family might be decently maintained on
the interest of the sum that has been thus
expended, and in point of time too it was
remarkable.
And yet I have advantages over some
men, I know, upon whom the Time-spirit
has worked even more disastrously, for
they don't know what they like or want.
Now I do. The things I am fondest of,
bar two or three human things, are money
and poetry — the first, not of course for
its own sake — who ever heard of any
one admitting that he liked money for its
own sake ? And as I always spend more
money than I have got (my catholic taste
in books is so expensive) it can't be said
that I am likely to grow a miser. Neither
is money a necessary condition to my
happiness — not at all; but it is for all
that the motive power that causes me to
exert myself in my daily work. I work
That is m}'' prose, I find in
love my poetry of life, and I
this love that keeps my life
makes me a favorite with
children and with dogs. Who can ex-
aggerate the blessings showered upon
Englishmen by their poets : —
They create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more beloved existence.
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was of us,
Burns, Shelley were with us.
What names ! what exhaustless wealth !
A Golden Treasury indeed — where what
heart I have got lies stored.
From The Journal of The Franklin Institute.
MOON'S FIGURE AS OBTAINED IN
THE STEREOSCOPE.
BY CHAS. J. WISTER.
In a paper published some time since,
in the " Cornhill Magazine^^'' and repub-
lished, September last, in the ''Living
Age," entitled ^'- News fro?n the Moo?t,''^
a singular argument, and to my mind a
singularly fallacious one, is put forth in
confirmation of the figure of the moon as
deduced from the calculations of the con-
tinental astronomer, Gussew, of Wilna.
The article referred to is without signa-
ture, but as the author alludes to his
correspondence with Sir John Herschel,
he no doubt speaks ex cathedrd.
The figure of the moon should be, as
proved by Newton, an ellipsoid, her short-
est diameter being her polar one, her
longest diameter that turned towards the
earth, and her third diameter lying nearly
east and west, a diameter intermediate to
the other two. Newton further found
that her shortest diameter would not differ
more than sixty-two yards from her long-
est— an insignificant difference surely in
a body whose mean diameter is about
twenty-one hundred miles.
Gussew, however, comes in at this point
with an g^sertion based upon measure-
ments of De la Rue's photographic copies
of the moon at the extremes of her li-
brations, and upon ocular demonstration
derived from viewing these different per-
spectives of the moon's image combined
by the aid of the stereoscope, and under-
takes to subvert his great predecessor's
theory, and to substitute one of his own,
founded on this very unreliable testimony.
He asserts not only that the moon is egg-
shaped, its smaller end being turned
earthward, but that the point of this co-
MOON S FIGURE AS OBTAINED IN THE STEREOSCOPE.
384
lossal egg rises seventy miles above the
mean level of its surface. Now it is to
the proof of this as derived from stereo-
scopic evidence that I take exception for
reasons hereinafter set forth.
The stereoscopic views of the moon
are, as already stated, taken in the oppo-
site stages of her librations, in order to
obtain greater differences of perspective
than would be obtained if taken in the or-
dinary way, where the separation of the
two pictures corresponds with the average
distance between the eyes of adults —
four and a half inches ; for this, it is evi-
dent, would give no more spheroidal ap-
pearance when viewed through stereo-
scopic glasses than is obtained by viewing
her by unassisted vision, in which cases |
she aspears as a disk only, and npt as a ;
sphere. With the same object — that of
increasing the stereoscopic illusion (for
illusion only it is) it is not uncommon for
photographers, when taking stereoscopic
views of distant scenery, to avail them-
selves of the same means — that of un-
naturally increasing the base of operations
— and thus effecting a much greater ap-
parent separation of the various planes of
distance than really exists. The effect
of this is to distort the picture painfully,
advancing the middle distance boldly into
the foreground — similar points being
combined by the stereoscope much nearer
the eyes than if the pictures had been
taken in the normal way — whilst the
foreground is seen so near that one feels
it in his power almost to reach it with his
hand. Another and more objectionable
feature of this exaggerated perspective
effect is that all near objects are dwarfed ;
men become pigmies ; imposing mansions
are reduced to baby-houses, and lofty
trees become insignificant bushes — the
reason being that these objects, though
seen at points much nearer the eye, sub-
tend, nevertheless, the same visual angles
as though seen at more distant points —
points corresponding with their true posi-
tion in the landscape — for the photo-
graphic representations of them are no
larger, and therefore appearing nearer,
and yet subtending no greater visual an-
gles, the impression upon the mind is
that of smaller objects. Every one, I
think, who has viewed stereoscopic pic-
tures of distant objects, combining middle
distance and foreground, must have wit-
nessed this distortion.
Now let us apply this principle of op-
tics to De la Rue's exaggerated stereo-
scopic perspectives of the moon, and what
is the result ?
Sir William Herschel says, in illustra-
tion of the effect of stereoscopically com-
bining images of our satellite taken at
opposite stages of her librations, " It ap-
pears just as a giant might see it, the
interval between whose eyes is equal to
the distance between the place where the
earth stood when one view was taken,
and the place to which it would have been
removed (the moon being regarded as
fixed) to get the other." Now this would
all be very well provided the pictures
produced were for the use of giants
formed after the pattern proposed ; for
they would see the stereoscopic image
under exactly the same circumstances
that they would see the moon herself in
the natural way with their widely sepa-
rated organs — no greater change being
required in the direction of the optic axes
in combining similar points of the two
perspectives than is required in viewing
corresponding points of the moon's sur-
face by unassisted vision ; but when these
exaggerated perspectives are presented in
a stereoscope to finite beings like our-
selves, the effect is magical indeed.
Then do near points of the moon protrude
in a most alarming manner, threatening
to punch us in the eyes, the whole pre-
senting the appearance of an unusually
elongated turkey's egg. Neither the
modest sixty-two yards of the immortal
Newton, nor the more pretentious seventy
miles of Gussew would satisfy her claims
now ; nothing, indeed, less than several
thousand miles would represent the dif-
ference between her longest and shortest
diameters thus distorted.
Indeed, for a very pretty scientific toy,
with which De la Rue has supplied us,
this distortion of the moon's image is of
little moment. The curious are, no doubt,
more pleased with it than if it appeared
in its true proportions — for figures gen-
erally are more admired the less nearly
they conform to nature's lines — but that
men of science, even great men, should
accept this delusive and distorted image
as a basis for serious investigation of the
figure of our satellite, conscious of the,
manner in which pictures producing thisJ
image are taken — and, though forewarned,]
should not be forearmed — passeth mj
understanding. It is but another instance
of the too great avidity with which world-
renowned philosophers seize upon th<
most unreliable evidence from which tc
draw conclusions most important to sci-
ence, thus shaking the faith of those wh(
have hitherto looked upon them as infal-
lible.
Germantown, 7 mo., 1874.
LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.
Piftli Series, I
Volume Vn. 5
No. 1575.— August 15, 1874.
^ From Beginning,
( Vol. cxxn.
CONTENTS.
I. Finger Rings, British Quarterly Review^ , , 387
II. Alice Lorraine. A Tale of the South
Downs. Part VIII., Blackwood's Magazine^ . • 402
III. Louis Philippe. By the Author of " Mira-
beau," etc., Temple Bar^ .... 413
IV. A Rose in June. Part IX., , . . Cornhill Magazine^ . . . 424
V. A Professor Extraordinary, . . . Eraser's Magazine^ , , . 432
VI. Bishop Wordsworth on Cremation, , Spectator^ 441
VII. Comets, Spectator^ 444
VIII. Derisive Punishments, .... Chambers^ Journal^ . . • 446
PO ETR Y.
Seaside Golden-Rod, .... 386 1 Bunyan at Bedford, .... 386
Not Lost, 386 1
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386
SEASIDE GOLDEN-ROD, ETC.
SEASIDE GOLDEN-ROD.
BY CELIA THAXTER.
Graceful, tossing plume of glowing gold,
Waving lonely on the rocky ledge ;
Leaning seaward, lovely to behold.
Clinging to the high cliff's ragged edge ;
Burning in the pure September sky,
Spike of gold against the stainless blue,
Do you watch the vessels drifting by ?
Does the quiet day seem long to you ?
Up to you I climb, O perfect shape !
Poised so lightly 'twixt the sky and sea ;
Looking out o'er headland, crag, and cape,
O'er the ocean's vague immensity.
Up to you my human thought I bring,
Sit me down your peaceful watch to share.
Do ypu hear the waves below us sing ?
. Feel you the soft fanning of the air ?
How much of life's rapture is your right?
In earth's joy what may your portion be ?
Rocked by breezes, touched by tender light.
Fed by dews, and sung to by the sea !
Something of delight and of content
Must be yours, however vaguely known ;
And your grace is mutely eloquent,
And your beauty makes the rock a throne.
Matters not to you, O golden flower !
That such eyes of worship watch you sway ;
But you make more sweet the dreamful hour.
And you crown for me the tranquil day.
Independent.
NOT LOST.
I.
Being rooted like trees in one place,
Our brain foliage tossed
Like the leaves of the trees that are caught
By the four winds of heaven, some thought
Blows out of the world into space
And seems lost.
II.
We fret, the mind labors, heart bleeds ;
We believe and we fear.
We believe and we hope, in a lie.
Or a truth ; or we doubt till we die,
Purblindly examining creeds
With a sneer.
III.
To life we apply an inch rule
And to its bestower ;
Each to self an infallible priest,
Xach struts to the top of the feast,
.And says to his brother, " Thou fool !
Go down lower."
IV.
But fall'n like trees from our place —
Hid, imbedded, enmossed —
Our dead leaves are raked up for mould ;
And some that were sun-ripe and gold,
Blown out of the world into space,
Are not lost
Macmillan's Magazine.
BUNYAN AT BEDFORD.
BuNYAN the Pilgrim, dreamer, preacher.
Sinner and soldier, tinker and teacher.
For heresy scoffed, scourged, put in prison —
The day of Tolerance yet un-risen —
Who heard from the dark of his dungeon lair
The roar and turmoil of Vanity Fair,
And shadowed Man's pilgrimage forth with
passion
Heroic, 4n God-guided poet-fashion.
Has now his revenge : he looks down at you
In a ducally-commissioned Statue —
A right good artist gave life and go to it.
But his name 's Boehm, and Rhyme says " no "
to it —
And the dean of Westminster, frank and
fluent.
Spoke Broad-Church truths of the Baptist
truant.
Punch likes the duke and he likes the dean.
And the summer air in the summer green.
When the Anabaptist poet and clown
Was set up as the glory of Bedford town ;
But ducal and decanal folk should learn
That to deal with the Past is of small con-
cern ;
That light for the day's life is each day's need,
That the Tinker-Teacher has sown his seed ;
And we want our Bunyan to show the way
Through the Sloughs of Despond that are
round us to-day,
Our guide for straggling souls to wait.
And lift the latch of the wicket gate.
The Churches now debate and wrangle.
Strange doubts theology entangle ;
Each sect to the other doth freedom grudge.
Archbishop asks ruling of a judge.
Why comes no pilgrim, with eyes of fire.
To tell us where pointeth minster spire.
To show, though critics may sneer and scoff.
The path to "The Land that is very far off.? "
The People are weary of vestment vanities.
Of litigation about inanities,
And fain would listen, O Preacher and Peer,
To a voice like that of this Tinker-Seer ;
Who guided the Pilgrim up, beyond
The Valley of Death and the Slough of Des-
pond,
And Doubting Castle, and Giant Despair,
To those Delectable Mountains fair.
And over the River, and in at the Gate
Where for weary Pilgrims the Angels wait i
FINGER RINGS.
From The British Quarterly Review.
FINGER RINGS.*
Ornaments of various kinds have
been worn from all ages, both by civil-
ized and uncivilized nations, but it would
probably be impossible to point to any
single ornament connected with which so
much interest attaches as to the finger
ring. It is of great antiquity, and dur-
ing centuries of years has been ass6ci-
ated with the most important concerns of
life, both in matters of ceremony and
affairs of the heart. It has been used as
a means of recognition, as a credential,
and as a form of introduction which in-
sured hospitality to the bearer of it.
Royal edicts were promulgated through
its medium, and power was transferred
by its means.
When Pharaoh committed the govern-
ment of Egypt to Joseph he took his ring
from his finger, and gave it to the young
Israelite as a token of the authority he
bestowed upon him. So also when Ahas-
uerus agreed to Haman's cruel scheme of
killing the Jews in all the king's prov-
inces, he took the ring off his hand and
gave it to Haman as his warrant, and
afterwards, when he commanded Morde-
cai to write letters annulling the former
decree, he ordered them to be sealed with
his ring.
A ring formerly marked the rank and
authority of a man, and the king's ring
was as important a part of the insignia of
royalty as his sceptre or his crown.
The form of the ring is emblematic of
eternity and its materials of pricelessness.
Lovers are united by a ring, and departed
friends are often kept in remembrance by
the same token of affection. All these
qualities sufficiently explain the reason
why in old tales and legends the power of
the rinof is a fruitful source of interest
tiful demons to seduce men from alle-
giance to their human loves. The known
fact that fish greedily swallow any glitter-
ing object thrown into the water has been
taken advantage of by old story-tellers,
who never tire of relating how lost rings
have been found at the proper nick of
time in the stomach of a salmon or a
mackerel.
In old times the motto of to-day that
"nothing is so successful as success"
was by no means universally held, and
Polycrates the Samian was so uniformly
fortunate that he himself began to fear
that the gods did not love him. The wise
Egyptian king Amasis persuaded him to
propitiate Nemesis by making away with
one of his most valued possessions, so
he took the advice, and putting out to
sea, threw into the gaping wave his beau-
tiful emerald signet ring, engraved by
Theodorus, the son of Telecles, a native
of Samos. A fish of remarkable size
snapped up the ring as it sank, and soon
afterwards this fish being served up at
the king's table restored to him his ring.
Amasis hearing of this last proof of Poly-
crates' inevitable good luck solemnly re-
nounced his alliance. At last, however,
fortune turned, and being taken prisoner
by the Persians, Polycrates suffered death
by impaling. In the life of Kentigern,
related in the Acta Sanctorunty there is a
legend of a recovered ring. A queen who
had formed an improper attachment
to a handsome soldier, gave him a ring
which had previously been given her by
her lord. The king finding the soldier
asleep with this ring on his hand, snatched
it off and threw it into the river. He
afterwards went to his wife to demand
it, and she sent secretly to the soldier,
who of course could not return it. She
now sends in great terror to ask the as-
The celebrated Sanscrit drama which ^'stance of the holy Kentigern, who knew
Kalidasa wrote upon the beautiful Sakun-
tala turns upon Dushyanta's recognition
of his wife by means of a ring which he
had given her; and golden rings have
frequently been used by fairies and beau-
* Rambles of an A rchaologist among old Books
and in old Places. By Frederick William Fair-
holt, F.S.A, London. Virtue and Co. 187 1.
the whole affair before, but to help the
queen he goes to the river Clyde, and
having caught a salmon, takes from its
stomach the missing ring, which he sends
\ to her. She joyfully takes it to the king,
who, thinking he had wronged her, swears
he will be revenged upon her accusers,
but she beseeches him to pardon them.
As absolution for her sin, she confesses
388
FINGER RINGS.
it to Kentigern, and vows to be more
careful of her conduct in future.
Finger rings are mentioned in the first
book of the Bible, and they appear to
have been much worn by the Jews in all
ages. The ladies of Palestine adorned
their hands with glittering rings, and
chiefly valued those which were set with
rubies, emeralds, and chrysolites.
Signet rings of gold, silver, and bronze
were much worn by the ancient Egyp-
tians, and these were frequently engraved
with representations of the sacred beetle
or scarab^us. This insect was venerated
in Egypt when alive, and was embalmed
after death. It was worshipped both as
the emblem of the sun and as the symbol
of the world. The rings of the lower
classes were usually made of ivory and
blue porcelain.
Sir Gardner Wilkinson describes a rins:
in the possession of a Frenchman at
Cairo which was one of the largest he
had ever seen. It contained twenty
pounds' worth of gold, and amongst other
devices engraved upon it was the name
of a king, the successor of Amunoph III.,
who lived about 1400 B.C., and was known
to the Greeks as Memnon.
There is no reference to rings in Ho-
me"r, and they do not appear to have been
introduced into Greece till a later asfe
than his. The fashion, however, once
set, spread fast, and in the time of Solon
every freeman throughout Greece wore
one signet ring either of gold, silver, or
bronze. That statesman, to prevent coun-
terfeits, made a law that no seal ensfraver
was to keep in his possession the impres-
sion of any seal ring that he had cut for
a customer. At a later period the Greeks
used rings set with precious stones, and
wore two or three at the same time.
They were therefore considered as orna-
ments, and their use extended to women,
who wore them of ivory and amber.
Demosthenes wore many rings, and he
was stigmatized as unbecomingly vain
for doing so in the troubled times of the
state. The Spartans took a pride in
wearing plain iron rings.
The ancient Romans wore iron rinors,
and purists continued to wear them long
after more precious metals were com-
monly used. Ambassadors wore gold
rings as a part of their official dress, and
afterwards the privilege was extended to
senators, chief magistrates, and the eques-
trian order, who were said to enjoy the
jus anmtli aurei. The emperors assumed
the right of granting this distinction,
which was coveted as a sort of patent
of nobility. In time, however, its value
declined, and the Emperor Aurelian gave
the right to all the soldiers of the Em-
pire ; and in the reign of Justinian it had
become so common that all citizens were
entitled to it.
The introduction of sculptured animals
upon the signets of the Romans is said
to have been derived from the sacred
symbols of the Egyptians. Afterwards,
when the practice of deifying princes and
venerating heroes became general, por-
traits of men took the place of the more
ancient types ; thus the figure of Har-
pocrates was a fashionable device at
Rome in the time of Pliny. Roman rings
were massive and of immoderate size,
and were consequently found by the ef-
feminate to be too hot for summer wear,
so that different kinds were introduced
for the various seasons, —
Charged with light summer rings his fingers
sweat,
Unable to support a gem of weight.
Dryden's "Juvenal."
In times of sorrow the Roman changed
his gold for iron rings ; and when he died
his rings were often burnt with his corps^™
Rings were placed upon the statue^j!
of the deities and heroes, and were put
on or taken off according to the festival
that was celebrated. Roman rings were
often of great value, thus that of the Em-
press Faustina is said to have cost the
immense sum of ;^4o,ooo, and that of
Domitia the still larger amount of
;^6o,ooo.
The early Christians did not imitate
the often indelicate symbols of the Ro-
mans, but took devices connected with
their faith for their rings, such as the
dove, the anchor, fish, palm branch, &fl|
Ring making was an important branch (^
the goldsmith's art in the Middle Ages,
and a body of artists were called by the
i
FINGER RINGS.
French aneliers. Rich enamel in curious
devices usurped for a time the place of
gems, and the workmanship was often of
the highest character, Benvenuto Cellini
being the chief artist in bringing the art
to its greatest perfection.
In our own country rings have been
worn by all the races that have succes-
sively inhabited it.
Lo ! here is a red gold ring,
With a rich stone ;
The lady looked on that ring,
It was a gift for a king.
" Sir Degrevant." {Thornton Romances^
The old Celtic rings were usually of
gold wire. Aildergoidgh, son of Muin-
heamhoin, monarch of Ireland, who
reigned 3070 A.M., is said to have been
the first prince who introduced the wear-
ing of gold rings in Ireland, which he
bestowed upon persons of merit who
excelled in knowledge of the arts and
sciences.
Fynes Moryson tells us in his " Itin-
erary " "that the English in great ex-
cesse affect the wearing of jewels and
diamond rings, scorning to weare plaine
gold rings or chaines of gold."
In one of Bishop Hall's Satires we
read : —
Nor can good Myson wear on his left hand
A signet ring of Bristol diamond ;
But he must cut his glove to show his pride,
That his trim jewel might be better spy'd.
Modern rings owe all their beauty to
their stones, for goldsmithery is no longer
an art, and little attempt is made to ob-
tain elegance of workmanship in the gold-
work. In the seventeenth century sharp-
ly-pointed pyramidal diamond rings were
much used for writing names and verses
on glass, and few of the wits and fops of
the day were without one.
Among the Jews the middle or little
finger of the right hand was that upon
which the ring was worn, and the signet
was always upon the right hand, as ap-
pears by the passage in Jeremiah, — " As
I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah, the
son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were
the signet upon my right hand, yet would
I pluck thee thence." Bishops, probably
following Biblical precedent, wore their
389
[oflScial rings upon the right hand. This,
however, was opposed to the practice of the
Egyptians, who considered the fourth fin-
ger of the left hand as the ring finger.
Still they did not confine themselves to
that finger, for there is a figure of a wo-
man on a mummy case in the British Mu-
seum in which the fingers and thumbs of
both hands are covered with rin^s.
Among the Romans plain rings were
worn originally on either hand at option,
but when gems and precious stones were
added they were worn by preference on
the left, and it was considered exceedingly
effeminate to wear them on the riorht
hand. At first only one ring was worn,
then one on each finger, and, lastly, one
on each joint. Charinus, according to
Martial, wore sixty rings daily, or six on
each finger, and did not take them off at
night, but slept in them. This was an
extreme case ; but rings were often worn
on every finger and also on the thumbs.
In Germany rings were frequently worn
upon the joints, as was the Roman cus-
tom. The wife of Sir Humphrey Staf-
ford (1450) is sculptured in Bromsgrove
Church, Worcestershire, with a ring on
every fiinger but the last one of the right
hand. Massive thumb rings were sup-
posed to tell of wealth and importance,
and Falstaff declared that when young
he could have crept into an alderman's
thumb ring.
The annular finger is now always the
fourth finger, counting the thumb as the
first, and it is necessary to bear this in
mind, for sometimes the mistake is made
of counting from the forefinger.
Rings have played an important part in
the history of the world. They have
been used by the king to unite him to
his kingdom, by the bishop to his see,
and the abbot to his monastery. Special
interest attaches to the ringr with which
the Doge of Venice married the Adriatic
on Ascension Day, when he addressed it
in these words : — " We espouse thee, O
Sea ! as a token of our perpetual domin-
ion over thee" — a vaunt that has Ions:
been proved to be groundless.
We will now, before proceeding fur-
ther, stop to make note of a few historical
rings. One of the most interesting that
39Q
FINGER RINGS.
has come down to oiir time is the signet
ring of Mary Queen of Scots, now in safe
keeping among the treasures of the Brit-
ish Museum. Sir Henry Ellis was of
opinion that this was Mary's nuptial ring
when she was married to Darnley, and
that it affords the earliest instance of her
bearing the royal arms of Scotland alone
after having discarded the arms of
France, When Dauphiness, she and her
husband had quartered the arms of Eng-
land, which gave great offence to Queen
Elizabeth. Within the ring is a mono-
gram formed of the letters M and A,
which is of great historical interest, be-
cause Sir Henry Ellis has pointed out
that in a letter from Mary to Elizabeth,
written just before her marriage, she used
the same monogram, probably as a puzzle
for the Queen of England and her Coun-
cillor Burghley. The clue was, however,
given to them when Darnley was created
Duke of Albany. Another interesting
ring is the one which Queen Elizabeth is
supposed to have sent to the Earl of Es-
sex, but which was never delivered to
him. It is of gold, with the head of the
queen cit on hard onyx, and it is now in
the possession of the Rev. Lord John
Thynne, who is descended from Lady
Frances Devereux, Essex's daughter.
Aubrey relates that Queen Elizabeth had
a double ring, made with two diamonds,
which formed a heart when joined. She
kept one-half, and sent the other to Mary
Queen of Scots, as a token of her con-
stant friendship ; but, as Aubrey adds,
" she cut off her head for all that." Mary
commissioned 'Beatoun to take back her
ring to Elizabeth, when she determined
to seek an asylum in England. Before
dismissing the maiden queen we may
mention that her coronation ring was filed
off her finger a little before her death, on
account of the flesh having grown over it.
In 1765 a very beautiful and perfect
gold ring was found by a workman among
the ruins of the North Gate House, on
Bedford Bridge, when that building was
pulled down. In this prison the world-
famed dreamer, John Bunyan, was con-
fined, and there is little doubt that this
was his ring. It bears his initials, y. B.,
and is engraved with a death's head, and
the words '^ 7nemen^o morir The ring
was sold to Dr. Abbot, chaplain to the
Duke of Bedford, and presented by him,
in his last illness, to the Rev. G. H. Bovver,
perpetual curate of Elstow, where Bun-
yan was born.
In the Londesborough Collection is the
Identical ring which the Prince of Orange
(afterwards William III.) gave to the Prin-
cess Mary. It is made of gold, set with
diamonds, and enamelled black. Outside
is engraved " Honi soit qui mal y pense,^''
and inside is the posy, '■'■ Fie win and
wear you i/I canj^ It is doubtful wheth-
er this ring was presented before mar-
riage or after ; if the latter the motto
may be understood as referring to Wil-
liam's design of contesting the crown of
England with his wife's father.
The signet ring of Caesar Borgia was
exhibited a few years ago at a meeting of
the British Archaeological Association, by
the Rev. C. H. Hartshorne. It is of gold,
slightly enamelled, with the date 1503,
and round the inside is the motto ^^ Fays
ceque doys avien que pourra.^'' A box
dropped into the front, having on it Bgr-
gia, in letters reversed, round which are
the words " Cor unum una via^ At the
back is a slide, within which it is related
he carried the poison he was in the habit
of dropping into the wine of his unsus-
pecting guests. Hannibal carried poison
about with him in a ring, and when all
his hopes were gone he swallowed the
poison, and died. Pope Alexander VI.
(Borgia) possessed a key-ring such as was
used by the Romans, which contained
poison. When he wished to get rid of an
objectionable friend he gave him his ring
to unlock a casket, and as the lock was a
little hard to open the pin concealed
within gave the fatal prick. Rings of the
same kind of workmanship, but not with
so deadly a design, have been common,
and keys intended to open invaluable
caskets were often attached to rings. In
referring to these singularities, we ought
not to omit the mention of a ring made
with a watch in the boss, which could b^H.
so wound up that it would make a smalJHi
pin prick the person who wore it at any
hour of the night he pleased.
Ladies have always been ready to give
up their valuables in times of national
distress, but they have perhaps never
been so nobly rewarded for their devo-
tion as during the great war of Liberation
in Germany. The. ladies sent their jew-
els and ornaments to the treasury for the
public service, and they each received in
return an iron ring, with the emphatic
eulogy, " Ich gab Gold u?n Eisen " (1 gave
gold for iron).
We must now turn to the consideration
of some official rings. Episcopal rings
are of great antiquity, and the newly made
bishop in the Roman Catholic Church is
invested with a ring by which he is mar-
ried to the Church, as a part of his con-
li
:f*iNGER RINGS.
391
secration. In the romance of King
Athelstan, printed in Hartshorne's "An-
cient Metrical Tales," the king says to
the offending archbishop : —
Lay down thy cros and thy staff,
Thy myter and thy ryng that I thee gaff —
Out of my land thou flee.
In 1 194 the fashion of the episcopal
ring was settled by Pope Innocent III.,
who ordained that it should be of solid
gold, and set with a precious stone, on
which nothing was to be cut. The stones
usually chosen were ruby, indicating
glory, emerald for tranquillity and happi-
ness, and crystal for simplicity and purity.
These rings were usually signets, and
were sometimes used for special objects ;
thus in Spain and France the bishops
sealed up with them the baptismal fonts
from the beginning of Lent to Holy Sat-
urday.
Before the ring is conferred it is
blessed, and the ceremonial of investiture
takes place before the pastoral staff and
mitre are received. If a new pope is al-
ready a bishop, as is usually the case, he
does not receive a ring, but if not one is
presented to him with the usual formula.
The ring was formerly worn on the index
finger of the right hand when the bless-
ing was given, and then changed to the
annular finger at the celebration of mass.
It is now always worn on the annular
finger of the right hand. As the ring
was made large enough to be worn over
a glove, a guard ring was often necessary,
to prevent it from falling off, when worn
without one.
The Pope's seal ring is not worn by
him, but has been used for sealing briefs
apostolic from the fifteenth century.
Prior to that period it was employed for
the private letters of the popes. The
ring of the fisherman, a signet ring of
steel, is in the keeping of the cardinal
chamberlain, or chancellor, and is broken
with a golden hammer on the death of
every pope, and a new one made for the
new pope. The use of the ring was
granted to cardinals about the twelfth
century. A cardinal's ring is set with
sapphire, to denote the high priesthood,
and is given when a title is assigned to
him. The gift, however, is not free, for
the new prince of the Church has to pay
^a large fine on receiving it. The car-
dinals wear their rings at all times, but
on Good Friday they lay them aside, as
a sign of the mourning in which the
Church is placed for her spouse. It was
the custom to bury the cardinal with his
' ring on his finger, as was done with, the
king and other great men. When tombs
have been opened the ring has usually
been found upon the finger of the defunct.
Thus it was with our Henry II., Richard
II., and Matilda, wife of William the
Conqueror ; and in France the body of
Childeric was discovered with his regalia
and coronation ring. Graves were some-
times violated by robbers, in order to ob-
tain the treasures within, and assaults
were even made upon the corpse as it
was carried to be buried. Most orna-
ments have at different times come under
the ban of the religious as vanities and
snares, but rings have always been looked
upon with favour by the Church. De-
cade rings have sometimes been used in
place of the ordinary rosary of beads.
They were mostly made of ten, but some-
times of more knobs. Ten knobs or
bosses indicate the number of aves ;
eleven bosses, ten aves and a paternoster,
the last being marked by a larger boss
than the others. Twelve knobs were in-
tended to express that the creed was to
be repeated at the twelfth. Reliquary
rings, in which some sacred relique was
inclosed, were at one time in common
use.
To pass from the Church to the law we
must not omit to mention the well-known
Serjeant's ring. Every serjeant-at-law,
on being sworn in, presents rings of pure
gold, with a motto on them, to such per-
sons as come to the inauguration feast,,
to the law officers, and certain other offi-
cials of importance. The values of the
various rings are proportioned to the-
rank of each recipient, and one of very
large dimensions, with the motto in-
scribed in enamel, is given to the sover-
eign. On the admission of fourteen Ser-
jeants, in 1737, 1409 rings were given
away, at a cost of ^773, and besides this-
number there were others made for each
Serjeant's own account, to be given away
to friends at the bar, attorneys, &c., which
came to more than all the rest of the ex-
pense. Lists of the mottoes on many of
these rings have been printed in "Notes
and Queries," but as they are not of
any great interest, we do not insert
them here, merely mentioning Lord
Brougham's suggestion of a motto on a
certain occasion. Some barristers that
Brougham did not think much of wished
to be made Serjeants, and the ex-chancel-
lor suggested that the most appropriate
motto that could be found for their rings
would be the old legal word ''-scilicet?''
Rings with punning devices or i:e-
392
FINGER RINGS.
buses, heraldic emblems, &c., engraved
upon them, were introduced early in the
fifteenth century, and soon became very
common. In the old newspaper, Merai-
rius Publicus, for November 29th, 1660,
there is a curious and interesting story
which illustrates our subject. On the
disbanding of a certain regiment at the
Restoration, the men were given a full
week's pay in addition to their arrears,
when they all unanimously resolved to
buy each man a ring with the week's pay,
the posy of which should be the King's
Gift. Certain stones were set in rings,
with a special meaning in superstitious
times, as we shall see further on, but in
later days all kinds of stones have been
used, to suit the varied fancy of the
>yearer. Giardinetti rings, of a floriated
design, in which coloured stones repre-
sented flowers were used at one time as
keepers. At the commencement of the
nineteenth century harlequin rings, which
were set with several variously coloured
stones, were fashionable. Swift, writing
to Pope, respecting Curll and the " Dun-
ciad," says: — "Sir, you remind me of
my Lord Bolingbroke's ring, you have
embalmed a gnat in amber ; " and Pope
himself refers to this substance, which is
one of the most ancient of ornaments, in
the following lines : —
Pretty ! in amber to observe the forms
Of hairs, or straws or dirt, or grubs or worms ;
The things we know are neither rich nor rare.
But wonder how the devil they got there.
Rings, which are now looked on merely
as ornaments, without meaning, except in
the cases of the wedding and engaged
rings, were formerly considered to be full
of occult significance. Certain stones
represented virtues, and others were
famed for their magical value. The
Poles believe that each month of the
year is under the influence of a precious
stone which exerts its power over the
destiny of any person born during the
period of its sway. It is therefore cus-
tomary among friends and lovers to make
reciprocal presents of trinkets orna-
mented with the natal stones. The fol-
lowing is a list of the stones peculiar to
each month with their meanings : —
January. — Garnet : Constancy and Fidelity.
February. — Amethyst : Sincerity.
March. — Bloodstone : Courage and Pres-
ence of Mind.
April. — Diamond : Innocence.
May. — Emerald : Success in love.
June. — Agate : Health and long life.
. July. — Cornelian : Contented Mind.
August. — Sardonyx : Conjugal felicity.
September. — Chrysolite : Antidote against
madness.
October. — Opal : Hope.
November. — Topaz : Fidelity.
December. — Turquoise : Prosperity.
As might be expected in so fanciful a
matter, the moral qualities attributed to
the stones vary greatly according to dif-
ferent authorities, and moreover, other
gems than those mentioned above have
been set apart as emblems of the different
months.
Rings, which were supposed to charm
away all the ills of life, were once worn,
and the Arabians have a book written ex-
clusively on magic rings called " Salcu-
that." The most wonderful of all these
rings was that one, which is said to have
been found in the belly of a fish, and was
transferred in regular succession from
Jared, the father of Enoch, to Solomon.
This ring of Solomon's was that with
which refractory Gins were sealed up in
jars before they were thrown into the sea,
as we read in the " Arabian Nights."
The ring of Gyges, king of Lybia, was
also of great note. He is said to have
found it in a grave, and when he wore it
with the stone turned inwards, he was
rendered invisible to human eyes. Many
other rings, however, have been supposed
to possess the same power as that of
Gyges, and it was a belief in the Middle
Ages that rings with certain cabalistic
words upon them rendered their wearers
invisible.
Rings were used among many different
nations as charms and talismans against
the evil eye and demons, against debility,
the power of the flames, and most of
the ills inherent to human nature. Some-
times the virtue existed in the stone,
and sometimes in the device or inscrip-
tion or magical letters engraved upon
them. B|
Magic rings made of wood, bone, ot"i
other cheap material were manufactured
in large numbers at Athens, and gifted
with whatever charm was required by the
purchaser. Execetus, the tyrant of the
Phocians, carried about with him two
rings, which he struck together to divine
by the sound emitted what he had to do
or what was to happen to him.
The Gnostics engraved gems with
mystic figures, all of which were supposed
to have their value. The word Ananf
zapta was a favourite inscription, and thj
names of the three kings of Cologne, 01
the wise men of the East, viz., jasper,
Melchior^ and Baltazar were used as a
ed
I
FINGER RINGS.
393
powerful charm. Reynard the fox boasts
of the virtues of the ring he possessed
with the three names that Seth brought
out of Paradise when he gave his father
Adam the oil of mercj, and tells how,
whoever bears these three names, shall
never be hurt by thunder or lightning,
nor by witchcraft, nor be tempted to sin,
nor catch cold, though he lay three win-
ters' nights in the fields in the snow,
frost, and storm.
Devotional rings, with the names of
Jesus, Maria, and Joseph engraved on
them, were used as a preservative against
the plague. The various figures engraved
on rings all had their hidden meaning.
Thus Pegasus or Bellerophon was good
for warriors, as it gave them boldness and
swiftness in flight. Orion made the
wearer victorious in war, and Mercury
gave wisdom and persuasion. The repre-
sentation of St. Christopher was an amu-
let against sudden death, particularly by
drowning, and that of Andromeda concil-
iated love between man and woman.
Hercules strangling the Nemean lion
cured the colic, and protected the com-
batant who wore it.
A copper ring with the figure of a lion,
a crescent, and a star worn upon the
fourth finger, was considered to be a cure
for the stone. A dog and a lion together
preserved the wearer from dropsy or
pestilence, and the hare was a defence
against the devil.
A figure of the imaginary cockatrice
was worn as a talisman against the evil
eye. This creature was supposed to be
produced from a cock's egg, and is de-
scribed by Sir Thomas Browne in his
"Vulgar Errors " as having " legs, wings,
a serpentine and winding tail, and a crest
or comb somewhat like a cock." Its eye
was so deadly as to kill by a look : —
Say thou but " I," [aye]
^nd that bare vowel " I " shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.
" Romeo and Juliet," iii. 2.
In the Londesborough collection is a
very remarkable ring, on which is repre-
sented a toad swallowing a serpent, which
illustrates an old superstition. There is
a proverb that "a serpent to become a
dragon must eat a serpent," and the same
metamorphosis *was supposed to take
place with other crawling creatures, as
appears in many allusions in the poets,
so that this toad may be expected to turn
into a dragfon.
Rmgs composed of different substances
have been commonly employed for super-
stitious purposes. Thus rings of gold
were thought to cure St. Anthony's fire ;
and Marcellus, a physician who lived in
the reign of Marcus Aurelius, directed the
patient afflicted with pain in the side to
wear a ring of pure gold, inscribed with
Greek letters, on a Thursday at the de-
crease of the moon. The ring: was to be
worn on the right hand if the pain was in
the left side, and on the left hand if the
pain was in the right side.
Brand acquaints us that in Berkshire a
ring, made from apiece of silver collected
at the Communion, is a cure for convul-
sions and fits of all kinds. If collected
on Easter Sunday, its efficacy is greatly
increased. A silver ring made of five
sixpences collected from five different
bachelors, to be conveyed by the hands
of a smith, who is a bachelor, will cure
fits. None of the persons who give the
sixpences are to know for what purpose
they are collected. A ring made from
silver contributed by twelve young wo-
men, constantly worn on one of the fin-
gers, cures epilepsy. Trallian, in the
fourth century, cured the colic with the
help of an octangular ring of iron on which
eight words were engraven, and by, com-
manding the bile to take possession of an
unfortunate lark.
Rings made from the chains of crimi-
nals and iron taken from a gallows were
once in great repute for curing divers
diseases. In Devonshire, rings were
made of three nails or screws that had
been used to fasten a coffin, or had been
dug up out of a churchyard. Lead mixed
with quicksilver was used as a preserva-
tive against headache. .Rings were some-
times made to enclose a herb famed for
healing virtues which was cut at certain
times ; and Josephus relates that a man
drew devils out of those possessed by
putting a ring, containing a root men-
tioned by Solomon, to the nostrils of the
demoniac.
Most precious stones were formerly
supposed to be endowed with medicinal
properties and virtues, and among them
jasper took the lead in value, Galen him-
self vouching for its admirable qualities
from his own ample experience. It cured
fevers and dropsies, stopped haemor-
rhages, baffled the effects of witchcraft,
and promoted parturition. Emerald jas-
per was pre-eminent in these qualities,
and, -moreover, insured chastity and con-
tinence to the wearer, on which account
ecclesiastics wore emerald rings.
In T. Cutwode's " Caltha Poetarum ;
394
FINGER RINGS.
or, the Bumble Bee" (1599) is the follow-
ing reference to this quality : —
She ties a necklace underneath her chin
Of jasper, diamond, and of topasie :
And with an emerald hangs she on a ring
That keepes just reckoning of our chastitie.
And therefore, ladies, it behoves you well
To walk full warily, when stones will tell.
A jasper ring, with a runic inscription
translated as
Raise us from dust we pray to thee ;
From pestilence oh set us free,
Although the grave unwilling be,
was exhibited before the Society of An-
tiquaries in 1824. The runes used for
magical and supernatural purposes are
known by the general appellation of Ram-
runes, that is strong or bitter runes, and
in a learned paper by Francis Douce
(" Archaeologia," vol. xxi.), they are classed
as follows : —
1. Malrunes used in considering and re-
venging injuries.
2. Sigrunes gave victory in all controversies
to those who used them.
3. Limrunes, when marked on the bark or
leaves of trees that inclined to the south,
cured diseases.
4. Brunrunes, or fountain runes, used to in-
sure safety at sea to men and property.
5. Hug or hogrunes were runes of the mind,
and made their user excel all his companions
in mental vigour.
6. Biargrunes used to protect lying-in wo-
men.
7. Swartrunes used in practising the black
art.
8. Willurunes or deceitful letters.
9. Klaprunes were not written, but made by
motions.
10. Trollrunes or devil letters were used for
divination or enchantment.
1 1. Al runes or alerunes destroyed the allure-
ments or deceits of strange women.
The turquoise or Turkish stone was
supposed to have many and various good
qualities that made it second only to
jasper in popular estimation. Shylock's
ring that he would not have lost " for a
wilderness of monkies " was a turquoise.
This stone was believed to strengthen
the sight and spirits of the wearer, to
take away all enmity, and reconcile man
and wife, and to move when any peril was
about to fall upon the wearer. This last
quality is alluded to in Ben Jonson's
" Sejanus " —
And true as turkoise in the dear Lord's ring
Look well or ill with him.
4.nd also by Dr. Donne —
A compassionate turquoise that doth tell
By looking pale the wearer is not well.
However, the most wonderful virtue of
all was that it protected its wearer from
injury from falls, so that however serious
the danger the stone only broke, and the
wearer escaped unhurt. Anselmus de
Boot or Boethius, in his work on " Pre-
cious Stones " (1609), gives a circumstan-
tial account of his own escapes from falls
due to his wearing a turquoise ring.
The toadstone, also known as crapau-
dine and batrachites, was considered in
old times as an amulet of the greatest
power. It was a sovereign remedy for
many disorders, and was sometimes lent
to the sick, but only on a bond for its
safe return, in which its value was rated
at a very large amount. Joanna Baillie
writing to Sir Walter Scott in 1812, tells
him of a toadstone ring which was re-
peatedly borrowed from her mother as a
protection to new-born children and their
mothers from the power of the fairies.
In Ben Jonson's " Fox," (Act 2, scene 3),
a ring of this kind is referred to : —
Or were you enamour'd on his copper rings,
His saffron jewel, with toadstone in't !
The toadstone was set open in a ring
so that it should touch the finger, as one
of its chief virtues was to burn the skin
at the very presence of poison. It was
of old supposed to be found in the heads
of old toads, a belief which Shakespeare
refers to in one of his most admired pas-
sages —
Sweet are the uses of adversity ;
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous.
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.
The credulous Lupton gives directions
how to obtain the stone. He says an
overgrown toad must be put into an
earthen pot and placed in an ant's hil-
lock, when the ants will eat up the toad,
and the stone will be left in the pot.
This, he adds, " has often been proved."
To know whether a toadstone is true or
not, Lupton says you must hold it before
a toad so that he may see it. If it b<"
good the toad will leap towards it, an<
make as though he would snatch it fror
you, "for he envieth so much that a ma^
should have that stone." These, wer^
the chief favourites of our ancestors, bu|
many other stones and gems were highly
prized for their qualities besides thej
three, thus agate rendered athletes ii
vincible, cured the sick, and enabled i1
wearer to gain the love of all women. At
• 1 • •J
bar was good against poison, and it u
FINGER RINGS.
395
still prized for its electrical qualities,
qualities which take their name from it.
Amethyst was an antidote against drunk-
enness, and if the sun or moon was en-
graven upon it, it was a charm against
witchcraft. Bloodstone checked bleed-
ing at the nose, if the words ''^sanguis
mane i7i te " were repeated three times
on application. According to Monardes,
a Spanish physician of the sixteenth cen-
tury, the Indians of New Spain valued it
for this property. Carbuncle emitted
native light, and Martins, in " Titus An-
dronicus," when he falls into a dark pit,
discovers the body of Bassanius by the
light of the jewel on the dead man's
hand.
Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which like a taper in some monument
Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And shows the ragged entrails of this pit :
So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus,
When he by night lay bath'd in maiden blood.
Coral hindered the delusions of the
devil. Crystal clouded if evil was about
to happen to the wearer, and it was for-
merly much used by fortune-tellers. Dia-
mond was an antidote against all poisons.
Opal sharpened the sight of its possessor,
and clouded the eyes of those who stood
about him. Ruby changed its colour if
any calamity was about to happen to the
wearer of it. Wolfgang Gabelchow re-
lates the following instance of this prop-
erty : —
On December 5, 1600, as I was travelling
from Stuttgard to Calloa, in company with
my beloved wife Catharine Adelmann, of
pious memory, I observed most distinctly
during the journey that a very fine ruby, her
gift, which I wore set in a ring upon my fin-
ger, had lost once or twice almost all its
splendid colour, and had put on obscurity in
place of splendour, and darkness in the place
of light, the which blackness and dulness
lasted not for one or two days only, but
several : so that being above measure alarmed,
I took the ring off my finger and locked it up
in my trunk. Wherefore I repeatedly warned
my wife that some grievous misfortune was
impending over either her or myself, as I had
inferred from the change of colour in my
ruby. Nor was I deceived in my forebodings,
inasmuch as within a few days she was taken
with a mortal sickness that never left her till
her death. After her decease indeed, its
former brilliant colour again returned sponta-
neously to my ruby.
Sapphire possessed the same virtue as
the bloodstone of checking bleeding at
the nose. Topaz cured and prevented
lunacy, increased riches, assuaged anger
and sorrow, and averted sudden death.
When such blessings as these were sup-
posed to fall to the lot of the possessor of
one of these precious stones, who can be
susprised at the value set upon them ?
The old Greek poem on " Gems," which
goes by the name of Orpheus, contains a
full account of the magical qualities of
stones, and the ring mentioned in the fol-
lowing passage from " Sir Percival of
Galles " {Thornton Romances) must have
been set with one of the jewels we have
enumerated above —
Siche a vertue es in the stane.
In alle this werlde vvote I nana
Siche stone in a rynge ;
A mane that had it in were [war]
One his body for to here,
Ther schold no dyntys hym dere
Ne to dethe brynge.
Other things besides precious stones
were of old supposed to possess curative
virtues, thus a ring made from the hoof
of an elk was held to protect the wearer
from epilepsy, and Michaelis, a physician
at Leipsic, pretended to cure all diseases
with a ring made of the tooth of a sea-
horse. Sir Christopher Hatton sent a
ring to Queen Elizabeth to protect her
from all infectious airs, which was not to
be worn on her finger, but to be placed
in her bosom — " the chaste nest of pure
constancy."
We do not always look for wisdom in
the rulers of the earth, and therefore need
not be surprised that a superstitious ob-
servance was upheld by the kings of Eng-
land. Similar to the curious practice of
touching for the king's evil was that of
hallowing cramp rings. Every Good Fri-
day the king hallowed with much ceremo-
ny certain rings, the wearers of which
were saved from the falling sickness.
The practice took its origin from a ring
long preserved with great veneration in
Westminster Abbey, which was supposed
to have great efficacy against the cramp
and falling sickness, when touched by
those who were afflicted by either of
those disorders. The ring was reported
to have been brought to Edward the Con-
fessor by some persons coming from
Jerusalem, and to have been the same
that he had long before given privately to
a poor man who had asked alms of him
for the love he bore to St. John the Evan-
gelist. In the "Liber Niger Domus Re-
gis.Edw. IV." is the following entry: —
" Item to the kynge's offerings to the
crosse on Good Friday out from the
countyng-house for medycinable rings of
39^
gold and sylver delyvered to the jewel
house xxvs," The practice was discon-
tinued by Edward VI., but in the previ-
ous reign Anne Boleyn sent some rings
to a Mr. Stephens, with the following
letter: — "Mr. Stephens, I send you
here cramp rings for you and Mr. Greg-
ory and Mr. Peter, praying you to dis-
tribute them as you think best." Gal-
vanic rings are still worn, and are be-
lieved to cure rheumatism.
We need only mention in passing such
rings as were used for scientific and prac-
tical purposes, viz., meridian, solar, and
astronomical rings, and at once treat of
those which are connected with the af-
fections. Inscriptions upon rings are now
comparatively rare, but in old times they
were common. It is supposed that the
fashion of having mottoes, or " reasons "
as they were called, was of Roman origin,
for the young Romans gave rings to their
lady-loves with mottoes cut on gems,
such as "Remember," "Good luck to
you," " Love me, and I will love thee."
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
the posy was inscribed on the outside of
the ring, and in the sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries it was placed inside. In
the year 1624 a little book was published
with the following title : — "Love's gar-
land; or posies for rings, handkerchiefs,
and gloves, and such pretty tokens that
lovers send their loves." Some of these
mottoes have become pretty well hack-
neyed in the course of years, thus the Rev.
Giles Moore notes in his journal under the
date 1673-4, "Bought for Ann Brett a
gold ring, this being the posy — 'When
this you see remember me.' " In some
cases instead of words the stones are made
to tell the posy by means of acrostics, thus
to obtain Love the following arrangement
is made —
L apis lazuli,
O pal,
V erde antique,
E merald ;
and for Love me, ?«alachite and another
emerald are added. *
For the words Dearest SiVidi Regard \\i%
stones are arranged as follows : —
D iamond,
E merald,
A methyst,
Ruby,
E merald,
S apphire,
T opaz.
FINGER RINGS.
R uby,
E merald,
G arnet,
A methyst.
Ruby,
D iamond.
At the time of O'Connell's agitation in
Ireland rings and brooches were set with
the word Repeal thus : —
Ruby,
E merald,
P earl,
E merald,
A methyst,
L apis lazuli.
In one of these rings belonging to a
gentleman the lapis lazuli dropped out,
and he took it to a working jeweller in
Cork to be repaired. When he got it
back, however, he found topaz in place of
the lapis lazuli, and therefore he told the
workman a mistake had been made.
" No mistake," answered the jeweller,
" it was Repeal ; let us repeat^ and we
may have it yet."
Names are sometimes represented on
rings by the same means ; and the Prince
of Wales on his marriage to the Princess
Alexandra gave her as a keeper one with
the stones set so as to represent his fa-
miliar name of Bertie, as follows : —
B eryl,-
E merald,
Ruby,
T urquoise,
I acinth,
E merald.
The French have precious stones for
all the alphabet with the exception of f,
k, q, y, and z, and they obtain the words
Ajnitie by the
Souvenir and
means —
following.
S aphir or sardoine,
0 nux or opale,
U raine,
V ermeille,
E meraude,
N atralithe,
1 ris,
R ubis or rose diamant.
A methiste or aigue-marine,
M alachite,
I ris,
T urquoise or topaze,
I ris,
E meraude.
The fyancel or wedding ring is suj
posed to have originated at Rome, wher<
it was usually given at the betrothal as
pledge of the engagement, and its primf3
tive form was that of a signet or seal ring.
i
FINGER RINGS.
397
The practice of the wife wearing the be-
trothed ring after marriage, and the hus-
band the wedding ring, has been a com-
mon one in Germany. The betrothed
and wedding rings of Luther have been
preserved safely in his native country.
The first is of gold elaborately worked
with the various symbols of the Passion
of the crucified Saviour, as the spear, the
hyssop, the rod of reeds, the dice, &c.,
and the whole is surmounted with a ruby,
the emblem of exalted love. Inside are
the names of the betrothed pair, and the
date of the marriage {Der 13 Juiiii^ 1525).
This ring was presented by Luther to
Catharine Boren at the betrothal, and was
worn by her then and after the marriage.
The workmanship is very elegant, and it
has been supposed that it was designed
by the great reformer's friend Lucas
Cranach, but the design was by no means
an uncommon one. A gold ring was
found in Coventry Park, near the Town
Hall, in the autumn of 1802, by a person
digging potatoes, on which was repre-
sented the Saviour rising from the sepul-
chre with the hammer, ladder, sponge,
and other emblems of his passion by him.
Five wounds were shown, which repre-
sented the wells of everlasting life, of
mercy, pity, grace, and comfort. This
was an amulet, and inside were inscribed
the names of the three kings of Cologne.
The wounds of Christ were often en-
graved upon rings, and Sir E. Shaw, al-
derman and goldsmith, directed by his
will {circa 1487) that sixteen rings should
be made of fine gold with representations
of the wells of pity, mercy, and everlast-
ing life, and given to his friends.
The interchanging of rings was a prom-
inent feature of the ancient betrothing
ceremony, but appears not to have taken
^ace at the marriage. When Proteus
.es Julia in the "Two Gentlemen of
erona," the lovers exchange rings —
Julia. — If you turn not, you will return the
sooner ;
Keep this in remembrance of thy Julia's sake.
(Gives him a ring.)
Proteus. — Why then we'll make exchange ;
here take you this.
(Gives her another.)
In betrothals it was a common custom
for lovers to break a piece of gold, and
for each party to keep half ; sometimes a
ring was broken.
A ring of pure gold she from her finger took,
And just in the middle the same then she
broke :
Quoth she, as a token of love you this take,
And this as a pledge I will keep for your sake.
Exeter Garland.
Among the Italians of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries it was usual for ladies
to give their lovers rings which contained
their portraits, and were made with the
fede or two hands clasped. It was usual
also for lovers to wear the rings given to
them by their mistresses on holidays, as
we find in " England's Helicon " (1600) —
My songs they be of Cinthia's prayse,
I weare her rings on holly-dayes.
Bassanio and Gratiano give the rings
which they received respectively from
Portia and Nerissa to the young doctor
and his clerk after the discomfiture of
Shylock, although Portia had said —
This house, these servants, and this same my-
self,
Are yours my lord : I give them with this ring :
Which when you part from, lose, or give away.
Let it presage the ruin of your love,
And be my vantage to exclaim on you.
And Bassanio had answered —
When this ring
Parts from this finger, then parts life from
hence :
O then be bold to say, Bassanio's dead !
Imogen gives her husband Posthumus
a ring when they part, and he gives her
a bracelet in exchange. " Although,"
he says, "my ring I hold dear as my fin-
ger, 'tis part of it ;" yet he gives it up to
lachimo to test the virtue of his wife. In
Beaumont and Fletcher's " Cupid's Re-
venge," a lady describes a man's presents
to his mistress —
Given earrings we will wear I
Bracelets of our lover's hair,
Which they on our arms shall twist,
With their names carv'd on our wrist.
Sometimes the man gave a ring to his
lady. In Davison's "Rhapsody" (161 1)
there is a sonnet from one who sent his
mistress a gold ring with the posy "pure
and endless;" and when Richard III.
brings his rapid wooing to a conclusion,
he gives Lady Anne a ring, saying : —
Look how this ring encompasseth thy finger,
Even so thy breast encompasseth my poor
heart ;
Wear both them, for both of them are thine.
In Spain the gift of a ring is looked
upon as a promise of marriage, and is
considered sufficient proof to enable a
girl to claim her husband. In the fif-
teenth century love rings occur with the
orpine {Telephium\ commonly called Mid"
39^
su7nmer men, engraved upon them, a de-
vice which was chosen because the bend-
ing leaves of that plant are presumed to
prognosticate whether love was true or
false. It was used for love divination
late into the last century.
The gimmal, jimmal, gimbal, or gim-
mon ring, was a pretty invention which
continued a favourite for many years.
It was a twin or double ring, and took its
name from the vvordi gemelli. Sometimes
it was formed of three pieces of gold
wire and even four occasionally, in the
latter case the result was a puzzle ring.
Thou sent'st to me a true-love knot ; but I
Return a ring oij'immals, to imply
Thy love had one knot, mine a triple tye.
Herrick.
At first it was a simple love token, but
afterwards was converted into a ring of
affiance ; the lover putting his finger
through one of the hoops and his mis-
tress hers through the other —
A curious artist wrought 'em
With joints so close as not to be perceiv'd ;
Yet are they both each other's counterpart ;
Her part had Juait inscrib'd and his had
Zayda
(You know those names were theirs) : and in
the midst
A heart divided in two halves was plac'd.
Now if the rivets of those rings inclosed
Fit not each other, I have forg'd this lye :
But if they join, you must forever part.
Dryden's " Don Sebastian."
Mr. Crofton Croker in his privately-
printed catalogue of Lady Londesbor-
ough's collection, describes and figures
a very interesting jimmal ring, consist-
ing of three rings,' which separate and
turn on a pivot. The two outer ones
were united by two clasped hands which
concealed two united hearts upon the
middle one, which was toothed at the
edge. The following is the account given
of the use to which the ring had been
put: —
There can be little doubt from the speci-
mens which have come under observation,
that it had been used as a betrothing ring by
an officer of the king's German legion with
some Irish lady, and that the notched ring
was retained by some confidential female
friend, who was present as a witness at the
betrothal ceremony — usually one of the most
solemn and private character — and at which,
over the Holy Bible, placed before the wit-
ness, both the man and the woman broke
away the upper and lower rings from the cen-
tre one, which was held by the intermediate
person. It would appear that the parties were
subsequently married ; when it was usual, as a
FINGER RINGS.
proof that their pledges had been fulfilled, to
return to the witness or witnesses to their
contract the two rings which the betrothed
had respectively worn until married, and thus
the three rings, which had been separated,
became reunited as in the present instance.
St. Martin's rings, which were fair to
the eye, although only brass or copper
within, were frequently given as presents
to girls by their sweethearts. They are
often referred to in old English literature
to point a moral ; thus in Plaine Perce-
vall, the Peace Maker of England (1589),
we read " I doubt whether all be gold
that glisteneth, sith St. Martin's rings
be but copper within, though they be gilt
without, says the goldsmith ; " and in
Braithwaite's " Whimzies " (1631), they
are mentioned with counterfeit bracelets
as " commodities of infinite consequence."
" They will pass for current at a may-pole,
and purchase a favour from their Maid
Marian." The name originated from the
very extensive franchises and immunities
which were enjoyed by the inhabitants of
the precincts of the Collegiate Church of
St. Martin's-le-Grand. The gilding and
silvering of rings made of copper or lat-
ten was prohibited by statute 5 Hen. iv.
c. 13, under a heavy penalty, and in con-
sequence the " disloyal artificers," against
whom the enactment was made, appear
to have taken refuge in the hallowed dis-
trict. By another statute (3 Edw. iv. c. 4)
it was declared unlawful to import rings
of gilded copper or latten, but the Act
was not to be prejudicial or hurtful to any
persons living in St. Martin's-le-Grand.
In the same reign the like reservation of
the rights of the dean of St. Martin's and
his colony of outlaws was made. And
thus it was that St. Martin's rings otte
tained their name. ^
The supposed heathen origin of the
marriage ring well-nigh caused its aboli-
tion during the time of the Common-
wealth, as Butler tells us in " Hudi-
bras " —
Others were for abolishing
That tool of matrimony, a ring
"With which the unsanctified bridegroom
Is married only to a thumb.
Wedding rings, however, have been
supposed by some to have been worn by
the Jews prior to Christian times, but
Selden says that they were only used
when the Jews found them prevalent
around them. About the commencement
of the sixteenth century, Hebrew be-
trothal rings, called niausselauf {:i\\ord
which, freely translated, means y^ be luith
i
FINGER RINGS.
399
you^ or good hick to you), were common
among the German Jews. They were
usually surmounted with a small house,
temple, or tabernacle, by way of bezel.
Whatever, may have been the origin
of the wedding ring, the church took
care that it should be considered a holy
thing. The " Doctrine of the Masse
Booke" (1554) contains a form for "the
halowing of the woman's ring at wed-
ding," in which are the following prayers :
Thou maker and conserver of mankind,
gever of spiritual grace and graunter of eter-
nal salvation, Lord send thy blessing upon
this ring, that she which shall weare it, maye
be armed wyth the vertue of heavenly defence,
and that it maye profit her to eternal salva-
tion thorowe Christ, &c.
Halow thou Lord this ring which we blesse
in thy holye name : that what woman soever
shall weare it may stand fast in thy peace, and
continue in thy wyl and live and grow and
waxe old in thy love, &c.
Holy water was then to be sprinkled upon
the ring.
In the Hereford, York, and Salisbury
missals directions are given at the mar-
riage for the ring to be put first on the
thumb, after on the second finger, then
on the third, and lastly on the fourth fin-
ger. The rubric still ordains the fourth
finger, because it is the ring finger ; and
the left hand is chosen, it is said, because
the wife is in subjection to her husband,
but this is doubtful. It is true that offi-
cial rings are worn on the right hand, but
the left hand has more usually been the
favourite one for rings, probably because
it is less used than the right.
In many parts of the Continent wed-
ding rings are worn by husbands as well
as by wives. The wedding ring worn by
Luther, to which we have previously re-
ferred, was a gimmal, and consisted of
two perfect rings. On one hoop was set
a diamond, as the emblem of power, dura-
tion, and fidelity, and on the other a ruby,
for exalted love. On the mounting of
the diamond were engraved Luther's ini-
tials, and on that of the ruby his wife's, so
that when the two parts were joined the
letters came close together. The motto
within was "Was Gott zusammen fiiget
soil kein mensch scheiden "(What God
doth join, no man shall part).
Formerly widows wore their ring on the
thumb as an emblem of widowhood, and
we find the following trick mentioned in
the spectator —
It is common enough for a stale virgin to
set up a shop in a place where she is not
known, where the large thumb ring supposed
to be given her by her husband quickly recom-
mends her to some wealthy neighbour, who
takes a liking to the jolly widow that would
have overlooked the veritable spinster.
The old wedding ring usually had its
motto, which was often pretty and appro-
priate. We will set down a few of these
posies that were once common —
Let lyking laste.
As God decreed so we agreed.
Knit in one by Christ alone.
In Christ and thee my comfort be.
First love Christ that died for thee,
Next to him love none but me.
Let us share in joy and care.
United hearts death only parts.
A faithful wife preserveth life.
This and the giver are thine forever.
This hath alloy, my love is pure.
The diamond is within.
I'll win and wear yoa
I like my choice.
Love and live happily.
The wedding ring of St. Louis, of
France, was set with a sapphire intaglio
of the Crucifixion, and bore on the hoop
the motto, " Dehors cet anel, pourrions
avoir amour." Anne of Cleves' posy was
" God sende me wel to kepe." Richard
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, temp. Hen-
ry VI., had three daughters, who all mar-
ried noblemen. Margaret's husband was
John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and the
motto of her wedding ring, " Til deithe
depart." Alianour married Edmund,
Duke of Somerset, and her motto was
" Never newe." Elizabeth married Lord
Latimer, and hers was " Til my live's
end." An old Earl of Hertford's wed-
ding ring consisted of five links, the four
inner ones containing the following posies
of the earl's own makins: —
As circles five by art compact shows but one
ring in sight,
So trust united faithful mindes with knott of
secret might ;
Whose force to break no right but greedie
Death possesseth power.
As time and sequels well shall prove. My
ringe can say no more.
Lady Cathcart on marrying her fourth
husband, Hugh Maguire, in 1713, had the
following posy inscribed on her wedding
ring— .
If I survive,
I will have five.
400
FINGER RINGS.
Dr. John Thomas, Bishop of Lincoln
i^ I753> married four wives, and being of
the same mind with Lady Cathcart he
selected a like motto for his fourth wife's
ring, viz. —
If I survive,
I'll make them five.
The community of fishermen inhabiting
the Claddagh at Gahvay rarely intermarry
with other than their own people. The
wedding ring is an heirloom in a family,
and is regularly transferred from the
mother to the daughter who is first mar-
ried, and so passes to her descendants.
Many of those still worn are very old.
The women of the gipsy tribes wear
plain massive gold wedding rings, which
are occasionally pawned by their possess-
or when in want of money, but in most
cases are scrupulously redeemed. Many
superstitions are associated with the wed-
ding ring, and some of them still linger
on. It was once a widely-spread belief
that a special nerve or artery stretched
forth from the heart to the ring finger,
and it is not a little remarkable that this
notion is derived from Egypt, so that the
wedding ring of to-day is placed upon a
particular finger because many centuries
ago an Egyptian appropriated that as the
ring finger, from some supposed virtue
that existed in it. Macrobius writes that
those Egyptian priests who were prophets
when engaged in the temple near the
altars of the gods moistened the ring fin-
ger of the left hand (which was that next
to the smallest) with various sweet oint-
ments, in the belief that a certain nerve
communicated with it from the heart.
It has been thought that the wedding
ring possesses certain curative powers ;
thus, it is believed that a stye in the eye
will soon disappear after being rubbed
with the " plain gold ring." Most women
are very loth to take off their wedding
ring, and it seldom, if ever, is allowed to
leave the finger. Its loss is thought to
be an evil portent of some importance. In
Sir John Bramston's autobiography (1631)
it is related that his stepmother dropped
her ring off her finger into the sea near
the shore when she pulled off her glove.
She would not go home without her ring,
'* It being the most unfortunate that could
befal any one to lose the wedding ring,"
and after a general search the seekers
were rewarded with success.
Among Moore's juvenile poems will be
found a tale called the " Ring," which
is a version of an old and widely-spread
German legend. A young knight who is
about to be married to a beautiful girl
places the wedding ring on the finger of
a statue, thinking it to be a place of
safety. When he comes for it the mar-
ble finger has turned up, and he is unable
to get his ring off. He comes again to
break the finger off and release the ring,
when he finds the finger open, but the
ring gone. He is in dismay, but obtains
a new ring, with which he is married. At
night, however, a spectre cold, like the
marble statue, comes between ,the bride
and bridegroom. The former cannot see,
but the latter sees it, feels it, and hears
it speak these words —
Husband, husband, I've the ring
Thou gav'st to-day to me ;
And thou'rt to me forever wed,
As I am wed to thee !
I
At daybreak the spectre departs, but
comes again each night, until, with the
assistance of an old monk, the knight
goes to a place where four roads meet,
and obtains his ring again.
Still, in spite of these notions, the gold
wedding ring is by no means an indis-
pensable part of the marriage ceremony,
for curtain rings, church keys, and rings
made from gloves, or leather of any kind
have been used as a substitute.
Marrying with a rush ring was practised
by designing men to deceive their mis-
tresses, and on account of this abuse the
practice is strictly prohibited by the con-
stitutions of Richard, Bishop of Salis-
bury, in 1217.
And whilst they sport and dance, the love-sick
swains
Compose rush rings and myrtleberry chains.
Quarles' " Shepheard's Oracles," 1646.
In Greene's " Menaphon " is the fol-
lowing reference to rush rings : " 'Twas a
good world when such simplicitie was
used, saye the olde women of our time,
when a ring of a rush would tye as much
love together as a gimmon of gold;"
and Douce refers Shakespeare's expres-
sion, " Tib's rush for Tom's forefinger,"
to this custom.
There is another ring which is not so
well known now, but which was pretty
common in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries. It was a frequent custom in
the middle ages for widows to take a vow
of chastity or perpetual widowhood, ic
token of which they received a peculii^j
robe and ring. Eleanor, third daughl
of King John and widow of WilliJ
Mareschal Earl of Pembroke, made^
vow of celibacy to Edmund Archbish<
of Canterbury and Richard Bishop
FINGER RINGS.
401
Chichester, after the death of her hus-
band, and received the ring and mantle
of profession in public. A few years sub-
sequently she broke her vow and married
Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester,
not, however, before the strongest remon-
strances had been made by the pious
archbishop. The marriage was gener-
ally regarded as null and void, and it
was only after the greatest exertions had
been made for the Pope's sanction and
vast sums of money had been spent that
a dispensation was obtained. In the will
of Lady Alice West (1395) mention is
made of "a ring with which I was
yspoused to God." In 1473 Katherine
Rippelingham, " widow advowes," be-
queaths " her gold ring with a diamante
sette therein wherewith she was sacrid.^''
Mr. Henry Harrod, in a paper in the
" Archasologia " (vol. xl., pp. 307-310),
gives numerous instances of money left
by will on condition that the testator's
wife takes the vow of chastity, or order
or profession of widowhood.
Our subject concludes with the last
stage of all, and connects itself with death.
Mourning rings, as remembrances of
those loved ones who have preceded us
to the land of spirits, have always been
cherished in Christian lands. Lord Eldon
wore a mourning ring in memory of his
wife, and desired in his will that it might
be buried with him.
The practice of offering rings at fune-
rals is introduced as an incident in " Sir
Amadace." Anne of Cleves, who survived
Henry VI IL, left by her will several
mourning rings of various values to be
distributed among her friends and de-
pendents. Dr. Wolcot wrote some ele-
gant lines, very different in tone from the
one usually employed by him, on the
Princess Amelia's mournful present to
her father George III.
With all the virtues blest, and every grace
To charm the world and dignify her race,
Life's taper losing fast its feeble fire,
The fair Amelia thus bespoke her sire :
" Faint on the bed of sickness lying,
My spirit from its mansion flying,
Not long the light these languid eyes will see,
My friend, my father, and my king.
Receive the token and remember me ! "
Memorial rings were sometimes made
to exhibit a small portrait, and, on some
occasions, to conceal one beneath a stone.
This is the case with the seven rings
given away at the burial of Charles I.
One of these is in the Londesborough
Collection, and is described as follows : —
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 338
Gold, with square table-faced diamond on
an oval face, which opens and reveals beneath
a portrait of Charles in enamel. The face of
the ring, its back, and side portions of the
shank, engraved with scroll work, filled in
with black enamel.
Another of these rings is still more in-
teresting : —
It was of pure gold, plain, and without
jewellery or ornament of any kind ; on the top
of it was an oval of white enamel, not more
than half an inch in longitudinal diameter,
and apparently about the eighth of an inch in
thickness ; the surface was slightly convexed,
and divided into four compartments ; in each
of these was painted one of the four cardinal
virtues which, although so minute as to be
scarcely perceptible to the clearest sight, by
the application of a glass appeared perfectly
distinct; each figure was well proportioned,
and had its appropriate attribute. By touch-
ing a secret spring, the case opened, and ex-
posed to view a very beautifully printed minia-
ture of the unfortunate Charles, with the
pointed beard, mustachios, etc., as he is usu-
ally pourtrayed, and from its resemblance to
the portraits generally seen of this monarch,
wearing every appearance of being a strong
likeness.
The ring sold at Strawberry Hill sale
had the king's head in miniature behind a
death's head, between the letters C. R.,
the motto being, " Prepared be to follow
me." Charles II.'s mourning ring was
inscribed "Car. Rex Remem — obiit —
ber — 30 Jan., 1648."
Mr. Wright, in " Miscellanea Graphica "
(1857), describes a gold mourning ring
"formed of two skeletons, who support a:
small sarcophagus. The skeletons are
covered with white enamel, and the lid of
the sarcophagus is also enamelled, and
has a Maltese cross in red on a black
ground, studded with gilt hearts, and when,
removed displays another skeleton." The
Earl of Crawford and Balcarres tells a sad
story of a ring in his memoir of Lady
Anne Mackenzie. Colin, Earl of Bal-
carres, when a youth at the court of:
Charles IL, was taken very ill of a fever.
Messengers arrived almost hourly to make
inquiries after his health on behalf of a
lady who had seen him presented at court,
viz., Mdlle. Mauritia de Nassau, sister of
Lady Arlington and Lady Ossory, and a
kinswoman of William of Orange. Lord
Balcarres paid his respects to the young
lady on his recovery, and soon the day
for their marriage was fixed. The wed-
ding party was assembled in the church,
but no bridegroom appeared. He had
forgotten the day, and was found in his
dressing gown and slippers quietly eating.
402
ALICE LORRAINE.
his breakfast. On being reminded of his
engagement he hurried to the church, but
in his haste he left the wedding ring in
his escritoire. A friend in company gave
him a ring ; he put his hand behind his
back to receive it, and, without looking at
it, he placed it on the finger of his bride.
It was a mourning ring with a death's
head and crossed bones engraved upon
it, and the bride, on perceiving it at the
close of the ceremony, fainted away. The
ill omen made such an impression upon
her mind that, on recovering, she declared
she should die within the year. Her pre-
sentiment was but too truly fulfilled, for
she died in childbed in less than a twelve-
month after.
When Diana, of Poitiers, became mis-
tress of Henry II. of France, she was a
widow, and the complaisant court not only
adopted her mourning as the favourite
colour, but wore rings engraved with
skulls and skeletons. Rings with these
devices were not necessarily mourning
rings, but were worn by those persons
who affected gravity. Luther wore a gold
ring with a small death's head in enamel,
which is now preserved at Dresden.
Biron, in " Love's Labour Lost," refers to
"a death's face in a ring," and in Beau-
mont and Fletcher we find : —
I'll keep it
As they keep death's head in rings.
To cry memento to me.
" Chances," Act i, sc. 3.
We have now passed in review many
•varieties of rings, and we cannot but no-
tice the little value that is set upon them
in the present day, as compared with their
importance in days gone by. There are
now no official rings, no rings to cure all
diseases and save us from all dangers ;
but instead of all this they have sunk into
mere ornaments. There is still, however,
one ring that is associated with some of
the dearest feelings of our nature, viz.,
the plain gold ring, as it is called, though
why it should be plain we do not know.
Why should it not be engraved with all
the beauty that art can lavish upon it, and
why should not a beautiful posy be written
within its hoop ? But it is probably use-
less to suggest such a change in uni-
versal fashion, and therefore we cannot do
better than bring our subject to a close
with the beautiful lines of Herrick : —
Julia, I bring
To thee this ring,
Made for thy finger fit ;'
To show by this
That our love is,
Or should be like to it
Close tho' it be,
The joint is free ;
So when love's yoke is on,
It must not gall,
Or fret at all
With hard oppression.
But it must play
Still either way,
And be too such a yoke
As not too wide,
To overslide ;
Or be so straight to choke.
So we who bear
This beam, must rear
Ourselves to such a height,
As that the stay
Of either may
Create the burthen light.
And as this round
Is nowhere found
To flaw, or else to sever ;
So let our love
As endless prove,
And pure as gold forever.
We have placed at the head of this ar-
ticle the title of the last work of an accom
plished antiquary and artist now deceased,
because one of the divisions of the book
is entitled " Facts upon Finger Rings."
This division consists of three chapters,
very prettily illustrated with woodcut rep-
resentations of interesting rings. Chap-
ter I. treats of antique rings. Chapter 11.
of mediaeval rings, and Chapter III. of
modern rings. These chapters contain a
large amount of valuable information.
We have not, however, confined ourselves
to their contents, but have drawn our in-
formation from the pretty extensive litera-
ture of the subject which is scattered
about in various books.
I
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.
A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.
CHAPTER XXIX.
It is a fine thing to have quarters in
an English country-town, where nobody
knows who the sojourner is, and nobody
cares who he may be. To begin (at
leisure) to feel interest in the place, andt!
quicken up to the vein of humour throbs"
bing through the High Street. The thin'
evening cannot go over one's head with-
out a general sense being gained of th(
politics of the town, and, far more im-
portant — the politicians ; and if there
ALICE LORRAINE.
403
only is a corporation, wisdom cries in the
streets, and nobody can get on with any-
body. However, when the fights are
over, generally speaking, all cool down.
But this is about the last thing that a
siranger should exert his intellect to un-
derstand. It would be pure waste of
time ; unless he means to buy a house
and settle down, and try to be an alder-
man in two years' time, and mount ambi-
tion's ladder even to the giddy height of
mayoralty ; till the hand of death comes
between the rungs and vertically drags
him downward. And even then, for
three months shall he be, " our deeply la-
mented townsman."
But if this visitor firmly declines (as,
for his health, he is bound to do) these
mighty combats, which always have the
eyes of the nation fixed on them — if he
is satisfied to lounge about, and say
"good morning," here and there, to as-
certain public sentiment concerning the
state of the weather, and to lay out six-
pence judiciously in cultivating good so-
ciety — then speedily will he get draughts
of knowledge enough to quench the most
ardent thirst ; while the yawn of indo-
lence merges in the quickening smile of
interest. Then shall he get an insight
into the commerce, fashion, religious
feeling, jealousies, and literature of the
town, its just and pleasant self-esteem,
its tolerance and intolerance (often equal-
ly inexplicable), its quiet enjoyments, and,
best of all, its elegant flirtations.
These things enabled Mr. Hales to
pass an agreeable week at Tonbridge,
and to form acquaintance with some of
its leading inhabitants ; which in pursuit
of his object he was resolved, as far as
he could, to do. And from all of these
he obtained very excellent tidings of the
Lovejoys, as being a quiet, well-conduct-
ed, and highly respectable family, ad-
mitted (whenever they cared to be so) to
the best society of the neighbourhood,
and forgiven for growing cherries, and
even for keeping a three-horsed van.
Also, as regarded his own impressions,
the more he saw of Old Applewood farm,
the more he was pleased with it, and with
its owners ; and calling upon his brother
parson, the incumbent of the parish, he
found in him a congenial soul, who want-
ed to get a service out of him. For this
Mr. Hales was too wide awake, having
taken good care to leave sermons at
home ; because he Jiad been long enough
in holy orders to know what delight all
parsons find in spoiling one another's
holidays. Moreover, he had promised
himself the pleasure of sitting in a pew,
for once, repossessing the right to yawn
ad libitiwt^ and even fall into a murmur-
ous nap, after exhausting the sweetness
of the well-known Lucretian sentiment —
to gaze in safety at another's labours ; or,
as the navvy more tersely put it, whea
asked of his sunimum bonum, to " look
on at t'other beggars."
Meanwhile, however, many little things
were beginning to go crosswise. For
instance, Hilary walked down headlong,
being exceedingly short of cash, to com-
fort Mabel, and to get good quarters, and
perhaps to go on about everything.
Luckily, his Uncle Struan met him in the
street of Sevenoaks (whither he had rid-
den for a little change), and amazed him
with very strong language, and begged
him not to make a confounded fool of
himself, and so took him into a hostelry.
The young man, of course, was astonished
to see his uncle carrying on so, dressed
as a layman, and roving about without
any wife or family.
But when he knew for whose sake it
was done, and how strongly his uncle was
siding with him, his gratitude and good
emotions were such that he scarcely
could finish his quart of beer.
" My boy, I am thoroughly ashamed
of you," said his uncle, looking queerly
at him. "You are most immature for
married life, if you give way to your feel-
ings so."
" But, uncle, when a man is down so
much, and turned out of doors by his own
father "
" When a ' man ' ! When a * boy ' is
what you mean, I suppose. A ' man
would take it differently."
" I am sure I take it very well," said
Hilary, trying to smile at it. " There, I
will drink up my beer ; for I know that
sort of thing always vexes you. Now,
can you say that I have kicked up a row,
or done anything that I might have
done } "
"No, my boy, no; quite the opposite
thing ; you have taken it most angeli-
cally."
" Angelically, without an angelus,
uncle, or even a stiver in my pocket !
Only the cherub aloft, you know "
" I don't know anything about him ;
and the allusion, to my mind, is profane."
" Now, uncle, you are hyperclerical,
because I have caught you dressed as a
bagman ! "
" I don't understand your big Oxford
words. In my days they taught the-
ology."
404
ALICE LORRAINE.
"And hunting; come now, Uncle
Struan, didn't they teach you hunting ? "
" Well," said the Rector, stroking his
chin ; " I was a poor young man, of
course, and could not afford that sort of
thing."
" Yes, but you did, you know, Uncle
Struan ; I have heard you boast of it
fifty times,"
" What a plague you are, Hilary !
There may have been times — however,
you are going on quite as if we were sit-
ting and having a cozy talk after dinner
at West Lorraine."
" I wish to goodness we were, my dear
uncle. I never shall see such a dinner
again."
" My dear boy, my dear boy ; to talk
ike that at your time of life ! What
a thing love is, to be sure ! However, in
that state, a dinner is no matter."
" Well, I shall be off now for London
again. A bit of bread and cheese, after
all, is as good as anything. Good-bye,
my dear uncle, I shall always thank you."
"You shall thank me for two things
before you start. And you should not
start, except that I know it to be at pres-
ent best for you. You shall thank me
for as good a dinner as can be got in a
place like this ; and after that for five
good guineas just to go on for a bit with."
Thus the Rector had his way, and fed
his nephew beautifully and sent him back
with a better heart in his breast, to meet
the future. Hilary of course was much
aggrieved, and inclined to be outrageous,
at having walked four-and-twenty miles,
with eager proceeding at every step, and
then being balked of a sight of his love.
However, he saw that it was for the best ;
and five guineas (feel as you will) is
something.
His good uncle paid his fare back by
the stage, and saw him go off, and kissed
hands to him ; feeling greatly relieved as
soon as ever he was round the corner ;
for he must have spoiled everything at
the farm. Therefore this excellent uncle
returned to the snug little sanded par-
lour, to smoke afresh pipe ; and to think,
in its influence, how to get on with these
new affairs.
Here were heaps of trouble rising ; as
peaks of volcanoes come out of the sea.
And who was to know how to manage
things, so as to make them all subside
again ? Hilary might seem easy to deal
with, so long as he had no money ; but
even he was apt to take strange whims
into his head, although he might feel that
he could not pay for them. And then
there was the Grower, an obstinate factor
. in any calculation ; and the Grower's
wife, who might appeal perhaps to the
Attorney-General ; also Sir Roland, with
j his dry unaccountable manner of regard-
ing things ; and last not least, the Rec-
I tor's own superior part of his household.
I If he could not manage them, anybody at
j first sight would say that the fault must
jbe altogether his own — that a man who
I cannot lay down the law to his own wife
jand daughters, really is no man ; and de-
, serves to be treated accordingly. Yet
this depends upon special gifts. The
Rector could carry on very well, when
, he understood the subject, even with
his wife and daughters, till it came to
{Crying. Still, in the end (as he knew
in his heart), he always got the worst of
■it.
Now what would all these ladies say,
: if the incumbent of the parish, the rector
. of the rectory, the very husband or father
I of all of themselves — as the case might
jbe — were to depart from his sense of
'right, and the principles he had laid down
j to them, to such an extent as to cherish
Hilary in black rebellion against his own
father } Suasion would be lost among
them. It is a thing that may be tried, un-
der favourable, circumstances, as against
one lady, when quite alone ; but with four
ladies, all taking different views of the
! matter in question, yet ready in a moment
I to combine against any form of reason, —
j a bachelor must be Quixotic, a husband
land father idiotic, if he relies upon any
I other motive power than that of his legs.
I But the Rector was not the man to run
I away, even from his own family. So, on
■the whole, he resolved to let things follow
their own course, until something new
I should begin to rise. Except at least
I upon two little points — one, that Hilary
j should be kept from visiting the farm
I just now ; and the other that the Grower
must be told of all this love-affair.
Mr. Hales, as an owner of daughters,
felt that it was no more than a father's
due, to know what his favourite child was
about in such important matters ; and he
j thought it the surest way to set him bit-
terly against any moderation, if he were
' left to find out by surprise what was go-
jingonathis own hearth. It happened,
however, that the Grower had a shrewd
I suspicion of the whole of it, and was.
laughing in his sleeve, and winking (in
. his own determined way) at his go(
wife's manoeuvres. " 1 shall stop it all,
\ when I please," he said to himself, every
night at bed-time j "let them have theirj
ALICE LORRAINE.
405
little game, and make up their minds to
astonish me." For he, like almost every
man who has attained the age of sixty,
looked back upon love as a brief excres-
cence, of about the same character as a
wart,
*'Ay, ay, no need to tell me," he an-
swered, when Mrs. Lovejoy, under the
parson's advice, and at Mabel's entreaty,
broke the matter to him, " I don't go
about with my eyes shut, wife. A man
that knows every pear that grows, can
tell the colour on a maiden's cheek. I
have settled to send her away to-morrow
to her Uncle Clitherow. The old mare
will be ready at ten o'clock. I meant to
leave you to guess the reason ; you are
so clever all of you. Ha, ha ! you thought
the old Grower was as blind as a bat ;
now, didn't you ?"
" Well, at any rate," replied Mrs. Love-
joy, giving her pillow an angry thump,
" I think yoii might have consulted me,
Martin ; with half her clothes in the wash-
tub, and a frayed ribbon on her Sunday
hat ! Men are so hot and inconsiderate.
All to be done in a moment, of course !
Tlie least you could have done, I am
sure, would have been to tell me before-
hand, Martin ; and not to pack her off
like that."
" To be sure ! Just as you told me,
good wife, your plan for packing her off,
for good ! Now just go to sleep ; and
don't beat about so. When I say a thing
I do it."
CHAPTER XXX.
When the flaunting and the flouting of
the summer-prime are over ; when the
leaves of tree, and bush, and even of un-
considered weeds, hang on their stalks,
instead of standing upright, as they used
to do ; and very often a convex surface,
by the cares of life, is worn into a small
concavity ; a gradual change, to a like
effect, may be expected in the human
mind.
A man remembers that his own autumn
is once more coming over him ; that the
light is surely waning, and the darkness
gathering in ; that more of his plans are
shed and scattered, as the sun " draws
water," among the clouds, or as the gos-
samer floats idly over the sear and
seeded grass. Therefore it is high time
to work, to strengthen the threads of the
wavering plan, to tighten the mesh of
the woven web, to cast about here and
there for completion, if the design shall
be ever complete.
So now, as the summer passed, a cer-
tain gentleman of more repute perhaps
than reputation, began to be anxious
about his plans.
Sir Remnant Chapman owned large
estates adjoining the dwindled but still
fair acreage of the Lorraines in the weald
of Sussex. Much as he differed from Sir
Roland in tastes and habits and charac-
ter, he announced himself, wherever he
went, as his most intimate friend and ally.
And certainly he was received more
freely than any other neighbour at
Coombe Lorraine, and knew all the do-
ings and ways of the family, and was
even consulted now and then. Warm
friendship, however, can scarcely thrive
without mutual respect ; and though Sir
Remnant could never escape from a cer-
tain unwilling respect for Sir Roland, the
latter never could contrive to reciprocate
the feeling.
Because he knew that Sir Remnant
was a gentleman of a type already even
then departing, although to be found, at
the present day, in certain parts of Eng-
land. A man of fixed opinions, and even
what might be accounted principles (at
any rate by himself) concerning honour,
and birth, and betting, and patriotism,
and some other matters, included in a
very small et-cetera. It is hard to de-
spise a man who has so many points set-
tled in this system ; but it is harder to
respect him, when he sees all things with
one little eye, and that eye a vicious one.
Sir Remnant Chapman had no belief in
the goodness of woman, or the truth of
man — in the beautiful balance of nature,
or even the fatherly kindness that com-
forts us. Therefore nobody could love
him ; and very few people paid much at-
tention to his dull hatred of mankind.
" Contempt," he always called it ; but he
had not power to make it that ; neither
had he any depth of root, to throw up
eminence. A " bitter weed " many peo-
ple called him ; and yet he was not alto-
gether that. For he liked to act against
his nature, perhaps from its own per-
versity; and often did kind things, to
spite his own spitefulness, by doing them.
As for sense of right and wrong, he had
none outside of his own wishes ; and he
always expected the rest of the world to
move on the same low system. How
could such a man get on, even for an
hour, with one so different — and more
than that, so opposite to him — as the
good Sir Roland ? Mr. Hales, who was
not (as we know) at all a tight-laced man
himself, and may perhaps have been a
little jealous of Sir Remnant, put that
4o6
ALICE LORRAINE.
question to himself, as well as to his
wife and family ; and echo only an-
swered " how ?" However, soever, there
was the fact; and how many facts can
we call to mind ever so much stranger?
Sir Remnant's only son, Stephen Chap-
man, was now about thirty years of age,
and everybody said that it was time for
him to change his mode of life. Even
his father admitted that he had made an
unreasonably long job of "sowing his
wild oats," and now must take to some
better culture. And nothing seemed
more likely to lead to this desirable re-
sult than a speedy engagement to an ac-
complished, sensible, and attractive girl.
Therefore, after a long review and dis-
cussion of all the young ladies round, it
had been settled that the heir of all the
Chapmans should lay close siege to young
Alice Lorraine.
" Captain Chapman" — as Stephen was
called by courtesy in that neighbourhood,
having held a commission in a fashiona-
ble regiment, until it was ordered to the
war — this man was better than his father
in some ways, and much worse in others.
He was better, from weakness ; not hav-
ing the strength to work out works of
iniquity ; and also from having some
touches of kindness, whereof his father
was intact. He was worse, because he
had no sense of honour, no rudiment of a
principle ; not even a dubious preference
for the truth, at first sight, against a lie.
Captain Chapman, however, could do one
manly thing, and only one. He could
drive, having cultivated the art, in the
time when it meant something. Horses
were broken then, not trained — as now-
adays they must be — and skill and nerve
were needed for the management of a
four-in-hand. Captain Chapman was the
first in those parts to drive like Ericthoni-
us, and it took him a very long time to get
liis father to sit behind him. For the roads
were still very bad and perilous, and
better suited for postilions than for Ste-
phen Chapman's team.
He durst not drive up Coombe Lor-
raine, or at any rate he feared the de-
scent as yet, though he meant some day
to venture it. And now that he was
come upon his wooing, he left his gaudy
equipage at the foot of the hill, to be
sent back to Steyning and come for him
at an appointed time. Then he and his
father, with mutual grumblings, took to
the steep ascent on foot.
Sir Roland had asked them, a few days
ago, to drive over and dine with him,
either on Thursday, or any other day
that might suit them. They came on the
Thursday, with their minds made up to
be satisfied with anything. But they cer-
tainly were not very well pleased to find
that the fair Mistress Alice had managed
to give them the slip entirely. She was
always ready to meet Sir Remnant, and
discharge the duties of a hostess to him ;
but from some deep instinctive aversion
she could not even bear to sit at table
with the Captain. She knew not at all
what his character was ; neither did Sir
Roland know a tenth part of his ill re-
pute ; otherwise he had never allowed
him to approach the maiden. He simply
looked upon Captain Chapman as a fash-
ionable man of the day, who might have
been a little wild perhaps, but now meant
to settle down in the country and attend
to his father's large estates.
However, neither of the guests sus-
pected that their visit had fixed the date
of another little visit pending long at
Horsham ; and one girl being as good as
another to men of the world of that stamp,
they were well content, when the haunch
went out, to clink a glass with the Rec-
tor's daughters, instead of receiving a
distant bow from a diffident and very shy
young lady.
" Now, Lorraine," began Sir Remnant,
after the ladies had left the room, and
the Captain was gone out to look at some-
thing, according to arrangement, and had
taken the Rector with him, " we have
known one another a good many years ;
and I want a little sensible talk with you."
" Sir Remnant, I hope that our talk is
always sensible ; so far at least as can be
expected on my part."
"There you are again, Lorraine, using
some back meaning, such as no one else
can enter into. But let that pass. It is
your way. Now I want to say something
to you."
" I also am smitten with a strong desire
to know what it is, Sir Remnant."
"Well, it is neither more nor less than
this. You know what dangerous times we
live in, with every evil power let loose,
and Satan, like a roaring lion, rampant
and triumphant. Thank you, yes, I will
take a pinch ; your snuff is always so de-
licious. With the arch-enemy prowling
about, with democracy, nonconformity,
infidelity, and rick-burnings "
"Exactly so. How well you express
it ! I was greatly struck with it in the
'George and Dragon's ' report of your]
speech at the farmer's dinner at Billing-
hurst."
" Well, well, I may have said it before ;]
ALICE LORRAINE.
407
but for all that, it is the truth. Can you
deny it, Sir Roland Lorraine?"
" Far be it from me to deny the truth.
I am listening with the greatest interest."
" No, you are not ; you never do. You
are always thinking of something to your-
self. But what I was going to say was
this, that it is high time to cement the
union, and draw close the bonds of amity |
between all good men, all men of any
principle — by which I mean — come
now, you know."
" To be sure ; you mean all stanch To-
ries."
" Yes, yes ; all who hold by Church
and State, land and the constitution. I
have educated my son carefully in the
only right and true principles. Train up
a child — you know what I mean. And
you, of course, have brought up your
daughter upon the same right system."
" Nay, rather, I have left her to form
her own political opinions. And to the
best of my belief, she has formed none."
" Lorraine, I am heartily glad to hear
it. That is how all the girls should be.
When I was in London, they turned me
sick with asking my opinion. The less
they know, the better for them. Knowl-
edge of anything makes a woman so deu-
cedly contradictory. My poor dear wife
could read and write, and that was c^uite
enough for her. She did it on the jam-
pots always, and she could spell most of
it. Ah, she was a most wonderful wo-
man ! "
" She was. I often found much pleas-
ure in her conversation. She knew so
many things that never come by way of
reading."
" And so does Stephen. You should
hear him. He never reads any sort of
book. Ah, that is the true learning.
Books always make stupid people. Now
it struck me that — ah, you know, I see.
A wink's as good as a nod, &c. No
catching a weasel asleep." Here Sir
Remnant screwed up one eye, and gave
Sir Roland a poke in the ribs, with the
most waggish air imaginable.
"Again and again I assure you," said
his host, " that I have not the smallest
idea what you mean. Your theory about
books has in me the most thorough con-
firmation,"
" Aha ! it is all very well — all very
well to pretend, Lorraine. Another pinch
of snuff, and that settles it. Let them set
up their horses together as soon as ever
they please — eh ? "
" Who ? What horses ? Why will you
thus visit me with impenetrable enig-
mas ? "
" Visit you ! Why, you invited me
yourself ! Who indeed ? Why, of course,
my lad Steenie and your girl Lallie ! "
" Captain Chapman and my Alice !
Such a thought never entered my mind.
Do you know that poor Alice is little more
than seventeen years old ? And Captain
Chapman must be — let me see "
" Never mind what he is. He is my
son and heir, and there'll be fifty thousand
to settle on his wife, in hard cash — not
so bad nowadays."
" Sir Remnant Chapman, I beg you not
to say another word on the subject. Your
son must be twice my daughter's age, and
he looks even more than that "
" Dash my wig ! Then I am seventy,
I suppose. What the dickens have his
looks got to do with the matter ? I don't
call him at all a bad-looking fellow. A
chip of the old block, that's what he
is. Ah, many a fine woman, I can tell
you "
"Now, if you please," Sir Roland said,
with a very clear and determined voice —
" if you please we will drop this subject.
Your son may be a very good match, and
no doubt he is in external matters ; and
if Alice when old enough should become
attached to him, perhaps I might not op-
pose it. There is nothing more to be
said at present ; and, above all things, she
must not hear of it."
" I see, I see," answered the other baro-
net, who was rather short of temper.
"Missy must be kept to her bread and
milk, and good books, and all that, a liitle
longer. By the by, Lorraine, what was it
I heard about your son the other day —
that he had been making a fool of himself
with some grocer's daughter ? "
" I have not heard of any grocer's
daughter. And as he will shortly leave
England, people perhaps will have less to
say about him. His commission is prom-
ised, as perhaps you know ; and he is not
likely to quit the army because there is
fighting going on."
Sir Remnant felt all the sting of that
hit ; his face (which showed many signs
of good living) flushed to the tint of the
claret in his hand, and he was just about
to make a very coarse reply, when luckily
the Rector came back suddenly, followed
by the valiant Captain. Sir Roland knew
that he had allowed himself to be goaded
into bad manners for once, and he strove
to make up for it by unwonted attention
to the warrior.
4o8
ALICE LORRAINE.
CHAPTER XXXI.
It was true that Hilary had attained at
last the great ambition of his life. He
had changed the pen for the sword, the
sand for powder, and the ink for blood ;
and in a few days he would be afloat, on
his way to join Lord Wellington. His
father's obstinate objections had at last
been overcome ; for there seemed to be
no other way to cut the soft net of en-
chantment, and throw him into a sterner
world.
His uncle Struan had done his best,
and tried to the utmost stretch the pa-
tience of Sir Roland, with countless
words, until the latter exclaimed at last,
" Why, you seem to be worse than the
boy himself ! You went to spy out the
nakedness of the land, and you returned
in a fortnight with grapes of Eshcol.
Truly this Danish Lovejoy is more potent
than the great Canute. He turns at his
pleasure the tide of opinion."
" Roland, now you go too far. It is
not the Grower that I indite of, but his
charming daughter. If you could but
once be persuaded to see her——"
" Of course. Exactly what Hilary sa'd.
In him I could laugh at it ; but in you
Well, a great philosopher tells us that
every jot of opinion (even that of a babe,
I suppose) is to be regarded as an equal
item of the ' universal consensus.' And
the universal consensus becomes, or
forms, or fructifies, or solidifies, into the
great homogeneous truth. I may not
quote him aright, and I beg his pardon
for so lamely rendering him. However,
that is a rude sketch of his view, a brick
from his house — to mix metaphors —
and perhaps you remember it better,
Struan."
" God forbid ! The only thing I re-
member out of all my education is the
stories — what do you call them? —
mythologies. Capital some of them are,
capital ! Ah, they do so much good to
boys — teach them manliness and self-
respect ! "
" Do they ? However, to return to this
lovely daughter of the Kentish Alcinous
— by the way, if his ancestors were Danes
who took to gardening, it suggests a
rather startling analogy. The old Cory-
cian is believed (though without a particle
of evidence) to have been a pirate in early
life, and therefore to have taken to pot-
herbs. Let that pass. I could never
have believed it, except for this instance
of Lovejoy
Rector, who was always jealous of " Nor-
man blood," because he had never heard
that he had any ; " how were the Nor-
mans less piratical, if you please, than
the Danes, their own grandfathers ? Ex-
cept that they were sick at sea — big
rogues all of them, in my opinion. The
Saxons were the only honest fellows.
Ah, and they would have thrashed those
Normans but for the leastest little acci-
dent. When I hear of those Normans,
without any shoulders — don't tell me ;
they never would have built such a house
as this is, otherwise — what do you think
I feel ready to do, sir ? Why, to get up,
and to lift my coat, and "
" Come, come, Struan ; we quite under-
stand all your emotions without that.
This makes you a very bigoted ambassa-
dor in our case. You meant to bring
back all the truth, of course. But when
you found the fishing good, and the peo-
ple roughly hospitable, and above all a
Danish smack in their manners, and fig-
ures, and even their eyes, which have
turned on the Kentish soil, I am told, to a
deep and very brilliant brown "
*' Yes, Roland, you are right for once.
At any rate, it is so with her."
" Very well. Then 3'ou being, as you
always are, a sudden man — what did you
do but fall in love (in an elderly fatherly
manner of course) with this — what is her
name, now again .'' I never can recollect
it."
"You do. You never forget anything.
Her name is ' Mabel.' And you may be
glad to pronounce it pretty often, in your
old age, Sir Roland,"
" Well, it is a pretty name, and deserves
a pretty bearer. But, Struan, you are a
man of the world. You know what
Hilary is ; and you know (though we do
not give ourselves airs, and drive four
horses in a hideous yellow coach, and
wear diamond rings worth a thousand
pounds), you know what the Lorraines
have always been — a little particular in
their ways, and a little inclined to, to,
perhaps "
" To look down on the rest of the
world, without ever letting them know it,
or even knowing it yourselves perhaps.
Have I hit it aright. Sir Roland .^"
"Not quite that. Indeed,
could be further from what I was think
ing of." Sir Roland Lorraine sighed
gently here ; and even his brother-in-law
had not the least idea why he did so. It
was that Sir Roland, like all the more
able Lorraines for several centuries, was
1
nothing
" And how, if you please," broke in the j at heart a fatalist. And this family taint
i
ALICE LORRAINE.
had perhaps been deepened by the in-
fusion of Eastern blood. This was the
bar so often fixed between them and the
rest of the world — a barrier which must
hold good, while every man cares for his
neighbour's soul so much more than his
own forever.
"Is it anything in religion, Roland ?"
the Rector whispered kindly. " I know
that you are not orthodox, and a good
deal puffed up with carnal knowledge.
Still, if it is in my line at all ; I am not a
very high authority — but perhaps I might
lift you over it. They are saying all sorts
of things now in the world ; and I have
taken two hours a-day, several days —
now you need not laugh — in a library we
have got up at Horsham, filled with the
best divinity ; so as to know how to an-
swer them."
" My dear Struan," Sir Roland replied,
without so much as the gleam of a smile,
" that was really good of you. And you
now have so many other things to attend
to with young dogs, and that ; and the
ist of September next week, I believe !
What a relief that must be to you ! "
"Ay, that it is. You cannot imagine,
of course, with all your many ways of
frittering time away indoors, what a wear-
ing thing it is to have nothing better
than rabbit-shooting, or teaching a dog
to drop to shot. But now about Hilary :
you must relent — indeed you must, dear
Roland. He is living on sixpence a-day,
I believe — virtuous fellow, most rare
young man ! Why, if that dirty Steve
Chapman now had been treated as you
have served Hilary — note of hand, bill-
drawing, post-obits, — and you might even
think yourself lucky if there were no big
forgery to hush up. Ah, his father may
think what he likes ; but I look on Hilary
as a perfect wonder, a Bayard, a Crich-
ton, a pelican ! "
" Surely you mean a paragon, Struan ?
What young can he have to feed from his
own breast ? "
"I meant what I said, as I always do.
And how can you know what young he
has, when you never even let him come
near you ? Ah, if I only had such a son ! "
Here the Rector, who really did complain
that he had no son to teach how to shoot,
managed to get his eyes a little touched
with genial moisture.
" This is grievous," Sir Roland an-
swered; "and a little more than lever
expected, or can have enabled myself to
deserve. Now, Struan, will you cease
from waiUng, if I promise one thing ? "
" That must depend upon what it is.
4b9
It will take a good many things, I am
afraid, to make me think well of you
again."
" To hear such a thing from the head
of the parish ! Now, Struan, be not vin-
dictive. I ought to have let you get a
good day's shooting, and then your terms
would have been easier."
" Well, Roland, you know that we can
do nothing. The estates are tied up in
such a wonderful way, by some lawyer's
trick or other, through a whim of that
blessed old lady — she can't hear me, can
she? — that Hilary has his own sister's
life between him and the inheritance ; so
far as any of us can make out."
" So that you need not have boasted,"
answered Sir Roland, with a quiet smile,
"about his being a Bayard, in refraining
from post-obits."
" Well, well ; you know what I meant
quite well. The Jews are not yet ban-
ished from England. And there is rea-
son to fear that they never will be.
There are plenty of them to discount his
chance ; if he did what many other boys
would do."
Sir Roland felt the truth of this. And
he feared in his heart that he might be
pushing his only son a little too hard, in
reliance upon his honour.
" Will you come to the point for once ? '*
he asked, with a look of despair, and a
voice of the same. " This is my offer —
to get Hilary a commission in a foot-
regiment, pack him off to the war in
Spain ; and if in three years after that he
sticks to that Danish Nausicaa, and I am
alive — why, then, he shall have her."
Mr. Hales threw back his head — for
he had a large, deep head, and when it
wanted to think it would go back — and
then he answered warily.
" It is a very poor offer. Sir Roland.
At first sight it seems fair enough. But
you, with your knowledge of youth, and
especially such a youth as Hilary, rely
upon the effects of absence, change, ad-
ventures, dangers, Spanish beauties, and,
worst of all, wider knowledge of the
world, and the company of fighting men,
to make him jilt his love, or perhaps take
even a worse course than that."
" You are wrong," said Sir Roland, with
much contempt. " Sir Remnant Chaf>-
man might so have meant it. Struan,
you ought to know me better. But I
think that I have a right, at least, to try
the substance of such a whim, before I
yield to it, and install, as the future mis-
tress, a — well, what do you want me to
call her, Struan ? "
410
ALICE LORRAINE.
" Let it be, Roland ; let it be. I am a
fair man, if you are not ; and I can make
every allowance for you. But I think that
your heir should at least be entitled to
swing his legs over a horse, Sir Roland."
" I, on the other hand, think that it
would be his final ruin to do so. He
would get among reckless fellows, to
whom he is already too much akin. It
has happened so with several of my truly
respected ancestors. They have gone
into cavalry regiments and ridden full
gallop through their estates. I am not a
penurious man, as you know, and few
think less of money. Can you deny that,
even in your vitiated state of mind ?"
" I cannot deny it," the Rector an-
swered; "you never think twice about
money, Roland — except of course when
you are bound to do so."
" Very well ; then you can believe that
I wish poor Hilary to start afoot, solely
for his own benefit. There is very hard
fighting just now in Spain, or on the con-
fines of Portugal. I hate all fighting, as
you are aware. Still it is a thing that
must be done."
" Good Lord ! " cried the Rector, " how
you do talk ! As if it was so many par-
tridges ! "
"No, it is better than that — come,
Struan — because the partridges carry no
guns, you know."
" I should be confoundedly sorry if they
did," the Rector answered, with a shud-
der. " Fancy letting fly at a bird, who
might have a long barrel under his tail ! "
" It is an appalling imagination. Stru-
an, I give you credit for it. But here we
are, as usual, wandering from the matter
which we have in hand. Are you con-
tent, or are you not, with what I propose
about Hilary } "
In this expressly alternative form, there
lurks a great deal of vigour. If a man
says, " are you satisfied ? " you begin to
cast about, and wonder whether you might
not win better terms. Many side-issues
come in, and disturb you ; and your way
to say "yes " is dubious. But if he only
clench his inquiry with the option of the
strong negative, the weakest of all things,
human nature that hates to say "no," is
tampered with. This being so. Uncle
Struan thought for a moment or so ; and
then said, " Yes, I am."
CHAPTER XXXII.
Is it just or even honest — fair, of
course, it cannot be — to deal so much
with the heavy people, the eldermost ones
and the bittermost, and leave altogether
eve^l
'eet ^
with nothing said of her — or not
let her have her own say — as sweet
young maiden as ever lived, and as true7
and brave, and kind an one ? Alice was
of a different class altogether from Mabel
Lovejoy. Mabel was a dear-hearted girl
loving, pure, unselfish, warm, and goo^
enough to marry any man, and be his owj
wife forever.
But Alice went far beyond all tha<
Her nature was cast in a different mouk
She had not only the depth — which is
the comrhon property of women — but
she also had the height of loving. Such as
a mother has for her children ; rather
than a wife towards her husband. And_
yet by no means an imperious or exact
ing affection, but tender, submissive, anj
delicate. Inasmuch as her brother stool
next to her father, or in some point
quite on a level with him, in her true r(_
gard and love, it was not possible that
her kind heart could escape many pangs
of late. In the first place, no loving sis-
ter is likely to be altogether elated by the
discovery that her only brother has found
some one who shall be henceforth more
to him than herself is. Alice, moreover,
had a very strong sense of the rank and
dignity of the Lorraines ; and she disliked,
even more than her father did, the impor-
tation of this "vegetable product," as she
rather facetiously called poor Mabel, into
their castle of lineage. But now when
Hilary was going away, to be drowned
on the voyage perhaps, or at least to be
shot, or sabred, or ridden over by those
who had horses — while he had none —
or even if he escaped all that, to be
starved, or frozen, or sunstruck, for the
sake of his country — as our best men
are, while their children survive to starve
afterwards — it came upon Alice as a
heavy blow that she never might happen
to see him again. Although her father
had tried to keep her from the excitement
of the times, and the gasp of the public
for dreadful news (a gasp which is deeper
and wider always, the longer the time of
waiting is), still there were too many
mouths of rumour for any one to stop
them all. Although the old butler turned
his cuffs up — to show what an arm he
still possessed — and grumbled that all
this was nothing, and a bladder of wind
in comparison with what he had known
forty years agone, and though Mrs. Pip-
kins, the housekeeper, quite agreed with
him and went further; neither was the
cook at all disposed to overdo the thing;
it was of no service — they could not st2
the torrent of public opinion.
ALICE LORRAINE.
411
Trotman had been taken on, rashly (as
may have been said before), as upper foot-
man in lieu of the old-established and
trusty gentleman, who had been com-
pelled by fierce injustice to retire, and
take to a public house — with a hundred
pounds to begin upon — being reft of the
office of footman for no other reason that
he could hear of, except that he was apt
to be, towards nightfall, not quite able to
" keep his feet."
To him succeeded the headlong Trot-
man ; and one of the very first things he
did was — as declared a long time ago,
with deep sympathy, in this unvarnished
tale — to kick poor Bonny, like a hopping
spider, from the brow of the hill to the
base thereof.
Trotman may have had good motives
for this rather forcible movement ; and it
is not our place to condemn him. Still,
in more than one quarter it was believed
that he acted thus, through no zeal what-
ever for virtue or justice ; but only be-
cause he so loved his perquisites, and
suspected that Bonny got smell of them.
And the butler quite confirmed this view,
and was much surprised at Trotman's
conduct ; for Bonny was accustomed to
laugh at his jokes, and had even sold
some of his bottles for him.
In such a crisis, scarcely any one would
such a trivial matter. And yet
none of us ought to kick anybody, with-
out knowing what it may lead to. Vio-
lence is to be deprecated ; for it has to
be paid for beyond its value, in twelve
cases out of every dozen. And so it was
now ; for, if Coombe Lorraine had been
before this, as Mrs. Pipkins declared
(having learned French from her cook-
ery-book), '• the most Triestest place in
the world," it became even duller now
that Bonny was induced, by personal con-
siderations, to terminate rather abruptly
his overtures to the kitchen-maid. For
who brought the tidings of all great
events and royal proceedings ? Our
Bonny. Who knew the young man of
every housemaid in the vales of both
Adur and Arun ? Our Bonny. Who
could be trusted to carry a scroll (or in
purer truth perhaps, a scrawl) that should
be treasured throuirh the love-lorn hours
regard
of
at table — in a zebra waist-
waitmg
coat ? Solely and emphatically Bonny !
Therefore every tender domestic bosom
rejoiced when the heartless Trotman was
compelled to tread the track of his vio-
lence, lamely and painfully, twice every
week, to fetch from Steyning his " George
and the Dragon," which used to be de-
livered by Bonny. Mr. Trotman, how-
ever, was a generous man, and always
ready to share as well as enjoy the de-
lights of literature. Nothing pleased him
better than to sit on the end of a table
among the household, ladies and gentle-
men, with Mrs. Pipkins in the chair of
honour, and interpret, from his beloved
journal, the chronicles of the county, the
country, and the Continent.
" Why, ho ! " he shouted out one day,
"what's this .'' Can I believe my heyes ?
Our Halary going to the wars next
week I "
"No, now!" "Never can be!"
" Most shameful ! " some of his audience
exclaimed. But Mrs. Pipkins and the
old butler shook their heads at one an-
other, as much as to say, " I knowed it."
" Mr. Trotman," said the senior house-
maid, who entertained connubial views ;
" you are sure to be right in all you reads.
You are such a bootiful scholard ! Will
you obleege us by reading it out .'* "
"Hem! hem! Ladies all, it is yours
to command, it is mine to obey. 'The
insatiable despot who sways the Conti-
nent seems resolved to sacrifice to his
baleful lust of empire all the best and
purest and noblest of the blood of Brit-
ain. It was only last week that we had
to mourn the loss sustained by all Sussex
in the most promising scion of a noble
house. And now we have it on the best
authority that Mr. H. L., the only son of
the well-known and widely-respected bar-
onet residing not fifty miles from Stey-
ning, has received orders to join his regi-
ment at the seat of war, under Lord Wel-
lington. The gallant young gentleman
sails next week from Portsmouth in the
troop-ship Sandylegs ' — or some such
blessed Indian name ! "
"The old scrimp!" exclaimed the
cook, a warm adherent of Hilary's. " To
send him out in a nasty sandy ship, when
his birth were to go on horseback, the
same as all the gentlefolks do to the
wars ! "
" But, Mrs. Merryjack, you forget," ex-
plained the accomplished Trotman, "that
great Britain is a hisland, ma'am. And
no one can't ride from a hisland on horse-
back ; at least it was so when I was a
boy."
"Then it must be so now, John Trot-
man ; for what but a boy are you now,
I should like to know.? And a bad-
mannered boy, in my humble opinion, to
want to teach his helders their duty. I
know that I lives in a hisland, of course,
the same as all the Scotchmen does, and
412
ALICE LORRAINE.
goes round the sun like a joint on a spit ;
and so does nearly all of us. But per-
haps John Trotman doesn't."
With this withering "sarcasm," the
lady-cook turned away from poor Trot-
man, and then delivered these memorable
words —
" Sir Rowland will repent too late.
Sir Rowland will shed the briny tear, the
same as might any one of us, even on ^3
a-year, for sending his only son out in a
ship, when he ought to a' sent 'un on
horseback."
Mrs. Pipkins nodded assent, and so
did the ancient butler ; and Trotman felt
that public opinion was wholly against
him, until such time as it should be fur-
ther educated. But such a discussion
had been aroused, that there was no
chance of its stopping here ; and Alice,
who loved to collect opinions, had many
laid before her. She listened to all judi-
ciously, and pretended to do it judicially ;
and after that she wondered whether she
had done what she ought to do. For she
knew that she was only very young, with
nobody to advise her ; and the crushing
weight of the world upon her, if she
tripped or forgot herself. Most girls of
her age would have been at school, and
taken childish peeps at the world, and
burnished up their selfishness by conflict
with one another ; but Sir Roland had
kept to the family custom, and taught
and trained his daughter at home, be-
lieving as he did that young women lose
some of their best and most charming
qualities by what he called " gregarious
education." Alice therefore had been
under care of a good and well-taught
governess — for " masters " at that time
were proper to boys — until her mind was
quite up to the mark, and capable of
taking care of itself. For, in those days,
it was not needful for any girl to know a
great deal more than was good for her.
Early one September evening, when
the day and year hung calmly in the bal-
ance of the sun ; when sensitive plants
and clever beasts were beginning to look
around them, and much of the growth of
the ground was ready to regret lost op-
portunities ; when the comet was gone
for good at last, and the earth was be-
ginning to laugh at her terror (having
found him now clearly afraid of her), and
when a sense of great deliverance from
the power of drought and heat throbbed
in the breast of dewy nurture, so that all
took breath again, and even man (the last
of all things to be pleased or thankful)
was ready to acknowledge that there
might have been worse moments, — at
such a time fair Alice sat in her garden
thinking of Hilary. The work of the
summer was over now, and the fate of
the flowers pronounced and settled, for
better or worse, till another year ; no
frost, however, had touched them yet,
while the heavy dews of autumnal night
and the brisk air flowing from the open
downs had gladdened, refreshed, and
sweetened them. Among them, and be-
tween the shrubs, there spread and sloped
a pleasant lawn for all who love soft
sward and silence, and the soothing
sound of leaves. From the form of the
ground and bend of the hills, as well as
the northerly aspect, a peculiar cast and
tone of colour might be found, at differ-
ent moments, fluctuating differently.
Most of all, in a fine sunset of autumn
(though now the sun was behind the
ridge), from the fulness of the upper sky
such gleam and glance fell here and there,
that nothing could be sure of looking as
it looked only a minute ago. At such
times all the glen seemed thrilling like
one vast lute of trees and air, drawing
fingered light along the chords of trem-
bling shadow. At such a time, no south-
ern slope, could be compared with this
for depth of beauty and impressive
power, for the charm of clear obscurity
and suggestive murmuring mystery. A
time and scene that might recall the
large romance of grander ages ; where
wandering lovers might shrink and think
of lovers whose love was over ; and even
the sere man of the world might take a
fresh breath of the boyish days when fear
was a pleasant element.
Suddenly Alice became aware of some-
thing moving near her ; and almost be-
fore she had time to be frightened, Hilary
leaped from behind a laurel. He caught
her in his arms, and kissed her, and then
stepped back to leave plenty of room for
contemplative admiration.
" I was resolved to have one more
look. We sail to-morrow, they are in
such a hurry. I have walked all the way
from Portsmouth. At least I got a little
lift on the road, on the top of a waggon-
load of wheat."
" How wonderfully good of you, Hilary
dear ! " she exclaimed, with tears in her
eyes, and yet a strong inclination to smile,
as she watched him. " How tired you
must be ! Why, when did you leave t"
depot ? I thought they kept you at p
petual drill."
" So they did. But I soon got up
all that. I can do it as well as the best
•ou
1
est
i
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
413
of them now. What a provoking child
you are ! Well, don't you notice any-
thing?"
For Alice, with true sisterly feeling,
was trying his endurance to the utmost,
dissembling all her admiration of his
fine fresh "uniform." Of course, this
was not quite so grand as if he had been
(as he had right to be) enrolled as an
'■'■ eques auratus ;'''' still it looked very
handsome on his fine straight figure/i»and
set off the brightness of his clear com-
plexion. Moreover, his two months of
drilling at the depot had given to his ac-
tive and well-poised form that vigorous
firmness which alone was needed to make
it perfect. With the quickness of a girl,
his sister saw all this in a moment ; and
yet, for fear of crying, she laughed at
him,
" Why, how did you come so ' spick
and span ' 1 Have you got a sheaf of
wheat inside your. waistcoat ? It was too
cruel to put such clothes on the top of a
harvest-waggon. I wonder you did not
set it all on fire."
*' Much you know about it ! " exclaimed
the young soldier, with vast chagrin.
" You don't deserve to see anything. I
brought my togs in a haversack, and put
them on in your bower here, simply to
oblige you ; and you don't think they are
worth looking at ! "
" I am looking with all my might ; and
yet I cannot see anything of a sword. I
suppose they won't allow you one yet.
But surely you must have a sword in the
end."
" Alice, you are enough to wear one
out. Could I carry my sword in a haver-
sack .-* However, if you don't think I
look well somebody else does — that is
one comfort."
" You do not mean, I hope," replied
Alice, missing his allusion carefully, " to
go back to your ship without coming to
see papa, dear Hilary ?"
" That is exactly what I do mean ; and
that is why I have watched for you so.
I have no intention of knocking under.
And so he will find out in the end ; and
somebody else, I hope, as well. Every-
body thinks I am such a fool, because I
am easy-tempered. Let them wait a bit.
They may be proud of that never-do-well,
silly Hilary yet. In the last few months,
I can assure you, I have been through
things — however, I won't talk about
them. They never did understand me at
home ; and I suppose they never will.
But it does not matter. Wait a bit."
" Darling Hilary ! don't talk so. It
makes me ready to cry to hear you. You
will go into some battle, and throw your
life away, to spite all of us."
" No, no, I won't. Though it would
serve you right for considering me such
a nincompoop. As if the best, the sweet-
est, and truest-hearted girl in the universe
was below contempt, because her father
happens to grow cabbages ! What do we
grow? Corn, and hay, and sting-nettles,
and couch-grass. Or at least our tenants
grow them for us, and so we get the
money. Well, how are they finer than
cabbages ? "
" Come in and see father," said Alice,
straining her self-control to shun argu-
ment. "Do come, and see him before
you go."
" I will not," he answered, amazing his
sister by his new-born persistency. " He
never has asked me ; and I will not do
it."
No tears, no sobs, or coaxings moved
him ; his troubles had given him strength
of will ; and he went to the war without
seeing his father.
From Temple Bar.
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
By the Author of "Mirabeau," etc.
The elder branch of the Bourbons was
never famous for its virtues, but it cer-
tainly contrasts favourably with the
younger, which, to go no farther back
than two centuries, has run the whole
gamut of crime. Cowardice, treason,
blasphemy, debauchery, assassination,
poison, incest, were in turns the charac-
teristics of the race, until fratricide and
regicide combined with all other infamies
in one man to complete the odious chroni-
cle.
That man was Louis Philippe Joseph,
the brother of Louis the Sixteenth — a
name at which humanity shudders. Of
all who fell beneath the guillotine not one,
not even Robespierre, so well deserved
his fate as that French Cain. The Ter-
rorists were wholesale murderers, but
they could at least plead in extenuation
of their crimes that they were the aven-
gers of centuries of oppression ; but this
man was a monster, without palliation of
any kind ; destitute even of that Satanic
grandeur which surrounds many of the
exceptional criminals of history ; his
egotism, his malice, his poltroonery, his
lasciviousness, excite in us as much con-
414
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
tempt as his unnatural alliance with the
excesses of the Revolution inspires us
with abhorrence. Such was the father of
the future King of the French.
Louis Philippe, nd Due de Chartres,
was born on the 6th of October, 1773.
His education and that of his brothers
and sisters was confided to the cele-
brated Madame de Genlis, a woman
whose exceptional talents admirably
fitted her for the task. . Both mentally
and physically her system of training was
excellent. Besides instructing her pupils
in the ordinary branches of knowledge,
making them correct linguists by the
constant use of the principal European
languages in daily conversation, the
Princes were taught all kinds of useful
arts, such as surgery, carpentery, garden-
ing. To harden them to endurance they
carried heavy burdens upon their backs,
descended in winter into damp vaults,
and in the midst of frost and snow sat for
hours in the open air.
The political ideas of the father, fully
shared by the gouvevTiante^ were early
imbibed by the pupils, more especially
by the Due de Chartres, who seems to
have taken to them with peculiar zest.
When the news was brought them that
the people had attacked the Bastille they
were performing a play — private theatri-
cals forming an important part of Ma-
dame's system of education. So eager
were they to witness the sight that they
all started for Paris in their theatrical
costumes, and taking seats upon a bal-
cony in the Boulevard Saint-Antoine,
watched the destruction of the infamous
fortress with great manifestations of de-
light, the Due de Chartres clapping his
hands in gushes of patriotic ardour.
In 1790, following in the steps of his
worthy father, he proclaimed himself a
patriot and donned the uniform of the
National Guard, took the popular oath,
and regularly attended the sittings of the
National Assembly, of which he ardently
desired to become a member ; joined the
Jacobin club, and gratefully accepted the
office of door-keeper — to admit and let
out the patriots, to expel the intruders,
and drive away the dogs. No member
was more zealous, more " advanced,"
than the Due de Chartres — I beg his
pardon, Egalite Junior ; such being the
name he was then known by. So de-
lighted was he with this sublime society
that he humbly prayed that his brother
the Due de Montpensier might also be
admitted as a member. He was on guard
at the Tuileries when Louis the Six-
teenth was brought prisoner from Va-
rennes, and showed his uncle no more re-
spect than did citizen butcher or citizen
baker. Upon the abolition of all aristo-
cratic titles he wrote as follows : —
You no doubt are informed of the decree
which extinguishes all distinctions and privi-
leges. I hope you have done me justice to
think I am too much a friend of equality not
to h^ve warmly applauded the decree. In
proportion to the scorn with vv^hich I regard
the accidental distinctions of my birth will I
hereafter prize those to which I may arrive by
merit.
Let the reader bear the tenor of this
epistle in mind, as I shall have occasion
to refer to it in another place.
He joined Dumouriez's army, and is
said to have greatly distinguished him-
self at Valihy and Jdmappes, as well as at
Nerwinde, where he conducted a very
skilful retreat in the face of a victorious
enemy.
While the Revolution stood by him he
was ready to stand by the Revolution, no
matter to what lengths or atrocities it
proceeded. At the very time of the Sep-
tember massacres, when Lafayette and
the nobler democrats, horror-struck at
this defilement of true liberty, were rais-
ing their voices in indignant protest, he
accepted a lieutenant-generalship, osten-
tatiously repeated the popular oath in
each town, and attended every Jacobin
meeting. His father voted death to the
King, and there are no grounds for sup-
posing that he disagreed with the act; it
has even been said that he sat by his side
during the trial.
The exuberance of youthful enthusi-
asm for the cause of liberty has been
pleaded in extenuation of these doings.
Such might have been urged with an ex-
cellent grace for his early revolutionary
predilections. Every generous mind was
set aglow by the vision of a free and re-
generated France. But when massacre
and assassination sat in the high places
every generous mind was filled with horror
and disgust, and disclaimed all sympathy
with the movement. But again, it has
been urged that to have opposed the pop-
ular will would have been to bring down
destruction upon himself and family.
We may accept such extenuating circum-
stances in judging the crimes of the vile
cowardly parent, but would such consid-
erations overweigh honour, humanity, and
great principles in the mind of ardent
generous youth .? There is not the
slightest reason to believe that the Due
A
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
41S
de Chartres ever remonstrated with his
father, ever evinced any disapproval of
his deeds ; but that they were on the be^t
of terms until the end is proved by cer-
tain letters which passed between them
just previous to Orleans' death. Admir-
ing biographers relate how ne saved a
man from drowning, how he rescued a
priest from the hands of the mob ; but
these trifling acts cannot invalidate the
damning evidence of a crafty, dissimulat-
ing disposition to be deduced from his
conduct at this period. Had the republic
continued to favour him, he would have
served under Marat, Hebert, or Robes-
pierre, as willingly as under Lafayette,
Mirabeau, or Dumouriez ; he would have
driven a tumbril to the guillotine or have
taken Samson's place with as much alac-
rity as he accepted the portership at the
door of the Jacobin club. But all the
fawning adulation, all the pretty sobri-
quets, could not propitiate republican
hatred of aristocrats, which, the instant
they ceased to be necessary, swept away
its noble would-be friends with as much
zest as it would have chopped off the
heads of the bitterest Emigres.
After the nobles the bourgeoisie were
the victims ; then there was a general
holocaust of respectability, in order to
leave the world clear for ruffianism.
Let those who raise the spell beware the fiend !
The magicians were torn to pieces by the
devils they had evoked ; the Franken-
steins were crushed by the monsters of
their own creation. The Revolution re-
versed the classic myth : the fathers were
devoured by the children.
The defeat of Nervvinde afforded the
Convention an excellent excuse to sum-
mon the commanders before their tri-
bunal. Knowing that such a summons
was equivalent to a sentence of death,
Dumouriez and Egalit^ Junior fled, swam
the Scheldt, and gained the Austrian
camp. Here they were not only well re-
ceived, but the Duke was offered a com-
mission — a fact which points to the con-
clusion that some secret understanding
existed between the Austrians and the
Orleans party ; otherwise, judging by the
treatment received from the same power,
by Lafayette and his companions under
parallel circumstances, why should such
favour have been shown the son of the
fratricidal regicide, of the bitterest enemy
of Marie-Antoinette, of the ardent Jacobin,
of the abettor of the King's death, of the
head of the hated house of Orleans ? His
refusal of the commission was dictated
by policy. Its acceptance would have
classed him with the e'migre's and the fol-
lowers of Louis the Eighteenth, and would
have weakened the probabilities of his
succession to that throne to which Du-
mouriez was ever pointing, and for the
hope of which his father had sacrificed
his soul. In after years he made good
capital out of the fact that he had never
borne arms against the republic — a cir-
cumstance, as we shall presently see, that
resulted rather from the disinclination of
foreign powers to trust his services than
from his own choice.
Leaving the Austrian camp, he travelled
for a time in company with Dumouriez
and other fugitives ; but they soon found
it necessary to separate. He went into
Switzerland and joined Madame de Genlis
and his sister, who had escaped out of
France and taken refuge at Zurich. But
the authorities, fearful of evoking the
anger of the Convention, intimated that
their sojourn there was not desirable,
added to which some royalist ^migrh,
who had taken up their abode in the town,
treated them with such determined hos-
tility that they were obliged to very speed-
ily depart. Conducting the ladies toZug,
he placed them in a convent, while he
himself, apprehensive of bringing down
fresh annoyances upon their heads should
he remain in the neighbourhood, set out
incognito and on foot, attended by his
faithful valet Boudoin, and so wandered
from place to place, enduring great priva-
tions, and sometimes even without food.
He solicited permission to take refuge in
the dominions of his uncle the Duke of
Modena. The Duke sent him a hand-
some sum of money, but refused to en-
tertain him.
He now proceeded to Bremgarten, and
under the name of Corby filled the post
of secretary to General Montesquieu.
His next move was to the College of
Reichenau, where, as Chabaud-Latour, he
taught mathematics for fifteen months.
Suspicions of his identity getting abroad,
he thought it prudent to depart out of
Switzerland altogether. Hamburg, Den-
mark, Sweden, Lapland, became in turn
the places of a short sojourn — ostensibly,
and really, for aught we know to the con-
trary, for the purpose of studying geogra-
phy and natural history. At Hamburg
he again met Dumouriez, and probably
from that time kept up a constant cor-
respondence with him.
In the meanwhile the Convention and
the Terror had been swept away, and the
milder and more tolerant rule of the Di-
4i6
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
rectory had taken their place. Emigres
2iwd pro scr its were returning to Paris, but
the Due d'Orleans was still a banished
man. Nay, so suspicious of him was the
government, that his presence even in
Europe was a subject of uneasiness to
them. To induce him to depart to Amer-
ica they offered to ameliorate the condi-
tion of his mother as well as to set free
his brothers and permit them to join him
there.
Accordingly in 1796 he embarked for
Philadelphia. In company with the Due
de Montpensier and the Due de Beaujo-
lais, who joined him early in the next year,
he wandered through the vast forests and
over the wild prairies of North America.
In four months they traversed one thou-
sand leagues, sometimes on foot, some-
times on horseback, sometimes by water.
Upon returning to Philadelphia he re-
ceived a large remittance from his mother,
whom the Directory had reinstated in
some of her possessions, together with
the news that she had retired into Spain.
He now proceeded to New York, thence
to Boston, New Orleans, and Havana, in-
tending to join the Duchess'; but here
his travels were suddenly stopped by
order of the King of Spain, who forbade
him to enter his dominions. Thus we
see France, Switzerland, Modena and
Spain, had one after another refused to
shelter him. Surely there must have
been potent reasons for this fourfold re-
jection, for this universal distrust.
After visiting Halifax, where he was
most hospitably received by the Duke of
Kent, the then governor, he embarked for
England and arrived in London in the
February of 1800. Now in the very hot-
bed of Bourbonism, but one course re-
mained open to him — to seek a reconcil-
iation v/ith the Royalists. For this pur-
pose he sought out the Comte d'Artois,
who readily undertook the part of medi-
ator, and who charged himself with the
delivery of the following epistle, written,
after much persuasion and considerable
reluctance, to Louis the Eighteenth : —
Believing the majority of Frenchmen to
share the sentiments that animate ourselves,
in our name, and in the name of our loyal
fellow-countrymen, we swear upon our swords
allegiance to our King, and vow that we will
live and die faithful to our honour and our
lawful Sovereign. Should the unlawful em-
'ployment of superior force place the throne in
possession of any other than our righteous
Sovereign, we declare that we should follow
with as much confidence as fidelity the voice
of honour, which tells us to invoke with our
latest breath God, Frenchmen, and our swords,
to defend our cause.
This letter was subscribed by the three
brothers. We shall see anon how well
one of them respected these protestations.
The .English government bestowed
upon our repentant Egalit^ a handsome
annuity, upon which he and his brothers
lived in a villa near Twickenham, close
by his old friend Dumouriez. In 1807
the Due de Montpensier died. He lies
in the Abbey. A year later, the failing
health of the second brother. Due de
Beaujolais, necessitated his removal to a
warmer climate. Malta was the place se-
lected, and thither, accompanied by the
Due d'Orldans, the young man went — to
die.
Upon his return, Louis Philippe offered
his services to England. They were re-
fused.
After this he went to Palermo, where
Ferdinand the Fifth of Sicily then held
his court. He aspired to the hand of the
Princess Amelia, notwithstanding that
she was the niece of Marie-Antoinette.
King Ferdinand sent his son, Prince
Leopold, as a volunteer to Spain, and re-
quested the Duke to accompany him.
Upon their arrival in harbour, however,
the English would not permit them to
land. It was the old story : they were
suspicious of Orleans. They detained the
Prince at Gibraltar, but they sent his com-
panion back to England. Here he was
joined by his sister, the Princess Adelaide,
with whom he embarked for Malta.
In 1809 he espoused the Princess
Amelia.
In i8iothe Regency of Cadiz solicited
Ferdinand to send his son-in-law to head
the army. He went. This time he
landed. But he quickly discovered that
he was as far from accomplishing the ob-
ject of his mission as he had been two
years before. Everywhere he encountered
the ?nost determine i opposition : from the
Cortes, from the Spanish generals., who
threatened to resign., and from the English.,
who declared that should any command be
entrusted to Jwn they would at once with-
dra aj their forces.
Here we have another proof of the ill
odour in which the Duke was held
throughout Europe. He was evidently
labelled dangerous. His apologists would
explain away these facts by telling us that
the evil reputation of the father still clung
to the son — that England was jealous of
the interference of a French Bourbon in
the affairs of Spain. Such apologies, al-
though containing a modicum of truth,
i
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
417
are very insufficient explanations. The
father had been in his grave many years,
and since his death the son had ostensi-
bly led a non-political life, the greater
part of which was passed in travel. Be-
sides, had he not lately been reconciled
and sworn allegiance to Louis the
Eighteenth ? These circumstances, and
above all the softening influence of time,
should have been sufficient to clear his
character of the stains of prejudice and
past errors, a.n.d luould ha.ve done so had
he been the man his admirers paint.
Wellington always distrusted him. From
their knowledge of the various French
plots and conspiracies, concocted, as
usual, in London, and from their connec-
tion with Dumouriez, spy and pensioner,
who was unceasingly plotting to advance
the Orleans interest, the English govern-
ment were in an indisputably excellent
position to judge his character. They
took possession of Dumouriez's private
papers after his death. These would un-
doubtedly have thrown considerable light
upon this subject ; but such revelations
would not have been judicious at the time,
scarcely so even now, in a political point
of view. We are still too near to the
events to obtain complete documentary
evidence, in the absence of which it is
necessary to employ deductive reasoning.
Disappointed in his Spanish command
he returned to Palermo, where he seems
to have intrigued, or at least, to have
sympathized with, the revolutionary party.
The rule of the weak Ferdinand and his
imperious queen was an evil X)ne, but
natural ties should have bound him to
their side. When Lord William Ben-
tinck arrived he retired into private life.
Upon the news of Napoleon's fall he
hastened back to France, where he was
kindly received by the King, who re-
stored to him the greater part of his
father's estates.
Lamartine describes him as being at
this time " too cringing a courtier within
the walls of the palace and too popular
without." But Louis the Eighteenth re-
posed no confidence in his nephew's
fidelity, and it was only through the in-
tercession of the royal family, and more
especially of the Comte d'Artois, that he
tolerated him. There was one conces-
sion, most earnestly desired by the
whilom republican, who had written with
such lofty contempt upon the accidental
distinctions of birth, but which the King
persistently refused — the title of altesse
royalc*
* Mlchdud, in his life of Louis Philippe, relates the
LIVING AGE. VOT,. VIL 339
Upon the return from Elba he did not
follow the fortunes of the royal exiles,
but went back to Twickenham. He
wished to keep on good terms with the
Bonapartists ; they formed a powerful
party, which was, for the time, in the as-
cendant ; might remain so ; therefore,
from his point of view, it behoved him
not, at least, to incense them. During
the Hundred Days he kept aloof from the
Duchesse d'Angouleme and the Legiti-
mists ; there were reports abroad, whether
true or not it would be difficult to deter-
mine, that he was conspiring with Du-
moruiez, corresponding with Fouchd, and
tampering with the army.
Upon his return to Paris after Water-
loo he indignantly protested against these
accusations. "After the Due de Berri
you have the strongest claim upon the
throne. I am therefore easy in my mind,
and trust your judgment more than your
heart," replied the King,
At all events, during the perseci^tions
he joined with the Due de Broglie and
others in defending the Bonapartists. It
may be urged that as a Liberal such was
the line of conduct which might have
been expected from him. True, but as a
Bourbon, who had sworn allegiance to
the legitimate sovereign, he could scarce-
ly have been expected to defend the
deadliest enemies of his family. And we
have Lamartine's authority for stating
that even when that party was the ag-
gressive and not the fallen, he was de-
sirous of conciliating it. Thus his de-
fence of the persecuted, like the generous-
enthusiasm of his youth, may be referred
to very doubtful motives.
The consequence of this step was ban^
ishment to England. But, at the inter-
cession of the Comte d'Artois, Louis soon,
afterwards recalled him. After he had
signed the decree the King placed the
pen in his brother's hand, with these pra-
phetic words : " Take care of this, it wilt
be useful when you sigji your abdication.''''
And so we come to the accession of
Charles the Tenth. Never was ruler
more opposed to the spirit of his age than
Charles the Tenth. A bigot in religion,
he would fain have gone back to the old
persecuting days of the League ; a be-
liever in divine right, he would fain have
ruled France as Louis the Fourteenth
following anecdote, for' the truth of which we leave
him to vouch. One day the Duchesse d' Orleans said
to the Comte de Bruges, " The best return I can make
to his Majesty for his bounty is to let him know my
son. Tell him, I pray, to place no confidence in him ;
he is a deliberate villain." The King's reply to this-
warning was, *' / knozv him as well as she does^ >
4iS
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
ruled it. Scarcely was he seated upon
the throne when he gave a taste of his
quality by re-establishing the penalty of
death for sacrilege, by restoring to the
monastic bodies the right of holding in-
commutable property, and by forbidding
the works of the great writers of the
eighteenth century to be reprinted. Then
followed in rapid succession the disband-
ment of the National Guard, the dissolu-
tion of the hostile Chamber, the creation
of seventy-six new peers, the fall of Vil-
l^le, Paris in arms, riots and bloodshed,
the Martignac ministry, disdained from
• the first by the King, revolutionary
speeches upon the address, a few liberal
measures, the suppression of the Jesuit
establishments, and a second dissolution.
It was at this time that the dark shadow
of Polignac began to hover over the
scene, Polignac was Charles the Tenth's
evil genius. The son of the Princess de
Polignac, Marie-Antoinette's friend, he
had been carried out of France while he
was yet a child, had been adopted by the
Comte d'Artois and made one of his aides-
de-camp. He possessed much of the ele-
gance and the delicate beauty of his
mother, but was by nature sombre, mel-
ancholy, and superstitious. A man of
contracted mind, intense stubbornness
.and little foresight.* His religion was
••the fanaticism of a monk, his politics the
;absolutism of a despot. Charles the
'Tenth was to him "not only a father, but
!the shadow of God upon earth ; " and the
-■sovereign power an attribute from heaven
which it was sacrilegious to limit. In
;l8i4 he, almost alone, protested in the
tribune of the peers against the Charter
and the oath to the Constitution. Brought
'up in a foreign land, the French regarded
him as an alien, while the very name he
'bore, so unfavourably connected with
;the pre-revolutionary era, excited the
•strongest dislike and prejudice amongst
the people. Upon his accession to the
ministry both Chateaubriand and Lamar-
tine resigned their appointments, and all
men of liberal views were filled with un-
easiness and dark forebodings.
The storm soon burst. Upon the
meeting of the Chambers in 1830 the
Deputies boldly demurred at the choice
of ministers. Adjournment and then dis-
solution, were the consequences of this
* When told during the days of July that the soldiors
would go over to the people rather than fire upon them,
he replied, " If the troops go over to the people we
must fire upon the troops ; " — a sentence that wonder-
fully illustrates the impracticable blind obstinacy of his
character. ?'
bold act. The elections which followed
were everywhere in favour of the opposi-
tion. Then came the fatal ordinances
issued on the 25th of July. The new
Chamber was dissolved before it assem-
bled, the laws of election dictatorially
modified, and the liberty of the newspa-
per press entirely suspended. This last
was the most fatal act of all, falling as it
did upon a great part of the very e'li'te of
the working classes, printers, composi-
tors, type-founders, whom it cast out of
employment by thousands. Printing-
offices were entered by the police and
the presses broken up. Angry crowds
of the expelled artisans gathered in the
streets, and shouts of " Vive la Charte !''''
were heard everywhere. It was not,
however, until the 27th that any serious
disturbance occurred ; towards the even-
ing of that day the people and the troops
came into collision, and blood was spilt.
On the 28th barricades were thrown up,
desperate fighting ensued, and the Tui-
leries were entered and sacked by the in-
surgents.' A Provisional Government, of
which Lafayette was appointed the head,
as well as commander-in-chief of the Na-
tional Guard, was formed. On the morn-
ing of the 29th a deputation, consisting
of Gerard, Lafitte, Casimir-P^rier, and
others, waited upon the Due de Raguse,
and proffered to restore order on condi-
tion that the ministers were dismissed
and the ordinances repealed. These
propositions were submitted to the King
and refused. A few hours later he ap-
pointed the Due de Mortemart to the
ministry and withdrew the ordinances.
Too late ; the people had triumphed.
Charles the Tenth deserved his fate.
He shamelessly violated the constitu-
tional liberties of his country, and by a
series of insane enactments drove the
masses into rebellion against his au
thority. And yet there was a simple dig
nity, a something of antique grandeu
about this monarch, especially in hi
fallen days. But the Bourbons wer ,
ever greater in misfortune than in pros
perity. He was in all things a man 0
the past ; it was as though the soul c
some old Valois, whose body had Ion
since mouldered beneath the stones c
Saint-Denis, had been reborn. His lov
of the chase, his austere Catholicism,
conscientious belief in the divine right
kings, were all of a past age. Such tas|
and ideas had vanished with feudaliJ
and there were none, except Poligt
who could sympathize with them.
It was with no craven spirit that be
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
419
treated before his enemies. From Tri-
anon he passed to Rambouillet, attended
by twelve thousand faithful troops, who
encamped in the great park. Here a sol-
emn family council was held, which re-
sulted in the King resolving to abdicate
in favour of his grandson. He wrote to
Orleans, in whose fidelity he still im-
plicitly confided, naming him lieutenant-
general of the kingdom and guardian of
the interests of the Due de Bordeaux,
After which he departed on his road to
Cherbouri;:. He stopped at the Chateau
de Maintenon, and there, retaining only
a small escort under Marmont, disbanded
the soldiers, ordering them to repair to
Paris, and place themselves under the di-
rection of Orleans. When he resumed
his journey, the troops were drawn up in
lines on either side the roadway. The
Duchesse de Berri, dressed in male attire,
leading her son by the hand, came first,
then the royal carriage and suite ; a long
mournful shout saluted the cortige as it
passed between the ranks, and the King,
his firmness giving way at last, leaned
back and wept. Until he approached the
coast the behaviour of the people was
silent and respectful. The last act he
performed upon French soil was to take
the royal colours from the hands of his
officers, telling them that his grandson
should one day give them back. Might
not the tradition of those words have had
some influence upon the recent decision
of that grandson ?
From the first year of the Restoration
the Palais Royal had been an asylum for
the discontented, for every open or secret
opponent of the government, and for
every eminent writer who could influence
public opinion ; and whether or not the
Duke took part in any conspiracies, or
whether he persistently set his face
against them, it is an undoubted fact,
that in him was centred the hope of every
plotter against the state. Yet what could
he gain by the subversion of the existing
government ? may be asked. His wealth
was enormous, double, it has been as-
serted, that of Rothschild, and his rank
was second only to royalty. That he
sought to bring about any sudden and
violent change of existing things is im-
probable ; but by diving into the secrets
of discontent and conspiracy, by courting
popularity, by winning partisans, he was
securing himself against all contingencies,
and should the elder branch be expelled
from the throne, he was paving the road
to his own accession. Such is the proba-
ble explanation of his conduct.
budge from
The Comte d'Artois had ever been his
firmest friend. Charles the Tenth loaded
him with wealth and favours, and permit-
ted him to assume the long desired title of
altesse royale. How gratefully he requit-
ed his beneficence the history of France
will show. A short time before the Ordi-
nances of July were issued, the Duke
gave a banquet to the King of Naples.
" It is quite a Neapolitan _/^/^," re-
marked one of the guests to him ; '■'■they
are dancing over a volcafioP
" It may be so, indeed," he replied ;
"but eruption or earthquake will at least
leave me here. I shall not
this palace."
On the 29th, his friend and partisan,
Lafitte the banker, sent word that he was
Y'' to beware of ^aint-Cloiid.^'' That night
i he slept in a kiosk in the park at Neuilly.
j The next morning he hurried away to
j Rauncy in the forest of Bondy, and no
one except Lafitte knew whither he had
gone. No course could have been more
judicious ; he thus avoided personal re-
cognition of any demonstration that might
be made in his favour, while his interests
were in the meantime left in trusty hands
that worked unceasingly for him. If
Charles tided over the difficulty his hon-
our remained unassailable ; if he failed to
do so, why then — so much the better.
On the previous day Thiers and Mignet,
with the cognizance of Lafitte the confidant^
published a proclamation, to the effect
that Charles, having shed the people's
blood, could no longer reign ; that the
Orleans family had been devoted to the
Revolution ; that the Duke had fought
at Valmy and Jdmappes, that he had
7iever taken arms against his country,
that he would be a citizen king. " The
Due d'Orl^ans does not declare himself,"
it went on to say, " he awaits our vole.
Let us proclaim this vote, and he will ac-
cept the Charter as we understand and
mean to have it. He will accept the crown
from the French people."
But doubt and hesitation reigned in the
bosom of his family. Madame Adelaide
feared for his safety, the Duchess spoke
of the splendid bounties that Charles had
heaped upon him. Nevertheless he re-
solved to return to Paris. The Provi-
sional Government immediately named
him, as the King had already done, lieu-
tenant-general of the kingdom. The pop-
ulace gathered round his palace and rent
the air with cries of " Long live the Due
d'Orleans ! " Upon which he remarked,
" I would be rather put to death than ac-
cept the crown ! "
420
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
A very pretty little comedy was now
acted in the Chamber. Lafitte read a
proclamation informing France that she
had a dictator until he should become
king. Upon which, the Duke, pretending
to be overcome, fell sobbing in the bank-
er's arms ! After this display of tender-
ness he was led out upon the balcony to be
received with thundering acclamations.
Then, amidst much shouting, he pro-
ceeded on horseback to the Hotel de
Vilie, followed by Lafitte and by four
wretched-looking ragged men, who sym-
bolized the submission of the poor to the
rich. Arrived there, Lafayette took him
by the hand, presented him to the people,
and embraced him under the tricolor.
Blue fire ! Tableau ! Green curtain ! ! !
He had not yet passed the Rubicon,
however, and it still remained within his
power to decline the crown. Chateau-
briand was sent for, and upon his arrival,
was received by the two ladies, who tried
to sound his disposition. Presently, the
Duke came in, looking very worn and
anxious. Chateaubriand's advice was,
that the Duke should either undertake
the regency during the minority, and at
once proclaim Henry the Fifth, or sum-
mon a new Assembly to decide the ques-
tion. But such advice was not palatable
to Orleans. " Events are stronger than
we," he answered. " I alone have control
over the masses ; the Royalists owe their
very lives to my efforts. If I fall back all
will be anarchy and massacre."
" I read upon his brow," says Chateau-
briand, '• the desire to be king."
A second time the great writer was sent
for, and a second time the ladies endeav-
oured to gain him over to their cause ;
but true to his ancient Legitimist princi-
ples, he still remained firm: "Madam,"
he said to the Duchess, " I see that the
Due d'Orldans is resolved upon the crown ;
that he has weighed its results, and re-
flected upon the years of trouble and
danger before him."
The Duke sent commissioners to Ram-
bouillet, on pretence of watching over
the safety of the King, but upon pre-
senting themselves at the outposts they
were driven away by the sentinels. He
sent them back again, saying, '■'•He tmist
go directly, and to compel him to go he
miistbefrightenedP And yet all this time
Charles was implicitly trusting in him !
Even at the last moment, when the traitor
had made up his mind to accept the crown,
he appointed him guardian of the infant
heir. Had one spark of honour, of gen-
erosity, existed in that wily selfish nature,
that trustfulness would have illumined
it. It has been pleaded that his refusal,
without bettering the position of royalty,
would have plunged France into anarchy,
and would have brought down upon his
own head forfeiture and exile. The
course honourable to his benefactor and
just to the nation would have been to have
undertaken the direction of affairs until
the revolutionary ebullition had subsided,
and then to have summoned a National
Assembly to decide the future form of
government. But even had the unani-
mous voice of France called upon him to
mount the throne, gratitude, honour, and
honesty should have vetoed the request.
He was troubled, however, by no such
scruples, and on the 7th of August was
proclaimed King of the French.
For a time after " the glorious days of
July," Lafayette was the honoured guest
at the Palais Royal. The ungainly fig-
ures of the National Guards in their
coarse uniform mingled there with the
splendid costumes of ambassadors, cour-
tiers, generals ; and the "citizen king,"
as he shuffled through the streets of Paris,
umbrella under arm, 'would go out of his
way to shake the hand of a citizen soldier.
But these were all shams, cheap offerings
to the French idol — Equality, masks to
conceal the pettiness and despotism of
his government. There was not an affair
of state, however small, into which he did
not thrust his personality. He nullified
the powers of every minister by constant
interference, by tampering with subordi-
nates, and by withholding from him a full
knowledge of the affairs of his department.
One principle guided his every action :
the aggrandizement of the race of Orle-
ans ; national honour, the welfare of the
people, were as nothing when weighed
against the interests of his family. L'Etat
pour moi was his motto. With all his
peace proclivities and truckling to for-
eign powers, he very nearly involved
France in a war over the Spanish mar-
riage ; and that was a family affair. He
never forgave any personal wrong or in-
sult he had received. Dupont de I'Eure,
when he was minister of justice, nominated
a certain gentleman, in every way worthy
of the post, to a judgeship. The King ap-
pearing very unwilling to ratify the ap-
pointment, the minister, after some con-
siderable delay, pressed his Majesty to
explain the cause of his demur. " He
took a brief against me in an action of
law," he answered. The anecdote speaksj
volumes of the utter meanness of the'
man's mind.
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
421
I have not space to enter into the
events of his reign. They may be gener-
alized in a few sentences : changes of
ministry, so frequent that they can be
compared only to the shuffling of a pack
of cards ; abortive royalist demonstra-
tions, socialist riots, attempted assassina-
tions, infamous corruption and jobbery ;
a wily, truculent diplomacy ; a perpetual
struggle for personal government as op-
posed to constitutional ; a desperate fight
of eighteen years' duration against the ad-
vance of democratic and popular opinion.
The Chamber of Deputies, like the rest,
was a sham representation of the people,
and was filled with the creatures of his
will. The electoral law, which allowed a
vote only to those who paid two hundred
francs of taxes, utterly excluded the great
mass of the people. The reduction of
this qualification to one hundred francs
was the object of that agitation which
culminated in Reform banquets and the
Revolution. Yet it is very doubtful
whether, had Louis Philippe yielded to
this agitation, he would have saved his
crown.
The Revolution of '89 was practical ;
the result of the natural impulse of an op-
pressed people. The revolution of '48
was speculative, and was the result of
artificial theories, which aimed at the ut-
ter regeneration of society and its estab-
lishment upon new bases ; the first was
bourgeois in its character, its great object
was the destruction of the aristocrats.
The masses danced the Carmagnole, sang
Ca ira and the Marseillaise, and murdered
to their heart's content. The liberty to
do these things, plenty of food and drink,
and the power of dragging down society
to their own level, were the limits of their
ambition. The revolution of '48 was di-
rected against the plutocracy ; it was es-
sentially the revolution of the people —
of the working classes ; the fight of la-
bour against capital.
Since Charles the Tenth had been ex-
pelled from the tlirone. Republican and
Socialist ideas had made vast strides
among the masses. Beyond the old Lib-
erty, Equality, Fraternity, Guillotine
party, formed out of the traditions of the
"nineties," the violence and ferocity of
whose aspirations were scarcely conso-
nant with the more moderate spirit of the
age, there was another, more subtle, more
fanatic, more dangerous from its appar-
ent opposition to violence, than the fum-
ing Terrorist ; this party was formed of
the disciples of Socialism. Although all
aimed at the one great object — there-
distribution and equalization of wealth —
the Socialists were divided into various
sects, each of whom had a different
theory for the accomplishment of this ob-
ject. The more intellectual were disci-
ples of Saint-Simon or Fourier.* But it
was Louis Blanc's principles of the or-
ganization of labour which found most
favour among the working classes and
the largest following.f Beyond these
were the Communists and other fanatic
sects, all of whom hoped to obtain the
triumph of some particular creed by a
general upheaval of society.
Such were the men into whose hands
electorial reform would have cast politi-
cal power. A society so interpenetrated
with subversive doctrines existed upon a
volcano ; those turbulent elements must
at some time find vent, must exhaust
their fury, and only in exhaustion could
subside. The revolution of '48 was as
inevitable, as impossible to be averted,
as was that of '89. There are periods of
mental as there are periods of physical
epidemics, with which our present knowl-
edge of sociology and physiology are
powerless to cope. But apart from these
visionaries, the nation at large was sick-
ened with the rule of this citizen king ;
its pride was humiliated by his obsequi-
ousness to foreign powers, by his petti-
ness, his trading bourgeois spirit, by his
selfish personality. Acts of bold and law-
less tyranny had aroused the just anger
of the people against the rule of Charles
the Tenth ; but the government of Louis
* Fourierisra would divide mankind into associations
or phalansteries, each to consist of four hundred families.
These would live in one great edifice in which would be
contained workshops, studios, and every convenience
for industry, pleasure, and art. The property of the
Phalansteries would be divided into twelve parts, of
which five would belong to labour, four to capital, and
three to talent. Under its organization all waste land
would be reclaimed and put under cultivationj and the
comforts and enjoyments of the human race increased
to a degree that even millionaires never dreamed of.
But underlying these practical ideas are certain meta-
physical subtleties. Fourier held that attraction and
repulsion, which are the forces of the physical, also
rule the mental world ; that attractions are propor-
tional to destinies, and that the desires, aptitudes, and
v. mations of men, if they had free scope, would in-
fallibly produce individual happiness. Experiments in
Fourierism have been made both in France and Amer-
ica, but on a scale too limited for a fair trial.
t These would destroy all competition, and fix the
wages of the workman and the profits of the capitalist
to an arbitrary scale decreed by law. Individualism
would be merged in solidarity : each would receive ac-
cording to his needs, and contribute according to his
abilities.
A system more opposed to every principle of political
economy, or more utterly destructive of all wealth and
trade, could not be conceived. Fourierism is an ex-
alted and philosophical attempt to solve the great
problem of society — of the human race. "The or-
ganization of labour" would destroy all incentive to
exertion by robbing men of the fruits of their labours.
422
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
Philippe was an intolerable incubus — it
was an " Old Man of the Sea," that
huo^ged it to suffocation.
Towards the end of 1847 the Opposition
party, under the guise of banquets, ar-
ranged a general plan of reform agitation
throughout France. Odilon-Barrot, Le-
dru-Rollin, and Flocon, the editor of La
Reforme^ were the moving powers of
these demonstrations. Trusting to the
corrupt and slavish majority of the Cham-
ber, to the fidelity of the army, and to
the bourgeois dread of revolution, the
government regarded these manifesta-
tions for a time with contemptuous in-
difference. But when the twelfth arron-
dissement of Paris invited the unarmed
National Guards to attend a banquet
fixed to take place on the 20th of Febru-
ary (1848), they began to grow alarmed,
and declared from the tribune that they
would put it down, even by force, if
necessary. The more moderate agitators,
not wishing to drive matters to extrem-
ity, withdrew their support, and the af-
fair was abandoned.
But in the meantime the government
have taken the precaution to assemble
some fifty-five thousand troops within the
capital. On the 20th the youths of the
schools parade in procession singing the
Marseillaise ; the people join in the cho-
rus and crowd into the streets ; by dawn
next morning every road leading to Paris
is covered with troops. Barricades are
raised, but as yet no acts of violence
have been committed. On the morning
of the 24th affairs assume a more serious
aspect. The National Guards are called
out ; they obey reluctantly, preserve neu-
trality, but join in the cry for reform and
the dismissal of the ministry. In a few
hours they will go over to the insurgents.
Amidst the narrow tortuous streets which
then occupied the centre of Paris, a strong
compact body of republicans is gathered.
Marrast, the editor of the National^ ha-
rangues a crowd of workmen from the
office window. Along the Boulevard de
la Bastille march a straggling mob of
ragged, hungry-looking men, women, and
children, carrying tattered flags, bearing
threatening mottoes ; their leader is a
fierce fanatic named Lagrange. Peaceful
men grow pale at the sight of these tat-
terdemalions ; they bring back memories
of the days of " La TerreurP An acci-
dent commences the emeute.
In front of the Hotel of Foreign Af-
fairs is drawn up a battalion of the line,
with loaded firearms. Towards this spot
advances a body of workmen armed with
pikes and sabres, carrying torches and
bearing the red flag. It halts, facing the
troops ; the flash and smoke of the torch-
es and the waving of the flag frighten
the horse of the commander, causing it
to plunge back amongst the troops. At
that moment the report of a musket is
heard — by whom fired is not known —
never will be known. The soldiers, be-
lieving themselves attacked, on the spur
of the moment, without orders, fire a voi-
le}'. A dreadful scene ensues : women
and children are trampled under foot by
the flying mob, the groans and curses of
the wounded and the dying fill the air.
Although dismayed for a moment the in-
surgents speedily return, gather up their
dead and wounded, and place them in
large waggons, which are drawn slowly
through the streets in a torchlight pro-
cession, the blood-stained corpses being
all the time held up to the gaze of the in-
furiated people.
And so the night passes. By morning
the whole of Paris is in arms, prepared
for extreme measures, and the Palais
Royal is sacked and fired. Were the
troops permitted to act with resolution
the insurrection must be suppressed, but
the King has issued orders that they shall
cease firing and offer only a passive re-
sistance. Here we have a repetition of
the same fatal weakness and timidity
which lost Louis the Sixteenth his crown
on the loth of August. The mob fire
upon the sentries and the municipal
guards, and they dare not return it. Of-
ficers and soldiers beg to be permitted to
avenge their comrades, who lie dead and
wounded around them ; but the com-
manders, fettered by imperative instruc-
tions, dare not give the order, and the
slaughter goes on. In other parts of the
city the soldiers, weary of days of inac-
tion, fraternize with the people and go
over to them in large numbers.
At the Tuileries all is confusion ; in a
few hours three administrations have
melted away — Guizot, Mold, and Thiers ;
and the King has no ministry. " Go,"
cries the courageous Queen, " show your-
self to the disheartened troops and to
the wavering National Guard, while I
and my children and my grandchildren
will place ourselves upon the balcony
and see you die in a manner worthy of
yourself and your throne." He does pre-
sent himself to the soldiery ; but he is
received with sullen looks, with cries of
" Vive la Refornie /^^ and a few murmurs
of " Vive le Roi /'' A little later, and he
is told that but one course remains open
J
LOUIS PHILIPPE.
423
to him — to abdicate. The Due de Mont-
pensier urges him to consent ; the pen is
placed in his hand, and he writes : ^'' I ab-
dicate in favour of my grandson^ the
Comte de Paris. May he be more fortu-
nate than I ! '"^ Wishing the regency to
pass into the hands of the Due de Ne-
mours, he makes no mention of his
daughter-in-law — a young, beautiful, and
irreproachable lady, whom he has kept in
retirement lest she might too much at-
tract the sympathy and attention of the
people.
A messenger is sent to bring up the
royal carriages : they have been burnt by
the mob upon the Place de Carrousel,
and one of the grooms has been killed.
No time is to be lost. The King and
Queen, attended by a few faithful officers
and servants, leave the palace by a sub-
terraneous passage leading from their
apartments to the gardens, which they
hurry across on foot, as Louis the Six-
teenth and his queen did when they fled
to the National Assembly on the fatal
loth of August. Two fiacres are engaged
off a public stand, into one of which the
Queen is lifted fainting, and they drive
away. When they reach the Champs
Elysdes some insurgents fire upon them,
and two horses of the escort are killed,
but they reach Saint-Cloud in safety.
The Duchesse d'Orldans, under the
protection of Nemours, hurries away to
the Chamber of Deputies, where they are
debating upon the future form of govern-
ment. Attired in deep mourning, and
holding her two children by the hands,
she seats herself motionless at the foot of
the tribune. Scarcely has the debate
commenced when one of the doors is
burst open, and a mob of insurgents enter
the Chamber. Some of the deputies sur-
round the royal group, and the debate
proceeds. It is going in favour of the
Duchess when a second wave of insur-
gents, armed with crowbars, sabres, bay-
onets, and headed by Lagrange, rushes
in, shouting, " No more royalty ! No
more kings ! " Mounting upon the
throne, the canopy and hangings of
which his followers tear down and de-
molish, he proclaims the abolition of
royalty. M. Ledru-Rollin, that bombas-
tic mimic of Danton, springs into the
tribune, protests " in the name of the
people " against the regency, and de-
mands the establishment of a Provisional
Government ; after which there is a cry
raised for Lamartine to speak. He obeys,
but ere he has finished his oration a third
irruption of yet more furious revolution-
ists, maddened with excitement, black-
ened with powder, and smeared with
blood, brandishing their arms and shout-
ing '-'' Vive la Republique ! '''' again inter-
rupts the debate. The Duchess and her
children are screened behind a wall of
Deputies, one or two of whom now lead
them away by a side door ; but they are
met by a fourth invading party, who,
however, in their hurry, do not recognize
them. It is with difficulty that she es-
capes being trampled under foot, suffo-
cated by the dense throng. Half swoon-
ing, she is dashed against a glass door.
Upon recovering consciousness she finds
to her horror that her children are no
longer with her. The Comte de Paris
has been seized by a brutal fellow, whose
fingers are already twined about the
child's throat when he is rescued by a
National Guard. The Due de Chartres
is found beneath the feet of the multi-
tude, and both after a time are borne
safely to their mother's arms.
In the meanwhile the King has left
Paris and Versailles behind, and never
rests until he reaches the royal palace at
Dreux. Here he sleeps one night ; but
although there is no pursuit, although he
is nowhere encountered by hostility, and
receives much respect, in a very panic of
terror the royal party separates, and in
various disguises the members pursue
their flight. On the 26th of February
they meet by appointment at Cap d'Hon-
fleur, where for nine days they lie con-
cealed in the house of a private gentle-
man, while friends are endeavouring to
secure them a passage to England.
Thence the King proceeds on foot during
the darkness of the night to Trouville ;
and after much delay and several adven-
tures, he gets away, under the name of
Theodore Lebrun, in the Havre steamer,
and is safely landed at Newhaven.
Nothing more despicable, more cow-
ardly, than this dastardly flight of Louis
Philippe from imaginary pursuers — for
there was not a member of the Provision-
al Government who desired his capture
— who would not have assisted his es-
cape— can be imagined. It almost in-
clines one to give credence to the scan-
dals of inimical chroniclers — to believe
that no drop of Bourbon blood flowed in
his veins, and even to doubt the stories
of his bravery at Jdmappea and Valmy.
Once a brave man always a brave man.
Upon their arrival in England Clare-
mont was assigned them as a residence ;
and here, except a short sojourn at St.
Leonards, the exiled King passed the
424
A ROSE IN JUNE.
brief remainder of his days in that domes-
tic circle in which he alone can claim
our respect. The life led by the royal
family was that of the simplest country
gentry. The King took the head of the
table at dinner and carved the principal
joint, surrounded by his children and
grandchildren, even to the youngest. In
the evening the young ones played about
him as he sat in his easy chair, and when
they had retired to rest he read his news-
paper or conversed with his sons, while
the Qjeen and Princesses engaged them-
selves in needlework or sometimes in a
game at whist.
He died on the 26th of August, 1850.
Of all his vast wealth he brought scarce-
ly sufficient out of France to provide him
comforts in his exile. His passion for
building, which amounted to a mania, ab-
sorbed immense sums. At his own cost
he restored the Palace and Museum of
Versailles ; he also completed all the
buildings which Napoleon had com-
menced.
His virtues were purely domestic. He
was a model husband ; and his filial
affection was the cause of some of the
most considerable errors of his reign.
As a man and a king little can be said in
his favour. It is unnecessary to recapit-
ulate what has been already deduced from
the events of his early life. He possessed
no impulse, no enthusiasm ; he always
acted upon the expediency of the present
moment, was always content to assume
any garb that necessity imposed upon
him. His whole nature was steeped in
hypocrisy and dissimulation. The ardent
Jacobin, wlio despised all titles save those
won by merit, knew no happiness under
the Restoration until the title of altesse
royale was permitted to him ; the un-
flinching republican, who countenanced
the execution of a king, never ceased to
regret the loss of the Jleur de lis upon his
canopy of state and of the ribbon of the
Holy Ghost,* and was as greedy of per-
sonal power as Louis the Fourteenth.
He was above all things the great master
of kingcraft, and a diplomatist as wily and
as clever as Mazarin or Talleyrand. But
great principles and great truths were
alike indifferent to him. His one politi-
cal virtue was clemency ; he was averse
to bloodshed, and in a reign unparalleled
■for plots and attempted assassinations but
few were put to death for political crimes.
Of high and noble sympathies he had
* Removed after the abortive attempt of the Duchesse
•de Berri.
' literally nothing ; heroism and gratitude
had no existence for him. In all things
i his mind was essentially little and vulgar,
i His industry was indefatigable, but it was
' ever engaged upon petty details. He
\ prided himself upon duplicity and un-
truthfulness, upon deceiving his minis-
ters, upon over-reaching all with whom
he had dealings. His memory was pro-
digious, his knowledge of men and things
extensive, his garrulity irrepressible ; but
he seldom evinced esprit^ or true delicacy
of taste. He was obsequious and fawn-
ing to the lowest person who could serve
his purposes ; he was avaricious of
wealth ; he was destitute of dignity and
incapable of inspiring the respect due to
his high position. His cunning Israelit-
ish face, his shabby clothes, his Gampish
umbrella, were suggestive of nothing so
much as of an old Jew clothesman, and
such in spirit as in aspect did he closely
resemble. And yet Louis Blanc — by no
means a favourable critic — tells us that
he was a man gifted with an incomparable
seduction of manner, that in the relations
of private life he charmed his ministers
by a freedom, a familiarity of conversa-
tion, and a gracious forgetfulness of the
rights of his royal state. But this, after
all, was but the cajolery of a diplomatist.
To conclude, in the words of a writer
in the Titnes, " He rose without moral
greatness, he reigned without the affec-
tion of his people, and he fell without the
compassion of the world."
From The Cornhill Magazine.
A ROSE IN JUNE.
CHAPTER XIV.
{continued.)
Meanwhile Rose went on to the sta-
tion, like a creature in a dream, feeling the
very trees, the very birds watch her, and
wondering that no faces peeped at her
from the curtained cottage windows.
How strange to think that all the people
were asleep, while she walked along
through the dreamy world, her footsteps
filling it with strange echoes! How fast
and soundly it slept, that world, though
all the things out-of-doors were in full
movement, interchanging their opinions,
and taking council upon all their affairs !
She had never been out, and had not very
often been awake, at such an early hour,
and the stillness from all human sounds
and voices, combined with the wonderful
I
A ROSE IN JUNE.
425
fulness of the language of Nature, gave
her a strange bewildered feeling, like that
a traveller might have in some strange
star or planet peopled with beings differ-
ent from man. It seemed as if all the
human inhabitants had resigned, and
given up their places to another species.
The fresh air which blew in her face, and
the cheerful stir of the birds, recovered
her a little from the fright with which she
felt herself alone in that changed universe
— and the sight of the first wayfarer mak-
ing his way, like herself, towards the sta-
tion, gave her a thrill of pain, reminding
her that she was neither walking in a
dream nor in another planet, but on the
old-fashioned earth, dominated by men,
and where she shrank from being seen or
recognized. She put her veil down over
her face as she stole in, once more feel-
ing like a thief, at the wooden gate. Two
or three people only, all of the working
class, were kicking their heels on the
little platform. Rose took her ticket with
much trepidation, and stole into the
quietest corner to await the arrival of the
train. It came up at last with a great
commotion, the one porter rushing to
open the door of a carriage, out of which
Rose perceived quickly a gentleman
jumped, giving directions about some
lusfsase. An arrival was a very rare
event at so early an hour in the morning.
Rose went forward timidly with her veil
over her face to creep into the carriage
which this traveller had vacated, and
which seemed the only empty one. She
had not looked at him, nor had she any
curiosity about him. The porter, busy
with the luggage, paid no attention to her,
for which she was thankful, and she
thought she was getting away quite unob-
served, which gave her a little comfort.
She had her foot on the step; and her hand
on the carriage door, to get in.
" Miss Damerel ! " cried an astonished
voice close by her ear.
Rose's foot failed on the step. She
almost fell with the start she gave.
Whose voice was it ? a voice she knew —
a voice somehow that went to her heart ;
but in the first shock she did not ask her-
self any questions about it, but felt only
the distress and terror of being recog-
nized. Then she decided that it was her
best policy to steal into the carriage to
escape questions. She did so, trembling
with fright ; but as she sat down in the
corner, turned her face unwittingly
towards the person, whoever it was, who
had recognized her. He had left his lug-
gage, and was gazing at her with his hand
on the door. His face, all flushed with
delight, gleamed upon her like sudden
sunshine. " Aliss Damerel ! " he cried
again, " you here at this hour ? "
" Oh, hush ! hush ! " she cried, putting
up her hand with instinctive warning. " I
— don't want to be seen."
I am not sure that she knew him at the
first glance. Poor child, her heart was
too deeply pre-occupied to do more than
flutter feebly at the sight of him, and no
secondary thought as to how he had come
here, or what unlooked-for circumstance
had brought him back, was within the
range of her intelligence. Edward Wode-
house made no more than a momentary
pause ere he decided what to do. He
slipped a coin into the porter's ready hand,
and gave him directions about his lug-
gage. " Keep it safe till I return ; don't
send it home. I am obliged to go to town
for an hour or two," he said, and sprang
again into the carriage he had just left.
His heart was beating with no feeble flut-
ter. He had the promptitude of a man
who knows that no opportunity ought to
be neglected. The door closed upon
them with that familiar bang which we all
know so well ; the engine shrieked, the
wheels jarred, and Rose Damerel and
Edward VVodehouse — two people whom
even the Imperial Government of England
had been moved to separate — moved
away into the distance, as if they had
eloped with each other, sitting face to
face.
Her heart fluttered feebly enough — his
heart as strong as the pulsations of the
steam-engine, and he thought almost as
audible ; but the first moment was one
of embarrassment. " I cannot get over
the wonder of this meeting," he said.
" Miss Damerel, what happy chance
takes you to London this morning of all
others ? Some fairy must have done it
for me .? "
" No happy chance at all," said Rose,
shivering with painful emotion, and draw-
ing her shawl closer round her. What
could she say to him.? — but she began
to realize that it was /u'm, which was the
strangest bewildering sensation. As for
him, knowing of no mystery and no mis-
ery, the tender sympathy in his face grew
deeper and deeper. Could it be poverty ?
could she be going to work like any other
poor girl ? A great throb of love and
pity went through the young man's heart.
" Don't be angry with me," he said ;
"but I cannot see you here, alone and
looking sad — and take no interest. Can
you tell me what it is ? Can you make
426
A ROSE IN JUNE.
any use of me ? Miss Damerel, don't
you know there is nothing in the world
that would make me so happy as to be of
service to you ? "
" Have you just come home ? " she
asked.
"This morning ; I was on my way from
Portsmouth. And you — won't you tell
me something about yourself ?"
Rose made a tremendous effort to go
back to the ordinary regions of talk ; and
then she recollectedf all that had happened
since he had been away. "You know
that papa died," she said, the tears spring-
ing to her eyes with an effort of nature
which relieved her brain and heart.
" I heard that : I was very, very sorry."
" And then for a time we were very
poor ; but now we are well off again by
the death of mamma's uncle Edward ;
that is all, I think," she said, with an at-
tempt at a smile.
Then there was a pause. How was he
to subject her to a cross-examination ?
and yet Edward felt that, unless some-
thing had gone very wrong, the girl would
not have been here.
" You are going to town ? " he said.
" It is very early for you ; and alone ? "
" I do not mind," said Rose ; and then
she added quickly, " When you go back,
will you please not say you have seen me ?
I don't want any one to know."
" Miss Damerel, something has hap-
pened to make you unhappy.'"'
" Yes," she said, "but never mind. It
does not matter much to any one but me.
Your mother is very well. Did she know
that you were coming home ? "
" No, it is quite sudden. I am pro-
moted by the help of some kind unknown
friend or another, and they could not re-
fuse me a few days leave "
" Mrs. Wodehouse will be very glad,"
said Rose. She seemed to rouse out of
her preoccupation to speak to him, and
then fell back. The young sailor was at
his wits' end. What a strange coming
home it was to him ! He had dreamt of
his first meeting with Rose in a hundred
different ways, and rehearsed it, and all
that he would say to her ; but such a
wonderful meeting as this had never oc-
curred to him ; and to have her entirely
to himself, yet not to know what to say !
" There must be changes since I left.
It will soon be a year ago," he said in
sheer despair.
" I do not remember any changes,"
said Rose, " except the rectory. We are
in the White House now.
has happened that I know — yet
Nothing else
This little word made his blood run
cold — yef. Did it mean that something
was about to happen ? He tried to over-
come that impression by a return to the
ground he was sure of. " May I speak
of last year ? " he said. "I went away
very wretched — as wretched as any man
could be."
Rose was too far gone to think of the
precautions with which such a conversa-
tion ought to be conducted. She knew
what he meant, and why should she pre-
tend she did not ? Not that this reflec-
tion passed through her mind, which
acted totally upon impulse, without any
reflection at all.
" It was not my fault," she said, simply,
" I was alone with papa, and he would
not let me go."
" Ah ! " he said, his eyes lighting up ;
"you did not think me presumptuous,
then ? you did not mean to crush me ?
Oh ! if you knew how I have thought of
it, and questioned myself ! It has never
been out of my mind for a day — for an
hour "
She put up her hand hastily. " I may
be doing wrong," she said, " but it would
be more wrong still to let you speak.
They would think it was for this I came
away."
" What is it ? what is it ? " he said ;
"something has happened. Why may
not I tell you, when I have at last this
blessed opportunity.'' Why is it wrong
to let me speak ? "
" They will think it was for this I came
away," said Rose. " Oh ! Mr. Wode-
house, you should not have come with
me. They will say I knew you were to
be here. Even mamma, perhaps, will
think so, for she does not think well of
me, as papa used to do. She thinks I
am selfish, and care only for my own
pleasure," said Rose with tears.
" You have come away without her
knowledge ? "
" Yes."
" Then you are escaping from some
one ? " said Wodehouse, his face flushing
over.
" Yes ! yes."
" Miss Damerel, come back with me.
Nobody, I am sure, will force you to do
anything. Your mother is too good to
be unkind. Will you come back with
me? Ah, you must not — you must
not throw yourself upon the world ; you
do not know what it is," said the young:
sailor, taking her hand, in his earnest-
ness. " Rose — dear Rose — let me take i
you back."
A ROSE IN JUNE.
427
She drew her hand away from him, and
dried the hot tears which scorched her
eyes. " No, no," she said. " You do not
know, and I want nobody to know. You
will not tell your mother, nor any one.
Let me go, and let no one think of me
any more."
" As if that were possible ! " he cried.
"Oh, yes, it is possible. I loved papa
dearly; but I seldom think of him now.
If I could die you would all forget me in
a year. To be sure I cannot die ; and
even if I did, people might say that was
selfish too. Yes, you don't know what
things mamma says. I have heard her
speak as if it were selfish to die, — es-
caping fror* one's duties ; and I am
escaping from my duties ; but it can
never, never be a duty to marry when
you cannot What am I saying?"
said poor Rose. " My head is quite
light, and I think I must be going crazy.
You must not mind what I say."
CHAPTER XV.
Edward Wodehouse reached Dingle-
field about eleven o'clock, coming back
from that strange visit to town. He felt
it necessary to go to the White House
before even he went to his mother, but
he was so cowardly as to go round a long
way so as to avoid crossing the Green, or
exhibiting himself to public gaze. He
felt that his mother would never forgive
him did she know that he had gone any-
where else before going to her, and, in-
deed, I think Mrs. Wodehouse's feeling
was very natural. He put his hat well
over his eyes, but he did not, as may be
supposed, escape recognition — and went
on with a conviction that the news of his
arrival would reach his mother before he
did, and that he would have something
far from delightful to meet with when he
went home.
As for Mrs. Damerel, when she woke
up in the morning to the fact that Rose
was gone, her first feelings, I think, were
more those of anger than of alarm. She
was not afraid that her daughter had com-
mitted suicide, or run away permanently ;
for she was very reasonable, and her
mind fixed upon the probabilities of a
situation rather than on the violent catas-
trophes which might be possible. It was
Agatha who first brought her the news
open-mouthed, and shouting the informa-
tion, " Oh mamma, come here, come
here, Rose has run away ! " so that every
one in the house could hear.
" Nonsense, child ! she has gone — to
do something for me," said the mother
1 on the spur of the moment, prompt to
save exposure even at the instant when
she received the shock.
" But, mamma," cried Agatha, " her bed
has not been slept in, her things are
gone — her "
Here Mrs. Damerel put her hand over
the girl's mouth, and with a look she
never forgot, went with her into the
empty nest, from which the bird had
flown. All Mrs. Damerel's wits rallied to
her on the moment to save the scandal
which was inevitable if this were known.
"Shut the door," she said, in a low
quiet voice. " Rose is very foolish : be-
cause she thinks she has quarrelled with
me, to make such a show of her unduti-
fulness ! She has gone up to town by
the early train."
" Then you knew ! " cried Agatha, with
eyes as wide open as just now her mouth
had been.
" Do you think it likely she would go
without my knowing ? " said her mother ;
an unanswerable question, for which
Agatha, though her reason discovered the
imposture, could find fto ready response.
She looked on with wonder while her
mother, with her own hands, tossed the
coverings off the little white bed, and
gave it the air of having been slept in.
It was Agatha's first lesson in the art of
making things appear as they are not.
" Rose has been foolish ; but I don't
choose that Mary Jane should make a
talk about it, and tell everybody that she
did not go to bed last night like a Chris-
tian— and do you hold your tongue,"
said Mrs. Damerel.
Agatha followed her mother's direc-
tions with awe, and was subdued all
day by a sense of the mystery ; for why,
if mamma knew all about it, and it was
quite an ordinary proceeding, should Rose
have gone to town by the early train ?
Mrs. Damerel, however, had no easy
task to get calmly through the breakfast,
and arrange her household matters for
the day, with this question perpetually
recurring to her, with sharp thrills and
shoots of pain — Where was Rose ? She
had been angry at first, deeply annoyed
and vexed, but now other feelings struck
in. An anxiety, which did not suggest
any definite danger, but was dully and
persistently present in her mind, like
something hanging over her, took posses-
sion of her whole being. Where had she
gone ? What could she be doing at that
moment ? What steps could her mother
take to find out, without exposing her
foolishness to public gaze .'' How should
428
A ROSE IN JUNE.
she satisfy Mr. Incledon ? how conceal
this strange disappearance from her
neighbours. They all took, what people
are pleased to call " a deep interest " in
Rose, and, indeed, in all the late Rector's
family ; and Mrs. Damerel knew the
world well enough to be aware that the
things which one wishes to be kept se-
cret, are just those which everybody man-
ages to hear. She forgot even to be an-
gry with Rose in the deep necessity of
concealing the extraordinary step she had
taken ; a step enough to lay a young girl
under an enduring stigma all her life ; and
what could she do to find her without be-
traying her 1 She could not even make
an inquiry without risking this betrayal.
She could not ask a passenger on the
road, or a porter at the station, if they
had seen her, lest she should thereby make
it known that Rose's departure had been
clandestine. All through the early morn-
ing, while she was busy with the children
and the affairs of the house, this problem
was working in her mind. Of all things
this was the most important, not to com-
promise Rose, or 'to let any one know
what a cruel and unkind step she had
taken. Mrs. Damerel knew well how
such a stigma clings to a girl, and how
ready the world is to impute other mo-
tives than the real one. Perhaps she had
been hard upon her child, and pressed a
hateful sacrifice upon her unduly, but now
Rose's credit was the first thing she
thought of. She would not even attempt
to get relief to her own anxiety at the
cost of any animadversion upon Rose ;
or suffer anybody to suspect her daugh-
ter in order to ease herself. This neces-
sity made her position doubly difficult
and painful, for, without compromising
Rose, she did not know how to inquire
into her disappearance or what to do ;
and, as the moments passed over with
this perpetual undercurrent going on in
her mind, the sense of painful anxiety
grew stronger and stronger. Where
could she have gone ? She had left no
note, no letter behind her, as runaways
are generally supposed to do. She had,
her mother knew, only a few shillings in
her purse ; she had no relations at hand
with whom she could find refuge. Where
had she gone } Every minute this ques-
tion pressed more heavily upon her, and
sounded louder and louder. Could she
go on shutting it up in her mind, taking
council of no one ? Mrs. Damerel felt
this to be impossible, and after breakfast
sent a telegram to Mr. Nolan, begging
him to come to her " on urgent business."
She felt sure that Rose had confided
some of her troubles at least to him ;
and he was a friend upon whose help and
secrecy she could fully rely.
Her mind was in this state of intense
inward perturbation and outward calm,
when, standing at her bedroom window,
which commanded the road and a corner
of the Green, upon which the road
opened, she saw Edward Wodehouse
coming towards the house. I suppose
there was never any one yet in great anx-
iety and suspense, who did not go to the
window with some sort of forlorn hope
of seeing something to relieve them.
She recognized the young man at once,
though she did not know of Jiis arrival, or
even that he was looked for ; and the
moment she saw him instantly gave him
a place — though she could not tell what
place — in. the maze of her thoughts.
Her heart leaped up at sight of him,
though he might be but walking past, he
might be but coming to pay an ordinary
call on his return, for anything she knew.
Instinctively, her heart associated him
with her child. She watched him come
in through the little shrubbery, scarcely
knowing where she stood, so intense was
her suspense ; then went down to meet
him, looking calm and cold, as if no anx-
iety had ever clouded her firmament.
" How do you do, Mr. Wodehouse ; I
did not know you had come back," she
said, with perfect composure, as if he had
been the most every-day acquaintance,
and she had parted from him last night.
He looked at her with a countenance
much paler and more agitated than her
own, and, with that uneasy air of depre-
cation natural to a man who has a con-
fession to make. " No one did ; or,
indeed, does," he said, " not even my
mother. I got my promotion quite sud-
denly, and insisted upon a few days' leave
to see my friends before I joined my
ship."
" I congratulate you," said Mrs. Dam-
erel, putting heroic force upon herself.
" I suppose, then, I should have said
Captain Wodehouse ? How pleased 3'our
mother will be ! "
" Yes," he said, abstractedly. " I
should not, as you may suppose, have
taken the liberty to come here so early
merely to tell you a piece of news con-
cerning myself. I came up from Ports-
mouth during the night, and when the
train stopped at this station — by accident
— Miss Damerel got into the same car-
riage in which I was. She charged me
with this note to give to you."
A ROSE IN JUNE.
429
There was a sensation in Mrs. Dam-
erel's ears as if some sluice had given way
in the secrecy of her heart, and the blood
was surging and swelling upwards. But
she managed to smile a ghastly smile at
him, and to take the note without further
display of her feelings. It was a little
twisted note written in pencil, which
Wodehouse, indeed, had with much
trouble, persuaded Rose to write. Her
mother opened it with fingers trembling
so much that the undoing of the scrap of
paper was a positive labour to her. She
dropped softly into a chair, however, with
a great and instantaneous sense of relief,
the moment she had read these few pen-
cilled words : —
" Mamma, I have gone to Miss Mar-
getts. I am very wretched, and don't
know what to do. I could not stay at
home any longer. Do not be angry. I
think my heart will break."
Mrs. Damerel did not notice these pa-
thetic words. She saw " Miss Margetts,"
and that was enough for her. Her blood
resumed its usual current, her heart be-
gan to beat less violently. She felt, as
she leant back in her chair, exhausted
and weak with the agitation of the morn-
ing ; weak as one only feels when the
immediate pressure is over. Miss Mar-
getts was the schoolmistress with whom
Rose had received her education. No
harm to Rose, nor her reputation, could
come did all the world know that she was
there. She was so much and instanta-
neously relieved, that her watchfulness
over herself intermitted, and she did not
speak for a minute or two. She roused
herself up with a little start when she
caught Wodehouse's eye gravely fixed
upon her.
" Thanks," she said ; " I am very glad
to 'have this little note, telling me of
Rose's safe arrival with her friends in
London. It was very good of you to bring
it. I do not know what put it into the
child's head to go by that early train."
" Whatever it was, it was very fortunate
for me," said Edward. " As we had met
by such a strange chance, I took the lib-
erty of seeing her safe to Miss Margetts'
house."
" You are very good," said Mrs. Dam-
erel ; " I am much obliged to you ; " and
then the two were silent for a moment,
eyeing each other like wrestlers before
they close.
*' Mrs. Damerel," said young Wode-
house, faltering, and, brave sailor as he
was, feeling more frightened than he could
have said, " there is something more
ga^ed
which I ought to tell you. Meeting her
so suddenly, and remembering how I had
been balked in seeing her before I left
Dinglefield, I was overcome by my feel-
ings, and ventured to tell Miss Dam-
erel "
" Mr. Wodehouse, my daughter is en-
to be married ! " cried Mrs. Dam-
erel, with sharp and sudden alarm.
"But not altogether — with her own
will," he said.
" You must be mistaken," said the
mother, with a gasp for breath. " Rose is
foolish, and changes with every wind that
blows. She cannot have intended to
leave any such impression on your mind.
It is the result, I suppose, of some lovers'
quarrel. As this is the case, I need not
say that though, under any other circum-
stances, I should deeply have felt the
honour you do her, yet, in the present, the
only thing I can do is to say good morn-
ing and many thanks. Have you really
not seen your mother yet ? "
" Not yet. I am going "
" Oh go, please go ! " said Mrs. Dam-
erel. " It was extremely kind of you to
bring the note before going home, but
your mother would never forgive me if
I detained you ; good-bye. If you are
here for a few days I may hope to see you
before you go."
With these words she accompanied him
to the door, smiling cordially as she dis-
missed him. He could neither protest
against the dismissal nor linger in spite
of it, to repeat the love-tale which she
had stopped on his lips. Her apparent
calm had almost deceived him, and but
for a little quiver of her shadow upon the
wall, a little clasping together of her
hands, with Rose's letter in them, which
nothing but the keenest observation could
have detected, he could almost have be-
lieved in his bewilderment that Rose had
been dreaming, and that her mother was
quite cognizant of her flight, and knew
where she was going and all about it.
But, however that might be, he had to go,
in a very painful maze of thought, not
knowing what to think or to hope about
Rose, and having a whimsical certainty of
what must be awaiting him at home, had
his mother heard, as was most likely, of
his arrival, and that he had gone first to
the White House. Fortunately for him,
Mrs. Wodehouse had not heard it ; but
she poured into his reluctant ears the
whole story of Mr. Incledon and the en-
gagement, and of all the wonders with
which he was filling Whitton in prepara-
tion for his bride.
430
A ROSE IN JUNE.
"Though I think she treated you very
badly, after encouraging you as she did,
and leading you on to the very edge of a
proposal — yet one can't but feel that she
is a very lucky girl," said Mrs. Wode-
house. " I hope you will take care not
to throw yourself in their way, my dear ;
though, perhaps, on the whole, it would
be best to show that you have got over
it entirely and don't mind who she mar-
ries. A little insignificant chit of a girl
not worth your notice. There are as
good fish in the sea, Edward — or better,
for that matter."
" Perhaps you are right, mother," he
said, glad to escape from the subject ;
and then he told her the mystery of his
sudden promotion, and how he had strug-
gled to get this fortnight's leave before
joining his ship, which was in commis-
sion for China. Mrs. Wodehouse fa-
tigued her brain with efforts to discover
who it could be who had thus mysteriously
befriended her boy ; and as this subject
drew her mind from the other, Edward
was thankful enough to listen to her sug-
gestions of this man who was dead, and
that man who was at the end of the world.
He had not an idea himself who it could
be, and, I think, cherished a furtive hope
that it was his good service which had
attracted the notice of my Lords ; for
young men are easily subject to this kind
of illusion. But his mind, it may be sup-
posed, was sufficiently disturbed without
any question of the kind. He had to
reconcile Rose's evident misery in her
flight, with her mother's calm accept-
ance of it as a thing she knew of ; and to
draw a painful balance between Mrs.
Damerel's power to insist and command,
and Rose's power of resistance ; finally,
he had the despairing consciousness that
his leave was only for a fortnight, a
period too short for anything to be de-
cided on. No hurried settlement of the
extraordinary imbroglio of affairs which
he perceived dimly — no licence, however
special, would make it possible to secure
Rose in a fortnight's time ; and he was
bound to China for three years ! This
reflection, you may well suppose, gave
the young man enough to think of, and
made his first day at home anything but
the ecstatic holiday which a first day at
home ought to be.
As for Mrs. Damerel, when she went
into her own house, after seeing this dan-
gero ;s intruder to the door, the sense
of relief which had been her only con-
scious feeling up to this moment, gave
place to the irritation and repressed
wrath which, I think, was very natural.
She said to herself, bitterly, that as the
father had been so the daughter was.
They consulted their own happiness, their
own feelings, and left her to make every-
thing straight behind them. What did
it matter what she felt ? What was the
good of her but to bear the burden of
their self-indulgence ? — to make up for
the wrongs they did, and conceal the
scandal .? I am aware that in such a
case, as in almost all others, the general
sympathy goes with the young ; but yet
I think poor Mrs. Damerel had much
justification for the bitterness in her
heart. She wept a few hot tears by her-
self which nobody even knew of or sus-
pected, and then she returned to the chil-
dren's lessons and her daily business, her
head swimming a little, and with a weak-
ness born of past agitation, but subdued
into a composure not feigned but real.
For after all, everything can be remedied
except exposure, she thought to herself ;
and going to Miss Margetts' showed at
least a gliiVimering of common sense on
the part of the runaway, and saved all
public discussion of the " difficulty " be-
tween Rose and her mother. Mrs. Dam-
erel was a clergyman's wife — nay, one
might say a clergywoman in her own per-
son, accustomed to all the special deco-
rums and exactitudes which those who
take the duties of the caste to heart con-
sider incumbent upon that section of hu-
manity ; but she set about inventing a
series of fibs on the spot with an ease
which I fear long practice and custom
had given. How many fibs had she beei
compelled to tell on her husband's be
half? — exquisite little romances abou|
his health and his close study, and th<
mental occupations which kept him froi
little necessary duties ; although sh(
knew perfectly well that his study was
mere desultory reading, and his delicate
health self-indulgence. She had shielded
him so with that delicate network of
falsehood that the Rector had gone out
of the world with the highest reputation.
She had all her hfe been subject to re-
mark as rather a commonplace wife for
such a man, but no one had dreamt of
criticising him. Now she had the same
thing to begin over again ; and she car-
ried her system to such perfection that
she began upon her own family, as in-
deed in her husband's case she had al-
wa3^s done, imbuing the children with a
belief in his abstruse studies and sensi-
tive organization, as well as the outef
world.
A ROSE IN JUNE.
431
" Rose has gone to pay Miss Margetts
a visit," she said at the early dinner. " I
think a Httle change will do her good. I
shall run up to town in a few days and
see after her things."
"Gone to Miss Margetts'! I wonder
why no one ever said so," cried Agatha,
who was always full of curiosity. " What
a funny thing to go off on a visit without
even saying a word ! "
" It was settled quite suddenly," said
the mother, with perfect composure. " I
don't think she has been looking well for
some days ; and I always intended to go
to town about her things."
" What a very funny thing," repeated
Agatha, " to go off at five oclock ; never
to say a word to any one — not even to
take a box with her clothes, only that
little black bag. I never heard of any-
thing so funny ; and to be so excited
about it that she never went to bed."
" Do not talk nonsense," said Mrs.
Damerel sharply; "it was not decided
till the evening before, after you were all
asleep."
"But, mamma "
" I think you might take some of this
pudding down to poor Mary Simpson,"
said Mrs. Damerel, calmly — " she has no
appetite, poor girl ; and, Agatha, you can
call at the post-office, and ask Mrs. Brown
if her niece has got a place yet — I think
she might suit me as a housemaid, if she
has not got a place."
" Then, thank heaven," said Agatha,
diverted entirely into a new channel, " we
shall get rid of Mary Jane ! "
Having thus, as it were, made her ex-
periment upon the subject nearest her
heart, Mrs. Damerel had her little ro-
mance perfectly ready for Mr. Incledon
when he came. " You must not blame me
for a little disappointment to-day," she
said, " though indeed I ought to have
sent you word had I not been so busy.
You must have seen that Rose was not
herself yesterday. She has her father's
fine organization, poor child, and all our
troubles have told upon her. I have sent
her to her old school, to Miss Margetts,
whose care I can rely upon, for a little
change. It will be handy in many ways,
for I must go to town for shopping, and
it will be less fatiguing for Rose to meet
me there than to go up and down on the
same day."
" Then she was not well yesterday ? "
said Mr. Incledon, over whose face va-
rious changes had passed of disappoint-
ment, annoyance, and relief.
" Could you not see that ? " said the
mother, smiling with gentle reproof.
" When did Rose show temper before ?
She has her faults, but that is not one of
them ; but she has her father's fine organ-
ization. I don't hesitate to say now, when
it is all over, that poverty brought us
many annoyances and some privations,
as it does to everybody, I suppose. Rose
has borne up bravely, but of course she
felt them ; and it is a speciality with such
highly-strung natures," said this elaborate
deceiver, " that they never break down
till the pressure is removed."
" Ah ! I ought to have known it," said
Mr. Incledon; "and, indeed," he added,
after a pause, " what you say is a great re-
lief, for I had begun to fear that so young
a creature might have found out that she
had been too hasty — that she did not
know her own mind."
" It is not her mind, but her nerves
and temperament," said the mother. " I
shall leave her quite quiet for a few
days."
" And must I leave her quiet too ? "
" I think so, if you don't mind. I could
not tell you at the time," said Mrs. Dam-
erel, with absolute truth and candour
such as give the best possible effect when
used as accompaniments to the pious fib,
" for I knew you would have wished to
help us, and I could not have allowed it ;
but there have been a great many things
to put up with. You don't know what it is
to be left to the tender mercies of a maid-
of-all-work, and Rose has had to soil her
poor little fingers, as I never thought to
see a child of mine do ; it is no disgrace,
especially when it is all over," she added,
with a little laugh.
" Disgrace ! it is nothing but honour,"
said the lover, with some moisture start-
ing into his eyes. He would have liked
to kiss the poor little fingers of which
her mother spoke with playful tenderness,
and went away comparatively happy, won-
dering whether there was not something
more to do than he had originally thought
of by which he could show his pride and
delight and loving homage to his Rose.
Poor Mrs. Damerel ! I am afraid it
was very wicked of her, as a clergy woman
who ought to show a good example to the
world in general ; and she could have
whipped Rose all the same for thus leav-
ing her in the lurch ; but still it was
clever, and a gift which most women have
to exercise, more or less.
But oh ! the terrors that overwhelmed
her soul when, after having dismissed
Mr. Incledon, thus wrapped over again in
a false security, she bethought herself
432
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
that Rose had travelled to town in com-
pany with youn^ Wodehouse ; that they
had been shut up for more than an hour
together ; that he had told his love-tale,
and she had confided enough to him to
leave him not hopeless at least. Other
things might be made to arrange them-
selves ; but what was to be done with the
always rebellious girl when the man she
preferred — a young lover, impassioned
and urgent — had come into the field ?
From Fraser's Magazine.
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
"The whole Art of Success in music,
painting, and light literature, taught in
one or two lessons by a Professor of the
greatest experience. Terms reasonable.
Apply by letter first, and stating full par-
ticulars, to 'Tityrus,' Post Office "
Strange, even for an advertisement.
But such are the curiosities of literature
in which the outer sheet of the Times is
rich, that the above paragraph would
hardly have detained my attention, but
for the signature "Tityrus."
Long years ago, I had been at school
with one Thomas Everard, nicknamed
mad Everard, and not without cause, by
the boys — a general favourite, good at
everything, very good for nothing, hating
trouble, and shunning it as his ghostly
enemy ; a boy all promise, but rather like
a box of samples, promising too much,
too cheaply, and in too many depart-
ments ; the unfailing spring of laughter
in and out of season, and of all jokes
practical and ideal ; the comic genius of
the school. There he and I fell in friend-
ship, we swore by each other, we were
the closet chums possible — shared
pocket mone}^, hampers, studies, and
sports. Moreover, after the wont of
school boys, we invented a language for
the convenience of confidential inter-
course, and corresponded in it under the
classical pseudonyms of Tityrus and
Melibceus. When we left school our
paths separated, and I had now lost sight
of him for ten years.
But Tityrus had been his private sig-
nature to me in our boyhood, and in that
extraordinary advertisement there was a
something that strongly reminded me of
Thomas Everard. Curious to ascertain,
I answered it as follows : —
"A gentleman of average intelligence
and the usual acquirements, but who finds
his education deficient in the science
' Tityrus ' professes to teach, offers him-
self as a pupil. Wishes more especially
for hints on success in the lighter de-
partments of literature. Address, 'Meli-
boeus,' Post Office "
By return of post came the reply I had
anticipated in two lines : —
" My dear old fellow, is it, can it be
you ? "
I wrote back, establishing my identity
beyond a doubt, and requesting an an-
swer to my former letter. He sent me
an invitation to breakfast with him the
next morning at his residence, " The
Laurels," in one of the suburbs.
I accepted of course. After much
wandering among the forest of villas,
lodges, and cottages, I at last hit upon
" The Laurels," a small house standing
apart from the road, in a shady grove of
the tree whence it took its auspicious
name.
The garden was pleasantly and signifi-
cantly planted with bays, the dining-room
window edged with parsley in pots, and
the entrance led through a miniature con-
servatory full of bending palms. A very
odour of victory which was quite exhil-
arating pervaded the spot. The internal
decorations were similarly appropriate ;
the hall clock, even the barometer, set in
frames of carved olive and ivy leaves ;
the walls hung with pictures represent-
ing triumphant scenes in the lives of
modern art competitors; tl prima donjta
buried in bouquets ; a painter honoured
by a sitting from royalty; a poet receiv-
ing his badge of knighthood. My spirits
rose as I crossed the threshold. This
was the House of Fame indeed.
In the library, a small room, but ex-
quisitely furnished, I found my old friend
Everard, and here we renewed our sus-
pended acquaintance over as free a break-
fast-table as even an Englishman could
desire to see.
Ten years ! They had worked but
small change in him. Yet it was not for
nothing that his hair was streaked with
grey, and his brow lined at seven-and-
twenty ; for that inveterate propensity to
seethe ludicrous everywhere — to look
at everything, so to speak, in the bowl of
a spoon — an amiable weakness in the
thoughtless schoolboy, turns to bitter-
ness in manhood, when applied to what
are called the stern realities of life.
He avoided talking of himself. The
conversation turned chiefly on me and
my affairs, /was perfectly unreserved,
drew a picture more faithful than flatter-
ing of my first experiences in the literary
I
i
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
433
career I had embraced — of certain effu-
sions so warmly praised beforehand by
dear literary friends, summarily de-
spatched by' a few words of blame from
the critics, unnoticed by the world at
large, and of the inefficiency of the con-
solation administered afterwards by pri-
vate admirers, that these, my works, were
"too good to succeed." My children, it
appeared, were all too good to live.
This reminded me of what I had al-
most forgotten — that ridiculous adver-
tisement— and I begged to know what
might have been his object in putting it
in, and attempting to play off so trans-
parent a hoax.
" Hoax ? " he repeated, in
surprise.
" Perhaps the advertisement was not a
hoax," said I, laughing.
"Perhaps this house is a hoax," he re-
turned ; " perhaps the coffee and hot
rolls are false shows ; the cabinets,
tables, and chairs vain and airy appear-
ances ; the pianoforte a mere whim of
fancy — an unknowable phenomenon. But
if these, my household gods, are sub-
stantial objects, so was the advertise-
ment genuine that caught the eyes that
stood in the heads that pertained to the
men who owned the purse that held the
fees that paid for them,"
" Pray explain," said I, " and in lan-
guage adapted to the understanding of a
gentleman of average intelligence — mind,
average."
" Well, I can do so in a few words.
Believe me, it would be difficult to name
the branch of art I have not taken up,
meeting everywhere, however, with no
better fortune than your own. But
now, after having devoted ten years
to the diligent study of failure in all its
branches, 1 have acquired, thanks to a
long and painful training, so intimate a
knowledge of the obstacles that beset the
road to renown as at least to qualify me
thoroughly for a professor in the art of
getting on; and it is in treating success
as one of the Fine Arts that I have met
with a first, a triumphant, success myself.
So, let all my friends flourish,"
"Will you be serious ? " I urged.
He took a letter from his pocket and
handed it to me. " So you won't believe
me serious. Possibly you will believe
that — a perfectly serious fifty-pound
note. Read — 'In grateful acknowledg-
ment of services rendered,' and so forth.
From Fo<ison, the artist — received this
morning."
" What, Fogson, the celebrated author
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 340
— I won't say painter — of those colour-
pieces that have excited so much notice
lately ? "
" Exactly. That man and his fortune
were made by me. He allows it himself.
His pictures command any price already."
" Well, I saw his last — a study of sky,
water, and forget-me-nots. ' In the
Blues,' he called it. I should call it an
art aberration."
"Very likely; but he errs to his pe-
cuniary advantage at least. Colour with-
out form — a peculiar style I recom-
mended to him — and, as you see, he
finds it answer very well indeed."
" Such pictures serve no true purpose
apparent of art that I can see."
"But that is not the artist's object," he
persisted, " Do I even profess to show
the high road to excellence ? Fogson
comes to me, and says : ' Sir, what shall
I do to be — known?' It was evident
that he would never shine in competition
with others in treating ordinary subjects,
so I suggested Chaos as a field for art
he might have to himself. Now, if any
students are so foolish as to follow his
lead, he rises at once to the height of
a founder of a new style — the Chaotic
School.
" Still at a loss ?" he resumed, laugh-
ing at my dubious expression of coun-
tenance, " or do you wilfully shut your
eyes to the rationale of my theory ?
Listen : I expect several visitors this
morning. Would you like to be present
at the consultation, unseen, of course —
say behind the curtain in the recess ? "
" Certainly I should," I replied, with
alacrity ; " I feel the strongest curiosity^
to see your disciples, or patients I ought
to say,"
" I can rely on your discretion," he
said, as he placed me where I was effec-
tually concealed, yet able to observe..
" Understand, none of my visitors are
strangers to me, for I undertake no one
without careful preliminary inquiries. A
short correspondence is usually enough,
and I have an unerring diagnosis of the
particular case ready before I consent to
prescribe or fix an interview. Incurables
I decline. Such are the radically obsti-
nate, the constitutionally inane. But with
average material and strict obedience I
have worked wonders."
He had scarcely settled himself in his
chair when his servant threw open the
door, announcing
" Mademoiselle Annetta Solferino."
Everard's visitor was a young lady of
about nineteen or twenty, extremely good-
434
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
looking by nature, though not enough to
satisfy herself, as appeared from the sym-
metrical curve of her pencil-arched eye-
brows and those heavy, impossible coils
of rich dark hair. She was well, but
showily dressed, and held a roll of music
in her hand. Love — self-love — in her
eyes sat playing, and whatever one thing
she might have lacked, it was certainly
not assurance. She entered into conver-
sation at once, and went to the point
without the slightest embarrassment.
" You have heard from me, Mr. Ever-
ard, and how I was recommended to con-
sult you by Marterton, the ballad-singer
of the season. He declares you have
been the making of him. Can you do
anything for me ? I am most anxious to
hear."
" Allow me to refer to my notes," said
Everard, taking up an album with a list
of names alphabetically arranged. " S.
— Solferino. Yes, here you are, and the
particulars of your case."
They were written in her physiognomy.
He who runs may read. Principal : youth,
a pretty face, fresh voice, and a dozen
lessons from a fashionable master ; set
against this, little knowledge of music,
less love of art, no anxiety to learn, only
to rise.
" I understand," said Everard, gravely,
" that for two years you have been a con-
cert singer in the provinces with very
limited success. You are dissatisfied
with the position, and impatient for an
opening. Is it so ? "
She assented.
" First, will you let me hear you sing ?
What have you brought "i Ah ! the old,
old story. Operatic airs and English
ballads, ancient and modern. Well, you
shall choose your piece."
She chose the Jewel Song from
" Faust," attacked it bravely, and slaugh-
tered it with energy and resolution.
" Indeed, you have a most lovely qual-
ity of voice," observed Everard, almost
mournfully, when she had finished ; " a
sound ear, too. Ah ! if you were to give
up public singing for a time, and study
seriously — for two years, say — you
might do much."
" Two years ! " The young lady's
countenance fell. " Oh, Mr. Everard ! "
she continued, reproachfully, "is this
fair ? I thought you undertook in one or
two lessons to "
"Yes, yes,'' he broke in, changing his
tone, "and from that point of view you
have nothing more to learn except from
me. I will not hide from you that your
execution is faulty, your intonation care-
less, your shake absurd, your style of
vocalization — what style there is — as
bad as can well be. Go on as you have
begun, and in a few years it will be pain-
ful to listen to you. But my remedy is
as simple as your case is serious. First
tell me, Annetta Solferino, is that your
real name ? "
" My real name is Hannah Simmonds,"
she replied, blushing, and with a little
laugh ; " but it would never do for a
singer, you know."
"Of course not. There's a fitness in.
all things, and programmes must be con-
sidered. The question is, would you
mind being, shall we say, Annouchka
Sobieski for a change ? "
"Well, no," she replied; "but what
for, Mr; Everard ? "
He unlocked a drawer and took out a
roll of music. " Come and try over this
air. The words you won't understand,
but they are written above, phonetically,
as they ought to be pronounced. It is a
Russian song."
" Is it pretty ? " she asked, rather doubt-
fully, when she had read it through.
Everard shrugged his shoulders. " I
don't say that. But it is strange, quaint,
new — and quite easy. Let us go through
it again. You have really some very good
points "
So she had. She sang extremely well
with her eyes, and if she could not shake,
at least she could smile, and knew it.
He gave her a careful lesson on the
proper reading of the song, with hints as^
to producing the greatest effects in pas
sages here and there. He was very par
ticular about a certain long drawn unac
companied note coming once in every
verse — one of those little bits of (musi-
cal) local colouring, like the Irish howl,
or the clic-clac of the Spanish muleteer,
which, as he explained to her, have a
power beyond melody or harmony for
procuring a rapturous encore.
" I have here about a dozen of these
songs," said he, " arranged by myself.
Pearls without price, for they have never
yet been published. They are all within
your compass, and I have added all the
necessary notes and marks. Sing these
songs as directed ; and I have but one
more injunction to make, but that I must
insist upon. Never, in public, sing any
others. Be known everywhere — f o '
everywhere you soon will be known — ai
the singer of Russian songs. Once fo;
all, can you renounce Mozart and all hi
works — and, in a word, all vocal musi
1
i
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
435
in which you invite comparison with other
performers, your superiors ? "
'• I will," she answered, impressed by
the solemnity of his tone.
" Young lady, I congratulate you," said
the Professor, with a bow.
" Thanks, thanks." She rose to go,
but hesitated. Probably " Terms rea-
sonable " was in her mind.
Everard interposed. "That we will
settle, later, when my bright predictions
are in a fair way to be realized. My terms
may sound high to you now. They will
not then, when you make your fifty pounds
a week."
Her eyes glittered at the golden vision.
" Only mind you keep to the unpro-
nounceable name. Be photographed in
furs, or on a sledge."
*' But stay," she said, suddenly ; "after
all, here are but a dozen songs, and when
people get tired of these "
" That day will be long in coming. Such
little bits of 'genre ' music do not require
to be varied."
" But it must come at last ; and then,
when I have sung them all again and
again in every concert room in England,
what shall I do ? "
'■'' Go to America."
There was no more to be said. Away
went the future Russian nightingale, in all
the plenitude of hope.
Apparently my friend had a large prac-
tice. She had scarcely disappeared when
a second visitor was admitted — a thin,
spare man, a melancholy object with a
long beard, sunken eyes, rusty coat, and
a generally rejected and dejected look
about him that could not be misread.
Here, indeed, was a bad case — one who
had called in the physician at the eleventh
hour.
" Mr. Gabriel Gaunt, I believe," began
Everard, courteously. " I must apologize
for not having yet returned those pictures
you sent here for me to see."
" Thanks ; but they have not been
missed," he retorted, with bitter empha-
sis ; " there is no demand for them else-
where that I am aware of."
" But you paint uncommonly well, let
me assure you," saidEverard, soothingly.
" Have you been at it long ? "
" Only all my life. I am five-and-forty
now, and all to find Gabriel Gaunt no
nearer fame than at starting."
" Because you have missed the way.
You complain that your pictures are
neither hung nor sold. But, in the first
place, you seem so fond of large can-
vasses, my dear sir, and aim at such am-
bitious and varied subjects — ' Prome^
theus,' ' The Earthly Paradise,' 'Alexan-
der's Feast,' ' The Good Samaritan.' "
" But I have given to each the attention
it deserves ; grudged neither time, nor
pains, nor thought."
" And all in vain, sir, as you see, this
self-sacrifice of yours to the sublime."
" What ! " cried the artist, disgusted ;
" but is it not the essence of Art to fly
high .? Of all its purposes, surely the
last to be neglected should be its mission
to offer the ideal to refresh, refine, and
elevate the minds of men wearied and de-
based by the commonplaces and ugli-
nesses of everyday life } "
" Sir, no more," broke in Everard ; " you
are in a dangerous way indeed. Have
you never reflected that your public for
the most part are accustomed in everyday
life to disclaim for themselves, to pooh-
pooh and decry in others, all lofty motives
and ideas ? We are unprepared to take
pleasure in these, even in art. Ideal
beauty, grandeur, heroism — their shrines
are deserted ; for the popular idols whose
worship it is usual, not to say universal,
to profess are — gain and comfort."
" Then, do you hold out no hope ? Am
I not a man as well as an artist .? Must I
go on forever working in vain, and all
through this fatal utilitarianism that is
overspreading the tree of English Art like
a parasite, and eating the heart out of the
good old oak } "
Everard smiled at his warmth. " Sir,
let us hope even your case will benefit by
my treatment. Unfortunately you have
no tricks, no mannerisms, for us to work
upon."
" I trust not," he replied, "considering
how I have worked to avoid them. I ab-
hor art mannerism."
" So much the worse for you," said Ev-
erard, drily. " It is too late to begin the
study now ; but there is a chance for you
still. Sir, I must be plain with you ; you
must renounce your lofty images, grand
sentiments, and all the aspiring principles
of ideal art. They don't agree with that
mass of organic matter — the public I
mean, on whom your success depends.
These are not what they hunger and thirst
after, — that can afford them the pleasure,
the relaxation they look for in the inter-
vals of business. You have, sir, a pleas-
ing style, a true sense of beauty, and
your colouring is excellent. Put away
the fascinating creations of mythology,
religion, and poetry. My plan for you is
that you should become a painter of juve-
nile life, of scenes from the nursery stage
436
of existence, exclusively. Keep your old
titles if you like ; the contrast between
the imposing name and the pretty subject
is always piquant. Thus :
"'Prometheus' — A little urchin has
stolen his father's cigars, and is smoking
on the sly.
"'The Good Samaritan ' — Little girl
giving away her bun to a beggar.
" ' The Earthly Paradise ' — A child in
the midst of its birthday presents.
" ' Alexander's Feast ' — Children at tea
— eldest boy presiding.
" There is a mine which is practically
inexhaustible. You may ring the changes
on such themes forever. With your tech-
nical dexterity I can promise you wealth,
fame, popularity to your heart's content.
These works make comparatively little
demand upon you, require but slender
forethought, study, or research. You are
married, sir, I daresay."
" I am."
" And, excuse me, a father ? "
" Of six," he sighed.
" So much the better. How easily you
can manage a design for ' The Earthly
Paradise ' — nursery Paradise, you per-
ceive. Study of new toys — humming-
top, woolly lamb, horse and cart, soldiers.
What a rich field for clever little bits of
accessory painting ! Or a sketch for the
Children's Feast. Study of tea-things —
fruit, sugar, plenty of jam, and buns.
Everybody will exclaim, ' How natural ! ' "
"Yes, but how trite! Where is ima-
gination, where poetical beauty, elevation,
force, significance, and suggestion ? "
" Excluded, I grant. But, trust me,
triteness is the safest art investment for
the coming year. Make up your mind to
it, and, with your abilities, you may look
on your fortune and name as established."
" And then — then, I shall be able to
return to subjects of a higher stamp, and
the very works that passed unnoticed,
signed by an obscure name, will be ap-
preciated at last."
" At your peril ! " said Everard, de-
cisively. " And this is another important
constitutional peculiarity in the art-loving
but conservative public with whom you
have to deal. Once become their favour-
ite painter in some special groove, and
others are closed to you. They will allow
you no merit in other walks, and think it
impertinent if you try to change. Choose,
then, once for all, between the great and
the little Prometheus, high art and ob-
scurity, the nursery and renown."
He had chosen. He took from Everard
the list of subjects, pressed his hand, and
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
Suddenly he came
silently withdrew,
hurrying back, —
" I beg pardon, Mr. Everard, but
could you manage to let me out some
other way ? I see Crotchet, a friend and
brother artist, waiting in your hall, and I
don't care for him to know that Pve been
here."
Everard smiled, and kindly allowed Mr.
Gabriel Gaunt to make his exit by the
garden.
I was amused at hearing Crotchet's
name. He was an acquaintance of mine,
too ; a young painter with plenty of facil-
ity, ambitious, greedy of praise, yet dis-
turbed by certain misgivings, founded, I
thought, on intuitive sense of want of
original genius.
He and the Professor talked long and
confidentially. Crotchet described his
symptoms, his inability to ennoble slight
subjects, or to cope with great ones —
his failures in composition, in portrait
painting, except the drapery. He was
quite conscious of his shortcomings, and
did not, like Mr. Gaunt, complain of the
unappreciative public ; he had a personal
craving for success, which he knew to be
altogether out of proportion to his powers.
" You should adopt some well-known
manner," said Everard, deliberately ;
'• some particular quality of texture, as
it were : the woolly, the fluffy, the silky,
the velvety, the streaky, the spotty, or
else some pervading tint — something
which shall alwa3's be prominent in your
pictures, and by which they may be iden-
tified directly. It is like hoisting a flag.
Other striking qualities wanting, stran-
gers may know you then by your colours at
a distance. The peculiarity mav some-
times seem to you a fault in itself ; but
the secret is, not to be ashamed of it.
Seize the eccentricity of some fashionable
modern painter, exaggerate it into a vice,
make it the leading characteristic of all
your work, and you will always find a
party who will extol it as a merit."
" And the subject, sir "
"Is — a detail. Artists may one day
learn to dispense with it altogether ; but
I advise you to retain a nominal one —
no matter what, if you have a fashionable
manner. You may range from a young
lady in her toilette from Madame Elise to
— a pot of pickles."
" I fear you consider vulgarity to be
one popular characteristic in modern
Art," said Crotchet, looking up suspi-
ciously. " But we must live, you know."
" Ay, and thrive ; and so you will,"
said Everard. " I only undertake to an-
i
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
437
swer for the present ; I am no prophet, [
but sometimes unborn a^^es will crowd
upon the soul, and in such moments I see
a picture gallery of the future. All the
paintings are sold, and at large prices. A
new era has dawned — a golden age for
artists, if not for art, and the exhibition
is become a series of ingenious advertise-
ments. Thus No. I represents a bur-
glar picking, or attempting to pick, a
safe. The safe is admirably painted, and
the picture playfully entitled, 'Who is
Griffiths ? ' No. 2 is a study of a laundry-
maid turning over a pile of snow-white
collars, cuffs, and lace handkerchiefs on a
shelf, beside her a large packet of ' the
unrivalled Glenfield Starch.' No. 3, a
girl walking out in the rain — the figure
is secondary ; the conspicuous object,
' the Desideratum Umbrella.' No. 4,
*the modern Lady Godiva,' holding a
pamphlet on Mrs. Allen's Hair Restorer.
No. 5, a sick child fast asleep — thanks to
to * the only genuine Chlorodyne ; ' and so
on throughout the catalogue. And if to-
day a picture is worth hundreds as a use-
less luxury, how much more will it not be
worth to the purchaser, who sees in it a
lucrative trade investment ! However,
the Royal Advertisement Academy is not
yet, and all I have to say to you, sir, is —
take care of your manner, and let the
subjects take care of themselves."
Crotchet was looking thoughtful ex-
ceedingly. *' I think I begin to see my
way, at all events," he said.
" It is a smooth and easy one, and soon
leads to a rich art sinecure. Good morn-
ing, sir, and be sure to let me hear from
time to time how you get on."
Crotchet took his departure in the
highest spirits ; he is now one of the
most expensive painters we have.
" Who is next t " asked Everard of
the servant.
" Mrs. Tandem Smith."
"Ah ! and this is her third consulta-
tion. It ought to be the last, and perfect
the work. Well, we shall see. Bring me
those MSS. on the table, and show the
lady in."
A very interesting-looking person she
was — still young, with a pretty-featured,
intelligent, refined countenance — well-
dressed in black, and extremely graceful.
There was that in her appearance which,
like the opening period of a good poem or
novel, promised attraction.
They proceeded to business at once. I
could see that the lady was in earnest.
Here was no sentimental girl solacing
herself for imaginary sorrows by the
sight of them in print, but an ambitious
woman with a definite goal she was bent
on reaching. No wonder that Everard
seemed to enter into her affairs with spe-
cial empressement.
" Well, madam, I am happy to say that
I consider the last chapters very much
improved indeed. The whole novel will,
of course, require to be rewritten ; but
once familiarize yourself with the right
key, and you are safe. Let us take the
introduction, where I find most to ob-
ject to — in the style, that is. As for the
scene, it will do ; in fact, I rather like it.
You open with a young fellow — a ruined
spendthrift, playing, so to speak, with the
idea of suicide. You have described his
state of mind very powerfully — too pow-
erfully. Truth is truth, but not always
amusing, and your aim should be to
amuse. Your description is too long and
too serious, madam. Consider the impa-
tient temperament of the modern reader,
and abridge. Now look at your opening
page, beginning, ' It was the first of
June,' &c., but which I should propose
to re-write thus."
And Everard began to read aloud from
the MS. before him : " ' i | 6 | '70, No. 19
Duke Street. Scene — First floor cham-
bers handsomely furnished. Time 5
o'clock. Curtain rises and discloses
Tom '"
" But I am not writing a play or a let-
ter," objected the lady, half laughing.
" That is the very reason, madam.
Patience, I beg. ' Curtain rises and dis-
closes Tom, sunk in a revery and an arm-
chair. " What shall I do ? Shall I brave
it out and go to meet Bella in the park ?
Shall I take the mail and bolt to Bou-
logne, or shall I pitch myself over Water-
loo Bridge into the river t "
" ' " What's up .? " mutters the reader.
Very little, it is to be feared, oh, my
friends ! As for Tom, he, his funds, and
in consequence his spirits, have sunk so
low that he is ready to toss up his last
shilling whether or not he shall arise
and commit himself, his debts, his mis-
fortunes, and iniquities to old Father
Thames, his arms.' "
" But that is burlesque," she ex-
claimed, in dismay.
"And why not.'"' rejoined Everard;
" in burlesque there is safety. Always
laugh at yourself first, is a good rule.
Thus you get the start of the critical
reader, and it is not worth his while to
laugh at you."
" But surely flippancy, in the particular
situation, is out of place."
^38
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
"Of course your point of view is the
loftier of the two — sublime, indeed. I
don't deny it."
' " But there is but one step from the
sublime to the ridiculous," said she, with
a smile.
" And it is perhaps the most important
characteristic of our age to have sup-
pressed that step. Let us pass on. By
the way, I notice that you never make
topical allusions. You should mention
the Duke of Edinburgh's wedding, the
Czar, the Ashantees. It lights up the
novel and brings it home to the reader."
"But such nine days' wonders are over
on the tenth, and these very allusions will
then give my book as old-fashioned an
air as an old photograph taken in the
days of crinoline."
" No doubt, madam, that is true in the
main, and applies to those who write for
posterity. But as an empiric — a teacher
of success, the results I labour to pro-
duce must be tangible and immediate.
For these you will do well to recollect
your previous disappointing experiences,
and consent to be guided by me.
" We come now to a passage I highly
commend — the proposal in the railway
carriage. But I think in the treatment
there is room for improvement still. I
would suggest that you mike Hilda in
this trying and exciting hour take note of
as many trivial and prosaic little circum-
stances as possible. Put down that it
was a first-class compartment, but second-
rate as usual. Mention the foot-warmer,
miscalled, because it was stone cold, and
that somebody had scratched Orlando
Perkins on the window pane with a dia-
mond. They now approach a station ;
and here a gentleman, the sole companion
of Hilda and Tom, jumps out, long before
the train stops. Why will gentlemen
always jump out before the train stops ?
Hilda is now tete-a-tete with her admirer.
She loses her ticket. None of the rights
of men so desirable as waistcoat-pockets.
Tom gropes under the seat and picks it
up. In doing so he finds himself for a
moment on his knees before Hilda, and
stops short in that attitude. Both turn!
as red — as roses, you would write, ma-!
dame. Nay, never be betrayed into sen-|
timent — say lobsters or carrots." j
Mrs. Tandem Smith was making a wry
face. " Well, Mr. Everard," she rejoined ; j
" they say you understand these things. '
Frankly, the style you recommend I nei-
ther like nor approve, but I am afraid —
1 mean, I hope I shall easily acquire it."
" You will find it a very useful exercise
sometimes to take passages from the se-
rious romance writers of past generations
and translate them into flippant, modern-
novel English. Thus — here is a descrip-
tion which would hang heavy now-a-days :
' A western wind roared round the hall,
driving wild clouds and stormy rain up
from the remote ocean. All was tempest
without the lattices — all deep peace with-
in. She sat at the window watching the
rack in heaven, the mist on earth ; listen-
ing to certain notes of the gale that
plained like restless spirits — notes which,
had she not been so young, so gay, so
healthy, would have swept her trembling
nerves like some anticipatory dirge ; in
this, her prime of existence and bloom,
they but subdued vivacity to pensive-
ness.'
"This would run better in a bantering
vein — thus : ' The brave north-wester is
dancing round the hall, polking with the
rain for a partner. All the racket is out-
side — inside we are mum. I sit perched
at the window, staring at this spectacle of
confusion worse confounded — listening
to the screeching of the gale that howls
like a hundred cats at midnight. Were I
an old maid, this must have sunk my
spirits to zero at once. As it is, they only
fall to temperate.'
" Or take an old-fashioned declaration
of love : ' Will you not give me this hand
to guide me again into the paradise of my
youth ? Violante, it is in vain to wrestle
with myself — to doubt, to reason, to be
wisely fearful. I love — I love you ! I
trust again in virtue and faith ; I place my
fate in your keeping.'
" Which, for the matter-of-fact spirit of
the age, you might render thus : ' I want
to know if you won't take me in hand,
dear ? I've done my best to put you out
of my head ; but it's no earthly use —
none. I'm fond of you, Vio, and then
the world doesn't seem half such a
wretched hole to me after all. It will
be rather too hard lines if you send me
away now.' "
Mrs. Tandem Smith sighed, but prom-
ised attention and strict obedience to all
directions. After a few words of encour-
agement on the one side, and acknowl-
edgment on the other, she took leave,
Everard himself escorting her to the
door. When he returned I, supposing
his morning's work to be over, was about
to show myself, when the servant reap-
peared, saying,
" Sir, Mr. Lamarionette waits."
" Still they come ! " I uttered from my
retreat; and Everard turned to receive
I
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
439
the new arrival, a young gentleman whose
errand I guessed at a glance — he had
such poetical hair, and a lofty, happy
confidence which I could only envy.
'' Glad to see you, Mr. Lamarionette,"
said Everard, accosting him affably ;
" and pray, sir, how goes the wicked world
with you .?"
" Well, sir. You have read my ' Ro-
manesques,' and ' Chansons Watteau,' "
he replied, with an airy gesture; "you
ought to be able to tell me."
" I told you before, sir, on the occasion
of your last visit, that I thought your
* Romanesques ' and ' Chansons Watteau '
rather dry and brusque, and feared they
would not take."
" Take ! " he repeated, in disgust.
" And to be frank with you, sir, the
leading impression they left on me was
that yours is scarcely a poetical brain.
Now I wonder what put it into your head
to be a poet ? "
" Come, come, sir ; can you deny that
in the poetry of the period all the old con-
ventional rules and trammels are fre-
quently broken through ? The diction is
permitted to be colloquial, boldly prosaic,
even rude and disjointed at times ; soft
language and melodious metre are utterly
discarded, to the economizing of a vast
amount of time and trouble."
" Ah ! " said the Professor, attentively ;
" so that is the way you go to work, is
it ? "
" Well, sometimes I daresay I could
dash you off a hundred lines on the spot."
" Do," returned Everard; "but not a
hundred, please. A dozen will suffice for
a sample."
"Give me a theme," said he, running
his hand through his hair.
" Theme, sir ; I should have thought
anything would do — the table, your um-
brella. Stay ! suppose you take that bee
flying about the room."
Lamarionette began to write with sur-
prising ease and fluency. Very shortly
he was ready with his exercise, and hand-
ed it to Everard, who read aloud as fol-
lows :
Train of Thought suggested by a Bee.
What was it went then presto past my ear,
And whisked away till lost i' the empty space ?
Some winged machine. Put case, we call it
Bee.
Bee, wasp, hornet, or fly — why, where's the
odds,
All insect aeronauts, come you to that.
What is the difference 'twixt bee and man ?
Was not our common sire a jelly fish ?
So bee's my cousin 1,000,000 times removed.
Conditions other, I had been born bee,
Bagged, stinged, four-winged, six-legged, et-
cetera.
(The hero of a lay once famous. " What's
The jargon?" ask you — I, "The jargon's
Watts."
(There's a vile pun, my friend. Methinks
more like
Mine enemy.) How doth the busy bee
Improve the shining hour ? Query, how ?
Watts gives no why or wherefore. Smith,
can you ?)
And Bee's a poet. Ah ! so much the worse
For him. All by the natural process known
As Evolu — Egad, here comes the creature
back.
Zounds ! 'Tis a big bluebottle, after all.
" Stop, stop, sir, that will do ! " broke
in Everard here. " That is one style,
certainly, and is very well — all very well
— in its way; still I wouldn't make it
mine, if I were you."
" And why not ? "
" Because a crust of eccentricity of
this kind, sir, popular though it may have
been, or is, would perhaps hardly be safe
for you to take your stand upon without
some slight foundation of originality and
imagination — a fund of ideas."
" I'm half afraid I am not very strong
in ideas, just now," he remarked, with jo-
cose candour.
"Well, well, we must substitute some-
thing," said Everard, consolingly. " Ad-
jectives are very useful in that way, and I
should like you to study them ; for a string
of pretty, musical, nonsensical, compound
epithets, believe me, have sustained many
a poetical reputation when imagination
and wit fell short. You will have to
change your manner, sir, but, on the
whole, save yourself trouble in the end ;
for here, at least, you may take any sub-
stratum, however barren — a copy-book
text, a doggrel verse — trick it out with
forced metaphors, alliteration, archaic
forms, and swinging metre, and you will
be astonished to find how well it looks
and sounds. Here is a sketch that will
give you an idea of the style of thing. I
have taken the barest framework possible
— four lines of a nursery rhyme, 'Twin-
kle, little Star.' But see how easily they
may be expanded. To begin with, we will
give it a fancy title ;
L,'Etqii,e du Nord.
The shimmering, shivering, trembling twink-
ling starlet white,
Dancy rays darteth down, showering blossoms
of silvern light ;
O shudder and shimmer and tremble and blink
from afar,
Faery-beamed Phosphor, heaven-bespangling,
sheen-shooting star I
440
A PROFESSOR EXTRAORDINARY.
Full often I mervaille, starlet, in midnightly
musings y'lost,
Dazed in yon skyey depths, on the ocean of
fantasy tossed ;
And, ah ! would that I wist, bright herald,
what eke thou mayst be.
Thy name would I know and thy nature, and
the spell thou art shining on me.
Woe is me, thou art far from the watcher set
high the welkin above.
And alike unto thee are earth's pain and its
pleasaunce, its hate and its love,
Its vice and its virtue, the slave and the
tyrant, the traitor and true.
Its laurel and cypress, the lotus and lilies, the
roses and rue.
"Shall I go on.?"
" Many thanks," said the poet, " but I
think I need not trouble you."
"Well, sir, there you have a study in
what I call the decorative style of poetry
— a highly popular style now-a-days —
with certain conventional forms that are
very generally admired ; and I know of
no style that offers greater facilities for
imitation."
" Yes, yes," said Lamarionette ; " it
does excellently, I daresay, for songs and
sonnets and such bagatelles, but will it
help me to my desire ? My present am-
bition, as I explained to you at the first,
is to attempt a more important work —
something of magnitude, something to
last."
" Exactly ; but practise yourself well
thus in the shorter pieces, and you will
most surely find your way to other very
similar principles — secrets to help you
through with longer and serious works.
However, in parting, take this from me,
as a hint for your grand poem ; " and he
drew from his pocket a manuscript.
" What ! " said Lamarionette, somewhat
taken aback by its length ; " you seem to
have written the whole play for me al-
ready."
" Indeed, no, sir ; this is only a single
speech that might occur anywhere in the
poem. Take it home, and analyze it well.
It is extensive, certainly, as speeches go ;
but remember, yours was to be a mam-
moth work, on a scale hitherto unat-
tempted, unique in its proportions ; and
the name ' Behejuoth^ a Mystery.' "
" But will it not be a great labour ? " he
objected ; " labour is rather uncongenial
to me."
" I am not surprised at your taking
alarm," said the Professor, blandly, " for
iihe science of Poetical Economy, though
very simple, has only lately been reduced
'to method. I advise you to study it.
Then, when you read Shakespeare, you
will see in him a mere abstract, an out-
line of what he might have been. Don't
you understand ? Take an illustration ;
Othello's dying message to the Venetian
State — afew familiar lines, most unpro-
ductive capital in his hands, but capable
of almost infinite multiplication by use of
the proper means. Listen :
Speak of me as I am, nothing extenuate ;
Nothing put out, dress naught in hues too
fair;
Hardness and blackness see that thou turn not
Tender and white ; nor from rough ear of
swine
Seek thou to forge and shape a silk-soft
purse
For dames to toy withal. It is but meet
That I should suffer this. It is but fit
This my dumb brow be seared, my head girt
round
With fiery crown of scorn, my hand accursed,
My life shame-slaughtered and my fame con-
sumed,
Since blood once shed still crieth from the
ground.
Nor set down aught in malice poison-tongued.
Did I walk black as all-devouring death.
Feller than gnawing fire, breath-draining steel,
Or than the yawning grave, or greedy foam
That lips the shores of Cyprus, still what
cause
Is here, what plea, what warrant, or what
need.
To smite with slanderous fang ? Then must
thou speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well ;
Not in the gyves of reason, maimed by fear
Of scathe or peril that might come thereof,
But, free as fire or wind, or the blown sand
That shakes the desert, love uprose, a sword
To scour the earth, to save or to destroy ;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme, heart all on fire
With venom as with wine, soul set on edge.
Brain stabbed with madness till the senses
reeled.
And knew not hell from heaven, then blindly
dealt
The double-smiting stroke that told both
ways,
And hurled the smiter to the pit of death.
There to lie still and rot ; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe — whose foot trod
out
Heaven's flower ; whose iron lips with a
sword's kiss
Drank out the heart they breathed by, one
whose heart
Shot flame to quench the life whereon it fed,
Then like a dead husk shrivelled fell ; whose
eyes.
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum, or autumn boughs
BISHOP WORDSWORTH ON CREMATION.
441
Bleed sere and crimson leaves, or winter skies, j
Drop feather flakes of snow. Set you down j
this,
And say besides " —
" Enough, enough ! " cried Lamario-
nette, to my inexpressible relief. " Pray
say no more, but give me the notes. I
perfectly understand. Good morning to
you."
" There," sighed Everard, as the door
closed upon him ; " you may appear. The
last applicant has been disposed of."
" Not yet," said I, emerging from my
hiding place. " One patient more, and by
appointment, too."
Everard fell into a brown study. " Yes,"
he resumed at last, reverting to our
former conversation just as if he had for-
gotten the interludes. " It is unfortunate
that you are so sensitive, so alive to the
blemishes and shortcomings you see
around you, and you have no despotic
hobby to carry you on, blindfold and reck-
less, across country to some goal or other.
However, you shall have my best advice.
You wish, I suppose, for pecuniary suc-
cess ? '
" Certainly."
" Then write a pamphlet with a title to
catch the million — ' How I went abroad
on five francs a day.' "
I demurred, and confessed to more am-
bitious aims.
" Ah ! you wish for notoriety. Then
try personal satire — a libel in any form
of fiction you please ; but introduce real,
well-known men and women, members of
the aristocracy if possible, with every de-
tail interesting or uninteresting you can
rake up ; any back-stairs gossip about
their private lives, habits, residence,
dress, manners, virtues, and vices ; only
disguising their names, but so flimsily
that there shall not be the slightest diffi-
culty in identifying everybody."
I exclaimed in indignation. The scur-
rilous was most repugnant to me.
"You are very particular," said Ev-
erard, vvith a twinkle of the eye; "but I
was afraid that would hardly suit you.
"Could you manage a book of American
humour .? No ? Then, frankly, I see but
one chance for you yet. Become a critic."
"A critic ! "
" Yes. Then you can give play to your
fastidious taste, free vent to your indigna-
tion against the successful undeserving,
and derive profit from both. The trouble
to a man of education and talent like your-
self is fractional, the gratification im-
mense, the pay liberal. Ambition, if you
suffer from it, will be fully satisfied. You
will help to rule the ruling power, public
opinion, with a rod of iron. Nobody can
afford to insult or despise you. I will
give you a letter of introduction to the
gentleman who edits the popular journal,
The Aspr
" Thanks, no," I replied, hastily. " I
have an old-fashioned prejudice against
vivisection."
" Upo.i my word, then, my dear fellow,
I must give you up," said the Professor.
" I can only hope you may shortly come
to a better state of mind, and meekly bow
to the new glorious principle, the golden
rule of the greatest incapacity of the
greatest number holding sway, as else-
where, so in the Fine Arts."
A sadder and wiser man I left "The
Laurels," dismissed as an Incurable by
my old friend, the Professor of Success.
B. T.
From The Spectator.
BISHOP WORDSWORTH ON CREMATION.
Bishop Wordsworth, in his sermon
at Westminster Abbey against Crema-
tion, can hardly have meant, indeed cer-
tainly did not mean, that the persecutors
of the early Christian martyrs, who, in
the second century, burnt their bodies and
scattered their ashes into the Tiber, in-
terfered in any way with the resurrection
of those bodies, in whatever sense the
doctrine of the Church teaches that res-
urrection, from the dead. No doubt what
he did mean to say was, not that crema-
tion \^oy^A prevent \.\\t resurrection of the
bodies of the persons burnt, — a view that
would be far more pagan than any ever
suggested by the most flagrant sceptics,
since it would imply that man, by a par-
ticular funeral rite, could cheat God of
his purposes, — but that it would restore
a pagan kind of contempt for the body,
and all that is connected with the body, —
a contempt hardly reconcilable with the
general temper of Christian affections.
We do not suppose that, in the present
day, even Dr. Wordsworth can imagine
that the very body existing at the moment
of death can be raised again in another
world, — since it appears to be demon-
strable that the same physical constituents
have entered into thousands and thou-
sands of human bodies. And it would be
making sacred things simply ridiculous,
to maintain that a community of corporal
rights could exist (say) between the per-
sons of the saved and the persons of the
442
BISHOP WORDSWORTH ON CREMATION.
condemned, — that portions of the same
limb might be visited with extreme suf-
ferings in a place of punishment, and yet
minister to the sense of blessedness of
another owner of it, in a world of blessed-
ness. Nor, indeed, if Dr. Wordsworth
did hold so absurd a tenet, would he have
any greater difficulty on that account
in accepting the rite of cremation. If
every one is to reclaim his own earthly
body, it would be neither more nor
less difficult to do so after the sort of
redistribution of its elements which
is accomplished by fire, than after the
sort of redistribution which is accom-
plished by decay. Decompositions re-
solve the body as surely into completely
new material forms, gaseous, fluid, and
solid, as cremation. If the old body is to
be fetched together from the elements
once more, it would be quite as easy after
combustion and the reassimilation by
trees and plants and animals which would
follow combustion, as it would be after
decomposition and the reassimilation by
trees, plants, and animals which would
follow decomposition. Dr. Wordsworth
is not so simple but that he knows this.
His sermon was not preached in alarm at
any obstruction which the new proposal
would be likely to offer to the promises
and purposes of God, but evidently in
fear lest it should cultivate a new way of
looking at things amongst men, which
would make it more difficult to believe in
the doctrine of immortality, and espe-
cially, it would appear, in the doctrine of
a bodily resurrection.
And if, as we do not doubt, this was
the Bishop of Lincoln's meaning, his
view is at least intelligible, however little
credit it may do to the depth of our
Christian convictions. It cannot be
doubted that anvthing^ which interferes
with religious customs, which changes or
breaks up the customary channels in
which awe and reverence have hitherto
been accustomed to run, does tend to
loosen the hold of merely customary
faiths upon the mind ; and we interpret
the Bishop of Lincoln's cry of alarm as
being a pathetic way of saying to us, —
" For God's sake don't break up any
religious custom, on grounds however
weighty ; if you do, you will be dissolving
the only spiritual beliefs we have, — for
of earnest, individual conviction, based
on the experience and thoughts of our
own time, there is so exceedingly little, so
infinitely little, that if once we part with
the traditionary faith we have inherited
from our fathers, we shall lose ourselves
in the desert of unbelief." That seems
to us, virtually, the drift of the Bishop's
warning. He doubts if the faith of the
day in immortality can bear the shock of
seeing the bodies of our friends treated
merely as " matter in the wrong place,"
and reduced to ashes before our eyes. It
may be very true that " the body is not
the body which shall be ; " but yet re-
spect for the body "which shall be " im-
plies, he thinks, a certain reverence and
tenderness towards the body which is.
If, instead of hiding from ourselves as we
now do, the slow process by which the-
mortal frame returns to the elements, we
hasten that process, and make it visible
to the eyes of all ; if we leave no spot on
the earth to which our memory can cling
as that which contains the earthly form
of the friend we have lost, some of the
chief props and aids to the weak human
faith in immortality will be removed,
though they may not be and are not the
supports of it. In a word, revolutionize in
any marked way the traditional habits of
men at those times in their lives when
their minds are turned towards the super-
natural world, and you run a great risk of
forcing on them anew difficulties which
have hitherto been slid over, and c.iusing
faith itself to fall in along with the but-
tresses by which its infirmity has hitherto
been supported.
Now, if all this be so, — and we are not
sure that there may not be something
natural in the Bishop's alarm, — it is the
severest reflection on the superficiality
and poverty of Christian faith which can
well be imagined. Surely by this time at
least, Christianity should have ceased to
be dependent on the mere atmosphere of
social usage for one of its cardinal faiths,
should be able to dispense with any form
of burial sincerely believed on good
grounds to be hurtful to the health of the
living generation, and should be found
equal to moulding the new form, what-
ever it may be, so as to represent with
equal distinctness the old faith. If it
cannot do this, it must have lost all its
living hold on the heart of society, and
itself need a regenerating change. It is,
no doubt, perfectly true that just as the
human body itself sometimes moulders
away without any visible change in its
outward aspect, till at a touch or a breath
of air it suddenly crumbles into dust, so
a great faith will manage to keep up all
its old dignity and majesty of appearance
till some trifling disturbance tests its real-
ity, and you find it suddenly vanishing
beneath a touch. But surely that is not
I
i
BISHOP WORDSWORTH ON CREMATION.
443
so now with the Christian faith, and it is
hardly the sign of an earnest individual
faith in Dr. Wordsworth himself to teach
so strenuously that it may be so. There
is much superficial and much insincere
Christian profession, but it is hardly cred-
ible that any large number of men would
be made pagans by the custom of crema-
tion, if for sanitary reasons it were ever
introduced. No doubt, there would be a
natural enough shrinking from the new
duty ; a feeling that there was a want of
tenderness in thus suddenly and abso-
lutely expunging all trace of the vanished
life from the earth. But just such shrink-
ings there are already from all kinds of
duties, which the spirit of Christianity not
only does not forbid, but is usually be-
lieved strictly to enjoin, — from war, for
instance, in a good cause, — from using
the sword in defence of civil order, from
submissiveness of behaviour to a civil
power really anti-Christian, in all things
not positively unlawful. Christianity in
all its more solid forms has always shown,
as an Evangelical preacher once said of
Providence, " great strength of mind."
It has never been tender to small scru-
ples. It has never doubted that it had
sufficient inherent power in itself to find
the mean? of reversing a mere current of
artificial association ; nay, more, that it
had the resources to encounter even a
real moral paradox, like the extremely
pacific and apparently " non-resistance "
tendency of much of our Lord's teach-
ing, without fearing that the paradox
would be too much for the spirit thus en-
countering it. To think of the change
from our present customs of burial to
those which were common in the pagan
world as likely to cause any difficulty of
this order would be quite absurd. If
Christianity is as full of life now as we
believe it to be, it would soon make cre-
mation,— supposing cremation to be
really recommended by the humane re-
spect for human health, — as Christian a
right as inhumation has ever been ; and
it would even profit by its courage to in-
sist on the sacrifice of a mere sentiment
of delicacy towards the dead, however
keen and natural, in the cause of the
health and happiness of the living. The
whole question is one for the science of
the country to decide, and nothing can
be more derogatory to the vigour of
Christianity, than to represent it as iden-
tified in any way with the present system
of burial.
If it be as Bishop Wordsworth thinks,
then, all we can say is that Christianity
has lost altogether its initiative, its mould-
ing force, its power of putting a new
heart into an old thing, and adapting it-
self to the changes of the world and the
expansion of human knowledge. The
Bishop's dread that some change in the
mere outward costume of faith may de-
stroy faith is as old as timid hearts and
hesitating minds. St. Peter was half
ashamed of the new practice of eating
with the Gentiles, and had to be with-
stood by his brother Apostles "to the
face," before he could get over his dread
that the discontinuance of Jewish exclu-
siveness would endanger the young Chris-
tian Church. So, again, it was supposed,
at the time of the revival of learning, that
Christianity must collapse before the re-
newed study of the old pagan thought, —
whereas Christianity won new conquests
by her use of the spoils. Again, when
the new science came into being, and it
appeared that the sun and not the earth
was the centre of our system, it was feared
that notions so remote from those of the
old prophets and Hebrew chroniclers
would subvert the religion with which
scientific error had been mixed up. But
once more the erroneous character of
those faint-hearted anticipations was
proved, and Christianity found itself more
powerful than ever, though it had to alter
its language in relation to the character
of Hebrew inspiration. And now we are
told that mere change of a funeral rite, —
a change which, if it had to be made,
would not be accompanied by any change,
however small, in the conceptions of tlie
Church as to the destiny of man, or even
as to the dignity of the human body, —
indeed, the change would be one made
in homage to the dignity of the living
body, — would be fatal to the greatest
article in the Christian creed, so far as it
affects human life and destiny. Surely
the Bishops need not regard it, as some
of them almost appear to do, as their offi-
cial duty to utter such evil auguries for
the Church of which they are supposed
to be the guides. Surely fainter hearts
can hardly be conceived than the hearts of
those who think that the faith in a life
beyond the grave will be dissipated by
any attempts so to deal with the remains
of the dead as to prevent their being a
legacy of evil to the living. We, for
our parts, are not yet satisfied that the
men of science have shown a source of
danger so serious now and so capable of
complete elimination, as to recommend
the change, and to justify the distress
which at first it must cause. But clearly
444
COMETS.
it is a question for science. And eccle-
siastics who tell us that, if science shows
it to be humane and a new security for
health and strength, Christianity will sink
beneath the shock, — only betray their
own unconscious fear that the career of
Christianity is nearly over, and its vital
strength exhausted, or they would never
dream of its succumbing to so petty an
alarm as this.
From The Spectator.
COMETS.
Of all the objects with which astrono-
mers have to deal. Comets are the
most mysterious. Their eccentric paths,
their marvellous dimensions, the strange
changes to which they are subject, have
long been among the most striking of the
wonders of astronomy. There is some-
thing specially awe-inspiring, too, in the
thought of the gloomy domains of space
through which the comet that visits our
system for a brief time has for countless
ages been travelling. Ordinary modes of
measuring space and time fail us, indeed,
in speaking of these wonders, or at least
convey no real meaning to the mind. If
the comet, for instance, which is now a
conspicuous object in our northern skies
be of this order — if, as our comet-tracker
Hind begins to suspect, its path in our
neighbourhood is parabolic, so that either
it has an enormously long period of revo-
lution, or has come to us across the in-
terstellar spaces themselves, — how use-
less is it to set down the array of num-
bers representing the extension of its
path, or the years during which the comet
has been voyaging through desert space !
The comets indeed which come from the
star-depths — and observation renders it
all but certain that some have done so —
cannot in any case have pursued a voyage
less than twenty billions of miles in
length, and cannot have been less than
eight million years upon the road. That,
too, was but their latest journey. From
the last sun they visited to our own sun,
such was their voyage ; but who shall
say how many such voyages they had
pursued, or how many they will complete
after leaving our sun's neighbourhood,
before the time comes when some chance
brings them near enough to a disturbing
planet to cause their path to become a
closed one ? And even those comets
which are now known to follow a closed
path, returning again and again to the
neighbourhood of the sun, need only be
studied thoughtfully to present similarly
startling conceptions. No matter what
theory of their origin we adopt, we are
brought face to face with the thought of
time-intervals so enormous that practi-
cally they must be viewed as infinite. If
we take the assumption that a comet of
this order had been travelling on a path
of parabolic or hyperbolic nature towards
our sun, had been captured by the dis-
turbing attraction of a planet, and com-
pelled thenceforth to circuit on an oval
path of greater or less extent, yet accord-
ing to all laws of probability, how many
times must it have flitted from star to
star before it was thus captured ! For
the chances are millions to one against
so near an approach to a planet as would
ensure capture. But if, appalled by the
enormous time-intervals thus revealed to
us, we turn from that assumption, and
find within the solar system itself the
origin of the periodic comets, how strange
are the theories to which we are led !
Those comets which come very near to
the sun may have had a solar origin ;
and those which approach very near the
path of one the giant planets may have
been propelled from out of such a planet
when in its sun-like youth. Even then,
however, other comets remain which are
not thus to be accounted for, unless we
regard them as derived from planets out-
side Neptune, hitherto undetected, and
perhaps detectable in no other way. And
when we have taken such theories of
cometary origin, not, indeed, for accept-
ance, but to be weighed amongst possi-
bilities, how stupendous are the concep-
tions to which we are thus introduced !
Suns{ior what is true of our sun may be
regarded as probable of others) vomiting
forth cometic matter, so violently as to
communicate velocities capable of bear-
ing such matter to the limits, or beyond
tl>e limits of the solar system : planets
now passing through later stages of their
existence, but presented to us, according
to such theories, as once in a sun-like
condition, and at that time capable of
emulating the comet-expelling feats of
the great central sun.
Are these thoughts too wild and fanci-
ful to be entertained ? They mav appear
so ; yet where are we to find others less
amazing ? The comets of the various or-
ders — short-period, long-period, andj
non-periodic — are there. Their exist-j
ence has to be in sorne way accounted]
for ; or if such explanation is at present!
impossible, as seems likely, we may yet]
COMETS.
445
follow the various lines of reasoning that inconceivably distant epoch, comets
which present themselves. And we have travelling from sun to sun, and some of
very little choice. Take a comet of long them coming from other suns towards
period passing near the orbit, let us say, ours, to be captured from time to time by
of Uranus, — even as Tempel's comet, ; the resistance of the vaporous masses
the parent of the November meteors, is out of which the planets of our system
known to do. Either that comet has were one day to be evolved,
been gathered in from outer space by the We do not know how the questions
sun, and compelled to follow its present raised by such thoughts should be an-
path by the disturbing influence of Ura- ! swered, although, as has been elsewhere
nus, or else — what.'' Only two other shown, there is more evidence in favour
theories are available. Trace back the ; of the theory of expulsion than of the
comet's path in imagination, round and | other two theories just sketched. But
round that oval path, which carries it; we have reason to feel assured, as we
across the paths of Uranus and the earth ; contemplate a comet like that which now
but nowhere else brings it within mil- adorns our skies, that could we learn its
lions of miles of any possible disturbing
influences. Rejecting the earth as insuf-
ficient in attractive might (or, at least, so
inferior to Uranus as to leave us in no
history, a practical infinity of time would
be brought before us as the aggregate of
the time-intervals we should have to deal
with. Nor is the marvel of the comet
doubt in selecting between the two), we diminished by what we have learned from
have only during the past of the comet
as so traced, the planet Uranus to which
we can refer it. We have rejected the
attractive influence of Uranus ; but two
other influences remain. Eruptive ac-
tion in a former sun-like state, an action
corresponding to the eruptive processes
known to be taking place in the sun, is
one possible origin. The mind of man,
unapt though it is to deal with time-inter-
vals so enormous as are required to trans-
mute a giant orb from the sun-like to the
planetary condition, may yet accept this
interpretation, if no other present itself
which is not still more appalling. Only
one other, as it seems to us, remains, and
this compels us to contemplate time-
intervals compared with which those re-
quired to change Uranus from sun to
observation or from mathematical analysis.
We have found that the tracks of comets
are followed by countless millions of me-
teoric bodies, and thus the strangest
'thoughts — of infinity of space occupied
by infinite numbers of cosmical bodies,
aggregating towards multitudinous cen-
tres during infinity of time — are sug-
gested to us. The telescope has shown
us wonderful processes taking place dur-
ing the comet's approach to the sun, and
most wonderful process of all, the repul-
sion of the vaporous matter in the tail, as
though to assure us that the expfelling
power of suns is even more than matched
by the repelling power they exert on por-
tions of cometic matter brought in cer-
tain conditions under their influence.
Analysis by the spectroscope, that won-
planet seem insignificant. If, as we are derful instrument which astronomy owes
taught by the nebular hypothesis of the 'to Kirchhoff, has taught us much respect-
solar system, or, in fact, by any theory of jing cometic structure, showing that the
its evolution whatever, the planet Uranus j light of the nucleus is that of a glowing
was once in a vaporous condition, extend- solid or liquid (or of matter reflecting
ing as a mighty rotating disc far beyond i sunlight), the light of the coma that
its present sphere, and probably far be- i mainly of glowing vapour, while in the
yond the path of its outermost satellite, I tail these two forms of light are com-
we may conceive a comet arriving from | bined. And polariscopic analysis speaks
outer space to be captured by the resist- j with equal clearness of the composite na-
ance of the once vaporous planet, not by j ture of cometic structure. But when all
its mere attractive force. But to what a j this has been said, we are little nearer to
result have we thus been led ! If we ac- : the solution of the mysterious problems
cepted this view, rather than the theory which comets present to us. They still
that Uranus had expelled the comet, we ; teach us, as they have so long taught,
should have first to carry our thoughts i that "there are more things in heaven
back almost to the very beginning of our and earth than are dreamed of in our
solar system, and then to recognize at ' philosophy."
446
DERISIVE PUNISHMENTS.
From Chambers' Journal.
DERISIVE FUNIS HIVIENTS.
Times are considerably changed since
ridicule formed a part of ordinary judicial
punishment. Sometimes the suffering
inflicted went beyond a derisive public
exhibition. It was hard for ladies of a
political turn of mind, as the Countess of
Buchan learned, when, after Bruce's de-
feat at Methven, she fell into the hands of
the foes of the warrior upon whose head
she had placed the Scottish crown. " As
she did not strike with the sword, so she
shall not die with the sword," said King
Edward, in his cruel mercy condemning
the patriotic lady to be confined in a
crown-shaped wooden cage, of strong lat-
tice-work barred with iron, and hung in
air from a turret of Berwick Castle, " for
a spectacle and everlasting reproach." It
was poor consolation for the prisoner to
know that Bruce's sister and daughter
were exhibited in the same manner, one
at Roxburgh Castle, and the other in the
Tower. When ladies of high degree were
treated as though they were wild beasts,
we are not surprised to learn that a very
long time ago — so long ago that the date
has been lost — a parson at Broughton-
Hackett, Worcestershire, found guilty of
aiding a farmer's wife to get rid of her
spouse, was put in a strong cage, and
suspended on Churchill Big Oak, with a
leg of mutton and trimmings within his
sight,-but beyond his reach, and so starved
to death.
Caging, however, was hardly a recog-
nized form of punishment in England, the
pillory being the legal instrument of pun-
ishment by exposure. It was simply the
Anglo-Saxon " stretch neck " — a folding-
board with a hole in the centre for the
admission of the criminal's neck — with
two additional holes for the hands, fas-
tened to the top of a pole fixed upon a
stool or platform. No more disagreeable
penalty could have been hit upon for
adulterators, cheating traders, forestallers,
dice-coggers, forgers, fortune-tellers, pub-
lic liars, cut-purses, and vagabonds hav-
ing no claim upon the friendliness of the
multitude, at liberty to pelt the unlucky
rogue with mud, garbage, and stones at
discretion. Charles L's Star Chamber
turned the pillory into an engine of politi-
cal oppression ; in their tyrannic short-
sightedness, making it a place of honour,
rather than of degradation, for, when men
like Leighton, Prynne, and Lilburne stood
in Palace .Yard, the sympathizing crowd
hailed them, not as felons, but as heroes,
for boldly declaiming against misdoings
in high places, at a time when a man could
be condemned to lose his ears for calling
Laud " a little urchin " in a private letter
to a friend. The archbishop and his
satellites did their master very ill service
in giving occasion for the scene in Palace
Yard on the 30th of June 1637, thus de-
scribed in one of Strafford's letters : " In
the palace yard twopillories were erected,
and there the sentence against Burton,
Bastwick, and Prynne was executed.
They stood two hours in the pillory. The
place was full of people, who cried and
howled terribly, especially when Burton
was cropped. Dr. Bastwick was very
merry ; his wife. Dr. Poe's daughter, got
on a stool and kissed him. His ears be-
ing cut off, she called for them, put them
in a clean handkerchief, and carried them
away with her. Bastwick told the people,
" the lords had their collar-days at court,
but this was his collar-day, rejoicing much
in it." Fifty-six years later, Daniel Defoe
stood unabashed in the pillory of the
Temple, amid a heap of garlands, flung
by a crowd of well-wishers.
A stranger scene still was witnessed at
Charing Cross in 1758. Dr. John Sheb-
beare was in that year sentenked to three
years' imprisonment, and to stand one
hour in the pillory, for writing certain
Letters to the People of England, insisting
that France owed her grandeur, and Eng-
land her misfortunes to the undue influ-
ence of Hanover in the British council-
chambers. Upon the 5th of December,
a pillory was erected at Charing Cross, to
which the culprit was brought in one of
the City stage-coaches by Under-sheriff
Beardmore, who handed him into the
pillory, and left him to stand there at his
ease ; neither his head nor his hands were
inclosed in the pillory holes, and a richly
dressed servant held an umbrella over the
doctor's head, to fend off the rain. The
under-sheriff was arraigned for neglecting
his duty, and although he contended he
had fulfilled the letter of the law, was fined
and imprisoned for his indulgent inter-
pretation. The Irishman who acted as
footman on the occasion was not satisfied
with the guinea he received for his trouble,
saying to Shebbeare : " Only think of the
disgrace, your honour ! " and the doctor
was obliged to salve the indignity with an
extra crown. A greater man than the
Devonshire surgeon. Lord Cochrane, of
Basque Roads fame, was sentenced in
1814 to be pilloried. Upon Sir Francis
Burdett declaring his intention of stand-
ing by his colleague's side in the pillory,
the government, not caring to risk the
DERISIVE PUNISHMENTS.
447
consequences, wisely ignored that part of
the sentence, and rested satisfied with
degrading, fining, and imprisoning the
famous sea-fighter. Exposure in the
pillory has sometimes proved fatal. In
1756, the Smithfield drovers pelted two
perjured thief-takers so severely that one
of them died ; in 1763, a man was done
to death at Bow in the same way ; and in
1780, a coachman, named Read, expired
in the pillory before his time was up. In
1816, the punishment was abolished for
all offences save perjury, and in 1837 put
an end to altogether.
The stocks, which answered the pur-
pose of a pillory, were often made to serve
as whipping posts also, by carrying their
supporting posts to a convenient height,
and affixing iron clasps to hold the of-
fender's wrists. Sometimes a single post
fixed in front of a bench answered the
double purpose equally well ; a pair of
iron clasps on the top being used in
whipping-cases, and another pair fixed
below sufficing for ankle-holders. Every
parish had its stocks. "Coming home
to-night," writes Pepys, " a drunken boy
was carried by our constable to our new
pair of stocks, to handsel them." They
were generally erected near the church-
3'ard, or by the roadside, a little way out.
Driving along the country road, one may
often come upon such a relic of the past,
nearly hidden by weeds of many years'
growth. London, of course, was liberally
provided for in this way : writing in 1630,
Taylor the Water-poet says :
In London, and within a mile, I ween,
There are of jails or prisons full eighteen ;
And sixty whipping-posts and stocks and
cages.
The City stocks stood near the Exchange
end of Cheapside, and must have occu-
pied a goodly space of ground, for, when
they were pulled down in 1668, Pepys said
the clearance made the coming into Corn-
hill and Lombard Street " mighty noble."
Long after the stocks had vanished, their
memory was preserved by the Stocks
Market, where Sir Robert Viner's trans-
mogrified statue of Sobieski did duty for
His Majesty King Charles II. triumphing
over a turban-crowned Cromwell, until
the market itself was swept away in 1735,
to make room for the Mansion-house.
Episcopal palaces would appear to have
had stocks attached to them. One Sun-
day, in 1631, Shakespeare's Midsummer
Nighfs Dream was privately performed
at the Bishop of Lincoln's house in Lon-
don. The consequence of an inquiry into
the matter was, that a Mr. Wilson, as the
special plotter and contriver of the busi-
ness, and the player of the part of Bottom,
was condemned to sit from six in the
morning to six at night in the stocks at
the porter's lodge of the bishop's house,
the ass's head on his shoulders, a bottle
of hay before him, and a derisive inscrip-
tion on his breast.
In 1736, the good people of Whitstable
were edified by the sight of a doctor and
a clergyman sitting side by side in the
stocks for swearing at one another. In
1827, a man was placed in the stocks in
St. Nicholas's Churchyard, Newcastle,
for disturbing the congregation by enter-
ing the church during service-time, and
shouting : " Bell forever ! " Mr. Bell be-
ing the popular candidate for the county.
A similar piece of misconduct, without
the excuse of electioneering excitement,
upon the part of one Mark Tuck, led to
the revival of the institution at Newbury
a year or so ago. Twenty-six years had
elapsed since the stocks had been ten-
anted, and the butter market was thronged
with sight-seers anxious to see how the
victim would take his punishment. He
did not appreciate their kind attentions,
and saluted every chiming of the church
clock with expressions of thankfulness.
After four hours' exposure to the derision
of the crowd, Tuck was released, and lost
no time in making his way home, without
staying to thank those who had revived
an old custom for his especial benefit.
A German dame who let her tongue wag
too freely about her neighbours, used to
be compelled to stand upon a block in
the market-place, with a heavy stone
dangling from her neck, shaped either
like a bottle, a loaf, an oval dish, or repr-e-
sentinga woman putting out her tongue ;
unless she happened to be rich enough
to buy permission to exchange the shame-
ful stone for a bag of hops tied round
with a red ribbon. In 1637, a woman of
Sandwich, in Kent, venturing to take lib-
erties with the good name of " Mrs.
Mayoress," had to walk through the
streets of the town, preceded by a man
tinkling a small bell, bearing an old broom
upon her shoulder, from the end of which
dangled a wooden mortar. Staffordshire
scolds did not get off so easily. They
had to follow the bellman until they
shewed unmistakable signs of repentance,
debarred from giving any one a bit of
their mind by the branks, or scolds' bri-
dle, an ingenious arrangement of metal
hoops contrived to clasp the head and
the neck firmly, while the padlock behind
448
remained locked, while a spiked plate
pressed upon the tongue, so as effectually
to preclude its owner making any use of
it. The branks, however, was not pecu-
liar to Staffordshire ; it was in use in
Scotland centuries ago. In 1574, two
quarrelsome Glasgow bodies were bound
overto keep the peace, on pain of being
"brankit." Pennant says the authorities
of Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, always
kept one in readiness for immediate use,
and plenty of specimens are yet to be
seen in different places in England.
One preserved at Walton-on-Thames is
of thin iron, with a less terrible bit than
that of the Staffordshire branks, being
only a piece of flat iron some two inches
long, to keep the wearer's tongue quiet
by simple pressure. This instrument
bears the date of 1633 on an inscription
running :
Chester presents Walton with a bridle
To curb women's tongues that talk so idle —
a couplet explained by a story of a Mr.
Chester losing an estate through a mis-
chief-making woman's tongue, and com-
memorating his loss by presenting Wal-
ton with its scolds' bridle. Dr. Plot, the
Staffordshire historian, is loud in his
praise of this odd device for reforming
clamorous women. " I look upon it,"
says he, " as much to be preferred to the
cucking-stool, which not only endangers
the health of the party, but also gives the
tongue liberty 'twixt every dip, to neither
of which this is liable ; it being such a
bridle for the tongue as not only quite
deprives them of speech, but brings
shame for the transgression, and humility
thereupon, before it is taken off."
The worthy antiquary was mistaken in
supposing the cucking-stool 'to be one
and the same thing with the ducking-
stool, whereas it had nothing whatever to
do with the cold-water cure for hot-tem-
pered shrews. Borlase calls it " the seat
of infamy," whereon Cornish scolds were
condemned to abide the derision of
passers-by for such time as the bailiffs
of the manor thought the occasion de-
manded. In Leicester it was customary
to set the offender upon the stool at her
own door, and then carry her in turn to
DERISIVE PUNISHMENTS.
each of the four town gates. In Mont-
gomery, it was not used as a seat at all,
the culprit having to stand upon it with
naked feet and dishevelled hair. la
Scotland, alewives convicted of selling
bad ale were set upon the cuck-stool,
while the liquor was distributed to the
poor folk, for whom, however bad it might
be, it was considered apparently good
drink enough. In 1572 a new cucking-
stool cost the parish of Kingston-upon-
Thames 7s. 6d. for timber, 3s. for iron-
work, 4s. lod. for wheels and brasses,
and 8s. for the matting ; a total outlay of
L.I, 3s. 4d. — no mean item in parochial
expenditure, as money went three hun-
dred years ago. The ducking-stool was
a strong chair fastened to the end of a
pole, or beam, projecting over a river,
well, or water-trough. We do not know
that we can better Misson's description
of it : " They fasten an armchair to the
end of two strong beams, twelve or fifteen
feet long, and parallel to each other.
The chair hangs upon a sort of axle,
on which it plays freely, so as always
to remain in the horizontal position.
The scold being well fastened in her
chair, the two beams are then placed, as
near to the centre as possible, across ^a
post on the water-side ; and being lifted
up behind, the chair, of course, drops
into the cold element." However inferior
in efficacy to the branks, the ducking-
stool had the advantage in affording more
amusement to on-lookers. Amusing to
spectators, no doubt, but it was a cruel
pastime, and has very properly gone out
of use.
Some queans with inveterate habits of
scolding were not to be cured by the
watery ordeal: in 1681, a Mrs. Finch,
who had been ducked three several times,
was convicted as a common scold for a
fourth time, and fined three marks, the
Court of King's Bench ordering her to
be in prison till she paid the fine. In
1745, the hostess of the Queen'' s Head, at
Kingston in Surrey, was ducked under
Kingston Bridge. This is the latest in-
stance we know of, in England at least ;
but a woman named Mary Davis under-
went the like discipline somewhere in
America so lately as 1818.
It is the best printed paper in Chicago.
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LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.
Fifth Series, I ]jo, 1576. — August 22, 1874. ^^^°°^,^^^|ij?fg'
Volume VII. ) ° ' C Vol. GXXII.
CONTENTS.
I. The Isle of Wight, Quarterly Review^ . , , 451
II. The Story of Valentine; and his
Brother. Part X., . . . . . Blackwood's Magazine, . .472
III. Petrarch. By A. H. Simpson, . . . Contemporary Review, . . , 479
IV. The Manor-House at Milford, . . Chambers' Journal, . . . 489
V. Habit in Plants, and Power of Accli-
matization. By H. Evershed, . . . New Quarlerly Review, . . 499
VI. The Brunswick Onyx Vase, . . . Academy, . . . . . 506
VII. The Petrarchian Commemoration, . . Athenceum, 508
VIII. The Hearne Letters, Athenceum, . • . . . 510
POETRY.
Three Sonnets. By Emily Pfeiffer, . 450 1 The Last Tryst 45°
Miscellany, ....• ••• 512
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45°
THREE SONNETS, ETC.
THREE SONNETS.
TO NATURE IN HER ASCRIBED CHARACTER OF
UNMEANING AND ALL-PJlRFORMING FORCE.
O Nature ! thou whom I have thought to
love,
Seeing in thine the reflex of God's face,
A loath'd abstraction would usurp thy
place, —
While Him they not dethrone, they but dis-
prove.
Weird Nature ! can it be that joy is fled.
And bald un-meaning lurks beneath thy
smile ?
That beauty haunts the dust but to beguile.
And that with Order, Love and Hope are
dead?
Pitiless Force, all-moving, all-unmov'd.
Dread mother of unfather'd worlds, assauge
Thy wrath on us, — be this wild life reprov'd.
And trampled into nothing in thy rage !
Vain prayer, although the last of human-
kind,—
Force is not wrath, — she is but deaf and blind.
June 19.
II.
Dread Force, in whom of old we lov'd to see
A nursing mother, clothing with her life
The seeds of Love divine, with what sore
strife
We hold or yield our thoughts of Love and
thee !
Thou art not "calm," but restless as the
ocean,
Filling with aimless toil the endless years, —
Stumbling on thought, and throwing off the
spheres.
Churning the Universe with mindless motion.
Dull fount of joy, unhallow'd source of tears,
Cold motor of our fervid faith and song.
Dead, but engendering life, love, pangs, and
fears.
Thou crownedst thy wild work with foulest
wrong, —
When first thou lightedst on a seeming goal.
And darkly blunder'd on man's suffering soul.
June 20.
III.
Blind Cyclop, hurling stones of destiny.
And not in fury ! — working bootless ill.
In mere vacuity of mind and will —
Man's soul revolts against thy work and thee !
Slaves of a despot, conscienceless and nil^
Slaves, by mad chance befool'd to think
them free,
We still might rise, and with one heart
agree
To mar the ruthless " grinding of thy mill ! "
Dead tyrant, tho' our cries and groans pass by
thee,
Man, cutting off from each new "tree of
life "
Himself, its fatal flower, could still defy thee,
In waging on thy work eternal strife, —
The races come and coming evermore.
Heaping with hecatombs thy dead-sea shore.
yune 23.
Spectator. EmiLY PfeIFFER.
THE LAST TRYST.
Over brown moors and wither'd leas
The angry winds were sweeping ;
Over the great grey northern seas.
The crested waves were leaping ;
And you and I stood close together.
In the chilling gleam of the wintry weather,
As the bare gaunt branches, overhead.
Shook their lingering leaflets, gold and red.
While in every faltering word we said.
Rang the pitiful wail for the days that were
dead ;
For, by the sad seas, 'neath the storm-beat
trees.
Our last tryst we were keeping.
I scarce could hear the words you sobbed.
Amid your passionate weeping.
And the glow from my eager prayer was
robbed,
By the chill around us creeping ;
From the silent paths, where in summer
weather.
Youth, joy, and music had met together.
From the cry of the sea-mews flitting past,
O'er the wild white waves in the bitter blast.
From the breakers that crash'd on the hollow
sand.
From the sough of the breeze o'er the dull
damp land.
From sea and shore rose " No more, no more,"
As our last tryst we were keeping.
There was not a pale bud left, in sooth,
'Mid the dry leaves round us heaping;
The bitter harvest of reckless youth.
Time's iron hand was reaping ;
Our lips still said, "Forever, forever,"
As the trembling fingers clung together.
But even then each sad heart knew
What fate and circumstance meant to do,
And the mighty billows boom'd like a knell,
I As we turned apart from that long farewell ;
' And to wind, and rain, and the moaning main.
Left the last tryst of our keeping.
All The Year Round.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
451
From The Quarterly Review.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.*
" Britain," writes the so-called Nen-
nius,f quoting from the Welsh Triads,
" containeth three considerable islands;
whereof one lieth over against the Ar-
morican shore, and is called Inis gueith ;
the second is situated in the navel of the
sea between Ireland and Britain, and its
name is called Eubonia, that is Manau ;
another is situated in the furthest ver^re
of the British world beyond the Picts, and
is named Ore. So was it said in the
proverb of old when one spake of its
judges, and kings, ' He judged Britain
with its three islands.' " Other pens
have described in this "Review" her
northern sisters, " the storm-swept Or-
cades," and the bleak house of the heroic
Charlotte de la Tremouille, and the saintly
Wilson. It is our present purpose to de-
vote a few pages to the leader of the
" laughing train " of "little isles on every
side " —
Wight who checks the westering tide,|
which, as old Drayton says in his long-
drawn lines —
* I. The History of the Isle of Wight. By Sir
Richard Worsley, Bart. London. 1781. 4to.
2. Tour of the Isle of Wight. By J. Hassell. Lon-
don. 1790.
3. A New, Correct, and Much'intproved History of
the Isle of Wight. Albin, Newport. 1795. 8vo.
4. Description of the principal Picturesque Beauties,
Antiquities, and Geological Phenomena of tJte Isle of
Wight. By Sir Henry C. Englefield, Bart. London.
1816. 8vo.
5. The Under cliff of the Isle of Wight. By George
A. Martin, M.D. London. 1849. 8vo.
6. The History and A ntiquities of the Isle of Wight.
By George Hillier. London. 1855. Parts i to 4. 4to.
7. Murray'' s Handbook for Travellers in Surrey,
Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight. London. 1865.
t " Nennius," § 8. " The work which bears the
name of Nennius was most f.robably written in the
eighth century. It is a compilation made originally
without much judgment. . . . Still, however, it con-
tains fragments of earlier works which are of great in-
terest and value." — Guest, "Early English Settle-
ments in South Britain," Transact, of Arch. Inst.,
Salisbury volume, p. 36. The original of the passage
given above is found in one of the Welsh Triads quoted
by Dr. Guest in the "Proceedings of the Philological j
Society," i. 9: "The three primary adjoining islands
of the Isle of Britain, Ore, Manaw, and Gwyth, and
afterwards the sea broke the land, so that Mon became
an island and in the same manner the isle of Ore was
broken."
t Collins, '« Ode to Liberty."
Of all the southern isles hath held the highest
place,
And evermore hath been the great'st in
Britain's grace.
The name of the Isle of Wight at once
calls up ideas of all that is most lovely in
scenery and genial in climate. Sung by
poets, painted by artists, eulogized by
physicians, the favourite resort alike of
the pleasure-seeker and the invalid, the
artist and the geologist ; a household
word with Englishmen, which all either
have seen or intend to see ; few spots in
the wide world are more often thought of
with loving thankfulness. How many
are the weary labourers of this over-
worked generation in whose minds it is
connected with days or weeks of the
purest happiness snatched from the
noise and smoke of town,
and dreamt away among their merry chil-
dren on its pebbly beaches, or beneath its
ivy-clad rocks, gazing out on the wide
expanse of the limitless ocean, drinking
in health and refreshment both for mind
and body with every breeze ! These
grateful memories swell into a deeper and
more sacred feeling with those who, on
the first approach of that fell destroyer of
the youngest and loveliest — consumption
— have borne their loved ones from
bleaker and less genial homes to winter
on its sunny slopes beneath the shelter-
ing wall of its gigantic downs, and have
seen with thankfulness the glow return to
the wan cheek and vigour to the enfeebled
limbs; or if this has been denied them,
and the disease has run its fatal course
to its sad end, have at least enjoyed the
consolation of knowing that life has been
prolonged, suffering lessened, and that
the invalids' closing days have been
brightened by the loveliness around them :
that if their sun has set, it has not set in
darkness and gloom.
But it is not every one for whom our
island awakens such solemn memories as
these, — memories which we must almost
apologize for referring to. With the artist
the Isle of Wight speaks of many a treas-
ured addition to the sketch-book. Many
a young observer has, like the lamented
Strickland, learnt his first geological les-
sons in this island, which, in the words
452
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
of Mr. Hopkins,* seems almost to have
been " cut out by Nature for a model
illustrative of the phenomena of stratifica-
tion ; " while a whole host of accom-
plished oreologists — including such hon-
oured names as Webster, Sedgwick, and
the too early lost Forbes — have here
pursued investigations, the fruits of which
have enriched the scientific world. The
botanist has many a pleasant memory of
prizes secured for the " hortus siccus,"
among its woods, downs, bogs, and sand-
hills, or on the level reefs, fertile in sea-
weeds, that fortify its coasts. Indeed,
whatever his tastes may be, no one with
any eye or feeling for the beauties of na-
ture can have visited the Isle of Wight
without acquiescing in the panegyric
passed upon it by Sir Walter Scott,t as
"that beautiful island, which he who has
once seen never forgets, through what-
ever part of the world his future p>ath may
carry him."
The rhomboidal form of the Isle of
Wight, likened by various observers to a
turbot, a bird with expanded wings, and
a heraldic lozenge, the two diameters
measuring roughly 23 and 14 m.iles, is
due both to its geological formation and
to the unequal action of the sea on the
coast-line, eating out the softer strata of
the Lower Greensand and Wealden beds
into the wide concavities of Sandown and
Chale Bays, while the harder chalk is left
in bold projecting headlands.
The leading feature in the Isle of
Wight, both from a geological and pic-
turesque point of view, is the high undu-
lating ridge of bare swelling chalk downs,
running from end to end of the island, of
which it forms, as it were, the backbone,
ruling its whole physical structure, and
risincr sheer from the sea at either ex-
tremitv in bold mural precipices honey-
combed with caverns, forming the Culver-
Cliffs to the east, and the Main Bench
and Needles headland to the west. The
Needles themselves are simply shattered
remnants of the chalk ridge that once
stretched continuously across the chan-
huge wedge-
shagged
twisted
nel to the Isle of Purbeck
* " Cambridge Essays," 1857, p. 185.
t " Surgeon's Daughter," chap. vi.
shaped pinnacled masses left while all
about them has yielded to the ceaseless
dash of the breakers.
Towards the centre of the island these
chalk downs, instead of being limited to
a single narrow wall, form two or three
parallel ridges with outliers : here, cut
into combes and dingles with steeply
sloping sides clothed with rich foliage, or
with aged thorns dwarfed or
by the fierce blasts with which
they have had to maintain a lifelong
struggle ; there, closing inr and forming
long sequestered glens, or rounding into
smooth elbows, or dipping down their
undulating arms into the sand-valleys
below. As we approach either extremity
the ridge diminishes in breadth, being
scarcely a quarter of a mile broad at Af-
ton Down above Freshwater Gate, while
the strata more and more nearly approach
to verticality, evidenced to the eye by
the black lines of flints scoring: the white
face of the chalk with as much regularity
as the lines of a copy-book.
The southern promontory presents
another range of chalk downs — Shank-
lin, St. Boniface, and St. Catherine's
Downs — containing the highest ground
in the island, little short of 800 feet
above the sea-level, throwing off huge
pier-like projecting arms northwards into
the valley of denudation, — for the most
part displaying an undulating surface of
the Lower Greensand, sometimes run-
ning in ridges, sometimes swelling in
isolated hillocks, sometimes furrowed
into gullies and watered by the Medina
and the Yar and their tiny tributaries, —
which divides this range from the central
ridge.
The axis of the upheaving force which
raised the central ridge appears to have
coincided with a line drawn from near
Sandown Fort to somewhere between
Brighston and Brook. At each extremity
of this anticlinal line in Compton and
Sandown Bays, the Wealden emerges
from under the Lower Greensand, and
attracts the geologist by its Saurian re-
mains and rafts of fossil trees.
Immediately below the chalk lies the
Upper Greensand, whose mural escarp-
ment and shelf-like outline contrasts for-
J
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
453
cibly with the smooth rounded forms of
the chalk. It is this formation to which
the scenery of the Undercliff owes its
most characteristic feature in the vast
vertical wall, furrowed by time and
stained with the tenderest hues, which
stretches almost without interruption
from Bonchurch to Chale.
Next comes the Gault, locally known
as "the blue slipper," from its colour,
and the tendency of the superincumbent
strata to slip or slide on the smooth
unctuous surface of its clays, when mois-
tened by the copious land springs which
percolate through the chalk and sand-
stone. It is to this that the gigantic
landslip that under the healing hand of
nature has created the romantic beauty
of the Undercliff is due. The base of
the sandstone wall being undermined by
the springs, the overhanging masses
were torn away by their own weight and
carried downwards on the slippery sur-
face of the gault, until they encountered
some obstacle which checked their de-
scent, and caused them to hang pic-
turesquely poised on the steep grassy
slope, where, draped with ivy and a pro-
fusion of graceful creepers, they afford
shelter to early primroses and violets,
which cluster round their base, and, with
"a budding world" of purple orchises
and curling fern-fronds, form a picture of
surpassing loveliness.
The northern half of the island between
the central chalk-ridge and the Solent
is occupied by a succession of the older
tertiary strata which form the very re-
markable cliffs of Alum Bay. The al-
most magical beauty of this locality is
due to the quick succession of beds of
vivid and violently contrasted hues — red,
yellow, black, white — upheaved from
their naturally horizontal positions, and
made to stand on end, as it were, for the
convenience of the geologist. One nar-
row bed of pipe-clay, intervening between
the richly-tinted sands, contains impres-
sions of leaves of most exquisite deli-
cacy, belonging to a sub-tropical flora,
identical with those in a corresponding
bed across the Solent at Bournemouth.
The Chines, though in no sense pe-
culiar to the Isle of Wight, but found
under different names wherever the same
physical causes operate, are among its
best known geological features. They
are deep fissures or gullies eaten out of
the soft strata of the Lower Greensand
by the action of running water, and de-
rive their name from the A.-S. "cine" or
cyne.
" * a cleft. Some of the most
attractive scenery of the island is to be
found in these little ravines, which, if they
had not at one time received such exag-
gerated praise, would be more esteemed
now. At Shanklin a little rill tumbling
at the head of the glen over a harder bed
of rock which checks its action, has worn
away a sinuous ravine, the steep sides of
which are prettily draped with coppice
and creepers, through which the brook
wends its way to the sea, which it enters
through a mighty gash in the cliffs, "as
if cut with the sword of an Orlando."
Luccombe Chine, a mile or two further
along the shore of the south-west, though
smaller, has been more left to nature, and
is to many more pleasing. The third
celebrated chine — that of Blackgang —
is a complete contrast to the other two in
its bare treeless aspect ; and has been
so completely vulgarized by smug villas
and toy-shops, that to the ordinary visitor
it is simply "a delusion and a snare."
'Po the geologist the fine sections of the
strata presented in its naked sides and
sea-front must always make it an object
of interest.
Of its earliest inhabitants, the Celtae,
or the Belgae by whom the former had
been displaced shortly before Caesar's in-
vasion, the Isle of Wight exhibits numer-
ous and distinct traces. The very name
by which, under various forms, its has
been known for at least the last • two
thousand years, is in all probability of
Celtic origin. The Vnys Gwyth of the
Welsh Triads, the Inis Gueith of Nennius.
is considered by. Dr. Guest to be equiva-
* The verb "to chine" was used not only by Spen-
ser,—
" Where biting deepe, so deadly it imprest
That quite it ch3med his backe behind the sell."
Faerie Quene, b. iv. c. 6.
but also by Dryden, as quoted by Richardson stti
voc.
" He that in his day did chine the long rib'd Apen-
nine."
454
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
lent to "the channel island.''^ In accord-
ance with this is the statement of
Nennius, or at any rate one of his tran-
scribers, that guith in British or Celtic
signified " division," * a name evidently
indicating a belief that at some far re-
mote period it had been severed from the
mainland. The crests of nearly all the
downs, which stretch in an almost un-
broken line from Bembridge at the east-
tern to Freshwater at the western ex-
tremity of the island, are studded with
The grassy barrows of the happier dead,
not a few of which are deemed by archae-
ologists good examples of the British
barrow. The mounds which stand out so
conspicuously against the sky on Shal-
combe Down, are said to have been
raised over Arwald, the Jutish king of
the island, his son, and dependants, who
had fallen in battle with Ceadwalla. In-
teresting groups occur on Chillerton,
Brook, Afton, and Ashey Downs. Many,
if not most, of these have been rifled, and
the contents too frequently broken and,
dispersed.
But we have traces of the homes as well
as of the graves of the people. The steep-
ly-sided, sinuous dells which divide the
knot of chalk-downs to the west of Caris-
brooke shew groups of shallow bowl-
shaped depressions, which have been long
popularly known as " British Villages."
These mark the sites of the rude conical
huts of the aboriginal inhabitants,! w|jo
had formed their settlements in the valley,
under the protection of the hill-forts,
the remains of which still crown the
ridge above. These excavations occur in
groups of two, three, or more, within the
compass of a larger ring, which served as
a rampart against hostile attacks ; each
group, or kraal, as they would be term'ed
in South Africa, indicating the abode of
a single family. The name of the valley
in which the largest number of these
traces of habitation are found — Gallibury
Bottom — serves to confirm the tradition.
The British inhabitants of Wessex were
known to the Saxons as Wealhas or
Gaels, and Gallibury may well indicate
the bi4rh or "fortified place" of the bar-
barous tribes found here by the Jutish
invaders.
Another primaeval memorial may be
* " Quam Britones insulam Gueid vel Gwith vocant,
?uod Latine divortiutn dici potest." — MS. C. C. C.
lambridge.
t Taf o'lKTjaeig evre2£ig exovat kK tCjv KahifKov rj
^?iO)V Kara to TT/laorov cnjyKeLfievac. — Diod. Sicul.,
lib. V. c. 21, speaking of the iuhabitants of Britain.
seen where, at the head of a hollow way
of unknown antiquity shaded by low
spreading oaks above the village of Mot-
tiston —
Tinted by Time, the solitary stone
On the green hill of Mote each storm with-
stood,
Grows dim with hoary lichen overgrown.
/V^/, TAe Fair Island,
This Longstone, as it is popularly called,
is an example of the 7nenhirs, or standing
stones, which in former days were so con-
fidently connected with Druidical wor-
ship, but of the purpose of which so little
is really known. It is a rough quadran-
gular pillar of ferruginous sandstone, 13
feet in height, and is estimated to weigh
little less than 30 tons.
Whether the 'Iktlc which Diodorus Sic-
ulus describes as the storehouse of the
Cornish tin, the mart frequented by the
Greek merchants from Marseilles and
Narbonne, should be identified with the
Isle of Wight, or with St. Michael's
Mount, is a question which has been long
and hotly debated, and of which we may
say " adhuc sub judice lis est." The dis-
covery of a block of tin, of the shape of
an astragalus, dredged up at the entrance
to Falmouth Harbour, appears to the ac-
complished Sir Henry James * an irre-
fragable proof that the port from which
the astragali oi tin mentioned by Diodo-
rus were shipped for the coast of Gaul is
to be identified with St. Michael's Mount,
and his conclusions were to a considera-
ble extent accepted by the late Sir George
Cornewall Lewis.f But the Isle of Wight
tradition is too well authenticated to be
lightly set aside, and it can hardly be
questioned that the Ictis of Diodorus, as
well as the Mictis of Timaeus, are merely
variations of Vectis, the Roman designa-
tion of the Isle of Wight. Diodorus,
writing from hearsay, without any per-
sonal acquaintance with the localities,
may have well combined the accounts of
the two tin-ports, and produced a de-
scription accurately tallying with neither.
The Romans have left fewer and less
distinct marks of their occupation, which
commenced under Vespasian, acting as
lieutenant to Plautius in the invasion of
Claudus A.D. 43, and here first "desig-
nated by the fates for empire," J than in
many other parts of England. Besides
coins and fragments oi pottery, we can
* " Archaeological Journal," No. cxi. pp. 196-202.
t Ibid. For Sir G. C. Lewis' earlier view, see his
' Astronomy of the Ancients," pp. 450-454.
% Tacit. Agric. 13, " Monstratus fatis Vespasianus."
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
455
point only to the recently discovered villa
at Carisbrooke. Tliis is small but well
preserved, with bath, hypocaust, and the
other usual arrangements, and is enriched
with a complex tessellated pavement and
mural paintings, recalling the decorations
of Pompeii.
The state of these remains, like that of
Roman buildings generally throughout
England, indicates the barbarism which,
after the departure of the Romans, had
rudely sought to stamp out the civilization
they had brought with them but had
failed to naturalize. Not a single article
of value was discovered in its ruins.
Everywhere there were traces of the oc-
cupation of a savage people ; fires had
been kindled on the beautiful tessellated
floors ; the bones of deer, sheep, and
other animals, strewn about the rooms,
spoke of the coarse repasts which had
succeeded to the "noctes ccenaeque
deum " of the countrymen of Lucullus
and Apicius. The ruin was evidently due
not to gradual decay, but to wilful de-
struction.
The evidences of the Anglo-Saxon oc-
cupancy are limited to the sepulchral
barrows and their contents. These are
very numerous, and few cemeteries in the
country have yielded a richer harvest than
that on " Chessell Down," near Fresh-
water. Among many other discoveries
indicating a considerable advance in
wealth and refinement, we may particu-
larize the skeleton of an infant with its
bronze rattle ; of a female with the bod-
kin which had confined her hairstill lying
at the back of her head, and her bronze
needle and scissors by her side ; a silver
spoon, with its capacious bowl washed
with gold ; and balls of crystal with silver
mountings — mysterious objects which,
from the time of the entrance of the Jews
into Canaan * to that of Lilly and Dr.
Dee, have been associated with magical
rites, and unhallowed pryings into futu-
rity.
The Saxon, or rather Jutish, occupation
of the island dates from 530, when Cer-
dic of Wessex, and his son Cynric, sub-
sequently to their conquests on the
* The Hebrew of Lev. xxvi., Numb, xxxiii. 52, Prov.
XXV. II (-'image of stone," "pictures," E. V. ; ?udog
CKOtzoq GKOTTtai, LXX.), has been interpreted by Spen-
ser ("De Legibus," vol. i.), Delrius (" Disquis.
Magic," lib. iv. c. 2, p. 468), Douglas, and others, of
these divining balls. See for a long and learned dis-
quisition on the point, Douglas' " Nenia Britannica,"
P- i4> § 9- Such crystal balls, set in precious metals,
were found in the tomb of King Childeric at Tournay,
as well as in a large number of the Kentish (Jutish)
barrows opened by Douglas and Faussett.
mainland, crossed the Solent, and, after
a bloody battle, stormed the ^ur/i or
stronghold at Carisbrooke, and made
themselves masters of Wight. Four
years later, on Cerdic's death, the island
was granted to his nephews, probably the
sons or grandsons of his sister, who had
married a Jutish husband — Stuf, and the
eponymic hero, whose real name has been
completely lost in that derived from his
island achievements, Wiht-gar> " the
spear of Wight." Wihtgar, according to
Florence of Worcester, died in 544, and
was buried in the citadel called after him
Wihtgaresburh, which, though so altered
by decapitation and phonetic corruption
as to be hardly recognizable, still pre-
serves in its name of Carisbrooke the
memory of its Jutish lord. The little
island-kingdom continued dependent on
Wessex for more than a century, till, in
661, Wulfhere of Mercia ravaged it, and
transferred it to Ethelwald, king of the
South Saxons. Ethelwald was a convert
to Christianity. Wulfhere had been his
sponsor, and with that union of sanguin-
ary barbarism and fierce zeal for the faith
which so often characterized these half-
leavened heathens,* made the extirpation
of paganism a condition of the gift to
his royal godson. The neighbouring
county of Sussex, then just emerging
from heathenism under Wilfrid's teach-
ing, furnished a missionary, Eoppa,twho,
in the words of the A.-S. Chronicle,
" first of men brought baptism to the peo-
ple of Wight." But Eoppa's mission*
proved a failure, and when, twenty years
later, a.d. 686, the island was again rav-
aged by Ceadwalla, after the death oi
Ethelwald in battle, the whole Jutish pop-
ulation were found heathen, and, as such,
were doomed to extermination by " the
fierce catechumen." J
Fielding, the novelist, when provoked
beyond endurance by the extortions of
his shrewish landlady at Ryde, says sar-
* "_'I cannot bear to see the finest provinces of
Gaul in the hands of these heretics,' cried Clovis with
all the zeal of a new convert. The clergy blessed tl\^
pious sentiment, and the orthodox barbarian was re-
warded with a series of bloody victories." -- Kemble,
" Anglo-Saxons," vol. ii. p. 355.
t Eoppa is mentioned by Bede, " Eccl. Hist." iv. 14,
as one of Wilfrid's Sussex clergy and Abbot of Selsey.
The "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" also says, sub anno
66t, that "Eoppa the mass priest, i_y the command of
Wilfrid and king Wulfhere, first brought baptism to
the 'people of Wight.'" From this ft would follow
that both the earlier and later missions were directed
by Wilfrid.
X "Adelwold, being greatly des3rrous to make the
people of the Isle to taste of Christ, sent one Eoppa a
priest to preache the worde unto them, but he profited
nothinge." — Lambarde, " Topograph, and Histor«^
Diet, of England," 1730, p. 395.
45^
castically, " Certain it is the island of
Wight was not an early convert to Chris-
tianity, nay, there is some reason to doubt
whether it was ever entirely converted."
Whatever may be thought of his infer-
ence, the great novelist was correct in his
history. It has often been remarked as
singular that, while the Jutes of Kent
were the first of the Anglo-Saxon race to
embrace the Christian religion, their
kinsmen in Wight should have been the
last to do so. This is, doubtless, attrib-
utable to the insular position of Wight,
the Solent Sea — " pelagus solvens," as
Bede styles it, false in etymology but true
in fact — cutting its people off from in-
tercourse with the mainland as effectually
in those days of timid navigation, as the
dense forests of the Andredesweald did
their pagan neighbours in Sussex, whose
conversion, due to the same great Chris-
tian pioneer, only preceded that of Wight
by a few years.* Before he started on
his enterprise, Ceadwalla, as it were to
bribe the powerful God of the Christians
to favour his arms, had vowed that, if
successful, he would devote a fourth part
of the land and spoil to Christ. The
ubiquitous Wilfrid, who in consequence
of " the sad scenes of sacerdotal jealousy
and strife which made his course almost
a constant feud, and himself an object of
unpopularity, even of persecution,"! has
hardly secured the place he merits as one
'Of the most enterprising and successful
of missionaries, was at hand to register
the youthful warrior's vow. On the suc-
cess of his arms in Wight, Wilfrid — of
whom Fuller appositely remarks that " his
TTapepya were better than his epya^ his cas-
ual and occasional better than his inten-
tional performances," J — eager to renew
the spiritual victories vouchsafed him by
God among the barbarians on the shores
of the Baltic, and, still more recently,
among the savage population of Sussex,
claimed the promised fourth part as God's
heritage. The claim was allowed. Three
hundred families were spared from mas-
sacre, and tradition points to the' site of
*Brading Church as the scene of the ad-
* Jeremy Taylor, to whom no historical or classical
illustration, however incongruous, ever came amiss,
from "the Ephesian matron" of Petronius to " Vene-
atapadius Ragium, king of Narsinga," records Cead-
walla's conquest of the Isle of Wight among the
triumphs of prayer (Jeremy Taylor's works, Heber's
edition, vol. iii. p. 91). We fear that the facts dispel
the illusion.
t Milman, " Latin Christianity," vol. ii. p. 90.
i " Wilfrid was one of great parts and greater pas-
sions ... as nightingales sing sweetest the farthest
from the nests, so this man was most diligent in his
services when at the greatest distance from his home."
— Fuller, " Ch. Hist.," cent. vii. § 97, 98.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
mission of the heathen Jutes into the
Christian faith. Scarcely had the foun-
dations of a Christian church in Wight
been laid, when Wilfrid was recalled to
Northumbria, and he was compelled to
entrust the carrying on the work to other
hands.
The history of this interesting epoch
would be incomplete were we to omit the
affecting episode of the two young prin-
ces, sons or brothers of Arwald, the Jut-
ish king, who, having escaped the slaugh-
ter of their kindred, were discovered in
their hiding-place of Stoneham, "Ad.
Lapidem," near Southampton, and doomed
to death by Ceadwalla, but were spared
for a little space at the intercession of
Cynibehrt, Abbot of Redbridge, that
he might teach and baptize them be-
fore they had to die ; and who, in the
words of Bede, who tells the tale with
beautiful simplicity,* "joyfully underwent
a temporal death, by which they did not
doubt that they should pass to an eternal
life of the soul," and found a place in the
martyrology of the Roman Church, which
keeps the 21st of August as the anniver-
sary of " Fratres Regis Arvaldi MM."
The position of the Isle of Wight, so
open to hostile descent by sea, and so
convenient as a base of operations on the
mainland, rendered it from very early
times a second Cythera, and we can well
believe that some Chilon of the day has
before now wished it sunk in the sea.f
Indeed the history of the island, from
the eighth to the sixteenth century, is
little more than that of successive pirati-
cal invasions, ravages by fire and sword,
and hostile occupations, and of the meas-
ures adopted for the defence of its coasts.
But incessant as were their descents,
culminating in the terrible devastation of
looi, when fire and sword swept over the
whole island, the Danes made no perma-
nent settlement in Wight. Local nomen-
clature, that invaluable handmaid to his-
tory, is here our guide ; and the entire
absence of Danish elements in the names
of places — the bys, and holms, and
thorps — which are so abundant in the
East of England, proves beyond question
that the Danes came for booty, not for
tillage, and looked on the island as a so-
journing-place, not as a home.
* Bede, " Hist. Eccl.," lib. iv. c. i6.
t Herod, vii. 235: eOTl de . . . vfjdOq kKLKELfJ^vri
Ty ovvofil hart KuOrjpa, rrjv KfXcjv, uvrjp Trap'' Ijulv
GO^dra-og ysvoiiEVoq, Kep3o; fxi^ov e<pr] elvai "Z-ap-
Ti^Tritn /caret r^f Oa^amjg KaTadedvKsvai nd}Jvov
jy vTTepix^LV.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
457
The establishment of the strong rule
of the Conqueror opened a new and hap-
pier aera for the harassed island. The
feudal system being introduced, the lord-
ship of this exposed and dangerous out-
post was committed to the famous senes-
chal, William FitzOsbern, the Duke's
nearest personal friend, the prime mover
in the conquest of England, who, by his
vigorous counsels, had fixed the waver-
ing resolve of William on the receipt of
the news of the Confessor's death ; and
who had proved his chief agent, together
with Odo of Bayeux, in the reduction of
the conquered country, where the very
name of " the great oppressor," so dear
to the Normans, struck terror into the
hearts of the English.*
W^e know not whether FitzOsbern ever
set foot in his island fief. A chartulary
of Carisbrooke Priory indeed ascribes to
him the conquest of the island, but this
may safely be regarded as a blunder. A
district impoverished of men and means
by a century or two of Danish ravages,
was not likely to be in a position to think
of withstanding its Norman lord. He
erected a small priory at Carisbrooke, de-
pendent on the Abbey of Lire (de Lyra),
in the diocese of Evreux, of which he had
been the founder, as well as of Cor-
meilles, in which, still Norman at heart,
he was buried by his own desire. The
lordship passed to his second son Roger,
and on the defeat of his conspiracy es-
cheated to the Crown.
The island was visited by William him-
self twice towards the close of his reign.
It was here, in 1082, that his unlooked-
for appearance dispersed the ambitious
dreams of his half-brother Odo, Bishop
of Bayeux, as he was gathering the forces
with which he was about to start for
Rome, in the hope, encourged by the ut-
terances of soothsayers, of being chosen
successor of Hildebrand when he should
vacate the Papal throne. In the "Aula
Regia"of the island, while the assem-
bled barons shrunk in relij^ious dread
from executing their master's command
by "laying hands on a consecrated
bishop, William — the subtle mind of
Lanfranc, it is said, suggesting the dis-
tinction " — himself arrested him as Earl
of Kent ; under which title, the remon-
strances of the Bishop of Bayeux being
unheeded, he was hurried off to Nor-
mandy, and kept prisoner in the castle of
^* Freeman, "Norman Conquest," vol. iii. p. 324.
Hanc Normannis carissimuin Anc: is maximo terror!
esse sc.ebat." — Vi^lll. pict. 149. '"Primus et maxi-
mus oppressor Anglorum." — Orderic.
Rouen * till William's decease. The sec-
ond visit was in 1087, on his last voyage
from England to Normandy, not many
months before his death. The lordship
of the Isle of Wight, escheated to the
Crown on the rebellion of the younger
FitzOsbern, was in the early part of his
reign granted by Henry I. to Richard de
Redvers (de Ripariis), Earl of Devon, one
of the five barons who had adhered un-
waveringly to him during his struggle
with his brother Robert. It remained in
his lineal descendants through a long se-
ries of De Redvers and De Vernons,
until the reign of Edward I., when Isa-
bella de Fortibus, Countess of Albemarle
and Lady of Wight, who had outlived all
her children and near kinsmen, sold it on
her deathbed, at Stockwell, near London,
in 1293, to the King for six thousand
marks.
The Lords of the Isle of Wight ruled
almost as petty sovereigns within their
lordship. An examination of the " Pleas
of Court " and other similar authorities,
proves that they enjoyed privileges of
feudal service usually restricted to the
Crown. Never were these rights more
strenuously asserted than when, just as
they were about to expire forever, the
lion-hearted Isabella de Fortibus was
called upon to substantiate her claim be-
fore the King's Justices Itinerant to that
" which belonged to the crown of my
Lord the King," a.d. 1275. " The heart,"
writes Mr. Hillier, " is touched with the
picture of the lone woman, widowed and-
childless, struggling, the last of her race,
to preserve in her own keeping the
brightest part of the inheritance of her
fathers." We read with real satisfaction
the sentence of the Justices, confirming
Isabella in all her ancestral rights, which
she enjoyed until her death undisturbed,
except by the priors and monks of the
various religious houses in the island,
between whom and the Countess there
was a perpetual feud.
Liable as the Isle of Wight was to in-
road at all times, hostilities between Eng-
land and France gave the signal for the
commencement of predatory descents,
which for three centuries hung over the
unfortunate island in a cloud of perpetual
menace, ever and anon bursting in a
storm of devastation. The reigns of the
Plantagenet Edwards, though fertile in
alarms, do not record any serious inva-
sion. The French were continually hov-
ering about its coasts, and from time to
* Freeman, "Norman Conquest," vol. iv. p. 683.
458
time we hear of their landing and inflict-
ing some damage. But the vigorous sys-
tem of defence organized by Edward I.,
immediately on his becoming possessed
of the lordship ot the island, joined to
the natural prowess of its men — "the
island," according to Camden, being
"not so well fortified by its rocks and
castles as by its inhabitants, who are nat-
urally warlike and courageous " — effec-
tually prevented their making any lodg-
ment there. When in 1340 the French
had landed at St. Helen's Point in some
force, and were making their way into
the interior, they were attacked by a
hastily raised body of the islanders,
headed by the Captain of the Isle, Sir
Theobald Russell, of Yaverland — the an-
cestor of the noble house of Bedford —
and were driven back to their ships with
great loss, Russell himself falling in the
moment of victory. Thirty years later,
at the commencement of the feeble reign
of Richard II., the French power was in
the ascendant, and the island suffered
grievously. The whole of the southern
coast of England was insulted and plun-
dered by the French fleet, which com-
pletely mastered the Isle of Wight, plun-
dering and burning the towns of Newport,
Francheville (Newtown), and Yarmouth,
and desolating the whole country. Caris-
brooke alone held out against the in-
vaders, who here received a decisive
check from the loss of their commander,
and of a large body of men surprised in
an ambuscade which compelled them to
retire, after exacting a thousand marks
from the pillaged islanders, the greater
part of whom left the island for the main-
land.*
The title of " Lord of the Island " f
sank in a sea of blood — the best blood
of the Isle of Wight. The last who en-
joyed it. Sir Edward Woodville, the
brother of Elizabeth Woodville, the queen
of Edward IV., was the leader of an ill-
judged and disastrous attempt to strength-
en the cause of the Duke of Brittany
against Charles VIII. of France, with a
force raised in his island lordship. A
body of 400 yeomen, led by forty gentle-
men of the isle, picturesquely accoutred
in white coats with broad red crosses, set
sail from St. Helen's, and having joined
the Duke's forces, engaged the King's
* *' Rolls of Parliament," 2 Ric. II. a.d. 1378.
t The catalogue of the Lords of the Isle contains the
names of Edmund, duke of York; the "good Duke
Humphrey" of Gloucester; Richard, duke of York,
father of Edward IV. ; Edmund, duke of Somerset,
and his son Henry, duke of Somerset ; Lord Rivers,
and his son Lord Scales.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
army under La Tremouille at St. Aubin's,
July 20, 1488. La Tremouille gained a
complete victory. Woodville's whole
force, against whom the enemy's strength
was chiefly directed, was cut to pieces.
Only one boy, it is said, escaped, to carry
the disastrous news to his native isle. It
was long before the Isle of Wight recov-
ered from this overwhelming blow. It
had lost the flower of its manhood and
youth, the heads to plan and the sinews
to work ; and there was scarcely a family,
either of the gentry or commonalty,
which had not personal reasons to de-
plore Woodville's chivalrous but fool-
hardy expedition.* So critical was the
condition of the isle, that it engaged the
attention of Parliament, by which an Act
was passed the next year, prohibiting
any one to hold any lands, &c., of a high-
er annual value than ten marks, in order
that the island, which is described in the
preamble of the Act as " of late decaved
of people, desolate and not inhabited, the
towns and villages let down, the fields
dyked and made pasture for beasts," so
that by reason of the scantiness of the
population "the isle cannot be defended,
but lieth open and ready to the hands of
the King's enemies, as well of our an-
cient enemies of the realm of France and
of other parties," — might be again well
inhabited and able to defend itself from
invasion.
The disastrous issue of Woodville's ex-
pedition might have been expected to
have completely crushed the impover-
ished island. But so great was the in-
nate vigour of its population, that it soon
recovered from the calamity, and in 1545
was able to take an energetic part in re-
pelling the great French Armada, fitted
out by Francis I., under the command of
D'Annebault, for the invasion of Eng-
land, whose first object was to obtain pos-
session of the Isle of Wight, the occupa-
tion of which "would be the prelude of
an attack on Portsmouth, the destruction
of the fleet, and the crippling of the naval
power," f The whole tale has been told
by the graphic pen of Mr. Froude, and
we refer our readers to his " History "
for the narrative of the various unsuc-
cessful attempts of the French to make
* Henry VII. felt himself so seriously compromised
by this expedition, that he addressed a letter to Charles
VIII. exonerating himself from all complicity in it.
We have Charles's reply ("State Papers," vol. vi. p.
9), accepting Henry's assurance that "I'alde [the
going] d''dict feu de Scalles et de noz sibgetz quil
avoit menez avecques luy en Bretaigne estoit sans notre
sceu et conge, et a nostre tres grant despiaisance."
1 t Froude, " Hist, of England," vol. iv. p. 417 sg.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
459
tliemselves masters of the island; their!
landings at different points of the coast!
— Sea View, St. Helen's, Shanklin — and I
the undaunted spirit with which the !
islanders drove them back ; their com-
plete rout on Bembridge Down ; and the
fate of the heroic Chevalier D'Eulx and
his watering party cut off by an ambus-
cade in Shanklin Chine. '^
In every projected invasion of England
the occupation of the Isle of Wight formed
part of the invader's plan. When the
next great Armada, vaingloriously chris-
tened "the Invincible," set sail with the
Papal blessing from the coasts of Spain,
the first object of Medina Sidonia was to
seize and fortify the Isle of Wight, as a
basis of operations.* Elizabeth's Gov-
ernment was LuUy aware of the importance
of the position, and issued orders for the
garrisoning and protection of the island,
ably carried out by the then Governor,
the Queen's cousin, the energetic Sir
George Carey. The whole population
became an army : watches were posted
on all the heights, with beacons ready to
be fired on the first sight of the Spanish
fleet : the neighbouring counties on the
mainland were charged with the supply
of men to aid in the defence of the island,
and boats to convey them.f No precau-
tion was omitted. The issue of the ex-
pedition is familiar to us all. No foreign
soldier even attempted to set foot on the
island, beneath whose chalk cliffs some
of the severest encounters took place be-
tween the light English craft and the huge
unwieldy Spanish galleons.
Although the Isle of Wight may look
back proudly to the part played by her
sons in this crisis of the nation's history,
her internal condition was at that time
far from prosperous. She was slovyly
emerging from a condition of the deepest
depression under the stern but vigourous
rule of Sir George Carey, who had suc-
ceeded the daring and unscrupulous Sir
Edward Horsey, Leicester's confidant in
his intrigue or secret marriage with Lady
Douglas Sheffield, whose services as a
privateer in the Channel, and with the
Earl of Warwick at the disastrous siege
* Motlev, "United Netherlands," vol. ii. p. 468.
Strada, " De Bello Belgico," p. 534.
t The island was distributed for purposes of defence
into districts called " centons." There were ten such
in 15S3, each commanded by a leading landholder as
"centoneer," having under him a " vintoneer," or
lieutenant, and, besides his troop of from 100 to 200
men, a number of " hobblers," watchmen mounted on
" hobbies," or small horses, to ride from place to place
and give notice of the enemy's approach. See " Lans-
downe MSS.," 40, xxiv. A. ; " Bibl. Reg. MSS.," 18
D. iii.
of Havre, had been rewarded with the
governorship of the Isle of Wight.* In-
deed the first years of Elizabeth's reign
were a gloomy period for the nation at
large, and few parts of England presented
a more disastrous aspect than the Isle of
Wight. The returns of the commission
organized by the vigorous mind of Cecil
still exist in the Public Record Office for
three centons of the island, and the pic-
ture is a melancholy one.
The whole island was depopulated and
impoverished beyond conception. New-
port, its capital, had been " a great deal
more than it is." Whole streets and vil-
lages of artificers and others are described
as "void, and no sign of any housing."
In one parish, that of Arreton, twenty-
three tenements were uninhabited. Yar-
mouth was reduced to a handful of houses,
"not past a dozen," while in Newtown,
which bore marks of having once been
" twice as good as Newport," scarcely a
single good house was standing.
The report of the state of religion f was
not brighter. Of eleven parishes included
in the return, there were but five in which
"service as by law appointed " was cele-
brated. At Yarmouth the benefice was
unable to find a priest. At Binstead and
Whippingham the parsons were non-resi-
dent, and the churches were served by a
French curate. At Wootton a layman
read the Epistle and Gospel, with the
procession (the Litany) on Sundays and
holidays. The saddest tale is that of St.
Helen's. The encroachments of the sea
had undermined the foundations of the
church, which had fallen into such com-
plete ruin that "one might look in at one
end and out at the other," while there had
been " never a curate and little service "
for many years past, so that " the parish-
ioners had been fain to bury their corpses
themselves." " And yet," adds the indig-
nant commissioner, "they pay neverthe-
♦ Sir Edward was the " Ned Horsey, the ruffling
cavalier of Arundel's," of the picturesque narrative of
the plot against Mary, in March 1556, disinterred by
Mr. Froude from the Record Office. One part of this
scheme was the betraying of the Isle of Wight and
Hurst Castle to the French, by the governor, Uvedale.
Froude, " Hist.," vol. vi. pp. 434, 438.
t " When Archbishop Parker made a primary visita-
tion of his diocese, some of the beneficed clergy were
mechanics, others Romish priests disguised. Many
churches were closed. A Sermon was not to be heard
in some places within a distance of twenty miles. To
read, or at least so to read as to be intelligible and im-
pressive, was a rare accomplishment. Even in London
many churches were closed for want of ministers, and
in the country it was not easy to provide a minister
competent to baptize infants and inter the dead." —
Marsden, " Early Puritans," p. 100. See also Neale's
"Puritans," vol. i. c. iv. vi. ; Strype's " Parker," p.
224.
460
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
less their tithes." The position of St.
Helen's, in close proximity to one of the
chief naval roads of the South of England,
where seamen of the Catholic nations
were in the habit of touching for water
and fresh provisions, rendered its ruined
state a matter of national concernment.
*' Foreign sailors," writes Mr. George
Oglander, who makes the presentment,
"seeing the shameful using of the same,
think that all other churches within the
realm be like used, and so have both
spoken and done shameful acts in our
derision, and what they have said and
made report of in their own country God
knovveth. It is a gazing stock to all for-
eign nations."
Of the internal condition of the island
in the early part of the seventeenth cen-
tury we have a graphic picture in the MS.
memoirs of Sir John Oglander. This
worthy knight, a loyalist to the backbone,
was the representative of a family which
first came into the island with Richard
de Redvers * and settled at Nunwell, near
Brading, which they have held in unin-
terrupted descent to the present day. On
two visits paid to the island by Charles I.,
first as Prince in 1618, and afterwards as
King to inspect the Scotch troops on
their way to the Isle of Rh6, he was re-
ceived by Sir John. This transient inter-
course led to momentous results. His
personal knowledge of Oglander, togeth-
er with his reputation for loyalty, and an
exaggerated confidence in his influence
in the island, weighed much with Charles
I. in choosing the Isle of Wight as a ref-
uge after his escape from Hampton Court,
and he was the last subject whom the un-
happy monarch, still enjoying the sem-
blance of freedom, honoured with a visit,
Thursday, November 19, 1647. Oglan-
der's loyalty cost him dear. He was torn
from his beloved island by the Committee
of Parliament, kept a prisoner in London
for many years, and was eventually
obliged to pay a large sum of money to
obtain his discharge.
In the " Memoirs " to which we have
referred the worthy knight never wearies
of descanting on the happy condition of
the island in his youth, before " peace
and law had beggared them all ; " when
* The cradle of this family was the Castle of Or-
glandes, in the parish of Valognes, in the Department
of La Manche. The Marquis of Orglandes, the chief
of the French branch, was Member of the Chamber of
Deputies in 1825. Peter de Oglander, chaplain to
Richard de Redvers, became Dean of Christchurch
Twynham, converted by his lord from a college of
secular canons into an Augustinian priory. While we
write we notice with regret the death without issue of
the last Oglander of Nunwell
the hateful race of attorneys "that of late
hath made this their habitation and so by
sutes undone the country," was unknown ;
when " money was as plenty in yeo-
man's purses as now in the best of the
gentry," who, "full of money and out of
debt," dreamed away a calm and incuri-
ous existence,
The world forgetting, by the world forgot ;
seldom or never going out of the island,
" making their wills when they went to
London, thinking it like an East India
voyage, supposing no trouble like to trav-
aile, " content to entrust their letters,
when they had any, to a coneyman who
came from London to buy rabbits.* He
draws a pleasing picture of the accom-
plished Lord Southampton, so reasonably
identified with "the onlie begetter" of
Shakespeare's Sonnets, when Governor,
gathering the island gentry about him at
his Manor House of Standen, and spread-
ing around him the refining influence of
his high character. Then, he wails,
"this island, full of knights and gentry
beyond compare, was the Paradise of
England, and now " (a.d. 1647, the period
of Charles' incarceration) "it is just like
the other parts of the kingdom ; a melan-
choly, deserted, sad place — no company,
no resort, no neighbourly doings one of
another. You may truly say tempora mu-
tantur."
We have now arrived at the period
when the Isle of Wight assumes its chief
interest in the popular mind in connec-
tion with the flight and imprisonment of
Charles I. But the story is too familiar
to justify repetition, and if told in any
detail it would carry us far beyond our
prescribed limits. The events of the
next twelve months are a familiar portion
of English history. The unfortunate
monarch's gradually restricted liberty;
the growing disrespect and inattention to
his personal comfort ; the hateful bigotry
which refused him the ministrations of
his own chaplains and forced on him the
services of bitter polemics ; the abortive
schemes of deliverance, and attempts at
escape ; his daily life in what Andrew
Marvel styles " Carisbrooke's narrow
* Hares were not introduced into the island till the
sixteenth century, when Sir Edward Horsey, the gov-
ernor, promised the gift of a lamb in exchange for
every live hare. Foxes are a far more recent introduc-
tion, dating from the present century, when the animal,
previously unknown, was brought in by " a person more
fanciful than kind to his country," as Bishop Wilson
says of the introducer of magpies into the Isle of Man,
for the sake of hunting. It was a strange old boast 01
the Isle of Wight that " there was neither fox, lawyer,
nor friar in it.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
case ; " the literary pursuits with which
he occupied the weary hours of confine-
ment ; the mimic court held by the " grey
discrowned monarch " at the Grammar-
school House at Newport during the dis-
cussion of the proposed treaty; his rude
seizure by Major Ralph in the name of
the army ; his hurried night-journey
across the island to Worsiey's Tower,
and thence to the gloomy fortress of
Hurst, December ist, 1648, — all have
been often narrated, but never with such
fulness of detail as by the late Mr. George
Hillier in his interesting little work,
"Charles the First in the Isle of Wight."
It is not our purpose to narrate the
captivity of the Princess Elizabeth and
her brother, the promising young Prince
Henry, who, with brutal disregard to their
feelings, were removed by order of Par-
liament to a place full to them of mehn-
choly memories. Within a month, Eliz-
abeth, constitutionally a sickly child,
deformed in person, and crushed by a
premature load of agony too great for her
susceptible nature, had rejoined her be-
loved father. Her body lay in state for
sixteen days, and was honourably in-
terred in Newport Church in a manner
befitting her royal parentage, the mayor
and aldermen attending in their robes and
insignia of office. An exquisitely beauti-
ful recumbent statue of the Princess, by
Baron Marochetti, was erected by Queen
Victoria in 1856 " as a token of respect
for her virtues and of sympathy for her
misfortunes." Her little brother, the
Duke of Gloucester, remained two years
longer in the castle — which muse have
been a dreary abode to him, deprived of
the company of his " sweet sister Pa-
tience" — until he received Cromwell s
permission to leave England, March 1653.
With these events the history of the
Isle of Wight virtually closes. Charles
II. paid it more than one visit (once
against his will, being forced to land at
Puckaster by a violent gale) ; and hon-
oured Yarmouth with his presence, as the
guest, at his newly-erected red brick
mansion (now the Bugle Inn), of Sir
Robert Holmes, an Irish soldier of for-
tune, who, after some years of service un-
der foreign Powers, exchanged the land
for the sea, and became a naval com-
mander of more celebrity than honourable
fame ; and who, for his questionable
achievements, hardly to be distinguished
from piracy, had been rewarded by his
not over-scrupulous royal master with the
governorship of the island. At the time
of the Revolution of 1688, great fears of
461
a landing of the Dutch fleet were enter-
tained, and hasty orders were issued to
maintain a strict watch and secure the de-
fences of the island. But the island an-
nals present nothing of any public inter-
est until our own times, when we have
seen it selected by our Queen for her
marine residence ; * and have watched the
creation at Osborne of a true English
home of culture and refinement, the cen-
tre of the purest domestic affections. In
other generations it will be regarded as,
perhaps, the chief glory of this island, that
it was the loved home of the Prince Con-
sort, and of the purest and most devoted
to duty of all British sovereigns — unsur-
passed as Wife, Mother, and Queen.
The Parliamentary history of the Isle
of Wight opens a curious page in our
representative annals. Up to the passing
of the Reform Bill it contributed no fewer
than six members to the House of Com-
mons— half the number returned by the
whole of Yorkshire, as many as Middle-
sex including London — two for each of
the boroughs of Newport, Newtown, and
Yarmouth. The whole number of nomi-
nal electors fell short of a hundred, the
seats being really at the disposal of one
or two of the leading families of the
island. When in 1295 Edward I. con-
vened the Parliament which is considered
by Hume f " the real and true epoch'of
the House of Commons," Yarmouth and
Newport each sent a burgess.J But the
right slept for three centuries, none being
returned till 1585. At this time Elizabeth,
who felt all a Tudor's hatred of Parlia-
mentary interference, had adopted the
policy of her brother and sister, and made
a large increase to the numbers of the
House of Commons. The insignificance
of Yarmouth and Newtown afford a proof
of the truth of Hill.im's statement § that
" a very large proportion " of these new
accessions were ''petty boroughs evi-
dently under the influence of the Crown
or peerage." Anything like an independ-
ent exercise of the franchise was un-
* The old name of Osborne, according to Worsley,
was Austerborne. It anciently belonged to the Oid
island family of Bowerman, whence it passed by mar-
riage to the family of Arney, and by purchase in 15^9
to the Lovibonds, and from them to the Manns. Sir
J. Oglander writes, "Osborne was built by Thomas
Lyvibone, and soid by his s^nne to Captain IMann, and
hath been the ruin of the family. Some buy.des and
some destroyeth." The heiress of the Manns marr.ed
a Blachford, of Fordingbridge. The mansion at first
occupied by her Majesty, but since entirely pu.ied
down, was erected by R. Pope Blachford, Esq., towards
the close of the last century. The estate was purchased
by the Queen of Lady Isabella Blachford.
t " Hist, of England," vol. ii. p. 281, c. xiii.
t " Rolls of Parliament."
§ Hallam, "Constit. Hist.," i. 264-5.
462
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
known from the very first. The right of
appointinfj: one of their members was at
once made over by the burijesses of New-
port to the energetic " Captain of the
Isle," Sir George Carey, as a token of
gratitude for the restoration of their
privileges. At Yarmouth both the repre-
sentatives were named by him. A letter
of his to the Corporation, September
10 h, 1601, is printed by Albin,* desir-
ing that they should "assemble them-
selves together, and with their united con-
sent send up unto him (as they hereto-
fore had done) their Writt with a Blank,
wherein he might inscribe the names of
such persons as he shall think the fittest
to discharge that Deutie on their Be-
hoofe."
Carey's successor in the Governorship,
Henry Wriothesley, Lord Southampton,
took good care to maintain the preroga-
tives of his office. We have some inter-
esting autograph letters lying before us
which throw a curious light on the history
of elections at this period. One directed
to the burgesses of Yarmouth, expresses
the surprise and indignation of his Lord-
ship at their having ventured to promise
a vacant seat without consulting his
wishes, and "by waie of prevention and
cunninge prouided rather to make excuse
than to satisfy his reasonable requeste."
"Your forehand promise," writes the
indignant Earl, " I shall find meanes to
preuent, and shall have occasion to note
your little loue and respecte to me, your
countryman and frend." Such a menace
was not without its effect. At the next
election Lord Southampton's son, Thomas
Wriothesley,! made application to his
*' very louing frendes " for one of the
seats, stating that, though his Lordship
declined to dispose of more than one of
the burgess-ships, yet he would "take it
as a great respect done unto him " if the
town would "willingly doe him the fa-
vour " to name his son for the second.
As a matter of course the Governor's son
was returned, and sat for the borough
until his father's death removed him to
the Upper House.
The plea that has been not unjustly
urged for these " pocket boroughs " that,
however contrary to the theory of popu-
lar representation, they proved some-
times practically beneficial in opening the
door to rising young statesmen who might
* Albin, " History of the Isle of Wight," p. 354.
+ Wriothesley's signature to this letter, "Thomas
Risley," deserves notice as a curious example of pho-
netic spelling, and a proof of the lax unsettled orthog-
raphy of surnames in the sixteenth century.
otherwise have found it difficult to obtain
admission to the House of Commons,
was exemplified in the Isle of Wight. It
was thus that Canning was first brought
into Parliament by Pitt in 1793, as mem-
ber for Newtown. And the Duke of
Wellington, then " General Sir Arthur
Wellesley," entered the English House
of Commons in 1808 as the representative
of Newport, his colleague being " Henry,
Lord Palmerston." Other names of note
illustrate the election rolls of the Isle of
Wight boroughs. The noble and pure-
hearted Falkland sat for Newport, and
Philip, Lord Lisle, the gallant brother of
Algernon Sidney, for Yarmouth, in the
Long Parliament. The Duke of Marl-
borough, when plain John Churchill, and
the quondam tailor's boy of Niton —
brave old Sir Thomas Hopson. the hero
of Vigo Bay — appear among the repre-
sentatives of Newtown.
The ceremony of election in the Isle of
Wight boroughs was a very simple and
agreeable one. Of course a dinner con-
stituted its main feature. At such periods
the dilapidated Court-house at New-
town — the proceedings at Yarmouth
were substantially the same — was the
scene of unwonted festivity. At twelve
o'clock the burgesses assembled for an
oyster luncheon, for which the lessee of
the river was bound to find the mate-
rials. Before this repast was well di-
gested, at about 3 P.M. the company sat
down to a plentiful cold dinner, at the
close of which the chairman drew from
his pocket a card bearing the names of
the two new members. These he read
aloud, and at once proposed their health
as their new representatives ; a toast
which was usually drunk '* with the ut-
most enthusiasm."
We have already spoken of the first
introduction of Christianity into the is-
land by Wilfrid. The Norman Conquest
found the island divided into parishes,
and churches built ; and the new settlers,
friends of civilization and the Church,
erected others.
The ancient island parishes, though
now mostly subdivided, seem for the
most part to have been laid out, like the
rapes of Sussex, by drawing a straigl
line, or stretching a rope, from sea to sei
They formed long narrow strips, with th^
church and village in the centre. Th8
parish of Newchurch, divided across i|
middle by the steep chalk backbone
the island, including the populous towj
of Ryde at one extremity and Ventnor
the other, survived in unbroken unity to
ne
m
h~
■h8
I
to
4
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
our own day, and has only recently as-
sumed a more manageable form.
Nonconformity found here a congenial
home. Foreign Protestants made it their
resort, and seafaring men of all nations
passed there, which, says Neale,* "occa-
sioned the ceremonies not to be so
strictly observed as in other places, their
trade and commerce requ-ring a latitude."
This looseness of observance was very
offensive to the strict disciplinarianism of
Archbishop Parker : "a Parker, indeed,"
in Fuller's words, " careful to keep the
fence and shut the gates of discipline
against all such night stealers as would
invade the same ; " and one of the last
public acts in which he was employed
(1575) was a visitation of the Isle of
Wight, which he carried out with such
extreme severity, ejecting the ministers
who refused conformity and closing their
churches, that the inhabitants made com-
plaint to his bitter enemy the Earl of Lei-
cester, who had established himself the
champion of the Puritans. His repre-
sentations had so much influence over
Elizabeth's vain and capricious mind —
irritated by a sense of the disapprobation
of her infatuated conduct towards her fa-
vourite, which the Archbishop had been
unable entirely to conceal — that she is-
sued immediate order for the reversal of
Parker's injunctions, and when he next
appeared at Court by royal command, be-
haved to him with such outrageous rude-
ness, that the aged prelate left the Court
stung to the quick, with a resolve that he
would never visit it again.
The churches of the Isle of Wight,
though often eminently picturesque, both
in position and outline, are not remarka-
ble for architectural beauty. In fact it
was too remote to be reached by more
than the fringe of the wave of architec-
tural progress ; while a constant dread of
the hostile descents of the French and
their ^requent ravages kept the inhabi-
tants in too depressed a condition to
have either the means or the heart for
the erection of costly buildings. They
are usually long, low buildings, without
clerestory, and very often without chan-
cel-arch, frequently consisting of two
equal aisles or bodies, with no construc-
tional mirk to distinguish them, or to de-
fine the site of the parochial altar. The
best example of this arrangement is the
Church of Godshill, one of the largest
and finest in the Island. The towers are
mostly low and square ; but that of Caris-
* '' Puritans," vol. i. p. 225.
463
brooke is a good work of the Perpendicu-
lar period, recalling in its outline the
plainer Somersetshire examples. The
same model has been followed at Gods-
hill, Chale, and Gatcombe ; but, pictu-
resque as they are, even these cannot be
called good works of art. Fragments of
Norman work linger and there. The
best example is the tiny church of Yaver-
land — the loved of landscape painters, as
it groups with the gables of the Jacobean
manor-house beneath its shadowing elms
— where the south door and chancel-arch
are good specimens of the barbaric rich-
ness of the style. Wootton, Northwood,
and Shalfleet, also have Norman doors,
and the last-named church the huije stump
of an ill-used Norman tower. The best
architectural works in the island, at Cal-
bourne, Shalfleet, and Arreton, belong to
the Early English period. The later
styles present nothing which needs com-
ment, though there is hardly one of the
island churches which is not worth turn-
ing aside to see. Most of them are
charmingly placed, very frequently, as
at Godshill, Newchurch, and Motteston,
crowning an almost precipitous emi-
nence, and are picturesque with the pic-
turesqueness of a building which has
grown into its present form by gradual
additions, fused by time into one harmo-
nious whole. The church of St. Law-
rence, in the Undercliff, has a wide
celebrity, from its diminutive size. Its
claim, however, to be the smallest church
in England was, even before the enlarge-
ment, contested by some of the churches
of the Lake District, and cannot now,
small as it is, be sustained.*
The churchyard of Brading furnishes
one of the most beautiful pieces of me-
morial poetry in the language, rendered
familiar by Dr. Callcott's musical setting,
commencing —
Forgive, blest shade, the tributary tear.
It is to the memory of a Mrs. Berry,
and is ascribed to the Rev. John Gill,
some time curate of Newchurch. In the
churchyard of Carisbrooke may still be
read a yet more famous epitaph, which
thirty years ago gave rise to the case of
" Breeks 7/. Wooif rey," t in the Court of
* Before its enlargement, the dimensions of St. Law-
rence Church were 20 feet long by 12 feet broad, and
6 feet high to the eaves.
t The epitaph in question ran as follows : " Spes mea
Christus. Pray for the soul of J. Woo.frey. 'It is a
holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead.' 3
Mac. xii. 46. J. W. obiit 5 Jan. 183S. Mt. 50'- The
judgment was delivered by the late Sir Herbert Jenner.
The inscription on Bishop Barrow's monument near
464
Arches, and procured the decision, by
the highest Ecclesiastical Court, that
prayers for the dead are not expressly
prohibited by the authoritative docu-
ments of the Church of England.
From the churches the transition is
natural to the clergy who served them :
and here, though we find some names of
note, and a few which the English
Churchm-an will ever regard with rever-
ence and love, the list is but meagre.
Brighston Rectory is honourably distin-
guished as having given to the English
Church three prelates who will not easily
be forgotten — the saintly Ken, whose
favourite walk is still pointed out in the
lovely parsonage garden ; that highly-
gifted prelate, from the shock of whose
death, felt almost as a personal sorrow in
every part of the country, England is
hardly yet recovering, beyond dispute the
greatest Bishop the English Church has
seen for a century and a half — the late
Bishop of Winchester ; and the present
Bishop of Salisbury. Brighston, also,
during his son's residence here as rector,
was a favourite home of the eloquent and
philanthropic Wilberforce in that "calm
old age on which he entered with the
elasticity of youth and the simplicity of
childhood, climbing with delight to the
top of the chalk downs, or walking long
on the unfrequented shore."* Brading,
of which he was curate, and Arreton are
inseparably connected with Legh Rich-
mond's popular narratives — " The Young
Cottager " and the " Dairyman's Daugh-
ter.'*' The large-hearted Dean of Chi-
chester, Dr. Hook, who, as Vicar of
Leeds, first taught the Church of Eng-
land how to deal effectively with the huge
populations massed together in our great
manufacturing towns, commenced his
clerical life as curate of Whippingham, of
which his uncle. Dean Hook of Worces-
ter, was rector. In the old churchyard
of Bonchurch, studded with purple vio-
lets, beneath a monument realizing his
own " Sh:idowof the Cross," within sight
of the rock-strewn slope of Eastend, the
scene of the '' Old Man's Home," reposes
W'lUiam Adams, who, though not strictly
belonging to their body, may be permit-
ted to rank among the clergy of the
island, wliich will always be affectionately
associated with his name. By his side
the entrance of the Cathedral of St. Asaph, "O vos
transeuntes in domum Domini in domum orationis,
orate pro conservo vestro ut inveniat miserlcordiam in
die Domini," is a familiar example of the same primi-
tive practice.
* *' Life" by his sons.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
lies the brilliant but unhappy John Ster*
ling, better known for his biographers
Julius Hare and Thomas Carlyle, than for
anything he himself achieved, who died
at Ventnor in 1844, asking almost with
the last breath for the old Bible he so
often used in the cottages at his Hurst-
monceaux Curacy. To go back a few
years we must not forget that Wood, the
mathematician, who, coming up to college
so poor that the story goes he was fain to
work his problems by the light of the
stairlamp, achieved the high positions of
Master of St. John's and Dean of Ely,
died Rector of Freshwater, as was also
the father of Dr. Robert Hooke, the able,
but whimsical and penurious Gresham
Professor of whom old Aubrey has so
many amusing tales to tell. A cousin of
Izaak Walton became Rector of Wootton
in 1767. He was a man of kindred spirit
with his celebrated namesake, and his
memory is still cherished as of one of con-
siderable theological attainments, pol-
ished manners, and a kind humble heart ;
manifesting primitive piety, and a heav-
enly mind ; * passing his time among his
books, in cultivating choice flowers, and
in friendly intercourse with his parish-
ioners and near neighbours. Carisbrooke
reckons among its vicars Alexander Ross,
a Scotch schoolmaster, chaplain to Charles
I.,f one of those laborious writers who
compile huge tomes de omni scibili, unre-
lieved by a single scintillation of genius
and only rescued from oblivion by his
name forming a tag to one of Butler's
triple rhymes : —
* His father was chaplain to Bishop Morley, of Win-
chester, by whom he was appointed Rector of Brigh-
ston. When the son became Rector of Wootton, the
family came over to inspect the church and the rectory.
The roads being quite impassable for a carriage, the
waggon employed on the glebe farm was put into requi-
sition for the transit, the old rector sitting in his arm-
chair, the ladies reclining, like Jane Austen's mother
on her journey to her new home, on beds and sacks ;
the young rector riding on horse-back. At this period
early service at 4 a.m. during the harvest month was
attended by the farmers and their labourers. The
Waltons, in common with the clergy general.y of their
day, farmed their own glebe, the unmarried farm-
servants living in the parsonage with the household.
A gay posy was en r^gle for the Sunday costume of tiie
parson, which when service began was laid on the
reading desk.
t It is a common calumny, reported again and ac;ain
till it has gained currency and belief, that the living of
Carisbrooke, together with those of Niton, Whitwe'l,
Godshiil, and others, was extorted from Charles I. by
the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford,
as the price of the gift of their college plate in his
necessities. Dates disprove the whole story. The^e
advowsons were given to the college by the Kiii'^ on
the intercession of Henrietta Maria, who, as Q-ieen
Consort, was official patroness of the co.iege, Nov. S,
1636. The so-called "loan" of the plate took place
six years afterwards, Jan. 5, 1642.
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
There was an ancient sage philosopher,
Who had read Alexander Ross over.
Hudibras,
His chief literary achievement was the
continuation of Raleigh's " History of the
World," Mezentius-like attaching a life-
less corpse to a living body.* Calbourne
was the benefice with which, just before
his death, Edward VI. rewarded Nicholas
Udall, the Eton Master — the "plagosus
Orbilius " of poor Thonfias Tusserf — for
his share in the translation of the "Para-
phases " of Erasmus, which had not un-
deservedly gained him % a stall at Wind-
sor the year before. May we hope Udall
proved more merciful to the Isle of Wight
parishioners than to his Eton scholars.
The Isle of Wight has not been fertile
in native celebrities. Cole, the Provost
of Eton and Dean of St. Paul's, the
" Vicar of Bray " of his day, changing his
faith with every change of those in au-
thority, the preacher of the sermon when
Cranmer was burnt, was a native of
Godshill. The two Jameses, uncle and
nephew, once well-known as scholars,
controversial divines, bibliophilists, and
antiquarians, were born at Newport. The
elder, Dr. Thomas James, assisted Sir
Thomas Bodley materially in the forma-
tion of the library at Oxford that immor-
talizes his name, of which he was the first
keeper, and, in 1605, drew up the first
catalogue.§ His nephew Robert did like
service to Selden in illustrating the
Arundel Marbles, and to Sir Robert Cot-
ton in the arrangement of his famous MS.
librar3^ Newport at the same time fur-
nished Elizabeth with three of her most
trusted servants — " one," as she used to
say, " for her soul, one for her body, and
one for her goods," all sons of tradesmen
— Dr. Edes, Dean of Worcester, her
Chaplain ; Dr. James, her Physician in
* Ross was also the author of Tlavael3sca, " A View
of all Religions," "Virgiiius Evangelizans," and a
host more of long since forgotten works,
t " From Paules I went, to Eaton sent,
To learne streight waies, the Latin phraises,
When fiftie three stripes given to me
At once I had.
For fault but small or nfbne at all
It came to pass thus beat I was.
See Udall see the mercie of thee
To mee poore lad! "
I^ive Hu7idreth Points of Good Husbandrie.
^ X "The 'Paraphrase' and Notes of Erasmus, in my
judgment, was the most important book even of his
day. We must remember that it was almost legally
adopted by the Church of England." — Milman " Latin
Uiristianity," vol. vi. p. 624.
^^ § Camden, speaking of him in his lifetime, calls ftim
a learned man and true lover of books wholly dedi-
cated to learnmg; who is now laboriously searching the
libraries of England, and proposeth that for the public
good which will be for the great benefit of England."
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 342
465
Ordinary ; and Sir Thomas Fleming, her
Solicitor. They owed their promotion to
the influence of Ursula, Lady Walsing-
ham, the widow of Richard Worsley. sIr
Thomas Fleming, whose basesycophancv,
and the readiness with which he lent him-
self as a tool of the Crown in its illegal
exactions, raised him to the high place'^of
Lord Chief Justice of England, was the
son of a mercer. Fleming is chiefly, and
that infamously, notorious for his judg-
ment in the great case of Impositions,
fully as important in the opinion of the
late Lord Campbell as " Hampden's case
of Ship-money, though not so celebrated,
from having been long acquiesced in to
the destruction of public liberty," by
which it was laid down that the king might
impose whatever duties he pleased on im-
ports. James I., on hearing of this judg-
ment, declared that he was "a judge to
his heart's content."*
The most truly great name in the an-
nals of the Isle of Wight is that of the
regenerator of public-school education in
England, who first taught schoolmasters
to look upon their pupils as moral and
spiritual beings with characters to be
moulded and souls to be trained, Dr.
Thomas Arnold, of Rugby, who was born,
June 13th, 1795, at Slat woods in East
Cowes, where bis father was Collector of
Customs. Dean Stanley records in his.
biography that shoots of a great willow-
tree, still remaining here, were trans-
planted by Arnold to his successive
homes at Laleham, Rugby, and Fox How.f
The Isle of Wight has also given to Eng^
land one of the chief female educators of
our day. Miss Elizabeth Sewell, whose
writings have exercised so beneficial an
influence over the minds and hearts of
the young, not here only, but in America
and wherever the English language fs
nown.
Although the island cannot claim him
as a native, it has been so long the cho-
sen home of the Laureate, that it will
ever be inseparably connected with the
name of Tennyson. Farringford, "where,"
to quote his own words, —
* Fleming purchased the monastic properties of
Carisbrooke and Quarr on easy terms. Sir J. Oglander
records with one of his characteristic groans : — " Sir
H. Fleming bought Quarr for nothing. So you may
see that great abbey of Quarr, founded by Baldwin
R^'vers, is come now to the posterities of a merchant of
Newporte. O temporal O mores!"
t " Slatwoods," writes Dr. Arnold to his sister, Mrs.
Buckland, " was deeply interesting. I thought of what
Fox How might be to my children forty years hence.
But Fox How cannot be to them what Slatwoods is to
me — the only home of my childhood." — Arnold's
•' Life and Correspondence/' vol. li. p. 46.
466
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
Far from noise and smoke of town,
I watch the twilight falling brown,
All round a careless ordered garden,
Close to the ridge of a noble down ;
and
Groves of pine on either hand,
To break the blasts of winter, stand ;
And further, on the hoary channel,
Tumbles a breaker on chalk and sand ;
nestles among its noble trees — not pines
only — in a daffodil-bestrewn park, be-
neath the shelter of the huge chalk
down that towers between it and Fresh-
water Bay. The whole south-eastern
coast of the island lies here stretched
out to the eye, with its wide sweeping
bays and projecting headlands, ending
in the grand embattled face of St. Cath-
erine's Down crowned by its little med-
iccval lighthouse.
The only independent monastic foun-
dation in the Isle of Wight was that
erected at Quarr by Baldwin de Redvers,
Earl of Devon and Exeter, the second
Lord of Wight of that stock, in 1 132,
among the oak coppices that fringe the
undulating shores of the Solent to the
north-west of Ryde. The site of the new
abbey derived its name from the quarries
of freshwater limestone, the excellence
of which as a building stone had been
discovered in very early tirries, and which,
by the Conqueror's grant, confirmed by
the Red King (with an amusing stipula-
tion telling of the Norman love of the
chase, limiting digging for stones to spots
where the thicket was low enough for the
horns of a passing stag to be seen), had
furnished materials to Walkelin, Bishop
of Winchester, for the erection of his
cathedral, and subsequently to Stigand
when he transferred his see from Selsea
to Chichester. Quarr was a Cistercian
abbey, " the daughter of Savigny," and
one of the earliest of that name in Eng-
land.
The church of Quarr was the burial-
place of its founder and the various mem-
bers of the family. Hither, too, when her
strangely chequered life ended, were
brought the remains of the Princess
Cecily, the third daughter of Edward IV.
— "a lady not so fortunate as fair," writes
Hall — from her manor-house of East
Standen on St. George's Down, where,
after the death of her first husband. Lord
Wells, and the failure of the attempts to
wed her to the heir of the Scottish Crown,
she lived "not in great wealth" with her
second husband. Sir John Kyme of the
Lincolnshire family of that name, whom,
says Fuller, she married "rather for com-
fort than credit." But neither noble nor
royal memories availed to save the abbey
from destruction. The work of demoli-
tion begun by its first purchaser, one
Mills, a tradesman of Southampton, was
carried on by Sir Thomas Fleming, and
has been completed almost in our own
day. The fragments of the buildings
now remaining are too scanty and too
much mutilated to afford any sufficient
clue to the style or arrangements of the
fabric.
A few cells of the great Norman abbeys
— Alien Priories, as they came to be
called when Normans and Englishmen
were no longer subjects of the same ruler
— were dotted over the island. Diminu-
tive little establishments these, support-
ing a prior and one or two monks, who
tilled the lands and transmitted the
profits of their farming to their Lord Ab-
bot beyond seas. Carisbrooke was the
chief of these miniature foundations, as-
signed by FitzOsbern to his Abbey of
Lire. Appuldurcombe, founded by Isa-
bella de Fortibus. as a cell of Monte-
bourg, passed by marriage with Anne
Leigh the heiress of the lessee, herself
once attached to the Court as lady-in-
waiting,* to Henry VIII.'s boyish friend,
page to his brother Prince Arthur, James
Worsley. Sir James's son Richard erect-
ed a large gabled house on the site of the
priory, at which, in 1538, he received his
father's friend, Henry VIII., accompanied
by Lord Cromwell. This house was re-
placed by the present stately Corinthian
mansion, standing in the midst of a park
laid out by " Capability Brown," in the
early part of the last century, which,
after becoming the shrine of the collec-
tion of pictures, statues, and antiquities
forming the celebrated " Museum Wors-
leianum" gathered by Sir Richard during
his voyages in the Mediterranean and
the Levant, has passed into other hand
and only escaped demolition by bein
converted into a college.
Carisbrooke Castle was from the earli
est times the stronghold of Wight. Very
few of the military ruins of England sur-
pass it in picturesq-ie beauty and archi-
tectural interest. Its situation is strik-
ing, crowning a round-headed outlier of
chalk, looking out over the broad, well
* Lady Anne Worsley was one of the last pils^rlms t^
the shrine of St. lago at Compostella, once so ^ashior
able a resort for English ladies. She carried with he
a large train of female companions, old and young
some of whom Sir J. Oglander had seen and converse
with.
a
i
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
watered valley of Buccombe (Beaucombe).
The shattered walls of the keep, perfect
in their circumference, rise to a still
greater elevation, being constructed on
one of those huge conical mounds, dating
from primseval times, which formed the
" arx " or " acropolis " of our ancient for-
tresses ; the biirh of the earliest settlers.
The finest feature of the exterior is the
noble entrance gateway, erected by
Edward IV.'s brother-in-law, Anthony
Woodville, Lord Scales, and bearing his
arms on its face. The Governor's Lodg-
ings— the residence of Charles I, during
the early months of his captivity, and the
scene of his first abortive attempt at
escape, and in which his daughter,
the Princess Elizabeth, died — preserve,
amid later additions and tasteless altera-
tions, the shell of the Hall of Baldwin de
Redvers, and the little chapel of Isabella
de Fortibus, converted by Lord Cutts
into a grand staircase. The Elizabethan
apartments to the left of the entrance, to
which Charles was removed for greater
security, have fallen into complete ruin.
The window usually shown as that by
which the King attempted to escape, owes
its celebrity to the invention of local
guides. But it is much more picturesque
than the true one, and answers the pur-
pose of visitors and showmen just as well.
Baldwin de Redvers' famous well, with
its donkey working, turnspit-like, in a
large wooden wheel, is too character-
istic a feature of Carisbrooke Castle, and
too universally famous, to be alto-
gether passed over.* The tilt-yard where
Charles, and afterwards his children,
whiled away their weary hours at bowls,
and the stone-faced outworks, constructed
on the threatened invasion of the Span-
ish Armada, by Giambelli,t " a subtle
Mantuan," the author of the successful
plan for destroying Parma's bridge at
Antwerp with fireships, are rich in his-
torical memories.
Few objects are more pleasing to the
eye, as one wanders through the Isle of
Wight, than the noble old greystone
gabled manor-houses, now almost with-
out exception degraded to the rank of
farm-houses. One of the most pictu-
resque ot these, both in outline and posi-
tion, is that of Motteston. This was the
* Our readers will remember how the brothers Smith,
when describing Yamen's fall, borrow a simile from
this celebrated well ; —
"And his head, as he tumbled, went nickety-nock,
Like a pebbie in Carisbrooke well."
Rejected A ddresses.
t Motley's " Histor>' of the United Netherlands,"
vol. i. p. 190; vol. ii. p. 486.
467
abode of the ancient family of Cheke,
from which sprang Sir John Cheke, im-
mortalized by Milton as the tutor of Ed-
ward VI.,* and the reviver of Greek
learning at the University of Cambridge.
Sir John's sister, Mary Cheke, became
the wife of his pupil, Cecil Lord Burgh-
ley.
A little beyond Motteston, to the west,
is the manor-house of Brook, preserving
some traces of its antiquity amidst the
splendid addition made to it by its pres-
ent owner, who here received the liber-
ator of Italy — Garibaldi — on his visit to
England in 1864. In 1499 its then owner,
Dame Joanna Bowerman, entertained
Henry VII., who was so much pleased
with his entertainment that he presented
his hostess with his drinking horn, and
made her a grant of a fat buck from his
forest of Parkhurst yearly.
Old beliefs and superstitions, though
fast passing away, still linger on among
the country folks. Older people have
well-accredited stories of fairies to tell,
though the jealous little people are no
longer to be seen in their former haunts,
having fled before the intrusion of
strangers. The Isle of Wight fairies,
unlike their kinsfolk in the New Forest,
were all beneficent. Instead of mislead-
ing travellers, drawing them into bogs
and quagmires and making themselves
merry over their mishaps, the " little
ladies " were wont to show benighted
wanderers on the Downs the right way
home, open gates for them, and perform
other kindly services. They were often
seen in their bright-coloured glistening
attire, dancing on the smooth turf of the
hill-side, or among the ruins of Quarr, one
of their most favourite haunts, to music
of the most entrancing sweetness. They
were not an idle people, but with their
own hands hollowed out their subterra-
nean halls — one such used to be pointed
out in a high bank overshadowed with
ancient thorns, on the side of Arreton
Down — by the aid of tiny spades and
shovels. If any of these miniature tools
were broken they were left outside to be
mended by the farm-servant, who never
failed to find on the spot next morning a
heap of delicious little cakes made by
fairy-hands, as payment for his service.
* " Thou soul of Sir John Cheke,
Who taughtest Cambridge and King Edward Greek."
Milton, Sonnet xi.
Edward VI., according to Fuller, used to say of his
tutors : " Randolph, the German, spoke honestly ; Sir
John Cheke talked merrily ; Dr. Coxe solidly ; and Sir
Anthony Cooke weighingly."
468
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
Sometimes when they had any larger work
of excavation on hand they would borrow
the farmers' tools, never omitting to pay
the hire of them in elfin confectionery.
The New Forest fairy, Lawrence, who is
still believed to hold lazy folks by his be-
numbing spell, does not seem to have
crossed the water. Instead of the Hamp-
shire proverb " Lawrence has got him,"
the local saying in the Isle of Wight with
regard to any one suffering from a fit of
idleness is, " He has got the Isle of Wight
fever." Laziness is thus regarded as the
physical result of the enervating climate,
and the natural takes the place of the
supernatural.
Of course every ancient manor-house
had its ghost. The most terrible was
that of the suicide. Sir Tristram Dilling-
ton, at Knighton. His shadowy form has
been seen by persons yet alive wandering
over the deserted terraced gardens of his
demolished mansion, holding his head in
his hand. The spirit of a new-born child,
its long white clothes swaying in the
night-wind, has scared many a belated
pedestrian at the stile leading into Mar-
veil Copse. Another ghost was in the
habit of presenting itself at house-doors
as a mendicant soliciting arms, revealing
himself in paralyzing power to those who
sent him away unrelieved. Manyasturdy
tramp has secured immediate and liberal
attention to his demands by the fear that
if refused he would assume a ghostly
form of terror, and so stiffen the joints of
the hard-hearted one that they could never
be bent again. Portraits often stepped
out of their frames and walked about the
house at dead of night. At Wootten Par-
sonage the ghost of Dr. Thomas Lisle, I
a former rector, descended from the grand j
old family of the De Insulas, rustled |
down the staircase in his sweeping silk
gown and cassock at twelve o'clock. The |
uneasy spirit of the "wicked Queen Elea- j
nor," whom tradition connects with' the
island, used to be seen wandering with i
wringing hands through the oak wood |
that bore her name — " Queen Eleanor's
Grove" — near Quarr. Tales of hidden
treasure also still cling to the abbey ruins.
It is barely fifty years since search was |
made for "a gold coffin " believed to be I
buried there. Gold, indeed, did reward
the searchers ; but it was only the golden
tresses of some long-departed fair one,
whose nameless stone coffin was violated,
and her remains dispersed.
The name of the village of Godshill
preserves the still current tradition that
;he parish church, one of the first founded
in the island, was to have been built in
the valley, but that unseen hands — be-
lieved to be those of angels — every night
undid the work of the previous day, and
carried the stones to the summit of the
green knoll, where, conspicuous for miles
around, the sacred editice now stands.
Old customs and ceremonies still linger.
At Shrovetide parties of boys and girls
go about "a-shroving," that is, begging
for something to eat and drink, or some
small dole in money at the various houses
they visit, chanting the rude refrain : —
I be come a-shroving, a-shroving,
A bit of bread or a bit of cheese, or a bit of
good fat bacon ;
A pancake or a truffle cheese, or a bit of your
own baking ;
I'd rather have than not at all, a bit of your
own baking, &c.
If the house-door remains shut to their
request, they leave it with a volley of
stones and clods.
At Yarmouth, on New Year's Day, the
children used to parade the town singing
a snatch of old-world verse, so pretty as
to be worth preserving : —
Wassail, wassail to your town,
The cup is white, and the ale is brown ;
The cup is made of the ashen tree,
And so is the ale of good barley.
Little maid, little maid, turn the pin,
Open the door and let me in ;
God be here, and God be there,
We wish you all a happy new year.
Old women go about a-gooding on St.
Thomas's Day, and at Christmas "the
Mummers" present themselves at the door,
decked out with tawdy finery and tinsel.
The rude drama they act is, in the main,
the same found in most parts of England,
grossly interpolated with modern allu-
sions, representing a fight between St.
George and the Moslem.
Some of the old customs at funerals
were long preserved here, and perhaps
have not yet died out. Sprigs of rose-
mary, as at the funeral in Hogarth's " Har-
lot's Progress," were handed round to the
mourners before the corpse left the dwell-
ing. Each carried one, and at the con-
clusion of the service dropped them on
the coffin in the grave. Cakes flavoured
with spice and rosemary were handed
round with the sprigs, and the day suc-
ceeding the funeral half-a-dozen wrappec"
in white linen were left at the clergyman's
house. Weddings were frequently cele-;
brated on Sunday mornings before ser^
vice. When the ceremonv was over, th<
happy pair separated, and the division o^
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
the sexes in church being still maintained,
the bride quietly stept across to her usual
seat on the women's side, the bridegroom
taking his own among the men. We
question whether after so engrossing a
ceremony the newly-married pair could
have given much account of the sermon.
In consequence of the badness of the
roads, wheel-carriages formerly scarcely
existed in the island. Everybody who
travelled at all travelled on horseback ;
" Madam," the rector's wife, sitting be-
hind the well-bewigged divine on the
pillion, with as much composure as
"Gammer" from the farm with her bas-
ket of butter and eggs. A single one-
horse chaise at Newport was, a century
since, the only vehicle for hire in the
whole island. The driver walked at his
horse's head, leading his animal by a
leather-strap. When any of the Newport
tradesmen's wives had occasion to' make
use of this vehicle, it was always — so
true to nature is Cowper's Mrs. Gilpin —
to avoid observation and ill-natured com-
ment, driven a little way out of the town
for the parties to get in. When, in 1758,*
an enterprising landlord of the " Bugle "
set up a post-chaise, the wise men of the
town shook their heads at so great an
extravagance, portending his speedy ruin.
And now to turn to the provincialisms
of the island. A number of fine old
words, familiar to us in Shakespeare and
other earlier poets, survive in the com-
mon speech of the people, though, alas !
not so frequent as they once were. The
boys still " miche " (play truant), and set
up "gally-crows " in the field to "gaily"
(scare away) the birds, and talk of the jay
and magpie as "prankit" (variegated).
The labourer takes his "dew-bit" (the
first light breakfast), puts on his "stroggs"
(leggings), and repairs to the "barton"
(strawyard), to look after the "mud
calves " (weaned calves), and after he has
"tighted the heft of his zull " (fastened
the handle of his plough), climbs the
" shute " (steep ascent, chute Fr.) at the
top of the " butt " (a small enclosed
meadow), and having "lopped" (scram-
bled) over the fence, begins to grub up
the " mores " (roots) in the " shamble "
(rough neglected ground), between the
"lynch" (a long narrow coppice) and the
"slink" (a slip of a field). When he be-
gins to feel " lere " (empty), he sits under
* "This was the year in wliich the first private car-
riage \yas set up in Manchester by some specially luxu-
rious individual, none having been previously kept
by any person in business there." — Smiles's "Engi-
neers," vol. i. p. 342.
469
the "lewth " (shelter) of the "rew" (strip
of wood) and eats his "nammet" (noon-
meat), while the "wosbirds" (wasps) are
buzzing about him ; and his lank "scaithy"
(filching) whelp watches anxiously for his
share of the meal. One who is hard of
hearing is as " dunch as a plock " (deaf
as a block) ; cows when dry are " azew ; "
a bundle swinging lightly at the end of a
stick is said to " borne ; " a small farm is
a "bargain;" the churchyard is almost
invariably the "litten" in the country
districts ; " a duver " is a sandy fiat by
the sea-side; meat is said to "plim"
when it swells in cooking ; a pitcher is a
" pill ; " the wick of a candle is " a wind-
let ; " an apple "turnover " is a " stuck-
ling;" sufferers under a shivering fit of
the ague, "jower;" a weakly child is
spoken of as " tew " or " tewly."
Some words suffer metathesis in the
ordinary Isle of Wight speech. A man
speaks of being " wotshed " instead of
wetshod ; great becomes "girt ; " pretty,
" pirty ; " and the dusk of evening is
hardly recognizable under the form
"duks."
Of the chief centres of population,
Newport is the only one which, in spite
of its name, can boast of any antiquity.
Compared, indeed, with the hoar antiq-
uity of Carisbrooke and Brading, the
" Novus burgus " of Richard de Redvers
is a thing of yesterday. But it can claim
seven centuries of existence, and may
therefore look down with justifiable pride
on the modern creations of fashion and
pleasure that are rivalling or surpassing
it in population. Founded by the first
lord of the De Redvers stock in the reign
of Henry I., and built, like Exeter, Lewes,
and so many of our ancient towns, just
where the river ceases to be tidal, New-
port, the " new haven " of the Castle of
Carisbrooke, received its first charter
from his great grandson and namesake,
Richard, and obtained continually in-
creasing privileges from its subsequent
lords. It is a neat, quiet, little town,
laid out by its founder in four chief
streets intersecting in the centre, with
back streets running parallel to them be-
hind, affording each "place," or building
lot, the convenience of a double entrance.
Except the Grammar School, with its
sad memories of Charles I., and the abor-
tive negotiations between him and his
Parliament ; and the richly-decorated
new church, of which the chief ornament
is the chaste recumbent statue of the
Princess Elizabeth ; and a feeble classical
Town-hall, the work of Nash, Newport
470
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
has no public buildings that deserve a
moment's attention. Nor are its histori-
cal memories such as to compensate for
the want of architectural attractiveness.
Beyond its cruel devastation by the
French late in the fourteenth century,
the reminiscences of Charles I., and an
attempted rising in his favour by Capt.
Burley in 1647, Newport offers nothing
worth record.
Ryde, the second town in the island in
dignity, the first in population, was in
very early times a place of importance as
one of the chief points of communication
with the mainland. Its name, related to
the Celtic Rhyd, a ford, a crossing (an
element we find in Augustoritum, Cambo-
ritum, &c.), indicates its character. But
it was a mere place of passage, with a few
fishermen's huts on the beach and a small
group of houses on the top of the hill
above, and even as late as 1665 its popu-
lation scarcely exceeded 200.* Within
the present century the two villages of
Upper and Lower Ryde were still sepa-
rated by corn-fields ; and wheat-crops were
reaped where the shops of Union Street
display their brilliant and tempting wares.
Bitter enmity existed between the neigh-
bours, breaking out as occasion offered
into open hostilities, when a party would
sally forth from the lower to do battle
with sticks and stones with the lads of
the upper town, or the upper would send
down a detachment to take reprisals on
their 'longshore enemies.
We are indebted to the satirical pen of
Fielding, who was unwillingly detained
here on his voyage to Lisbon, for a pic-
ture of Ryde in 1759. Our readers may
be glad to be reminded of the life-like
pictures drawn by the great novelist of
Mrs. Francis, his extortionate and shrew-
ish landlady, and her stolid complaisant
husband, who "wished not for anything,
thought not of anything, — indeed, scarce
did anything, or said anything," — reply-
ing to all Fielding's remonstrances with,
" I don't know anything about it, Sir ; I
leaves all that to my wife : " of her tum-
ble-down tenement, the best inn that Ryde
then afforded, " built with the materials
of a wreck, sunk down with age on one
side, and in the form of a ship with gun-
wales,"— of her bills, with their daily-
increasing tariff, "a pennyworth of fire
rated to-day at a shilling, to-morrow at
eighteen pence," — "two dishes dressed
for two shillings on Saturday, and half-a-
* The population of Ryde at the last census amounted
to ii|234.
crown charged for the cookins: of one on
Sunday ; "
Fielding's
-of her indignant retort to
remonstrance — " Candles !
why, yes, to be sure ; why should not
travellers pay for candles ? I am sure I
pay for mine ; " and of her closing lamen-
tations at the smallness of her bill, after
every charge which a landlady's ingenuity
could invent or a landlady's conscience
allow had been introduced, — " She didn't
know that she had omitted anything, dii^
it was but a poor bill for gentlefolks to
payr
If the members of the Yacht Squadron,
whose trim craft give so much life and
animation to its waters, and whose annual
Regatta collects so much of the wealth
and fashion of the land, or the gay crowds
who throng the pier in every variety of
fashionable costume, were to have a view
of Ryde as it appeared to Fielding, they
would not easily recognize their favourite
resort. The "impassable gulf of deep
mud, which could neither be traversed by
walking nor swimming," no friendly pier
yet crossing its treacherous surface, ren-
dered Ryde "for near one-half of the
twenty-four hours inaccessible by friend
or foe." Until the present pier was
opened in 18 15 the way of approach was
that commemorated by Marryat in his
" Poor Jack ; " when " the wherries came
in as far as they could, and were met by
a horse and cart, which took out the pas-
sengers and carried them throusfh the
mud and water to the hard ground."
Amusing tales are still told of inconven-
ient accidents occasioned by jibbing or
unruly horses, or the loss of the " cart-
pins," which involved the precipitation of
the whole freight backwards into the ooze
and slime.
Cowes, which was an earlier yachting
centre, and still claims official precedence
of Ryde in this respect, cannot go back,
as a town, beyond the latter part of the
sixteenth century. The two forts, seen
and described by Leland, very soon after
their erection by Henry VIII. from the
materials of Beaulieu Abbey, —
The two great Cows that in loud thunder roar,
This on the eastern, that on the western shore,
gave the name to the locality, which has
been transferred to the little town that
gradually, after the erection of a Custom-
house for the Island in 1575, clustered
round the western Cow or fort. Its con-
venience as a port and harbor and land
ing-place was soon recognized, and i
growth in prosperity, though not rapi
I has been solid and steady. Of late years
flP
A
THE ISLE OF WIGHT.
471
the residence of Her Majesty and the
Royal Family at Osborne has supplied an
additional stimulus to the commercial ac-
tivity of West Cowes, and of her younger
sister on the eastern bank. Cowes is a
very attractive place when seen from the
water. The houses climb up a steep
wooded hill rising from the water, crowned
by a stately church and a number of hand-
some villas. But the favourable impres-
sion is hardly maintained on landing.
Henry VIII.'s block-house has become
the Yacht Club-house.
Returning to the eastern side of the
island, the decayed corporate town of
Brading, with its grey spire-crowned
church, its half-timbered houses, crum-
bling town-hall, bull-ring and stocks,
seems to belong a bygone age. It will
always possess an interest from its con-
nection with Wilfrid, the Evangelist of
the island ; but there is not much to
make us linger, and we pass on after
casting a glance over the broad tidal-
basin, Brading Haven, into which the
silver Yar, after forcing its way through
the chalk downs, expands before it joins
the sea, and reflecting how greatly the
prospect would have lost in beauty if Sir
Hugh Myddleton's engineering opera-
tions for draining the haven, and convert-
ing it into corn-fields and pastures, had
not been allowed to become abortive
through the want of decision and energy
on the part of its promoters.
While Brading has been sinking, her
daughters of Sandown and Shanklin have
been rising, and the once tiny villages —
Sandown, indeed, was no more than a
cluster of fishermen's cottages with a
humble way-side inn — have assumed the
aspect and importance of considerable
towns.
The bright, cheerful little town of
Sandown, with its fine expanse of dry
level sand, peopled in the summer and
autumn months with tribes of happy chil-
dren who, like those who frolicked on
the shores of the JEgea.n three thousand
years ago,
In wanton play with hands and feet o'erthrow
The mound of sand which late in play they
raised, —
I/i'ad, XV. 424, 421;. — Lord Derby's Transla-
tion.
is inseparably connected with the memory
of John Wilkes, of the " North Briton,"
who may be said to have discovered the
place, and who by the erection of his
" Villakin " in 1 788, which he never tired
of praising and adorning, first showed it
I to be a possible residence for a gentle-
man. Wilkes's letters to his daughter
are full of amusing descriptions of the
place and his neighbours, his difficulty in
obtaining provisions, his love for the
feathered tribes, the kindness of the gen-
try of the vicinity in supplying his wants,
his visits to them and theirs to him. One
Sunday, he tells his " dear Polly," going
over to church at Shanklin, he met Gar-
rick and his charming wife, who took
him back with them to Mr. Fitzmaurice's
seat at Knighton, at which they were
staying. Here he found Sir Richard
Worsley and some of his Neapolitan ac-
quaintances. Sir Richard engaged him
to visit him at Appuldurcombe on the
Monday, where he entertained " the
; whole Knighton set " at a grand break-
j fast, " Mrs. Garrick, as usual, the most
I captivating of the whole circle." Wilkes
j numbered the Hills of St. Boniface, the
Bassetts, the Oglanders, and all the lead-
ing island gentry among his associates ;
and we gather from this correspondence a
very pleasing idea of the genial and refined
hospitality which prevailed among them.
The fort at Sandown, erected by Henry
VHL, once washed away by the sea, and
only saved from the same fate a second
time by very expensive engineering
works, not long since boasting of a well-
salaried governor, has been finally pulled
down in our own day, and a new fort
erected of granite cased with iron, as one
member of the formidable and costly line
of coast defences, by which it is fondly
hoped the Isle of Wight has been ren-
dered impregnable.
Lovely as Shanklin is, and must ever
remain with its chine, its cliffs, and its
woods, in spite of the worst that enter-
prising house-builders have done and are
doing to vulgarize it, it must not detain
us. We may, however, remark in pass-
ing that Shanklin was one of the strong-
holds of Jacobitism in the Isle of Wight.
The old summer-house in the Manor
House garden is still pointed out in
which meetings of the adherents of the
exiled royal family used to be held, and
at which, with the'old Squire of Shanklin
at their head, the island gentlemen would
drink the health of Charles Edward on
bended knee.* In later years, before it
* A century ago, in the days of the old squires,
Shanklin is described as a Utopia of friendship and
mutual good will. " The inhabitants," writes Hassell,
" are like one large family. Ill nature is not known
among thern. Obliging in the extreme, they seem to
be the happiest when their visitants are best pleased."
Nor was Shanklin peculiar in this respect. The quiet
villages of the island, where the gentry had lived ior
472
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
had become so crowded a resort, Shanklin
was a very favourite place for Oxford
reading parties. Bishops Hampden and
Hinds passed the long vacation of 1812
here, ''occupied," writes the former,
"with our books the greater part of every
day, and having no recreation beyond a
Utc-a-tete walk along the sea-shore :
never even making an excursion into
other parts of the attractive scenery of
the island." They had been preceded by
their friend. Archbishop Whately, who
read here for his Oriel Fellowship.
We must, however unwillingly, leap
over the exquisite scenery between
Shanklin and Ventnor: Luccombe with
its bowl-shaped chine and rude fisher-
men's huts, full of charms to the land-
scape-painter; the romantic ruin of the
East-end Landslip, created within living
memory by the subsidence of the infe-
rior strata ; Bonchurch, the portal of the
Undercliff, with its cliff walls and rugged,
isolated rocks, and sheltered nooks, and
picturesque residences, "in the very
style a poet would have imagined and a
painter designed;"* still, in Dr. Ar-
nold's words, "the most beautiful place
on the sea-coast on this side Genoa " f —
and devote a few closing words to Vent-
nor— the Metropolis of the Undercliff.
Forty years since this now large and
flourishing town was the tiniest of fishing
hamlets. A group of low-thatched cot-
tages on the shore of the Cove, a pic-
turesque mill hanging on the steep cliff
above, down which the mill-stream dashed
in a pretty cascade ; alow-roofed wayside
inn, the thatch of which a tall man could
easily reach ; and a humble dwelling or
two hard by, formed the who^ of Vent-
nor. And such it might have remained
had not the late distinguished physician,
Sir James Clark, discovered the curative
power of its genial climate in pulmonary
disease, and recommended it as a winter
resort for invalids. Consumptive pa-
tients resorted to Ventnor in crowds.
Its praises as the " English Madeira "
were said and sung by grateful visitors,
and the place speedily sprang into em-
inence and celebrity as one of the best of
generations In the midst of their humbler friends and
dependents, knowing everybody and manifesting a
kindly interest In all, formed much such parochial
Goshens as the gentle Mary Leadbeater describes Bal-
Jitore before the Irish Insurrection. "When the tem-
porary absence of a neighbour caused a shade of gloom,
and his return a ray of sunshine ; when the sickness or
misfortune of one was felt by sympathy through the
whole body." — Leadbeater Papers and Correspond-
ence.
* Sterling.
t "Arnold's Life and Correspondence," vol. il. p. 45.
the health resorts of Southern England.
And if the fashion has in some measure
turned, and Bournemouth and other
younger rivals are rivalling, or even sur-
passing Ventnor in public estimation, the
logic of facts will ever continue to argue
very strongly in favour of it as a resi-
dence for the invalid who seeks to escape
the cold blasts of our northern winter,
and the still more perilous alternations of
our treacherous spring, without the fa-
tigue of foreign travel, and the number-
less miseries inseparable from a winter
passed where English comforts are un-
known. Tiie Registrar-General's returns
prove that Ventnor almost bears the palm
of all English health-resorts. Its micro-
scopic mortality, notwithstanding the
large number of consumptive patients
carried there in the final stages of their
insidious disease simply to die, is a tri-
umphant proof of the remarkable salu-
brity of this favoured locaKty. While on
this subject we must not omit to call at-
tention to the most recent development
of sanitary agencies, whose beneficent
object is to place the benefits of the
genial climate of the Undercliff within
the reach of a class which without such
help must be permanently shut out from
them. We refer to the National Con-
sumption Hospital erected on the cottage
or detached block system in one of the
most beautiful and sheltered spots in the
Undercliff, of which the first stone was
laid two years since by the Princess Lou-
ise on behalf of her royal mother, who
from the first has manifested a warm in-
terest in its success, and which is enter-
ing on a career of extensive usefulness
destined long to perpetuate the name of
its energetic originator, Dr. Arthur Hill
Hassall.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS
BROTHER.
CHAPTER XIX.
After this curious meeting Val paid
several visits to the little corner
house ; so many, indeed, that his tutor
interfered, as he had a perfect right to
do, and reproached him warmly for his
love of low society, and for choosing
companions who must inevitably do him
harm. Mr. Grinder was quite right in
this, and I hope the tutors of all our boys
would do exactl}'' the same in such a case ;
but Val, I am afraid, did not behave so
THE STORY OF VALENTINE) AND HIS BROTHER.
473
respectfully as he ought, and indeed was
insubordinate and scarcely gentlemanly,
Mr. Grinder complained. The young
tutor, who had been an Eton boy himself
not so very long before, had inadvertently
spoken of poor Dick as a " Brocas cad."
Now I am not sufficiently instructed to
know what special ignominy, if any, is
conveyed by this designation ; but Val
flamed up as he did on rare occasions, his
fury and indignation being all the greater
that he usually managed to restrain him-
self. He spoke to Mr. Grinder as a pupil
ought not to have done. He informed
him that if he knew Dick he never would
speak of him in such terms ; and if he did
not know him, he had no right to speak
at all, not being in the least aware of the
injustice he was doing. There was a
pretty business altogether between the
high-spirited impetuous boy and the
young man who had been too lately a
boy himself to have much patience with
the other. Mr. Grinder all but " com-
plained of" Val — an awful proceeding,
terminating in the block, and sudden exe-
cution in ordinary cases — a small matter
enough with most boys, but sufficiently
appalling to those who had attained such
a position as Val's, high up in school ;
and intolerable to his impetuous tem-
perament. This terrible step was averted
by the interposition of mediators, by the
soft words of old Mrs. Grinder, who was
Val's "dame," and other friends. But
Mr. Grinder wrote a letter to Rosscraig
on the subject, which gave Lady Eskside
more distress and trouble than anything
which had happened to her for a long
time. If she had got her will, her hus-
band would have gone up instantly to in-
quire into the matter, and it is possible
that the identity of Dick and his mother
might have been discovered at once, and
some future complications spared. The
old lady wrung her hands and wept salt
tears over the idea that " his mother's
blood " was asserting itself thus, and that
her son Richard's story might be about
to be repeated again, but with worse and
deeper shades of misery. Lord Eskside,
however, who had been so much dis-
turbed by dangers which affected her
very lightly, was not at all moved by this.
He demurred completely to the idea of
going to Eton, but agreed that Val him-
self should be written to, and explana-
tions asked. Val wrote a very magnifi-
cent letter in reply, as fine a production
as ever sixteen (but he was seventeen by
this time) put forth. He related with dig-
nity how he had encountered a friendly
boy on the river's side who helped him
when his boat swamped — how he had
discovered that he was an admirable
fellow, supporting his old mother, and in
want of work; — hovv he had exerted him-
self to procure work for this deserving
stranger, and how he had gone to his
house two or three times to see how he
was getting on. " I have been lending
him books," wrote Val, "and doing what
I could to help him to get on. His mas-
ter, who took him on mj^ recommenda-
tion, and Lichen's (you know Lichen ?
the captain of the boats) says he never
had such a good man in his place : and I
have thought it was my duty to help
him on. If you and grandmamma think I
ought not to do so," Valentine con-
cluded majestically, " I confess I shall be
very sorry ; for Brown is one of the best
fellows that was ever born." Lady Esk-
side wept when she read this letter —
tears of joy, and pride, and happy remorse
at having thought badly of her boy. She
wrote him such a letter as moved even
Val's boyish insensibility, with a ten-
pound note in it, with which she in-
trusted him to buy something for his
protigd. " It is like your sweet nature to
try to help him," she said; "and oh,
Val, my darling, I am so ashamed of my-
self for having a momentary fear ! " Mr.
Grinder had a somewhat cold response
from Lord Eskside, but not so trenchant
as my lady would have wished it. " We
are very much obliged to you for your
Care," said the old lord; "but I think
Valentine has given such good reasons
for his conduct that we must not be hard
upon him. Of course nothing of this
sort should be allowed to g-o too far."
Thus Val was victorious
bu? I
am nflad
to have to tell of him that as soon as he
was sure of this, he went off directly and
begged Mr. Grinder's pardon. " I had
no right, sir, to speak to you so," said the
boy. They were better friends ever after,
I believe ; and for a long time Lady Esk-
side was not troubled with any terrors
about Val's " mother's blood ! "
All this time Dick "got on" so, that it
became a wonder to see him. He had
finished Val's carving long ago, and pre-
sented it to his gracious patron, declining
with many blushes the " five bob " which
he had been promised. Before he was
eighteen he had grown, in virtue of his
absolute trustworthiness, to be the first
and most important ministranf at the
"rafts." Everbody knew him, every-
body liked him. So far as young squires
and lordlings constitute that desirable
474
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
thing:, Dick lived in the very best society ;
his manners ought to have been good,
for they were moulded on the manners
of our flower of English youth. I am
not very sure myself that he owed so
much to this (for Eton boys, so far as I
have seen, have a quite extraordinary re-
semblance to other boys) as to his natu-
rally sweet and genial temper, his honest
and generous humbleness and unselfish-
ness. Dick Brown was the very last per-
son Dick thought of, whatever he might
happen to be doing — and this is the rar-
est of all qualities in youth. Then he
was so happy in having his way, and " a
house," and in overcoming his mother's
fancy for constant movement, that his
work was delightful to him. It was hard
work, and entailed a very long strain of
his powers — too long, perhaps, for a
growing boy — but yet it was pleasant,
and united a kind of busy play with con-
tinuous exertion. All summer long he
was on the river-side, the busiest of lads
or men, in noiseless boating-shoes, and
with a dress which continually improved
till Dick became the nattiest as well as
the handiest of his kind. He had a hor-
ror of everything that was ugly and dirty :
when the others lounged about in their
hour's rest, while their young clients were
at school, Dick would be hot about some-
thing ; — painting and rubbing the old
boats, scraping the oars, bringing clean-
ness, and order, and that bold kind of
decoration which belongs to boat-build-
ing, to the resuscitation of old gigs and
"tubs " which had seemed goodfor noth-
ing. He would even look after the flow-
ers in the little strip of garden, and sow
the seeds, and trim the border, while he
waited, if there happened to be no old
boats to cobble. He was happy when the
sun shone upon nothing but orderliness
and (as he felt it) beauty. In his own
rooms this quality of mind was still more
apparent. I have said that he and his
mother lived with Spartan simplicity.
This enabled him to do a great deal more
with his wages than his more luxurious
companions. First, comforts, and then
superfluities — elegances, if we may use
the word — bejjan to flow into the room.
The elegances, perhaps, were not very
elegant at first, but his taste improved at
the most rapid rate. When he had noth-
ing better to do, he would go and take
counsel with Fullady the wood-carver,
and get lessons from him, helping now
and then at a piece of work, to the aston-
ishment of his master. In the evening
he carved small pieces of furniture, with
which he decorated his dwelling. In win-
ter he was initiated into the mysteries of
boat-building, and worked at tiiis trade
with absolute devotion and real enjoy-
ment. In short, Dick's opinion was that
nobody so happy as himself had ever
lived — his work was as good as play, and
better, he said ; and he was paid for do-
ing wliat it gave him the greatest pleasure
to do — a perennial joke with the gentle
fellow. In all this prosperity Dick never
forgot his first patron. When Val rowed,
Dick ran by the bank shouting till he was
hoarse. When Val was preferred to be
one of the sublime Eight, who are as gods
among men, he went almost out of his
wits with pride and joy. •• IVe'll win
now, sure enough, at Henley ! " he said
to his mother, with unconscious appro-
priation of the possessive pronoun. But
when Dick heard of the squabble between
Val and his tutor, his good sense showed
at once. He took his young patron a
step aside, taking off his hat with almost
an exaggeration of respect — "Don't
come to our house again, sir," he said ;
"the gentleman is in the right. You are
very kind to be so free with me, to talk
and make me almost a friend ; but it
wouldn't do if every Eton gentleman were
to make friends with the fellows on the
water-side — the gentleman is in the
right."
" My people don't think so, Brown,'*
cried Val; "look here, what has beeiti
sent me to get you something," and h
showed his ten-pound note.
Dick's eyes flashed with eager pleasure,;
not for the money, though even that wa
no small matter. " I don't understand,'
he added, after a moment, shaking hisj
head. " I don't think they'd like it either,
if they knew. You must have beenc"
ing too good an account, sir, of mothe
and me."
Val only laughed, and crushed the cris
bank-note into the pocket of his trousers
" I mean to spend it for you on Monday,
when I am going to town on leave," h
said. He was going to see Miss Perci
val, his grandmother's friend. And, i
fact, he did buy Dick a number of things
which seemed to his youthful fane
appropriate in the circumstances. H
bought him some books, a lew of thos
standard works which Val knew ought t
be in everybody's library, though he di
not much trouble them himself ; and
capital box of tools, and drawing mate
rials, for Dick had displayed some facult
that way. Both the boys were as happ
as possible — the one in bestowing, th
I
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
475
other in receiving, this gift. Lady Esk-
side's present gave them both the deep-
est pleasure, though she was so far from
knowing who was the recipient of her
bounty. " Brown," said Val, solemnly,
after they had enjoyed the delight of go-
ing over every separate article, and ex-
amining and admiring it — "Brown, you
mind what I am going to say. You must
hear some suggestion of fresh wandering.
All that she asked, however, was. When
did the boats go up for the first time ? a
question which Dick answered promptly.
"On the 1st of March, mother. I wish
it was come," cried Dick, with animation.
"And so do I," she said, with musing
eyes fixed on the river ; then alarmed,
perhaps, lest he should question her, she
rise in the world ; you have made a great ; added hastily, " It is cheery to see the
deal of progress already, and you must
make still more. Heaps of fellows not
half so good as you have got to be rich,
and raised themselves by their exertions.
You must improve your mind ; and you
must take the good of every advantage
that offers, and rise in the world."
" I'll try, sir," said Dick, with the
cheeriest laugh. He was ready to have
promised to scale the skies, if Val had
recommended it. He arranged his books
carefully in a little bookcase he had made,
which was far handsomer than the old
one which had received the yellow vol-
umes— overflowings of Val's puerile li-
brary. I am not sure that Macaulay and
Gibbon instructed him much more than
the " Headless Horseman " had done.
His was not a mind which was much af-
fected by literature ; he cared more for do-
ing than for reading, and liked his box of
tools better than his library. Musing
over his work, he revolved many things
in his head, and got to have very just
views about many matters in which his
education had been a blank ; but he did
not get his ideas out of books. That was
not a method congenial to him, though he
would have acknowledged with respect
that it was most probably the right way.
But anyhow, Val had done his duty by his
protege. He had put into his hands the
means of rising in the world, and he had
suggested this ambition. Whatever might
happen hereafter, he had done his best.
And Dick's mother continued contented
also, which was a perpetual wonder to
him. She weathered through the winter,
though Dick often watched her narrowly,
fearing a return to her old vagrant way.
When Val's boat disappeared from the
river with all the others, she was indeed
restless for a little while ; but it was, as
it happened, just about that time when
Val took to visiting the little corner
house, and these visits kept her in a vis-
ionary absorption, always afraid, yet al-
ways glad, when he came. In spring she
was again somewhat alarming to her son,
moving so restlessly in the small space
they had, and looking out so wistfully
from the window, that he trembled to
boats."
" So it is," said Dick, " especially for
you, mother, who go out so seldom. You
should take a walk along the banks ; it's
cheerful always. I don't think you half
know how pretty it is."
She shook her head. " I am not one
for walks," she said, with a half smile —
" not for pleasure, Dick. Since I've given
up our long tramps, I don't feel to care
for moving. I'm getting old, I think."
"Old! "said Dick, cheerily; "it will
be time enough to think of that in twenty
years."
" Twenty years is a terrible long time,"
she said, with a little shiver ; " I hope I'll
be dead and gone long before that."
" I wish you wouldn't speak so, mother."
" Ah, but it's true. My life ain't much
good to any one," she said. " I am not
let to live in my own way, and I can't live
in any other. If God would take me, it
would be for the best. Then I might have
another chance."
" Mother, you break my heart," cried
Dick, with a face full of anxiety, throwing
away his tools, and coming up to her.
" Do you mean that it is I that won't let
you live your own way ? "
" I don't blame nobody but myself —
no ; you've been a good boy — a very
good boy — to me," she cried ; "better,
a long way, than I've been to you."
" Mother," said the lad, laying his hand
on her shoulder, his face flushing with
emotion, "if it's hard upon you like this
— if you want to start off again "
" No, I don't, I don't," she said with
suppressed passion ; then falling back
into her old dreamy tone — " So the boats
go up on the ist of March .? and that's
Monday. To see 'em makes the river
cheery. I'm a little down with the winter
and all; but as soon as I see 'em, I'll be
all right."
" Please God, mother," said pious Dick,
going back to his carving. He was satis-
fied, but yet he was startled. For, after
all, why should she care so much about
the boats }
This 1st of March inaugurated Val's
last summer on the river — at least, on
476
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
this part of the river, for he had still Ox-
ford and its triumphs in prospect. That
"summer half " was his last in Eton, and
naturally he made the most of it. Val
had, as people say, "done very well" at
school. He was not a brilliant success,
but still he had done very well, and his
name in the school list gave his grand-
parents great pleasure. Lord Eskside
kept a copy of that little brochure on his
library table, and would finger it half con-
sciously many a time when some county
magnate was interviewing the old lord.
Val's name appeared in it like this : * Ross,
(5) y. Now this was not anything like the
stars and ribbons of the name next above
his, which was B * Robinson (19) a ; for I
do not mean to pretend that he was very
studious, or had much chance of being in
the Select for the Newcastle Scholarship
(indeed he missed this distinction, though
he went in for it gallantly, without being,
however, much disappointed by his fail-
ure). To be sure, I have it all my own
way in recording what Val did at- Eton,
since nobody is likely nowadays, without
hard labour in the way of looking up old
lists, to be in a position to contradict me.
But he had the privilege of writing his
letters upon paper bearing the mystic
monogram of Pop. — i.e.^ he was a mem-
ber of Eton Society^ which was a sure test
of his popularity ; and he was privileged
in consequence to walkabout with a cane,
and to take part in debates on very ab-
struse subjects (I am not quite sure which
privilege is thought the most important),
and received full recog/iition as " a swell,"
— a title which, I am happy to say, bears no
vulgar interpretation at Eton, as meaning
either rank or riches. And he was a very
sublime sight to see on the 4th of June,
the great Eton holiday, both in the morn-
ing, when he appeared in school in court
dress — breeches and black silk stockings
— and delivered one of those " Speeches "
with which Eton upon that day delights
such members of the fashionable world
as can spare a summer morning out of
the important business of the season ; and
in the evening, when he turned out in still
more gorgeous array, stroke of the best
boat on the river, and a greater personage
than it is easy for a grown-up and sober-
minded imagination to conceive.
It happened that this particular year
Mr. Pringle was in London upon some
business or other, and had brought his
daughter Violet with him to see the world.
Vi was seventeen, and being an only
daughter, and the chief delight of her
parents' hearts, and pride of her brothers',
big and little, was already " out," thou,2:h
many people shook their heads at Mrs.
Pringle's precipitancy in producing her
daughter. Violet's hair was somewhat
darker now that it was turned up, but
showed the pale golden hue of her child-
hood still in the locks which, when the
wind blew upon her, would shake them-
selves out in little rings over her ears and
round her pretty forehead. Her eyes
were as dark and liquid as they had been
when she was a child, with a wistful look
in them, which was somewhat surprising,
considering how entirely happy a life she
had led from her earliest breath, sur-
rounded with special love and fondness ;
but so it was, account for it who will.
Those eyes that shone out of her happy
youthful face were surely conscious of
some trouble, which, as it did not exist in
the present, must be to come, and which,
with every pretty look, she besought and
entreated you to ward off from her, to
help her through. But a happy little
maiden was Vi, looking through those
pretty eyes, surprised and sweet, at Lon-
don— tripping everywhere by her proud
father's side, with her hand on his arm,
looking at the fine pictures, looking at
the fine people and the fine horses in the
Park, and going over the sights as inno-
cent country people do when such a happy
chance as a child to take about happens
to them. Some one susrgested to Mr.
Pringle the fact of the Eton celebration
during this pleasant course of dissipation,
and Vi's eyes lighted up with a sweet glow
of pleasure beyond words when it was
finally decided that they were to go. They
went to "Speeches" in the morning
that august ceremonial — and heard Val
speak, and a great many more. Violet
confined her interest to the modern lan-
guages which she understood ; but Mr.
Pringle felt it incumbent upon him to look
amused at the jokes in Greek, which, I
fear, the poor gentleman in reality knevv
little more about than Vi did. But the
crowning glory of the morning was tha
Val in his "speaking clothes " (and ver/j
speaking, very telling articles they were,;
in Violet's eyes at least) walked with
them, bareheaded, with the sun shinin*i
on his dark curls, the same bold browni
boy who had carried off the little girl fro
the Hewan six years before, though by thi
time much more obsequious to Vi. H
showed himself most willing and ready al
day to be the cicerone of " his cousins ; "
and when in the evening, Violet, holdin
fast by her father's arm, her heart beat
ing high with pleasures past and pleasure
i
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
477
to come, walked down to the rafts in
company with Val in the aquatic splen-
dours of his boating costume — straw hat
wreathed with flowers, blue jacket and
white trousers — the girl would have
been very much unlike other girls if she
had not been dazzled by this versatile
hero, grand in academic magnificence in
the morning, and resplendent now in the
uniform of the river. *' I am so sorry I
can't take you out myself," said Val, " for
of course I must go with my boat ; but I
have a man here, the best of fellows, who
will row you up to Surly. Here, Brown,"
hs cried, "get out the nicest gig you
have, and come yourself — there's a good
fellow. I want my cousins to see every-
thing. Oh, ril speak to Harry, and make
it all right. I want you and nobody else,"
he added, looking with friendly eyes at
his protegd. I don't think Mr. Pringle
heard this address, but looking round
suddenly, he saw a young man standing
by Valentine whose appearance made his
heart jump. " Good God ! " he cried in-
stinctively, staring at him. Dick had
grown and developed in these years. He
had lost altogether the slouch of the
tramp, and was, if not so handsome as
Val, trim and well-made, with a chest ex-
panded by constant exercise, and his
head erect with the constant habit of at-
tention. He was dressed in one of Val's
own coats, and no longer looked like a
lad on the rafts. For those who did not
look closely, he might have been taken
for one of Val's school-fellows, so entirely
had he fallen into the ways and manners
of " the gentlemen." He was as fair as
Val was dark, about the same height, and
though not like Val, was so like another
face which Mr. Pringle knew, that his
heart made a jump into his mouth with
wonder and terror. Perhaps he might
not have remarked this likeness but for
the strange association of the two lads,
standing side by side as they were, and
evidently on the most friendly terms.
"V/ho is that?" cried Mr. Pringle, star-
ing with wide-open eyes.
" It is the best feUow in the world,"
cried Val, laughing, as Dick sprang aside
to arrange the cushions in a boat which
lay alongside the raft. " He'll take you
up to Surly faster than any one else on
the river."
"But, Valentine — it is very kind of
him," said Vi, hesitating — " but you did
not introduce him to us "
" Oh, he's not a gentleman," said Val,
lightly; "that is to say," he added, see-
ing Dick within reach, with a hasty blush,
" he's as good in himself as any one I
know ; but he aint one of the fellows, Vi ;
he works at the rafts — his name is Brown.
Now, do you think you can steer ? You
used to, on the water at home."
" Oh yes," said Violet, with modest
confidence. Val stood and looked after
them as the boat glided away up the
crowded river; then he stalked along
through the admiring crowd, feeling as a
man may be permitted to feel who holds
the foremost rank on a day of fete and
universal enjoyment.
To him each lady's look was lent,
On him each courtier's eye was bent.
To be sure there were a great many oth-
ers almost as exalted as Val ; and only
the initiated knew that he rowed in the
Eight, and was captain of the Victory, —
the best boat on the river. He stalked
along to his boat, over the delicious turf
of the Brocas, in the afternoon sunshine,
threading his way through throngs of
ladies in pretty dresses, and hundreds of
white-waistcoated Etonians. How proud
the small boys who knew him were, after
receiving a nod from the demigod as he
passed, to discourse loudly to gracious
mother or eager sister, Val's style and
title ! " That's Ross at my dame's — he's
in the Eight — he won the school scull-
ing last summer half ; and we think we'll
get the House Fours, now he's captain.
He's an awfully jolly fellow when you
know him," crowed the small boys, feel-
ing themselves exalted in the grandeur of
this acquaintance ; and the pretty sisters
looked after Val, a certain awe mingling
with their admiration ; while Philistines
and strangers, unaccompanied by even a
small boy, felt nobodies, as became them.
Then came the startup the river. Never
was a prettier sight than this ceremonial.
The river all golden with afternoon glory ;
the great trees on the Brocas expanding
their huge boughs in the soft air, against
the sky; the banks all lined with ani-
mated, bright-coloured clouds ; the stream
alive with attendant boats ; and the great
noble pile of the castle looking down
serene from its height upon the children
and subjects at its royal feet, making
merry under its great and calm protec-
tion. It is George III.'s birthday —
poor, obstinate, kindly old soul! — and
this is how a lingering fragrance of kind-
ness grows into a sort of fame. They
say he was paternally fond and proud of
the boys, who thus yearly, without know-
ing it, celebrate him still.
Dick took his boat with Val's cousins
478
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
in it up the river, and waited there among
the willows, opposite the beautiful elms
of the Brocas, till the " Boats " went past
in gay procession. He pointed out Val's
boat and Val's person to Violet with a
pleasure as great as her own. " It is the
best boat on the river, and he is one of
the best oars," cried Dick, his honest
fair face glowing with pleasure. "We
all think his house must win the House
Fours — they didn't last year, for Mr.
Lichen was still here, and he's heavier
than Mr. Ross ; but Grinder's will have
it this time." Dick's face so brightened
with generous delight, and acquired an
expression so individual and character-
istic, that Mr. Pringle began to breathe
freely, and to say to himself that fancy
had led him astray.
"Do you belong to this place?" he
asked, when they started again to follow
the boats up the river in the midst of a
gay flotilla, looking Dick very steadily,
almost severely, in the face.
" Not by birth, sir," said Dick. " In-
deed, I don't belong anywhere ; but I'm
settled here, I hope, for good."
" But you don't mean to say you are a
boatman ?" said Mr. Pringle; "you don't
look like it. It must be a very precarious
life."
• <' I am head man at the rafts," said
Dick — " thanks to Mr. Ross, who got
me taken on when I was a lad" — (he
was eighteen then, but maturity comes
early among the poor), " and we're boat-
builders to our trade. You should see
some of the boats we turn out, sir, if you
care for such things."
" But I suppose, my man, you have
had a better education than is usual ? "
said Mr. Pringle, looking so gravely at
him that Dick thought he must disap-
prove of such vanities. " You don't
speak in the least like the other lads
about here."
" I suppose it's being so much with the
gentlemen," said Dick, with a smile. " I
am no better than the other lads. Mr,
Ross has given me books — and things."
" Mr. Ross must have been very kind
to you," said Mr. Pringle, with vague
suspicions which he could not define —
" he must have known you before ? "
" Hasn't he just been kind to me ! "
said Dick, a flush coming to his fair face ;
"an angel couldn't have been kinder!
No, I never saw him till two years ago ;
but lucky for me, he took a fancy to me
— and I, if I may make so bold as to say
so, to him."
" Mr. Brown," said Violet, looking at
him with a kind of heavenly dew in her
dark eyes — for to call such effusion of
happiness tears would be a word out of
place — "I am afraid, if we are going
through the lock, I shall not be able to
steer."
This was not the least what she wanted
to say. What she wanted to say was, I
can see you are a dear, dear, good fellow,
and I love you for being so fond of Val ;
and how Dick should have attained to a
glimmering of understanding, and known
that this was what she meant, I cannot
tell — but he did. Such things happen
now and then even in this stupid every-
day world.
" Never mind, miss," he said cheer-
fully, looking back at her with his sun-
shiny blue eyes, " I can manage. Hold
your strings fast, that you may not lose
them : the steerage is never much use in
a lock ; and if you're nervous, there's the
Sergeant, who is a
great friend
of Mr.
Ross's, will pull us through."
The lock was swarming with boats,
and Violet, not to say her father, who
was not quite sure about this mode of
progression, looked up with hope and ad-
miration at the erect figure of the Ser-
geant, brave and fine in his waterman's
dress with his silver buttons, and medals
of a fiercer service adorning his blue
coat. The Sergeant had shed his blood
for his country before he came to super-
intend the swimming of the favoured ones
on the Thames. Kis exploits in the
water and those of his pupils are lost to
the general public, from the unfortunate
fact that English prejudice objects to
trammel the limbs of its natateurs by
any garments. But literature lifts its
head in unsuspected places, and the gen-
tle reader will be pleased to learn that the
Sergeant's Book on Swimming will soon
make the name, which I decline to de-
liver to premature applauses, known over
all the world. He looked to Violet, who
was somewhat frightened by the crowds of
boats, like an archangel in silver buttons,
as he caught the boat with his long
pole, and guided them safely through.
I cannot, however, describe in detail
all the pretty particulars of the scene,
which excited and delighted Violet more
than words can tell. Her father was in-
finitely less interested than usual in her
pleasures, having something else in his
mind, which he kept turning over and
over in his busy brain, while he led her
round the supper-table of the boys at
Surly, or held her fast during the fire-
works at the end of the evenins:. Was
PETRARCH.
479
this the other? If it was the other, what
motive could the Eskside people have to
hide him, to keep him in an inferior sta-
tion ? Did Val know ? and if Val knew,
how could he be so rash as to present to
his natural adversary a boy who had
in every feature Dick Ross's face ?
Mr. Pringle was bewildered with these
thoughts. Now and then, when Dick's
face brightened into expressiveness, he
said to himself that it was all nonsense,
that he was crazy on this point, and that
any fair lad who appeared by Val's side
would immediately look like Richard in
his prejudiced eyes. Altogether he was
more uncomfortable than I can describe,
and heartily glad when the show was over.
He took Val by the arm when he came to
say good-bye to them, and drew him
aside for a moment.
" Does your grandfather know of your
intimacy with this lad ? " he asked, with
the morose tone which his voice naturally
took when he was excited.
" Yes, of course they do," said Val, in-
dignant. " r never hid anything from
them — why should I .'' "
"Who is he, then.'' I think I have a
right to know," said Mr. Pringle.
"A right to know ! I don't understand
you," said Val, beginning to feel the fiery
blood tingling in his veins ; but he
thought of Vi, and restrained himself.
" He is Brown," he said, with a laugh ;
"that's all I know about him. You're
welcome to know as much as I do ;
though as for right, I can't tell who
has the right. You can ask the men at
the rafts, who have just the same means
of information as I."
While this conversation was going on,
Violet had spoken softly to Dick, "Mr.
Brown," she said, being naturally respect-
ful of all strangers, " I am so glad of what
you told us about Mr. Ross."
" Thank you, ma'am," said Dick ; " you
could not be more glad to hear than I am
to tell. I should like to let every one
know that though he's only a boy, he's
been the making of me."
"But — I beg your pardon — are you
older than a boy ? " said Vi.
Dick laughed. " When you have to
work for your living, you're a man before
you know," he said, with a certain oracu-
lar wisdom that sank deeply into Vi's
mind. But the next moment her father
called her somewhat sharply, and she
awoke with a sigh to the consciousness
that this wonderful day was over, and
that she must go away.
From The Contemporary Review.
PETRARCH.
It has happened more than once in the
history of literature that a nation joins
together as of almost equal eminence two
writers, who, to outside critics, are not
merely unequal in power, but occupy dis-
tinct grades in the hierarchy of letters.
It is thus that an Englishman speaks of
Shakespeare and Milton, a German of
Goethe and Schiller, an Italian of Dante
and Petrarch. And in each case the na-
tional instinct is in one point of view
right. To a German Shakespeare and
Milton are two poets, the one the greatest
the world has seen, the other not merely
inferior, but occupying an altogether lower
rank. To an Englishman Shakespeare is
indeed his representative poet, the high-
est extreme of the national genius, but he
cannot judge Milton only as a poet. In
an age of degradation and dishonour,
when abroad England had sunk to be a
vassal of France and at home to be the
slave of a profligate Court, when it seemed
that
All had turned degenerate, all depraved ;
Justice and temperance, truth and faith forgot ;
One man except, the only son of light
In a dark age, against example good,
Against allurement, custom, and a world
Offended ;
Milton, in poverty, old age, and blindness,
remained faithful to the great principles
for which he had laboured and suffered ;
and, because his writings are instinct with
his own noble spirit, his own unswerving
devotion to liberty and truth, we refuse to
judge him merely by the rules of criticism,
and place him side by side with the highest
name in our literature. In the same way
Schiller, true poet as he is, falls far short
of the marvellous flexibility and univer-
sality which make Goethe's genius stand
alone. But, to a German, Schiller is more
than a poet. When the national unity
was broken up into fragments and the
national life had almost died out ; when
life itself seemed mean and petty, with no
high aim to ennoble it ; when even Goethe
stooped to fawn upon the blood-stained
usurper at Erfurt; the nation's deepest
need was a stirring appeal to their higher
selves, and this they found in Schiller:
through all his writings rings the perpet-
ual refrain, not less audible because it is
not on the surface, " Be true," " Be noble,"
and so the Germans regard him with a
feeling that a foreigner can hardly enter
into, and speak of Goethe and Schiller as
480
PETRARCH.
the highest of the great names in the
splendid muster-roll of their literature.
It is thus that an Italian links together
the names of Dante and Petrarch. To
those who know Petrarch only by his
sonnets, this may seem a strange asser-
tion. Indeed Petrarch's is a strange fate ;
one of the few writers who can be said
to have a European reputation, his fame
rests not on his real titles to honour, but
on poems which except among his coun-
trymen are but seldom read ; and the
popular conception of him remains as an
effeminate sonnetteer who passed all his
life stringing together far-fetched conceits
for a cold and disdainful mistress. How
far this conception is from the true
Petrarch, the high-souled patriot, the de-
voted apostle and martyr of literature, it
is one of the objects of this paper to show.
Towards the end of the 13th century
the long-standing quarrel of Guelphs and
Ghibellines had become complicated in
Florence by a family feud imported from
Pistoia. The opposing factions into
which the city became divided were
known by the names of the Neri and Bi-
anchi, the former as a rule espousing the
Guelph side, and the latter inclined
towards the Ghibelline. It was while
this quarrel was at its height that Boni-
face VIII. despatched Charles of Valois,
brother of Philip IV., to settle the dis-
turbed state of Florence. Unarmed, save
with the lance of the Archtraitor, his
thrust rent open the breast of Florence.
Senza arme n' esce, e solo con la lancia
Con la qual giostr6 Guida ; e quella ponta
Si che a Fiorenza fa scoppiar la pancia.
Purg. XX. 73.
Sentence of exile was passed against
nearly the whole of the Bianca party, in-
cluding among other well-known names
Dante and a certain notary, by name
Petracco, the father of the poet. The ex-
iles took up their station at Arezzo, and
joining the Ghibellines in the year 1304
attempted to re-enter Florence by force.
The enterprise, which promised at first to
be successful, miscarried ; and it was on
the night of the 19th — 20th July, 1304,
while his father was flying hurriedly along
the road to Arezzo, that the young Pe-
trarch first saw the light. The boy was
called Francesco; and in after days Fran-
cesco di Petracco, Francis the son of
Petracco, became altered into Francesco
Petrarca, the name by which he was al-
ways known. The first seven years of
his life were passed at Incisa, 14 miles
from Florence, on a small property be-
longing to his father. His mother had
j obtained permission to reside there, and
; Petracco himself might have obtained a
remission of his exile on condition of do-
ing public penance in the Church of San
I Giovanni. But like Dante he scorned a
' favour coupled with such conditions ;
: like Dante he too looked forward to the
regeneration of Italy by the noblest of
■ the Emperors, Henry of Luxembourg,
and when these hopes were cut short by
I the Emperor's sudden death, after lin-
I gering some time at Pisa, he snapped the
j ties which bound him to an ungrateful,
country, and, with his wife and family, in
the year 1313, settled at Avignon, where
Clement V. had just established the Papal
Court. In the crowd of strangers which
filled the city to overflowing, Petracco
could find no room for his wife and chil-
dren, and they were sent to lodge at Car-
pentras, the capital of the old county Ve-
naissin. Long afterwards Petrarch speaks
of the happiness of that time, its liberty
and quiet repose, — strange feeling for a
boy of eleven or twelve. It'was here he
attended the school of an old Italian,
Convennole, and received his first lessons
in grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Already
the winning charm of his character was
making itself felt, and his old master de-
clared that he never had a pupil whom he
loved more. In 1319 his father, anxious
that he should follow the study of law,
and, above all, canon law, then the surest
road to advancement, sent him to Mont-
pellier, where he remained four years,
and from thence tp Bologna, the most
renowned school of law in Europe. Here
he passed three years, but his heart was
already vowed to literature, and those
seven years spent in irksome half-hearted
study, Petrarch looked back upon in after
days as wasted. Not, as he says in his
Letter to Posterity, that he did not rever-
ence the authority of law, or that he
found law an unpleasant study, bound up
as it was with Roman antiquity ; but the
chicanery of its practical working de-
terred him. This remark gives an inter-
esting insight into Petrarch's character,
the affection which would bind him to a
distasteful career rather than disappoint
a father's wishes, the unintentional dis-
closure that when life was just opening
before him the grandeur of the past had
laid a spell on his imagination, and made
him turn in disgust from the disenchant-
ing present. His favourite Latin authors
whom he studied in secret, were one day
discovered by his angry father and com-
mitted to the flames, and only rescued^
half burned when he saw the boy's de-
spairing grief. It was at Bologna that
Petrarch formed a friendship with Cino
da Pistoia, professor of law, the gentle
minstrel of Selvaggia, whose name his
young pupil was destined to eclipse. In
1326 Petrarch's father died, and he at
once returned to Avignon to begin life
with his young brother Gherado. The
dishonesty of their guardians had left
them almost entirely without means, and
forced both of them to become ecclesias-
tics ; a profession which in those days
was often treated as giving licence for a
wilder career of vice. The state of the
Papal Court was at that time too foul for
description. Making all allowances for
Petrarch's patriotic indignation at the
transfer of the Pontifical throne from its
rightful seat to a foreign land, his account
of the unbridled wickedness of the Court
in his letters, and especially the Epistolae
sine Titulo reveals an unsurpassed depth
of corruption ; in his 14th, 15th, and i6th
Sonnets, Part IV., in burning words,
worthy of Dante, he calls down fire from
heaven upon " that nest of treachery
where is hatched all the evil that spreads
over the world, the slave of wine and
gluttony, with Beelzebub in her midst,
the false and guilty Babylon where good
dies and evil is born and nourished, — a
hell upon earth."
Fiamma dal del su le tue trecce piova
Malvagia, —
Nido di tradimenti in cui si cova
Quanto mal per lo mondo oggi si spande ;
Di vin serva, di letti at di vivande,
In cui lussuria fa 1' ultima prova.
. . . e Beelzebub in mezzo.
Sonnet xiv.
. . . Babilonia falsa et ria,
Ove '1 ben more et '1 mal si nutre e cria :
Di vivi inferno.
Part iv., Sonnet xvi.
In the flush of youth, of slender and
graceful person, with features which
though not handsome possessed a singular
charm, with a poet's imagination just be-
ginning to stir in him, Petrarch at first
flung himself into all the pleasure of that
fashionable and frivolous world. At Bo-
logna he had formed a friendship with the
young Giacomo Colonna, son of the fa-
mous Stefano Colonna who had followed
the Papal Court to Avignon ; and to the
friend of a Colonna no door would be
closed. Petrarch in after years when his
Ijrother had become a monk, recalls to
him (Fam. x. 3) the memory of those days ;
their anxious care that their linen should
LIVING AGE. VOX.. VII. 343
PETRARCH. 481
be of the most spotless white, the con-
stant dressing and undressing, the fear
lest even a gentle breeze should disar-
range their ringlets, the anxiety to avoid
splashes from passing vehicles, the tor-
ture that Petrarch suffered from fashion-
able boots, the agonies they endured be-
neath the tongs of the hairdresser. Pure
and noble as Petrarch's nature was, it
could not be expected that he should pass
through such an atmosphere unstained.
He became the father of a son and daugh-
ter by a lady of Avignon.
How far Petrarch might have fallen, it
is impossible to say ; but he was rescued
by the passion which has immortalized
his name. On the 6th April, 1327, he
saw, in the Church of the Nuns of St.
Clare, Laura, the wife of Hugh de Sade,
then in the fresh bloom of youth and
beauty ; a day equally memorable with
that on which Dante met Beatrice walk-
ing between two ladies, when he first re-
ceived her modest salutation. (Vita Nuo-
va, sec. 3.) That day made Petrarch a
poet. The relationship between Petrarch
and Laura, throws much light on the
manners and modes of thought of that
age. That a young man should fall in
love at first sight with a lady is scarcely
remarkable, but that the most prominent
man of his time, courted by the greatest,,
should for twenty-one years nourish a;
pure and sincere passion for a married'
woman, even when her beauty fadejj:
and she became the mother of numerous
children, (she left nine surviving her,)
that he should admit the whole world to
witness the inmost workings of his pas-
sion,— this seems so strange to modern
feelings that some critics have even de-
nied Laura's existence, and classed her
with the numerous Celias and Delias to
whom so many poets have sung feigned
homage. That this view receives some
countenance from some of the sonnets
addressed to Laura can hardly be denied.
The eternal puns on Laura and Laurus
(the laurel), and I'aura, the breeze, are
almost enough to disenchant the firmest
believer in the reality of Petrarch's pas-
sion. To give one or two instances out
of very many. In Sonnet XXI. in " Vita
di M. L" the poet prays Apollo (the sun)
if he still retains his love for Daphne (the
laurel) to defend her sacred leaves from
frost and storm, so that they may both
see their lady, {i.e., the laurel represent-
ing both Daphne and Laura.) with her
own arms forming a shade for herself.
So in Sonnet XXXVIII., he says the gen-
tle tree which he has loved so long, nour-
482
PETRARCH.
ished his genius under her shade while clothed themselves in a new form, and
her fair boughs did not disclaim him, but ' rhyme instead of quantity was the note of
now that from sweet she has become piti- ! the new poetry. How widely it was cul-
less wood (Fece di dolce s^ spietato leg- tivated all know: monarchs and nobles
no) how shall she be punished for letting became minstrels of love, and no knight
the poet's verses encourage other lovers ? ! could aspire to perfection if he were not
Let no poet gather her, or Jove guard her 1 vowed to the worship of a lady. The
from lightning, and let the sun in his an-' centre of this movement was Provence,
ger wither her green leaves ! That any and for a century and a half the " Gai
man, mediaeval or otherwise, could write Saber " flourished till the Provengal lit-
thus under the influence of strong feeling erature was crushed by the fierce Albi-
is no doubt impossible, and if Petrarch gensian persecutions.
had never written in a higher strain, his
name would scarcely now hold a promi-
nent position.
To form, however, at all a fair estimate
of the Canzoniere, we must try to throw
ourselves into the feelings of the age.
The old modes of thought and feeling
had passed away, and a new world was
springing young and vigorous from its
grave. A new passion had been born
— Love. Assuredly before this, husbands
had loved their wives, witness only the
parting scene of Hector and Androm-
ache ; and lovers had sung enough, and
more than enough, of the pangs of love.
But the feeling was a much less complex
one than the new passion. It was scarce-
ly more than overmastering physical emo-
tion. There was no mystic awe, no self-
Brought up at Avignon, where the old
poetic traditions still lingered, Petrarch
became the admirer and pupil of the Pro-
vencal poets, of Arnaud Daniel, "great
Master of Love," of the two Pierres, "on
whom the grasp of love so easily closed,"
of " the less famous Arnaud de Marveil,"
of Raimbaud, the lover of Beatrix of
Montferrat, of Rudel, "who plied oar
and sail to meet his death " in the arms
of the Countess of Tripoli. (" Trion.
d' Am." Cap. IV.) Partly owing to the
higher culture of the age, and partly to
the advantage of language, the Italian
singers have eclipsed their masters, and
to modern readers, Petrarch has taken
the place of the representative poet of
love. His Italian poems' on this subject
consist of 207 sonnets and 17 odes or
abasement, no idealizing power in the old canzoni on the life of his Lady Laura, and
passion. Many influences contributed to , 90 sonnets and 8 canzoni on her death,
the change. Christianity had altered the i with a few short poems in a slightly dif-
world's ideal, had raised into pre-emi- ! ferent shape, sestine, madrigals, and bal-
nence many of the gentler, more feminine , late. Perhaps there are few modern
virtues, humtlity, unselfishness, purity. ; readers of the Canzoniere who do not
The theological controversies of centu-
ries had seemed to remove Christ from
the warm life of humanity into the awful
distance of the Godhead. In his place,
the highest ideal of humanity was found
in the Virgin Mother. Mingling with
this profound chajige in men's whole view
of life and character, and reacted upon
by it, was the old Gothic reverence for
women. Thus love became a kind of re-
ligion, it called out man's noblest im-
pulses, by bidding him protect the weak,
and yet he was to worship the weak as
higher and better than himself. Thus
the Crusader's motto was, " Dieu et ma
Dame" — worship of God and worship
of his lady, as God's living representa-
tive, the earthly embodiment of purity and
soon find themselves yawning ; one is in-
clined to feel that if two-thirds of the
poems had perished they would gain
greatly in force. Except within some-
what narrow limits, there is but little
variety. We gather no distinct image of
what Laura was, except that she was
virtuous, beautiful, and cold. The greater
number of the sonnets are occupied with
descriptions of Petrarch's own emotions ;
there is none of the interaction of thought
and emotion, none of the subtle influ-
ence of one character upon another,
which constitute the interest of a modern
tale of love. The Canzoniere is not the
varied harmony of two instruments utter-
ing the same music, with blended ca-
dences melting into each other, it is the
the more voluptuous Arabic j the small lute "which "gave ease to I^jj
Warmer hues,
caught
goodness
haps from
imagination, prevented this emotion from
becoming too spiritualized and ethereal
for ordinary humanity.
This new passion found utterance in a
new literature. As ever, new feelings
per- ; simpler, more monotonous " melody
trarch's wound." Assuredly, therefore,"^"
modern reader, who comes to the Caa-
zoniere expecting what it has not to gi\
will be disappointed. The truth is,
conception of love is different : to us^
is the union of two hearts and minds in
affectionate sympathy ; to the best minds
of that age, it was devotion to a higher
being ; their love seems to us to lack va-
have
riety and interest, ours would
seemed to them to lack reverence.
Consequently, the poets of that time
sung less of their mistress than of their
worship of her, of their lord Love, and
his mastery over all their thoughts and
emotions. So real was this mastery that
Love took shape and form under their
exalted feelings. Pierre Vidal met him,
a young Cavalier fair as the day, with
sweet gentle eyes, fresh and smiling
mouth, lithe and graceful in shape, his
robe inwrought with flowers, his palfrey
white as the snow. To Dante too he
appeared, now as a Lord of terrible
aspect, shrouded in cloud the colour of
fire, now as a pilgrim lightly clad in vile
raiment. (V. N. ss. 3 and 9.) The most
perfect representation of this passion
sublimated to the highest point is pre-
served for us in the Vita Nuova. Many
circumstances contributed to this* result.
Dante had seen Beatrice in early boy-
hood, for years he had worshipped her,
and then she was removed by an early
death — there was, therefore, no hard
contact with reality to check his imagina-
tion, and, as her figure receded into the
background of years, his fancy idealized
her more and more, till all taint of earth
seemed to have passed from her, and she
was to him
una cosa venuta
Di Cielo in terra a miracol mostrare ;
so clothed and crowned with humility
that many when she had passed said,
" This is not a woman, rather one of the
fairest of heaven's angels." (V. N., sec.
26. A.)
The history of Petrarch's love was dif-
ferent. He was destitute of Dante's im-
agination, and Laura had not been taken
early from him. For twenty-one years
he had watched her passing from girl-
hood into ripe age, amid the cares of
married life and many children, and that
under a Southern sun, where female
beauty is always short-lived. Under
these circumstances it would have been
little less than a miracle if Petrarch had
reached the '"fine air, the pure severity
of perfect light," of the Vita Nuova. It
is this which causes an essential element
of prose in the Canzoniere. His love was
neither a genuine human passion nor a
genuine worship. Laura's severe virtue
Forbade the first, and it was only by in-
PETRARCH. 483
tervals he rose to the second. Perforce,
therefore, he fell back on the faculty
which is fatal to all true poetry, ingenuity.
Gifted with an almost fatal facility of lan-
guage, he could clothe the most common-
place thoughts in words always ingenious,
and often beautiful, and he has his re-
ward— while the Vita Nuova has an
audience fit and few, the admirers of the
Canzoniere in the poet's own country are
legion ; for one who can rise to the ex-
quisite purity and freshness of the Vita
Nuova, there are hundreds attracted by
Petrarch's more earthly lyrics, " dedi-
cated to sentiment, not devoid of languor
and not without a touch of sin." *
That at first Petrarch's was a simple
human passion may be gathered fron^
several passages in the Canzoniere, if it
were not proved by his express avowal
in many of his writings.
Looking back on it in later years he
deplores the wasted days and nights
spent in dallying with the fierce desire
that burnt his heart.
Padre del del, dope i perduti giorni,
Dopo le notti vaneggiando spese
Con quel fero desio ch' al cor s' accese
Mirando gli atti per mio mal si adorni :
Piacciati omai col tuo lume ch' io torni
Ad altra Vita ed a piu belle imprese.
Sonnet xl.
The same feeling shows itself in the
44th Sonnet, where he recalls the icy
chill which shot through his heart as a
voice seemed to call him to higher things
than an earthly love. So also in the
69th ; again in the 86th Sonnet on the
death of Laura he tells us that it was her
sweet sternness, her soft repulses, that
checked his fierce desires ; her gentle
speech in which shone forth the highest
modesty and courtesy, that rooted out all
base thoughts from his heart and saved
him in spite of himself. It was this that
drove him to leave Avignon again and
again, and seek forgetfulness in travel ;
it was this that made him love the wild
solitue of Vaucluse, the Vallis Clausa,
shut in by grey red-veined walls of rock,
the sky line broken into the fantastic
semblance of Gothic towers and battle-
ments, while from a cave in the precipice
which bounded the valley sprang the
limpid stream of the Sorgue. Attended
here by a peasant and his wife, whose
sunburnt face it was a penance to look
upon (Fam. xiii. 8), Petrarch manfully
* Introduction to Study of Dante. J. Symonds, p,
270. A book to which I must here express my grateful
obligations.
484 PETRARCH.
strove to forget his passion in solitude
and work ; and yet, unable to cut him-
self loose from Provengal traditions and
the feelings of his age, looking upon love
now as the source of all that was highest
and best in him, and now as of the earth
earthy, he let his fancy play round a pas-
sion which he tried to persuade himself
he was anxious altogether to forget.
Earthly passion, refined and pure it is
true, is the guiding thought of a Sonnet
like the 6ist, where he dwells upon
Laura's golden hair floating in the breeze,
the lovely light of her eyes, her sweet
look of pity ; of the 146th Sonnet where
he tells the strange emotions the sight of
her eyes and hair produced in his heart,
and of a hundred others like these. Per-
haps the most favourable specimens of
Petrarch's powers in this way are the
6th, 7th, and 8th Canzoni, known as the
Three Sisters. Of these the two first are
in every way superior, and reach a higher
strain than is usual with his lyre. Love
has been purged of earthly stain and
rises at intervals to a worship ; almost in
the words of Dante * he speaks of love as
separating him from all low thoughts,
(parte d'ogni pensier vile,) of the sweet
light of Laura's eyes which shows him
the way to heaven : it is the sight of
them which leads him to live nobly and
guides him to a glorious end.
Gentil mia Donna, i' veggie
Nel mover de' vostri occhi un dolce lume
Che mi mostra la via ch' al Ciel conduce :
Quest e la vista ch' a ben fare m' induce,
E che mi scorge al glorioso fine ;
Questa sola dal vulgo m' allontana.
It is the hope of rendering himself
worthy of Laura's love that makes him
strive to be
Al ben veloce, e al contrario tasdo,
Dispregiator di quanto '1 mondo brama.
At Other times the two feelings lie side
by side in strange juxtaposition. The
archetype of her beauty is in Heaven,
whoever has not seen her eyes searches
in vain for divine beauty, her heart is the
home of all the virtues, and yet with a
kind of wistful pang the poet half wishes
that the chief virtue had been absent, —
Quand' un cor tante in se virtuti accolse ?
Benche la somma e di mia morte rea.
Sonnet cviii.
though in his better moments he feels
that he is longing for two incompatible
things :
* Compare Vita Nuova, 13.
Irae lo intendimento da tutte le vili cose.
Ch' ogni altra sua vogUa
Era a me morte ed a lei fama rea.
" Hymn to Virgin."
More commonly, however, his sonnets
are exquisitely polished verses on some
simple incident connected with Laura.
Now it is an excuse that he has so long
delayed to visit her (Sonnet 25) ; now his
finding her glove, which, however, he has
to restore (Sonnets 147, 148, 149). Now
her paleness at his departure (Sonnet 84),
or a kinder reception than usual (Sonnet
200), or more often a description of his
own feelings — how he became mute and
timid in her presence (Sonnets 32, 33, and
34), or how he tries in vain to flee from
love (Canz. 10).
It is easy to understand how, with only
incidents so slight to build upon, imagina-
tion gave place to ingenuity, and the poet
strove to make his verses interesting by
far-fetched conceits or extravagant hy-
perboles. Unfortunately it is only too
easy to supply examples : when the tree
which Phoebus loves (the laurel, i.e.,
Laura) is removed from its place, Vulcan
toils over his work, sharpening the bolts
of Jove, who thunders, or snows, or rains,
regardless of Caesar as of Janus (i.e., of
the month of July called after Julius Cae- j
sar as of January), and the sun stands far M
off when he sees his loved one (Daphne,
I.e. the Laurel, i.e. Laura) gone, and so on
(Sonnet 26).
The 27th and 28th Sonnets harp on
exactly the same idea, that while Laura is
present the sky is bright, when she is
absent it is dark and cloudy. When
Laura salutes him the sun hides his head
in jealousy (Sonnet 79) ; when the sun
rises the stars disappear ; when Laura
rises the sun disappears (Sonnet 164). In
another place (Sonnet 4) he does not
shrink from comparing Laura's birth at a
small village with that of our Saviour at
Bethlehem.
Conceits which have scarcely the merit
of ingenuity are equally numerous. Two
sonnets, the 30th and 31st, are devoted
to reproaches of her looking-glass, for
she is so occupied in gazing on her own
beauty that she wastes no looks on her
admirers. In Sonnet 24 he complains
that no obstacle in the world, river or
lake, wall or hill, is so grievous to him as
the veil which hides Laura's eyes, or the
hand which guards them from his gaze.
Beside these his constant assertions
that death only can relieve his miser)'-,
e.g., Sonnets 17 and 23, though there is a
thoroughly unreal ring about them, seem
sober expressions of feehng. But there
PETRARCH.
485
is even a lower depth in the eternal puns
on the laurel. No unkindness can re-
move Laura from his heart where love en-
grafts many branches from the laurel,
though that gentle plant is scarce fitted
for so barren a soil.
Uscir gia mai
Del petto, ova dal prime lauro innesta
Amor piu rami.
Che gentil pianta in arido terrene
Par che si disconvenga.
Sonnet xli.
On the left bank of the Tyrrhene Sea
he suddenly espies a laurel, and the sight
recalling Laura's tresses so dazed his
mind that he fell into a stream : but he
would be glad, he says, that his eyes and
feet should thus exchange (z>., being wet)
if only a more courteous April would dry
the former.
Piacemi almen d' aver cangiato stile
Dagli occhi a' pie ; se del lor esser molli
Gli altri asciugasse un piu cortese aprile.
Sonnet xliii.
An otherwise graceful sonnet (the 77th)
is spoiled by a wretched pun on Laura
and r aura the breeze. He is expressing
true feelings of pleasure at the sight of his
loved Valley of Vaucluse ; the fire of love
is again kindled in his heart, when com-
ing to the realm of love he sees the
place —
Onde nacque Laura (P aura) dolce e pura
Ch' acqueta 1' aere e mette i tuoni in bando.
Of course a literal translation can do no
justice to the grace of language which
constitutes the real charm of all Petrarch's
poems ; but making every allowance for
this, the sonnets above referred to can
never be ranked higher than trinkets —
they are not solid gold.
We have seen that an unrequited pas-
sion lasting over so many years can
scarcely be poetical unless it be idealized,
and idealization of an object brought into
contact with everyday life is scarcely pos-
sible. Absence is necessary to give im-
agination scope. Thus some of the best
of Petrarch's sonnets were written when
he was far away from Laura. Another
circumstance contributed to this. Pe-
trarch was almost modern in his love of
nature. This feeling shows itself in his
account of the Ascent of Mount Ventorix
(Fam. iv. i), with its view of the Rhone
Valley down to the sea, the snow-clad line
of the Alps in the background, and be-
yond, seen only with the eye of imagina-
tion, the poet's loved Italy. It is this
love of nature which has inspired the
sweetest poems in the Canzoniere. The
thought of Laura seems to blend in a rich
mellow glow, with his keen sense of the
beauty of nature. Such is the graceful
picture of his Lady contained in the nth
Canzone. In memory he recalls her fair
form seated by a stream rich and clear
and sweet; she leans against a gentle
bough, and from the happy branches de-
scends a rain of flowers over her breast
as she sits lowly in her glory ; the flowers
falling now on the hem of her robe, now
on her fair tresses, which looked like
burnished gold and pearls ; the blossoms
resting now on the earth, now on the
streamlet, while others as they float in the
air seem to say : Here is the realm of
Love.
Da bei rami scendea
(Dolce nella memoria)
Una pioggia di flor sovra '1 suo grembo ;
Ed ella si sedea
Umile in tanta gloria,
Coverta gik del amoroso nembo.
Qual fior cadea sul lembo,
Qual su le treccie bionde,
Ch' oro forbito e perle
Eran quel di a vederle ;
Qual si posava in terra, qual su 1' onde ;
Qual con un Vago errore
Girando, parea dir : qui regna Amore.
In others, such as the 12th and 13th
Canzoni, a softer strain breathes. All
sights and sounds of Nature remind hira
of his absent Lady — the snow on the
mountains beneath the glint of the Sun,
reminds him of her beauty ; the meteors
gleaming in the clear midnight sky after
rain, as they flame amid the dew and
frost, recall her beauteous eyes, and white
and red roses in a golden vase, picked by
some maiden hand, her flushing cheeks
and auburn tresses. Or, again (Canzone
13), he wanders over trackless mountains,
in shady valleys, or by lonely streams
seeking rest, but at every step rises a new
thought of Laura. The breeze rustling
in the leaves, the warbling of the birds,
the tinkling of the rivulet amid the green
herbage in the lonely Ardennes cause him
to sing of his Lady (Sonnet 124). The
very spirit of solitude seems to breathe in
the 22d Sonnet, as he tells us how he
wanders alone and in thought^ attended
only by his lord. Love. To all others
the sweet evening hour brings rest ; the
wearied pilgrim hastens to forget toil in
short repose ; the labourer gathers his
tools and hies home with his comrades to
the simple evening meal ; the shepherd
drives homeward his flock ; the sailor in
some sheltered nook stretches his limbs
4S6
PETRARCH.
on the hard deck ; the oxen quit the yoke ;
all nature has a respite from toil ; he
only cannot escape the pangs of love
(Canzone 4).
It is a confirmation of this view that
when the last long absence of death had
come, when no hard reality could jar
against the softening, idealizing power of
memory, Petrarch's verses gain in sincer-
ity and power. Somewhat of earth may
have mingled with his love through life,
but in the solemn presence of death it
rises purified and ennobled. Unreal com-
pliments and tawdry conceits seem pro-
fane to a real grief : and if the sonnets
on the death of Laura lose in brilliancy of
fancy, they gain far more than they lose
in simplicity and truth. He recalls her
smile, her mirth, her modest bearing, and
courteous speech, her words, which, if
heard, would have made a sordid soul
gentle : —
II pensar e' 1 tacer, il riso e' 1 gioco,
L' abito onesto e' 1 ragionar cortese,
Le parole che 'ntese
Avrian fatto gentil d' alma villana ;
L' angelica sembianzi simile e piana.
Part ii. Canz. 2.
Again, he seems to hear her in the plain-
tive cry of the birds, or the summer
breeze rustling sweetly on the leaves (Part
II., Sonnet 11). His loved Vaucluse is
the same, but all the brightness has fled
from his own life (Part II., Sonnet 33).
Spring returns, with its joyous sights and
sounds, but all is to him desolate and
wild (Part II., Sonnet 42). Now and
again he sees her purified and radiant im-
age in heaven (Part II., Sonnets 34, 61).
. ; . The Hymn to the Virgin forms a fit-
ting and noble close to the Canzoniere.
The vain stir and tumult of passion has
passed ; he looks back on his days, flown
more swiftly than an arrow, spent in mis-
ery and sin : death fills the horizon of the
future, and the calls on the Maiden Moth-
er for mercy and guidance. Perhaps no
other hymn in the world expresses with
equal beauty a devotion made up of so
many complex feelings — devotion to her,
who is now the Queen of heaven, once a
mortal woman, with all a woman's weak-
ness and loveliness, a woman's compas-
sion for human frailty and suffering. It
is worthy to stand beside the prayer of
St. Bernard to the Virgin, with which
opens the closing scene of the Paradiso.
We have dwelt so long on the work by
which Petrarch is best known to poster-
ity, that but scant space is left to consider
the real character of the man. Coming,
as he did, to Avignon at the age of 22,
poor and friendless, nothing is more strik-
ing than the singular charm which seemed
to win the friendship of all those with
whom he was brought into contact.
" Many great personages began to show
themselves desirous of my friendship,"
he says with simplicity in his Letter to
Posterity; "if I reflect on it at the mo-
ment, I confess I understand not why."
From the first, the great family of the
Colonnas were his devoted friends. This
winning personal charm remained with
him through life. In those young days
of reviving literature a poet was looked
upon as almost sacred, and Petrarch's
name as a poet began to be noised abroad
through the Peninsula. In 1340 the
laurel crown of poetry was offered to him
both by the University of Paris and the
Senate of Rome. After some hesitation
between the great University, then in the
zenith of its fame, and the Eternal City,
great only in her past, Petrarch yielded
to the spell of the Romani nominis u?n-
bray and received the noblest prize ever
bestowed on a human being, a Crown of
Victory in the warfare of intellect against
ignorance : but a crown which he sadly
confesses brought him no knowledge, but
only gloomy envy.
During the remainder of his life Pe-
trarch occupied an almost unique posi-
tion. He was reverenced as an intellec-
tual monarch. Pilgrimages were made tO'
Vaucluse to visit him, — as he passed'
through the streets of Milan all heads
were uncovered ; contending armies vied
with each other in marks of respect. Thei
greatest families in Italy eagerly courted
him, and held his sojourn as the highest
honour he could pay them. Robert King
of Naples was anxious to crown him with:
the garland of Poetry at Naples, the Cor-
reggi at Parma, the Carrara family of
Padua, the Visconti of Milan used all ef-
forts to retain him at their' Courts. The
haughty aristocracy of Venice assigned^
him a place on the right hand of the Doge.!
Two Kings of France and four PopeSj
sought to attach him to themselves.]
With her own hand, an Empress, the]
wife of Charles IV., wrote to inform]
him of the birth of a daughter; and!
Charles IV. on several occasions offered]
him a home in Germany. But through]
all this Petrarch was faithful to the two]
guiding impulses of his life, love of hisi
country and love of literature. I have]
called them two impulses, and yet in;
truth they were mingled so together as to]
be only one. His love of Italy was thatj
of an ideal, not the Italy of his own day,
torn by party faction and foul with intes-
tine hatred and bloodshed, but the Italy
of the past, the mistress of the world, the
parent of literature, and law, and Art.
In Dante's continual biting invectives
against Florence we can trace a love
which injury has turned to gall ; but when
his fellow-citizens offered to Petrarch a
chair in the New University of Florence,
at the same time restoring to him his con-
fiscated patrimony, he coldly refused the
offer. Like Dante, he saw that the only
hope of Italy was in union, and one of
his noblest odes, the Marseillaise of Italy,
as it has been called, was addressed to
the nobles, calling upon them to lay aside
intestine quarrels in the presence of the
foreigner. " My Italy, tho' words be vain
for the deadly wounds which I see in such
fearful number on thy fair body, let my
sighs be such as the Tiber and the Arno
hope for." Why has nature reared up
the barrier of the Alps against the Ger-
man fury, if their blind passion strikes
leprosy even to a sound body ? The degra-
dation of foreign oppression is more terri-
ble, in that it is inflicted by that lawless
people whom Marius struck down, so
that the river ran red with their blood.
Italia mia, benche '1 parlar sia indarno
A le piaghe mortal!
Che nel bel corpo tuo si spesse veggio,
Piacemi almen ch' e' miei sospiri sien quali
Spera '1 Tevero e 1' Arno
E '1 Po dove doglioso e grave or scggio.
Ben provvide Natura al nostro state
Quando de 1' Alpi schermo
Pose fra noi e la tedesca rabbia :
Ma '1 desir cieco e' nco'utra '1 suo ben fermo
S' e poi tanto ingegnato,
Ch' al corpo sano a procurato scabbia.
Ed h questo del seme,
Per piu dolor, del popol senza legge,
Al qual, come si legge,
Mario aperse si '1 fianco
Che memoria de 1' opra anco non langue,
Quando assetato e stanco,
Non piu bevve del fiume acqu^ che sangue.
Part iv. Canz. 4.
That the Italy of the past was the ob-
ject of his love is strikingly shown in the
enthusiasm with which he supported the
wild dream of Rienzi. To him the Ro-
man people had an indefeasible right to
rule the world, and, blinded by the shadow
of a name, the motley multitude gathered
from all the quarters of heaven, from
which sprang the population of Mediaeval
Rome, were for him the descendants of
PETRARCH. ,487
the old Roman stock that ruled the world.
In the well-known words of Madame de
Stael, " He mistook memories for hopes."
To the Colonnas he was bound by every
tie of gratitude and friendship, but the
only hope for the democracy at Rome
was to crush the nobles, and the Colon-
nas must be sacrificed. He loved them,
but he loved the State more, Rome more,
Italy more —
Carior res publica, carior Roma, carior Ita-
lia—
Ad Fam. xi. 16.
To Rienzi he addressed the celebrated
canzone beginning " Spirto gentil." The
change of manner from his poems to
Laura is very striking. To quote the
vigorous language of Macaulay, " The
effeminate lisp of the sonnetteer is ex-
changed for a cry wild and solemn and
piercing as that which cried 'sleep no
more ' to the bloody house of Cawdor."
" Italy seems not to feel her sufferings,
decrepit, sluggish, and languid, will she
sleep forever, will there be no one to
wake her ? O that I had my hands
twisted in her hair ! "
Italia, che suoi guai non par che senta
Vecchia, oziosa et lenta
Domir^ sempre, e non fia che la svegli ?
Le man 1' avess' io avvolte entro capegli !
" The old walls which the world stil
fears and loves, the stones which cover
the limbs of men whose fame will live till
the universe is dissolved, the ruined
relics of Roman greatness hope only in
Rienzi. The shades of the mighty dead,
the Scipios, Brutus, Fabricius, would joy
if the tidings could reach them. A more
glorious career is open to Rienzi than the
world has ever seen, to reinstate the
noblest monarchy on earth. Others have
helped Rome when she was young and
vigorous — Rienzi, in her decrepitude,
has saved her from death." An equal
glow of patriotism burns in the ode ad-
dressed to Giacomo Colonna — " O aspet-
tata in ciel ; " and equally does he turn for
examples to the great days of old. The
whole world is flocking to the crusade,
all that dwell between the Garonne and
the Alps, Aragon and Spain, England
and the isles cf the Northern Ocean.
Even Germany amid her ice and snow is
girding on the sword, and shall not Italy
be roused to grasp the lance for Christ ?
From the rule of the son of Mars to the
great Augustus, Rome has poured out
her blood to avenge others' wrongs, and
shall she not avenge the Son of Mary ?
488
PETRARCH.
He bids them remember the exploits of
the Greeks, the reckless daring of Xerxes,
the Persian women mourning for their
lords, the Sea of Salamis red with blood ;
Marathon and " the deadly pass where
the Lion of Lacedaemon turned to bay."
Pon mente al temerario ardir di Serse,
Che face, per calcar i nostri liti,
Di novi ponti oltraggio a la marina :
E vedrai ne la morte de' mariti
Tutte vestite a brun le donne Perse,
E tinto in rosso il mar di Safamina.
E non pur questa misera ruina
Del popol infelice d'oriente
Vittoria ten promette,
Ma Maratona, e le mortali strette
Che difese il Leon con poca gente.
Like Dante, Petrarch's hopes for Italy
rested on the Emperor. To the wisest
and best men of that age the Roman Em-
pire was not a dead idea, it was a living
reality. There was one Pope and one
Emperor, the one the successor of St.
Peter, the other of the Caesars, each hold-
ing his power of God ; the one ruler in
things temporal, the other in things spir-
itual, the natural seat of each being Rome,
the Eternal City. Thus Dante's invita-
tion to the Emperors to descend into
Italy was not invoking a foreign Master,
it was a passionate appeal by a deserted
people to their rightful lord —
Vieni a veder la tua Roma che piagne,
Vedova, sola, e di' e notte chiama
Cesare mio, perche non mi accompagne }
Purg. vi. 112.
and as Dante had centred his hopes on
the noblest of the Emperors, Henry of
Luxembourg, so Petrarch burst into trans-
ports of joy at hearing that Charles IV.,
unfortunately one of the most worthless,
had crossed the Alps. Hence came his
bitter invectives against the Popes of
Avignon : they had deserted their lawful
wife and left her to wander in unknown
valleys, while her place was usurped by a
foul courtezan.
Uxor iampridem ignotis in vallibus errat ;
Et patrium limen thalamuraque egressa pudi-
cum
Ilia sequetur ovans meretrix famosa.
Eel. vi.
His letter to Urban V., urging him to
return to Rome, is instinct with manly
eloquence : " When we shall stand at the
judgment seat of Christ, where thou wilt
no longer be lord and we servants, but
where there will be one lord and we all
fellow-servants, what wilt thou say ? I
xaised thee from beggary and humility
and set thee not only with princes but
above them. I entrusted to thee my
Church, where hast thou left her ? i
have given thee pre-eminent gifts, what
pre-eminent return has thou made to me,
except that thou sittest on the rock of
Avignon, and hast forgotten the Tarpeian
rock ? "
Petrarch occupied the same independ-
ent position towards all his great friends.
When Charles IV. asked a place in his
work on illustrious men, he answered,
" I promise it if you have merit, and I
life." He refused the invitation of Philip
of Valois to visit his Court, because he
cared not for letters. How unique this
position was is proved by the number of
important missions which he was se-
lected to fulfil. He was chosen by the
Roman people as one of their eighteen
deputies who went to Avignon to implore
the newly elected Pope, Clement VI., to
restore tlie seat of the Papacy to Rome.
He was chosen by Clement VI., to repre-
sent the Papal rights at Naples after the
death of Robert. A letter of his to the
Magistracy at Florence led to the putting
down the brigands who infested the
Apennines. He was the chief of the Em-
bassy sent by the Visconti to Venice, in
the vain endeavour to bring about a peace
between Venice and Genoa. He was
Ambassador to the Emperor at Bale,
when the storm of war seemed hanging
over Italy ; to King John of France after
his return from captivity in England.
All these embassies were to attain no
personal object, to curry favour with no
powerful friend ; they were one and all
undertaken in the service of Italy.
Of his services to the cause of letters
it is difficult to speak too highly. It was
patriotism taking another shape, devotion
to the Great Past, which was to him as
real as the present. His utmost influence
was used to recover MSS. and memorials
of antiquity. He was the first to make a
collection of medals and coins with a view
to elucidate history. He never travelled
witho-:t visiting convents and religious
houses to search for MSS. ; he entreated
all the learned strangers whom he met at
Avignon, to make similar searches in
France, Spain, England, Germany, and
even the East. At Li^ge, where he could
scarcely find ink, he lighted upon two of
Cicero's Speeches — up to that time un-
known— and copied one with his own
hand, entreating a friend to copy the
other. His copy of Cicero's Letters, ad
familiares^ in his own handwriting still
exists in the Biblioteca Laurenziana at
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
Florence. In those days it was difficult
to find copyists learned enough to read
and understand Latin, and Petrarch was
often obliged to be his own copyist. One
collection of Cicero's Speeches took him
four years to copy. He planned a His-
tory of Rome from Romulus to Titus.
When near the age of sixty he undertook
the study of Greek, then an unknown
tongue in Italy, the only teachers he could
obtain being natives of Calabda, where a
debased dialect of the old tongue still lin-
gered, and in his zeal for learning, endured
the filthy habits and national contempt
for everything Latin of Leontius Pilatus.
A new spirit was breathed into the past ;
the great writers of antiquity were to
Petrarch not storehouses of dead matter,
useful only for the barren discussions of
the Schools, they were a living School of
Art ; he had caught something of their
harmony, their perfect beauty of form,
and, in the light of this new revelation,
dared fiercely to assail the superstitions
of alchemy, of medicine — as medicine
was practised then — and the scarcely
less superstitious worship of the syllo-
gism. As his end drew near, his love of
study seemed to increase ; he used to de-
vote sixteen hours out of the twenty-four
to work. " Reading and writing," he
said, "are a light toil, rather a sweet rest,
which makes me forget heavier toils."
To his loved friend Boccaccio he wrote,
a few days before his death, "Just as
there is no pleasure more honourable than
letters, so there is none more durable,
more sweet or faithful ; a companion ready
to be at your side in all the mischances
of life, and a companion of which you
never weary." Shortly afterwards his
servants found him in his library, his head
bent over a book : he had breathed his
last.
As we look back over his pure and no-
ble life, we can forgive the enthusiasm
which would place him by the side of
Dante. It was his devotion to letters
which prepared the ground for the Re-
naissance of the next century ; it was his
patriotism that helped to keep alive
through centuries of division and oppres-
sion the idea of Italian Unity. And if
this unity has come at last in a somewhat
different form and way from that which
Dante and he expected, none the less
may the Italians look upon them as two
of the authors of their national life ; two
of those who have caught most clearly
the music of a great purpose and a noble
ideal, never to be perfectly realized in
489
facts, but in harmony with which the great
of all ages have worked.
For an ye heard a music, like enow
They are building still, seeing the City is built
To music, therefore never built at all,
And therefore built forever.
A. H. Simpson.
THE
From Chambers' Journal.
MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
CHAPTER I.
I have a widow aunt, a dowager,
Of great revenue, aud she hath no child.
" Here's Milford at last ! " cries a
young man, seating himself, panting, on
the top rail of a low stile that crossed the
pathway leading from out a dark fir plan-
tation, along the side of a commanding
slope.
It is the afternoon of a bright winter's
day ; the sun has only just disappeared
in a veil of cloud and orange-bordered
mist. The hills around are looming
indistinctly through a soft haze ; down
in the valley, wreaths of light vapour
are rising from the winding course of the
stream. It is a wooded, fertile vale, in-
closed by low, warm-looking hills, of a
soft rounded form, cultivated to the very
tops, and of a light arable soil, now being
turned rapidly over by the plough. Here
and there, along the bases of the hills,
are hop-gardens, recognizable by their
stacks of poles in rounded conical piles,
resembling in form the regulation bell-
tents of the army. Rising gently from
the further margin of the river is a low
gravelly slope, on which lies a snug com-
fortable village, of dark stone houses,
intermingled with others of red brick,
mellowed by age, some with roofs of red
tile, others of shining blue slate. The
grey tower of the church, from a corner
of which rises a single pinnacle, shews
over a tangled network of leafless trees.
Apart from the village stands a solitary
house, with farm-buildings at the side,
which even at this distance wears a se-
vere and melancholy aspect.
There have been heavy rains of late,
and the river has overflowed its banks,
and lies in pools here and there wide of
its bed. The white mill and the miller's
ivy-covered house are fairly surrounded
with water, whilst the big wheel has come
to a stand-still, from pure plethora of mo-
tive-power. The water has covered the
490
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
road, too, in a hollow close by the bridge,
and has formed a shallow lake, in which
trees and hedges stand mournfully out,
washed by the ripples, that course among
them with strange unaccustomed plash-
ings.
Our pedestrian quickly descends the
path, and gains the highway, but is soon
brought to a stand by this impromptu
lake, and halts at its margin, gazing doubt-
fully before him. The water looks chilly
and forbidding. He must wade up to his
knees to get through it, and the prospect
of soaked garments and boots churning
with water, is not inviting, this winter's
day. His irresolution is of good service,
to him, for behind him sounds the rattle
of wheels, and presently a light butcher's
cart and smart bay horse appear, driven
by a man in a blue frock.
" Will you give me a lift over ? " cries
the young man.
The butcher pulls up without a word,
nods his head, and takes up his passen-
ger. Then he drives cautiously through
the flood, the horse pawing the water ner-
vously. When he reaches firm ground
on the slope of the bridge, he whips up
his horse, who dashes off at a brisk trot.
" Whereabouts ? " cries the laconic
butcher, lifting up his thumb interroga-
tively.
^' J^qyai Oak," answers the rescued pe-
destrian.
The Royal Oak was the inn that stood
by the side of the highway, where the vil-
lage lane joins it. Butcher pulls up with
a jerk opposite the inn, and his passenger
jumps out.
" Will you have a glass of ale, butch-
er ? " he cries.
The laconic man in blue nods his head,
and they enter the inn together.
It is a raw, unfinished-looking house :
in the entrance lobby is a plain deal coun-
ter forming a bar, behind which are a few
shelves containing bottles, a beer-engine
with two handles, some pewter measures,
and a number of white earthen-ware mugs.
A slate hangs to a nail from one of the
shelves, and pinned against the wall is a
coloured print of a dog lying dead under
a beer-barrel, with the inscription : " Dog
trust is dead ; bad pay killed him." To
the left is the inn parlour, a room with
sanded floor, furnished with a couple of
long deal tables, and a number of Wind-
sor chairs with wooden seats. A cheerful
fire is at one end of the room, on the hob
of which is simmering a big saucepan.
Widow Booth, the hostess of the inn, is
sitting warming herself by the fire. A
good-looking girl, with soft, creamy com-
plexion, and sensible resolute face, is on
the bench behind Mrs, Booth, busily tat-
ting away at some well-fingered edging.
This is Lizzie Booth, orphan niece of the
landlady. The silent butcher joins a
little knot of men who are standing at the
bar drinking; but the pedestrian passes
forward into the parlour, and looks around
him.
Besides .Widow Booth and her niece,
there is a third person in the parlour — a
red-faced, red-nosed man, dressed in cor-
duroy trousers and a white slop, a yellow
silk handkerchief round his bull-neck, a
clumsy cap of rabbit-skins on his head.
Between his knees is a large basket of
pedlery, chiefly in the crockery-line. He
is tempting Widow Booth with a mustard-
pot, a bright thing in crinkly ware, with a
spoon of the same. " Supposing, ma'am,"
he is saying, " that you should happen to
have a bit of cold meat for dinner, how
much nicer your mustard tastes in a hel-
egant pot like this, as'd save its cost in a
month, ma'am."
" I don't want it, thank you," said Wid-
ow Booth resolutely. She turned a cold
shoulder to the mustard-pot, and devoted
herself to the contemplation of the pot
that was simmering on the fire.
The pedler divined that her answer was
a final one, and turned to the possible
customer now entering. " Wouldn't you
buy a nice pair of vauses, to take home
to your good lady, sir? "he cried, pro-
ducing a pair of highly gilt and coloured
jars.
The new-comer shook his head. " She
ain't come home herself yet, Mr. Pedler."
— Then he cried to Mrs. Booth, who still
kept her eyes fixed upon the hob : " Don't
you recollect me, Mrs. Booth ? Don't
you recollect Tom Rapley ? You haven't
forgot me, anyhow, Lizzie," he went on,
holding out his hand to that young lady,
who gave a little scream of astonishment,
and turned a pretty mother-of-pearl pink
all over her face. The old lady was a
little hard of hearing at times, but Lizzie
shook her and shouted into her ear. The
widow nodded graciously at Tom, and
examined him with critical eye.
Tom has been shaking hands for a long
time with Lizzie, and now he sits down
on the bench beside her.
" Have you been pretty well since I
left, Lizzie'.? "
" Pretty middling," replied Lizzie with
a soft sigh, which Tom fondly interpreted
to mean, " Pining a little for you." She
looked at him softly, with a kind of
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
491
dreamy admiration in her eyes. And, in-
deed, he is a good-looking fellow, with a
nice florid complexion, luxuriant whis-
kers, a mouth that is good-natured, if a
little undecided in expression, and a fine
long aquiline nose.
" Did I hear say as Master Tom Rap-
ley had come home ? " asked one of the
group at the bar, putting his head into
the parlour — an elderly man, with scanty
grizzled locks, a clear-cut healthy face,
and bright intelligent eyes.
" Is that you. Sailor ? " cried Tom.
*' Why, you look younger than ever. Come
in."
Sailor now introduced the whole of his
person into the parlour. He was dressed
in a pea-jacket, over a blue worsted jer-
sey, which had a small openwork square
in the breast of it. His red comforter
shewed just above his jersey ; his nether
garments were of ordinary corduroy, tied
below the knees with string. He was a
cheery, hale old fellow, a good worker,
and handy odd man, equally fond of a so-
cial glass and improving conversation.
"Bless you, I don't worrit myself, /
don't," he replies, in a high cheerful
voice ; " so I ain't no call to get old.
Well, you have grown a good-looking
young chap. Master Tom ! I suppose
you don't rec'llect about the hunt we had
that time you and young Dick Durden
would have it you viewed the hare 'cross
the six-acre fi'ld, as turned out to be old
Sally Baker's cat — ha, ha 1 "
The pedler, seeing no further chance of
doing any business, drank his mug of ale,
and swung his basket on his shoulders.
" You won't let me leave the mustard-pot
then, ma'am ? " Mrs. Booth shook her
head. " Well, have you ne'er a rabbit-
skin or two to sell, ma'am ? "
" Lizzie ! " cried Mrs. Booth ; but Liz-
zie was deeply engaged in talk with Tom,
and the widow rose herself, and went out,
bringing back with her three or four skins,
which she sold to the pedler. " Here,
Liz," she cried to her niece, putting three-
halfpence into her hand — "here's your
parquisite."
" My ! aunt," cried Lizzie, rousing her-
self, "you've never sold all those skins
for that ? Why, one of them's worth the
money."
Tom looked at her admiringly. Lizzie
was evidently sharp at a bargain, and a
faculty of that sort is worth as much as a
small fortune to a girl, he thought.
"Well, but, miss," remonstrated the
pedlar, " what's them others good for?
Shrivelly bits of things, that ain't no ac-
count. They ain't a bit of use to me,
without it's to mend my old cap."
" Well, a bargain's a bargain," cried
Lizzie ; "only, it's well you hadn't me to
deal with."
" You wouldn't have done no better,
miss."
Lizzie tossed her head, and walked
away to the window, and began to look
out, in an abstracted kind of way. Tom
followed her, and took up his place beside
her.
" Lizzie ! " he said in an undertone.
" Well, Tom ? "
" Ain't you got anything warmer to say
to me than that ? "
"It was about as warm as what you
said to me."
"Ain't you pleased to ^ce me back
again, Lizzie ? "
" My ! won't your aunt Betsy be proud
of you ! " said Lizzie, casting over him a
glance that might be appreciative, or
might be sarcastic.
" But, are jyou proud of me, Lizzie !
Don't you think I'm improved ? "
" Well, you're changed," replied Lizzie
evasively. " Your whiskers are grown a
good bit," she went on, after a moment's
reflection, holding her hands out before
her face, as if trying to gauge their length.
" There's one thing I'm not changed
in, Lizzie."
" What's that ? "
" You know, Lizzie, don't you ? "
" Your nose, perhaps ; it isn't any
longer, I think, Tom."
Tom was rather vexed at this : his
nose, though a handsome one, hypercriti-
cal persons might object to, as over-long
for strict proportion. He turned away
from the window, with heightened colour.
Meanwhile, Sailor settled himself for a
yarn about his adventures at sea. Skim
leant forward, eagerly intent on putting
in his word whenever he could ; his ex-
perience had been limited, but he made
the most of it.
" I remember when we was roun'ing
Cape Horn, and the waves running
mountainious high "
" I've seen 'em worse than that," cried
Skim eagerly. " Me and another chap
was sawing down Upchurch way, and the
waves ran right into the pit — drowned
us out, they did."
"Ah! that was the ^ide," said Sailor
contemptuously. " You never saw such
a sea as when we was roun'ing Cape
Horn."
" Tell you the waves was right roun'
me," cried Skim. " I says to my mate :
492
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
Met, says I, I'll have a wash ; and I goes
down to the water, as I thought ; but lor,
it was nothing but lather."
"Ah!" said the mistress, with remi-
niscences of Margate in her mind, "don't
they waves foment ! "
" Umph ! " snorted Sailor ; " you ain't
none of you had no experience of the
sea. If you'd a roun'ed Cape Horn, and
seen the waves ! There was a storm that
blovved that violent as you have no idea
of. It was all hands to shorten sail, and
me and Jack Waters "
" That was Jack's widow as died a year
ago last spring," cried Skim, almost in a
shout, so eager was he to plunge into the
stream of talk. " Tell you I carried her
things about time her sale was."
Skim's haush voice drowned the lighter
tones of Sailor, who cut off his yarn in
despair, and listened, in a resigned disap-
pointed way, to Skim's description of
Widow Waters's sale.
Lizzie had gone back to her station by
the window, and Tom, drawn by a sort of
irresistible attraction, had followed her.
" Then you are glad I'm come back ? "
he began weakly.
Lizzie nodded. Time was short, after
all, and it was not well to be too coy.
" You ought to know what there is
about me that isn't changed — it's my
heart, Lizzie."
She sighed softly, but made no reply.
" Do you remember," cried Tom, "the
last time we met, over at the stile by the
fir plantation, on the field-path to Bisco-
pham ? "
Tom's pretence of looking out of the
window was a very shallow one. He
had turned away from the prospect out-
side, and was ardently gazing into Lizzie's
face. She was looking downwards, cu-
riously regarding the hem of her apron.
Sailor, Skim, and the mistress were sit-
ting with their backs to the window, ab-
sorbed in their discussion ; whilst stolid
Butcher, who had uttered not a word, but
who had absorbed more than his fair
share of the ale, had fallen asleep with
his head on the table, forgetful of horse
and cart, and was sleeping stertorously.
Nobody thought of Tom and Lizzie. It
was just the same as being alone. Tom's
face gradually approached Lizzie's pink
cheek, which didn't seem repelled from
the contact — she thus expressing what
a woman's coyness inclines to decline
uttering in words.
Just at that moment, a black heavy ob-
ject seemed to intrude itself between
them, and something rapped fiercely at
the window-pane. It was the butt-end of
a driving-whip ; and Tom saw, in dismay,
that a carriage had stopped opposite the
window, and that a lady, who sat in the
driver's seat, was prodding vigorously at
the window with her whip-handle.
"O my ! " cried Tom, with a shudder
of dismay, "here's Aunt Betsy ! "
Aunt Betsy was in a four-wheeled
chaise, with a male companion. It was a
very old chaise, with a leathern hood
over the front seat, and a little perch be-
hind, that seemed cut off altogether from
human sympathy, very brown and rusty,
its iron frame protruding at all the folds
of the leather- work. The horse in the
shafts was a young one, with long shaggy
coat, and fetlocks fringed with coarse
hair.
Lizzie and Tom were a long way apart
by this time, both looking very red and
flurried ; but Lizzie followed Tom with
a reproachful glance as she saw him van-
ish without making his adieux, and run
out to greet his aunt.
"Well, aunt, how do you do?" said
Tom hurriedly. " I got Butcher to give
me a lift over the flood, and so I went in
here to treat him to some ale, and I staid
a few minutes, and — Hollo, it's Mr.
Collop. How do you do, sir ? "
Tom came to a full stop ; his aunt re-
garded him with a cold stony stare, that
seemed to freeze up his powers of speech ;
her companion, a tall, thin, elderly man,
with thin pursed-up lips, hollow eyes, and
prominent spade-shaped nose, threw up
the whites of his eyes, and shook his
head solemnly.
Aunt Betsy was a stern, rigid-looking
woman, dressed in a black silk poke bon-
net, a brown stuff dress, with little hard
black buttons sprinkled over it. She had
a thick faded Paisley shawl closely folded
round her neck, and wore black kid
gloves, the knuckles and finger-joints of
which were stretched and swollen. She
had the face of a hawk, a fierce hooked
nose, and prominent cheek-bones, which
shewed through the yellow parchment
skin that was drawn tightly over them.
Her cold gray eyes looked out from a net-
work of minute wrinkles, and she had a
way of staring steadfastly at people, as if
they were almost invisible with the naked
eye, and could only be recognized by a
fixed attentive stare.
" Thomas," she said, after a pause,
" have you come to see me, or have you
come to see the Royal Oak? You can
make your choice, you know."
" O aunt, I only just "
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
493
" Hundreds of young men have ofone
to destruction through only justing,
Thomas. Jump up behind, and come
home with me."
Thomas crawled into the small perch
behind, and settled himself — his knees
almost up to his chin, his nose flattened
against the leathern hood — conscious
that the whole company he had just left
were gazing out of the window at him —
Sailor, Skim, the butcher's red face,
Widow Booth with h^r gray locks, and
last of ail Lizzie, contemptuously smiling.
Yes, he owned himself a craven, to de-
sert her so readily at Aunt Betsy's nod !
Aunt Betsy's chaise passed through
the village of Milford, and presently took
to a narrow sandy lane, and by-and-by
drew up before an ancient stone house,
once the manor-house of the village, but
now known simply as Milford's. The
house fronted the lane with a solemn-
looking gable of curved outline, built of
the hard gray stone of the neighbour-
hood, pierced with mullioned windows ;
over the windows, projecting dripstones,
in shape like the top of a capital T. A
wing projected at right angles from the
south end of the gabled part, and in the
corner, now in deep shadow, was the
hall-door. Above this angle, rose a mas-
sive chimney-stack, adorned with hand-
some brick mouldings, that gave an air
of dignity to the house. Behind this re-
cessed wing was a projecting outbuilding,
containing a back-kitchen, wash-house,
and scullery, with a bedchamber above,
a modern addition to the house ; and be-
yond this was the garden, with numerous
gooseberry-bushes, and raspberry vines,
and a few rows of desolate-looking win-
ter cabbages. From the gable-side of
the house, a low wall was continued flush
with the lane which formed one side of
the straw-yard ; behind which were sta-
bles and cowsheds, now little used, and
falling out of repair. Above these peered
the ancient roof of the bop-kiln, with a
white cowl at the top, with a long vane
standing out of it, that veered to and fro
with the wind, creaking mournfully. A
handsome clump of trees shewed in the
background a soft and delicate screen of
twig and branch.
'• Jump down, and hold the horse,
Thomas," cried Aunt Betsy.
In the meantime, who is Aunt Betsy,
and who is Tom Rapley ?
Aunt Betsy was the elder of two sisters
— daughters of a small smock-frock
farmer — who had married, the one a
shopkeeper, the other a farmer and malt-
ster. The tradesman's wife gave birth to
Tom Rapley. Aunt Betsy's union with
Rennel, the sporting farmer and gay
maltster, proved unfruitful. Mrs. Rap-
ley's marriage turned out badly ; her hus-
band drank away his character and capi-
tal, and ended his days as shopman to an
old apprentice, one Collop, who employed
him more out of charity, as it seemed,
than that the broken-down man was of
any use. He survived his wife, however,
who died in the middle of their troubles.
Tom, the son, had served his time with
Collop, and in due course, went to a big
draper's shop in London, and became the
smart shopman we have just seen.
Aunt Betsy's fate was more propitious :
her husband, indeed, was as little of an
exemplary character as her sister's, but
he had quite another sort of person to
deal with ; a vigorous, capable woman,
fully alive to her own interests, and with
a firm hand to maintain them. The reins
that fell from her husband's trembling
fingers, she seized and retained. Thanks
to her, her husband died in the odour of
outward respectability, and left his stock
plenishing and household goods intact to
her careful disposal. Under her manage-
ment, the business throve and increased,
till Aunt Betsy became the richest farmer
and largest capitalist in all the county.
Not that she made her money out of the
Manor Farm ; clever as Mrs. Rennel was,
she was not clever enough to make much
money out of farming; but from her
hops, which she had planted and grown
successfully for many years ; from her
malt-houses, which she had established
all over the county ; and also out of Col-
lop's shop in the High Street of Bisco-
pham, for which she had originally found
the capital. With her, money had bred
money.
Collop the shopkeeper was a widower,
and had made many ineffectual attempts
to induce Aunt Betsy to marry him. He
had an only daughter, a clever and vir-
tuous, but extremely ugly girl. Mrs.
Rennel. was not to be won. She had a
great respect for Collop, and employed
him constantly in her affairs, but she
wasn't going to set him or any other man
in authority over her.
One consideration, however, greatly
troubled Aunt Betsy. There must come
a time when she would be obliged to re-
nounce the care and arrangement of all
her affairs ; she couldn't expect to live
forever. Aunt Betsy had been fighting
so long for her own hand, that she had
not the slightest wish to benefit any one
494
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
else by her acquisitions. She loved her
own possessions, the comfortable house,
the good farm that she had bought and
paid for with her own money. She loved
her chests of linen ; her wardrobes, filled
with good clothes ; her well-polished
furniture, and fat feather-beds, but it was
with a jealous exacting love, to which it
was a cruel pang to realize that these ob-
jects of her affection must eventually be
enjoyed by some one else. Aunt Betsy
had not been a religious woman during
her prosperous career ; but of late years
she had been much taken with the tenets
of a sect, popularly known as the " To-
morrowmorningites," the leading tenet of
which was, that the world was to be de-
stroyed and renovated at a very early
date, perhaps to-morrow morning. A
small remnant of people — those who ac-
cepted the belief of the Morningites —
were to be saved from destruction, and to
beeome the heirs-general of humanity.
This foolish faith was in itself so pleas-
ing to Aunt Betsy, that she accepted it
with an alacrity that was a wonderful con-
trast to her caution in other matters.
When she saw the young, the happy, and
the sociable, and contrasted the bright
warm lives of some people with her own
sordid contracted existence, it was per-
haps a solace to her to believe that this
would hereafter be redressed, and that all
these thoughtless happy people were des-
tined to be cut off and destroyed, whilst
she should be snatched like a brand from
the burning. No awkward wrench in her
life : no parting with pleasant posses-
sions, and going out into the cold gloom
of death : everything was to go on pros-
perously with her as of old.
Not that she was always steadfast to
this fond belief. There were times when
the realities of life obtruded themselves,
ghastly witnesses, and would not be de-
nied. Then she saw herself unlovely and
unloved, sinking to an unregretted grave,
no human soul caring one way or the other,
except for that which she might leave be-
hind. Then, with a pang, she thought of
how others would live easy, comfortable
lives on that which had cost her a life of
pain and toil to acquire, and yet how to
arrange matters so that her death should
not benefit a single human creature, it
was hard to contrive. Not that facilities
were wanting : every morsel of this ac-
cumulated wealth of hers was at her dis-
posal ; lawyers were waiting to do her
behests in life, judges and solemn courts
held themselves in readiness to see that
every jot of her bidding should be done
after her death. And yet she found it
difficult to determine what these behests
should be.
At these times of gloom and doubt, an-
other sort of fear possessed her. She
had a great dread and terror at the thought
of being buried alive. Her memory was
well stored with incidents of this ghastly
nature. She realized vividly and with ex-
aggerated accessories, the horror of such
a death, and yet she confided her fears to
no one, and she was doubtful as to
whether any directions she might leave
would be faithfully carried out. Who
would care when once she was gone ?
She was a wary old dame, too, this
Aunt Betsy, and was fully alive to the
danger latent in any extraordinary testa-
mentary dispositions that might give rise
to suspicions of the testator's sanity. The
world, she knew, would scoff incredu-
lously both at her beliefs and fears, would
call her a mad old woman for her pains ;
and that was an all-sufficient reason why
she should keep everything to herself.
All this time we have left Tom Rapley
standing by the head of his aunt's horse,
an animal who was far from shewing any
disposition to run away. Despite his
grandeur of appearance, and the good
opinion Tom had of himself, he couldn't
keep up his dignity before his aunt and
Collop. To them he was still the mere
boy, the disobedient, troublesome orphan,
the refractory, unprofitable apprentice.
" What have you done with your lug-
gage, Thomas .'' " cried Aunt Betsy. '• Car-
rier going to bring it — he'll charge you
sixpence for it. Why couldn't you bring
it yourself.? Always high and mighty,
Thomas, and nothing to keep it up with.
You'll never have a penny from me,
Thomas. Ridiculous ape you've made of
yourself. — Look at him, Collop."
Collop looked at Tom with sour ab-
stracted gaze.
" What's your turnover a week ? " he
said at last.
"At our establishment? Oh, about a
thousand ! " cried Tom grandly.
"Ah, a very good business that ! And
what does your master think about you ? "
" Oh, I don't know ; he's going to give
me a rise this Christmas."
" And how long holiday has he given
you ? "
" Oh, a week," said Tom.
" If I were you," said Collop, " I should
go back a few days before the time, and
tell your master you were too zealous for
his interests to stop away longer."
' " That would be ridiculous," said Tom.
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
495
" Tom, you're a fool ! " said his aunt.
" Take the pony round to the stables, and
tie him up ; and, Tom, you'd better cut
some chaff for him ; I don't think there's
any done — and then, come in to tea.
We've got a visitor " — here Aunt Betsy
tried to assume a knowing kind of smile
— "somebody you used to be very fond
of before you left."
Tom couldn't think who that could be.
He hadn't been fond of anybody, lately,
except Lizzie Booth, and it wasn't likely
that his aunt had invited her to tea. But
he took the pony up the lane to the sta-
bles, and being a youth very fond of ani-
mals, he spent half an hour pleasantly in
attending to the pony.
Collop and Aunt Betsy had entered the
house, and were talking earnestly together.
Collop had cautiously handed to Mrs.
Rennel a bag containing specie, at the
same time earnestly warning her against
keeping the same in the house. No one
slept at the manor but Aunt Betsy ; the
female servant she kept going back at
night to her own house in the village.
" Do be advised by me," said Collop,
" and let the money remain in the bank in
my name."
" Well, there's no danger as long as
Tom is here," said Aunt Betsy.
" But when Tom goes ? Do be per-
suaded, Mrs. Rennel, now, pray."
" I can't abide people sleeping in the
house."
"Then why don't you get some labour-
ing man and his wife to sleep in the out-
building ? There's a door between the
upper room and your kitchen chamber,
but that might be easily fastened up. The
man would look after your garden and
pony in his leisure time, and you'd let
him have the place rent-free for his
pains, and then he'd be at hand ; if you
v^^anted any tlfing, you'd only have to
knock for him."
Aunt Betsy rather liked this idea, and
took Collop over the house to see how it
could be arranged. As this old manor-
house is the scene of the greater part of
our story, it is well that you should thor-
oughly understand its plan and construc-
tion. The gabled wing was the oldest
part of the house, and had evidently
formed a portion of some much larger
mansion. This contained on the ground
floor Mrs. Rennel's parlour, a staircase to
the upper rooms, a small lobby, and a
large storeroom. These latter had once
been the hall of the more ancient house,
and shewed here and there traces of fine
oaken panelling. Two large bedrooms
above still bore the names of the hall
chamber and the parlour chamber. The
other wing, built a century or so later,
,but still of a respectable antiquity, con-
tained a fine roomy kitchen, with a noble
hearth and chimney, now nearly all bricked
up ; a small mean modern grate, with an
oven and boiler, occupying the place of a
range where once huge spits had revolved
and vast joints and fat capons had roasted
simultaneously before a capacious sea-
coal fire. In one corner was a door, that
opened on a stone staircase, which led to
the cellars under the ancient part of the
house. At the foot of the stairs was a
well, covered with a stone slab, a well re-
puted to be of fathomless depth — the
water from which, bright, and cold, and
sparkling, was drawn by a force-pump in
the kitchen. Much of Aunt Betsy's ce-
lebrity for butter and cheese in former
days had been due to the quality of the
spring-water, and to the cool equable tem-
perament of these cellars, which she had
then used as a dairy. They were now al-
most empty. A few old frames of hop-
bins stood in one corner, and from the
roof hung some dry geranium roots, that
had long been stored there, and forgotten.
A small jug of milk, and a few tea-cakes
on a plate, were all the solid and liquid
stores now visible.
There were two chambers above the
kitchen, accessible by a back staircase,,
and then came the outbuilding, which will
hereafter be more particularly described.
There was nothing remarkable about the
farm-buildings, except the barn, which
was built in a very strong and massive
way. Rumour said that this barn had
once been the banqueting-hall of the
former house, and certain carved oaken
beams in the roofing seemed to counte-
nance the idea that it had once been de-
voted to other uses. Rumour, too, spoke
of subterranean passages from the old
house to the barn, and also to the church-
yard ; and there was an unauthenticated
story of a priest who was said to have
been forgotten whilst hiding in one of
these passages, and to have died a long
lingering death of starvation. Such sto-
ries, however, gather about old houses as
naturally as cobwebs and ivy, and none of
the well-informed, respectable inhabitants
of Milford put any faith in them.
When Collop and Aunt Betsy had ex-
amined the arrangement of the outbuild-
ing and its communication with the
kitchen chambers, they returned to the
parlour, and continued their discussion.
" Yes, I think it would do very well,"
49^
said Aunt Betsy ; " I should feel more
comfortable, I own. But there would be
a difficulty in findinoj a man to suit me."
" I think I know of one," replied Collop.
"A man who lives in the village — a
rough fellow, but honest, I really believe."
" His name ? " asked Aunt Betsy.
" The name he always goes by," said
Collop, shifting his eyes uneasily, "is
Skim."'
Aunt Betsy knitted her brows, and
threw a searching glance at Collop, who
bore it with apparent unconcern.
"Yes," she said, " I have heard about
him. Well, Collop, if I can oblige you,
as well as benefit myself, I don't know
why I should not. Here comes Emily, I
see, and Susan with the tea-things. I
shall send Emily to call Tom."
Tom came in presently, looking rather
sulky. Emily had always been his par-
ticular aversion. It was a pity, for she
was a very good girl ; but she had weak
eyes, a mottled, jaundiced complexion,
was rather lame, and had no more figure
than a hop-pocket. But Aunt Betsy was
quite facetious about the two all tea-time,
and rallied Tom about Emily, and Emily
about Tom, till the pair could hardly look
one another in the face. The idea of
marrying Emily was a melancholy pros-
pect for Tom ; and yet, so strong-willed
and determined was his aunt, that he
feared she would eventually compel him
to do it, if she had set her mind upon it.
It appeared that she had set her mind
upon it, for, after Collop and his daughter
had gone. Aunt Betsy thus addressed her
nephew, as he was taking his candle to go
to bed : " Collop and I have been talking
things over, and we have come to this
conclusion : you and Emily are to be
married, and your father-in-law is going
to take you into the business. So no
more Royal Oaks and bar-maids ! Do
you hear 1 "
" You can't expect me to make up my
mind all of a minute," said Tom, who
really hadn't the courage to fly directly in
his aunt's face.
"Pooh! You haven't got a mind,
Thomas ; you're a fool altogether, a van-
ity-stricken, empty-headed creature ! Be
guided by me, and you may live decently
and respectably, with a quiet, affectionate
wife, to keep you out of mischief. But
go your Royal Oak ways, if you please,
and steer for destitution ; you'll have no
help from me."
Tom was a good deal moved by his
aunt's words : he couldn't help owning
that there might be prophetic wisdom in
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
them. Perhaps, if Emily had not been
so very ugly, Tom's fidelity to his Lizzie
might have wavered.
But, as it was, Tom made up his mind
to disregard his aunt's warnings. He
had plans of his own. He had saved a
little money, and a fellow-shopman of his,
a speculative but not over well-principled
young fellow, who possessed two hundred
and fifty pounds, had proposed to him to
put their capital together, and open a shop
in Holborn. Tom had mapped it all out
in imagination : he was to live over the
shop, having first made Lizzie his wife.
She was a good manager ; and they were
to keep house for the partner and the as-
sistants. Tom had visions of himself as
a prosperous trader, with a handsome,
dashing wife at his side, driving out on
jaunts into the country, or going to the
play in the evenings. A prospect far su-
perior this to the dull shop in the quiet
town of Biscopham, living under the rule
of his aunt and old Collop, and with Emmy
tied to his side. Yes, he was determined
to have his own way, but still the old
woman's words stuck in his mind, and
made him very uncomfortable.
Collop, who had driven over in a hired
vehicle, on his way home called at a cot-
tage in the village, and asked to see Skim.
He was not at home ; but Mrs. Skim went
to look for him, and brought him home
presently, a little the worse for liquor.
" I've got you a place. Skim," said Col-
lop, with whom this man seemed to be
familiar : " I've got you a place with Mrs.
Rennel. House, rent-free ; and nothing
to do for it except to dig in the old lady's
garden every now and then, and to see
where she had a fancy for hiding her
papers."
" And what shall we get for the job ? "
said Skim doubtfully.
" Well, you see," said Collop, " I allow
you as much as I can afford, but "
" What's five shillings a week to a gen-
tleman like you ! " cried Skim.
" But consider the house, rent-free."
" Ah ! and break my back over the old
lady's garden. No, no ; I don't reckon
that at anything. 'Taint worth talking
about."
" You shall have a half-crown extra for
a time." The pair had a good long tall
together as to Skim's future proceedings
during which, Emily, who was sitting outj
side in the phaeton, got quite benumbec
with cold.
Notwithstanding his perplexities, Ton
enjoyed his holidays, and staid them ouj
to the last. He dazzled his old friends
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
497
Biscopham by his smart neck-ties and
fashionable apparel. He talked grandly
of the offers he had of going into busi-
ness ; and sat upon the counter at Collop's
shop, and chatted with the shopman with
all the air of a future master. But one or
two surreptitious walks with Lizzie settled
the matter with Tom. His aunt coming
down to breakfast on the day he left for
town, found a note from him, stating that
he had thought the matter over, and re-
spectfully declined her proposals for his
welfare. He informed her, also, that he
had been married that morning to Lizzie
Booth, and hoped she would give them
her blessing and good wishes.
Aunt Betsy took it very quietly, but
she sent for a lawyer forthwith, and made
her first will.
CHAPTER II.
Hang, beg, starve, die i' the streets ;
For, by my word, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee,
Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.
In the four years that have elapsed
since Tom Rapley's marriage, his for-
tunes have alternately waxed and waned,
but the waxing has been temporary and
precarious, whilst the waning process has
gone on steadily and continuously. He
went into business with his speculative
friend, and for a time they prospered and
made money. Tom was industrious, and
not extravagant, and his wife turned out
a perfect treasure ; whilst the partner
supplied dash and enterprise, and was
fertile in resources for attracting and en-
trapping the public. But with some suc-
cess came much undue inflation. The
partner devoted himself to betting and
losing persistently, and Tom's patient
efforts were like dribbling water into a
broken sieve. A crash, as might have
been expected, came at last. The stock
of Brown and Rapley was seized, the firm
made bankrupt, and Tom found himself,
with a wife and boy of three years old
dependent on him, cast upon the world
without a penny.
As a forlorn-hope, he tried his aunt.
Would she lend him a couple of hundred
pounds or so, he wrote, to start him
again ? His creditors had been satisfied
with his conduct, ar>d the wholesale
houses would trust him afresh, if he could
only get a start ; he would pay ten per
cent, interest, and he would be ever grate-
ful ; and so on. Aunt Betsy took no
notice of his application. Trade was
ijad ; he could get no situation as a shop-
nan ; and he found himself and his be-
ongings practically acquainted with the
LIVING AGE. vol.. VII. 344
meaning of starvation. He fell ill, too,
and became incapable of doing anything.
He met with a kind friend, however, in a
hospital doctor, who was struck with
compassion for this little family group
suffering silently and uncomplainingly.
Tom must have nutritious diet, and na-
tive air, he said ; and as Aunt Booth, at
this juncture, came forward, and offered
them a temporary home at the /^oya/ Oak^
they thankfully accepted her offer ; and
by the assistance of the benevolent doc-
tor, who raised a few pounds for thern
among his friends, they were enabled to
leave their miserable lodgings in London,
and take refuge at Milford. It was a
depressing, wretched affair, this coming
back, beaten in the battle of life, and
Tom thought with apprehension of his
aunt's last warning words. Destitution
had come indeed, for Aunt Booth was
poor, and couldn't keep .them long.
Tom humbled his pride sufficiently to
go and call at Milford's ; but his aunt
wouldn't even open the door to him. He
knocked and knocked ; and he could see
his aunt's nose appearing between the
window-blind and the jamb, as she peered
out upon him. But the door remained
inexorably closed ; and when he made
his way round to the back, he was met by
Skim — now, it seemed, his aunt's ser-
vant— who told him that it was no use
coming there, as the old lady wouldn't
set eyes on him. After that, he met her
once driving in the chaise with Collop ;;
but she turned her head away from him,,
and wouldn't acknowledge his greeting.
Sailor was still living at Milford, hale:
and hearty as ever. He was the one true
friend they had in the village. He was
as good as a nurse-maid, or rather a
great deal better, for he took care o£
little Bertie, and kept him amused andl
employed ; taught him how to tie knots,
and sail boats, to make pop-guns out.
of elder boughs, and whistles out of
the shoots of willows, and trumpets out
of the ketches that grew in the woods,
and generally made the boy's life bright
and pleasant to him. Bertie was almost
as much at Sailor's cottage as at the
Royal Oak, and that was a great relief to
Lizzie, who did most of the household
work for her aunt, as some sort of a rec-
ompense for their food and lodging, and
had to nurse Tom as well, and keep up
his spirits.
Sailor's cottage was in the lane between
the village and Aunt Betsy's house — one
of a row of small two-roomed, cottages,,
built upon a strip of waste land, by the;
498
speculative shopkeeper of the village,
and inhabited by agricultural labourers.
Sailor's cottage was the trimmest and
neatest in the row. He had built a
wooden porch, covered with lattice-work,
over which he had trained a creeper, and
there were two narrow seats inside, where
you might smoke a pipe if so inclined.
The room you first entered was paved
with brick, and the walls neatly white-
washed. There was a small mirror over
tlie chimney-piece, and a bright blue
glass rolling-pin with the figure of a ship
upon it hanging beneath. On the wall
opposite was a portrait of Lord Nelson,
with a very blue coat and highly gilt but-
tons, and a tremendous cocked-hat. A
capital water-colour drawing of the frigate
Thetis, in full sail, drawn by one of her
officers, occupied a place of honour over a
stand by the wall, full of shells and curi-
osities. A round oaken table, scrubbed
to a snowy whiteness, stood in the mid-
dle of the floor ; and three or four rush-
bottomed chairs, also marvellously clean,
were ranged round the walls. The fire-
place was fitted with a little range, oven,
grate, and boiler, black-leaded till you
could see your face in them. An eight-
day clock in the corner, with gaily painted
face, marked the flight of time with
monotonous inward throbbings.
Sailor's cottage was a perfect fairyland
to little Bertie. To turn over Sailor's
treasures, to handle the bright cutlass
that hung in one corner, to put his ear to
the voluted shells, and listen to the soft
cooing of the distant sea, or to make a
boat of a rush-bottomed chair, and sail a
fairy voyage across indefinite oceans —
these things were a constant delight to
him. His mother was never uneasy at
his long absences. It was quite enough
that he was with Sailor.
One day, however, Sailor had left
Bertie at the cottage whilst he transacted
some little business in the village, and,
on his return, the boy was nowhere to be
found. He had grown tired of being
alone. Sailor thought, and had gone
home. He went to the Royal Oak to
see. But Bertie was not there. Without
result, they searched the house and out-
buildings : they were all blank and silent.
Then the misgiving seized upon Sailor :
had the boy gone down to the river to
sail his boat, and fallen in ! The thought
occurred to Lizzie at the same moment.
Tom ran down to the bank one way as
fast as his weakness would permit, Sailor
the other. But their search was in vain.
The river was in flood from recent rains,
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
and flowing sullenly and rapidly onwards.
If the lad's foot had slipped, his body
might be miles away, floating among the
drift and tangle of the swollen stream.
Tom and Sailor looked despairingly at
one another as they met, after their fruit-
less search.
" I daren't go back without him," cried
Tom.
" Look here," cried Sailor ; " he might
have run up along the road towards the
old lady's. You stop here, Master Tom ;
you ain't fit to run, and I'll start for-
wards."
Nobody had seen the boy in the village,
and Sailor pushed on disconsolately past
his own cottage, looking in with the for-
lorn-hope that the boy might have come
back in his absence, past the vicarage,
that stood back from the road, in the
middle of a clump of trees, right away to
Aunt Betsy's house. All the way, Sail-
or's observant eyes had noticed the fresh
track of wheels, and now he saw that
they had here come to a stand-still. Aunt
Betsy had been out in her chaise, evi-
dently. She was very careful of getting
her feet wet, and always on damp days had
a pair of pattens in her chaise. These had
cut out round cakes of sand all up the
path ; but alongside there was another
set of footprints, the tiny track of a child.
Sailor walked up the path — it was no use
knocking, he knew — and he peeped cau-
tiously in at the parlour-window, and
there he saw a most wonderful sight. At
the table, with jam before him, and honey,
a new loaf, a pot of fresh butter, a tin of
biscuits, and a currant-cake, sat the young
truant, and Aunt Betsy was standing be-
hind his chair, waiting on him. Sailor
ducked his head, and exploded in a fit of
silent laughter ; then he stole quietly out
of Aunt Betsy's gate, and set off running
1 as hard as he could towards the Royal
I Oak.
He saw Tom a long way off, coming to
I meet him, pale, and almost fainting.
j Sailor took off his hat, and waved it in
the air, as a signal that all was right.
Some hours elapsed before the boy
came home, in Aunt Betsy's chaise, driven
by Skim. Bertie was full of his adven-
i tures — of the funny old woman who had
I taken him to the big house, of the sweets
i he had eaten, of the bright shilling she
! had given him.
Before the day was out, Sailor canif
I from the village to report that Aunt Bets}
I had sent for her lawyer once more,
that Skim and his wife had been calle
to witness her will.
HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION.
499
Tom and his wife talked hopefully to-
gether that night. Surely Aunt Betsy
was relenting, and would do something
for them. If she took such a fancy to
Bertie, she could hardly avoid helping
his father and mother to bring him up.
As Sailor was sitting in his cottage
that night busy over some repairs in his
habiliments, he was surprised at hearing
a knock at his door. Opening it, he be-
held Aunt Betsy wrapped up in a thick
cloak, over her head a huge hood, called
a calash, something in size and appear-
ance like the head of a landau. Sailor
had once been on good terms with Aunt
Betsy ; he had married her old confiden-
tial servant Jane who had left him a wid-
ower many years ago ; and Sailor had en-
tertained expectations from the rich old
woman, which events had not verified.
A coolness had arisen between them,
which had ended in total estrangement.
Aunt Betsy was never known to over-
look or forgive any offence against her-
self, and Sailor was a good deal surprised
at her appearance. She seemed strangely
subdued — almost frightened too. And
when she entered the cottage, and sat
down, she trembled violently. It was
some time before she recovered herself
sufficiently to speak, and then she began
to ask questions about the boy Bertie,
studiously avoiding all reference to his
father and mother. Sailor spoke of the
boy in glowing terms, and Aunt Betsy
seemed pleased to hear him talk about
the child. Presently, she rose to leave,
but hesitated, as if having something on
her mind. " Sailor," she said, " I want
you to promise me something."
Sailor said he'd do what he could.
" Promise me, that if you hear that
anything is the matter with me — that I
ani ill, or anything of the kind — you will
take a horse, and ride over to Biscopham
as hard as you can go, and bid Frewen,
the lawyer, come to me at once ; and if }
he isn't at home, you must go to Mr.
Patch, his head-clerk. And Sailor, as
you might have a sudden call, and no
money for expenses, here is a sovereign
for you to pay for the horse and gates. {
Only, you mustn't spend it, do you hear ! |
You must bring it to me every Saturday
night, to show me that you haven't spent
it."
" Spend a sovereign as you'd given me,
ma'am ! " said Sailor ; " it's much more
likely I should send it to the British Mu-
seum.'"
" Well, enough of that, Sailor," said
Aunt Betsy with some dignity. " I can
trust you to do what I ask, at all events."
"That you can, ma'am, faithful," cried
Sailor. " Good-night, ma'am."
Early next morning. Aunt Betsy's pony-
chaise dashed through the village, driven
by Skim at full gallop, and took the road
to Biscopham. Old Mrs. Rennel had
been found dead in her bed, he cried to
the villagers, as he passed through.
Sailor was standing at his door at the
time, and presently a horse was splashing
through the ford, and galloping away by
bridle-paths and cross lanes in the same
direction to Biscopham also.
From The New Quarterly Review.
HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF AC-
CLIMATIZATION.
BY H. EVERSHED.
There are, as we all know, among hu-
man beings, certain individuals who are
far more capable of adapting themselves
to altered circumstances than others who,
to outward seeming, are no whit better or
stronger than themselves. The fact en-
counters us at every step in daily life.
Of two young men who, with apparently
equal chances of well doing, shall emi-
grate to a foreign country, one, and per-
haps the more promising, shall turn into
an idle loafer and die a drunkard, or shall
take a fatal fever, or shall succumb to the
new influences from weakness either of
moral or of physical fibre ; while the other
shall plod on through every difficulty,
make his fortune, and found a family in
his new home.
With races this inherent difference is
still more apparent. There is no obvious
reason why a Frenchman should make a
very bad colonist, and an Englishman
or a German a good one ; why a Jew
should be able to make his way and his
fortune through every impediment of cli-
mate, distance, and persecution ; and why
a North American Indian should die if he
is taken away from his native wilds.
With quadrupeds and with birds there
is the same fact to be noticed, differences
between individuals, and still greater dif-
ferences between species. It has been
forced upon our notice very recently that
the climate of the West African Coast is
as fatal to most domestic animals as it is
to the white man. To the dog, the horse,
and the ox, its evil influences are fatal ; but
the rat thrives, and indeed seems equally
500 HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION.
at home and happy in a fever-stricken
mangrove swamp of the tropics as amid
the ice and snow of Melville Island.
The pheasant and guinea-fowl, whose
native country is dry and hot, pass to and
thrive in those that are wet and cold.
Cocks and hens, whose progenitors in-
habited the depths of Indian jungles, do
well in almost every corner of the habit-
able globe, hot or cold, wet or dry.
These facts, and many similar ones, are
familiar enough to most of us ; but the
no less latent power of resistance to new
influences which is found strong in cer-
tain families of the vegetable kingdom,
and weak in others, is less often remarked
upon ; likewise their faculty, developed
by untoward circumstances, of meeting
novel difficulties by novel resources.
These peculiarities in plants are singu-
larly interesting, and their bearing upon
human economy makes them especially
worthy of study.
It is, as a rule, impossible to say where-
in resides this hidden power in the vege-
table world, but we can take note of the
cases where it exists ; and records of these
instances are of an importance which it
is difficult to exaggerate.
In this matter there is no concluding
from analogy, no general law, or rather,
no perceptible general law. The knowl-
edge that we must acquire is as full of
exceptions as of rules. It is as puzzling,
and seemingly as contradictory, as any
mere human system — as much so, almost,
as that monument of imbecility and preju-
dice, the Common Law of England.
Instances of these inexplicable differ-
ences are numerous enough. The wheat
and the maize-plant — natives one of the
north and the other of the south ; one of
the eastern, the other of the western
hemisphere — have migrated into each
other's latitude, and grow side by side in
the old and in the new world. The date-
palm of Africa, on the other hand, is as
non-migratory as a French peasant, and
fails to thrive or fails to fruit, if taken far
away from the hot, dry air of the sandy
deserts. No hardier plant seems to exist
than the aloe, which grows from a single
leaf thrust into almost any kind of soil in
sub-tropical countries, and makes strong
hedges that no ill-usage will hurt. It is
the blackthorn of Southern Europe ; but
let it be moved the few degrees that sep-
arate it from the north of this continent,
and it becomes a delicate greenhouse
plant, which is killed by the two or three
degrees of frost that geraniums, brought
6:0m hotter parts of Africa, will stand un-
harmed. On the other hand, let the heat
of the greenhouse be raised to hothouse
temperature, and the aloe dies ; yet the
very same heat only serving to force to
its full luxuriance the maidenhair fern •
taken from its native habitat in a Devon-
shire dell.
There are other plants, less known, but
even more remarkable for elasticity than
the maidenhair fern ; the Zephyraiithcs
Candida, for instance, is at home on the
warm banks of the Plata, sows itself in
the hot, dry country near Lima, and in
Yorkshire resists the severest frosts. A
hardly less striking instance of adapta-
bility is the common Jerusalem artichoke ;
brought irom the equatorial regions of
Brazil, it ripens its tubers perfectly in
Scotland and in part of Northern Russia.
The adaptability of plants is of course
due to more than a simple non-suscepti-
bility to the alterations of heat and cold,
or hardiness. There is also involved a
power of meeting new difficulties by the
development of new resources, and we
need not remind the reader of the reliance
placed on this faculty by the originators
of the doctrine of evolution. There is
the pitcher-plant of Borneo, which has
modified its petiole, or leaf footstalk, into
the pitcher, large enough, in some spe-
cies, to hold more than a quart of water.
Whatever may be the precise use of this
curious vegetable water-pot, we may at
least be quite sure that it is a develop-
ment without which the existence of the
plant would cease.
Then again, there must exist that with-
out which the mere latent hardiness and
latent adaptability would go for little,
there must needs be, to make these things
of real importance, the inherent power of
transmitting to descendants newly-ac-
quired developments ; and in this respect
also, there are variations and degrees.
Winter wheat sown in the south of Eu-
rope in spring, would probably never
ripen ; and we have seen a field of Italian
wheat blooming very disastrously several
weeks too soon in this climate ; and prob-K
ably it would not have consoled the farmerBi
to know that by persevering a year or
two, his foreign seed wheat would proba-
bly acquire an English habit. Archbish-
op Whately grafted an early thorn on
a late one, and vice versd, and the re-
sult was that the grafts came into leaf ii
future with their parents, so that there is
something more than vigour inherent ii
the graft.
Some singular examples of modificatiot
of form have been observed in seaweedj
HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION. 501
grown in the Lake of Stennes, in the
Orkneys, where the algae, growing at the
end of the lake into which the sea flows,
present the usual appearance, but further
in they gradually became stunted and
narrow in form, losing their air bladders
and assuming a very novel aspect, till at
the fresh-water end of the lake, they dis-
appear entirely. Here it is evident that
the requirements of the weed as a sea
plant are different to what they are in
fresh water, and that the plant has become
modified accordingly.
It is in the tropical world that plants
must call out their inherent resources, or
perish, and it is there that the most singu-
lar examples of what the innate formative
force can do, in the way of modifying the
size or shape of organs, when it is qx-
erted in cases of necessity, may be seen.
The forests of tropical lands are so tall
that an arrow from a strong man's bow
falls short of the tree summits, and so
dark in their shadowy recesses, that a re-
cent writer has compared the canopy
formed by the palms and other broad-
leafed trees, to the roof of a Gothic cathe-
dral. Near the ground, and in the dark,
vault-like lower air, the full growth of
plants is impossible ; if they could not
rear their flowers to the light of the sun,
they would pine and perish in the dark-
ness.
The plants which compose the under-
growth have done this. They are all
climbers, and there is every reason to be-
lieve that they have been driven to climb
by the force of circumstances. The
creepers are not of any particular family
or genus. Plants of numerous orders
have learnt to climb. Among the climb-
ers are plants in which this habit is
unusual. There are Bignonias, Legumi-
nosae, Gultifera, and there is even a climb-
ing palm {Dcsmonciis) with slender stem
of immense length, and an occasional
tuft of leaves provided with hooks at
their tips to hold on by. The long stems
of these weaker plants twine in every
form round the trees ; sometimes they
are twisted like cables, or tied in gigan-
tic loops and coils hanging at all heights
from the ground, and sometimes they
pass upwards by taking the form of a
staircase, or by swaying to and fro in a
zigzag shape. Our cuckoo-pint {Arum
maculatiun)^ an earth-loving plant, often
sitting on the sides of wet ditches, has a
near relation in the great valley of the
Amazon, wUich is often seen perched on
the branch of a tree, and sending out an
air-root, or liana, which hangs down
vades the vegetable
and reeking forests
straight as a plumb-line, and sometimes
reaches to and roots in the ground.
Here then, is an example of a parasitical
or epiphytical plant, which is not entirely
confirmed in its habits as a parasite.
Others have entirely lost the power of
rooting in earth, and others are like the
Rhododendron Dalhousie of Sikkim,
which sits up among the branches when
obliged to do so, and is epiphytical only
as it were on compulsion, but if it can
find a suitable site, it grows much more
readily in the ground.
A spirit of restless selfishness per-
kingdom in the hot
of Brazil. There is
not sufficient air, light, or earth, for all
the plants that come into being in those
prolific scenes of life, and the conse-
quence is, that crowd, and crush, and
struggle for simple existence which trav-
ellers have compared to the cruel selfish-
ness which might prevail in similar con-
ditions of life among human beings. The
rule of life is, each for itself, and not
'• live and let live." A parasite will take
a neighbour tree in its gripe and use it
simply and entirely as a means for its
own advancement. One of this class, a
kind of fig, is known as the murderer, or
murdering liana. Mr. Bates describes it
as follows in his " Naturalist on the River
Amazon : " — " It springs up close to the
tree on which it intends to fix itself, and
the wood of its stem grows by spreading
itself like a plastic mould over one side
of the stem of its supporter. It then puts
forth from each side an arm-like branch
which grows rapidly, and looks as though
a stream of sap were flowing and harden-
ing as it went. This adheres closely to
the trunk of its victim, and the two arms
meet on the opposite side, and blend to-
gether. These arms are put forth at
somewhat regular intervals in mounting
upwards, and the victim, when its stran-
gler is full grown, becomes tightly clasped
by a number of inflexible rings. These
rings gradually grow larger as the mur-
derer flourishes, rearing its crown of fo-
liage to the sky, mingled with that of its
neighbour, and in course of time they
kill it by stopping the flow of its sap.
The strange spectacle then remains of
the selfish parasite clasping in its arms
the lifeless and decaying body of its vic-
tim, which had been the help of its own
growth. Its ends have been served, and
it has flowered and fruited, reproduced
and disseminated its kind."
The figs, generally, are great climbers,
and they have justly been called the
502 HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION.
Thugs of the vegetable world, on ac-
count of their destructive tendencies.
Their character agrees with their rela-
tionship to that bad family — the sting-
ing-nettles. There are numerous ex-
ample^ nearer home of what may be done
by vegetables in an emergency. We
have seen a young elm save its life by a
curious, but not uncommon, modification
of form. It grew at the edge of a slope of
about three feet in depth, and as its root-
hold was threatened by the gradual wear-
ing away of the bank, the tap root of the
tree became exposed, and had, at length,
to support its entire weight. The tap
root of a tree is a weak organ, quite un-
able to bear its weight ; but in the case
in question, the exposure of the root had
the effect of converting it into a true stem,
with bark and leaf-budi, which was en-
larged by an annual layer of wood be-
neath the bark till it became strong enough
to support the trunk. A tree, which is so
placed that its supports in one direction
are gradually weakened, immediately be-
gins to secure itself by strengthening its
other ties or props. Cultivated plants are
the most accommodating and the most
willing, as a rule, to vary their forms and
character to suit the convenience of their
cultivators. A sporty or variation from
an established species, often preserves its
difference through a line of descendants.
The Emperor of China, according to the
native chroniclers, availed himself of this
principle when he selected, with his own
imperial hand, a particular plant of rice
which he had observed, and which thus
became the originator, or propagator, of
the only kind which ripens north of the
great wall.
In the modification of the forms of
plants, two principles are at work, one of
which has been expressed by Goethe in
these words : " In order to spend on one
side, nature is forced to economize on the
other." Every part of a plant being only
a modification of the leaf, any cause which
affects the flow of sap may influence the
formation of particular organs, as in the
case of the single wild rose, with nu-
merous stamens and pistils, which are con-
verted into petals by cultivation in rich
soil, so that the single flower of the wild
rose becomes the many-petaled blossom
of the queen of flowers. The observation
of such phenomena, led to the discovery
of that fundamental truth in vegetable
physiology which had dawned on the
minds both of Linnaeus and of Goethe,
that a cell is the unit, whose multiplication
forms the plant, and that when the active
forces are busy with one part, the struc-
ture of other parts must await their turn,
and perhaps lose it altogether, in the case
of plants whose career is short. If wheat,
for instance, is sown in very rich soil, it
grows, as every farmer knows, too vig-
orously to yield seed. " There exists a
natural antagonism," says Darwin, "be-
tween the two forms of reproduction,
namely, by seed and by buds, when either
is carried to an extreme degree ; " accord-
ingly, potatoes that are great croppers,
yield very little seed in general. Plants
have sometimes been flogged into fertil-
ity, and Professor Lecoq cleverly com-
pelled a sterile Mirabilis to yield seed by
beating it with a stick, and reducing the
number of its branches. Topping a pear-
tree, or checking the greed of the roots
by pruning them frequently, has a similar
effect. The sugar-cane grows too vig-
orously to yield seed in the West Indies,
Cochin China, and the Malay archipelago ;
and the sweet potato (Batatas) does not
yield seed in southern China. The wheat-
plant runs to waste in the tropics. Breed-
ers, both of plants and animals, are well
aware of the law of " compensation," or
" balancement of growth," which is simply
this — that if nourishment flows to one
part, or organ, in excess, it rarely flows,
at least in excess, to another part ; thus,
says Mr. Darwin, " it is diflScult to get a
cow to give much milk and to fatten read-
ily." The cabbage with a big heart is
not good for seed ; and in fact the best
fruits of their kind — oranges, pears, figs,
bananas, apples, grapes, pine-apples, etc.
— produce the least seed; and as the
seeds become atrophied by long-continued
cultivation, the fruits gain in size and
quality. In our poultry, a large tuft of
feathers on the head is, generally, accom-
panied by a diminished comb ; and a large
beard, by diminished wattles. Gardener
knowingly stimulate particular organs i
the production of those beautiful mon-
strosities, whose seeds are few and far
between, and are so very charily disposed
of. Flower-gardens blossom ail over with
beautiful illustrations of the manifold ef-
fects and surprising modifications pro-
duced by culture ; and the cabbage-tribe,
found alike in gardens and fields, on the
sands of the shore, and on the edges
the cliff, is another example of the pr
duction of varied forms from one origin
type by developing peculiarities and fixinj
them by selection. The Scotch kail is
one of the least modified varieties of the
cabbage, and if its seedlings were neg-
lected for a few generations, somethin
lie
I
nhma|4
m
HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION. 503
very like the wild cabbage that grows on
our seashore would be reached. Even
the queen of flowers seems to regret the
loss of her simplicity and single corolla,
and instead of unfolding a multitude of
petals in the act of inflorescence, humble
green leaves sometimes appear in their
place. When this happens, our flower
queen is in fact abdicating and reverting
to her original and more humble condition.
There is a second principle which aids
the plant improver, and is continually ac-
tive in producing changes in the forms of
plants growing in the field of nature. It
is the inherent disposition to sterility in
plants that are exposed to changed condi-
tions of life. Not only are many tropical
species infertile in our hot-houses, but
the Alpine plants seldom produce any
seed in gardens, and the Persian and
Chinese lilacs {Syrmga Persica and S.
Chinensis), though hardy here, are ster-
ile, like the common lilac {S. Vulgaris) in
Germany. Absolute sterility cannot, of
course, become hereditary. Plants re-
main productive without seed, when there
are tubers, buds, slips, suckers, grafts,
etc., to fall back upon ; complete infer-
tility would, indeed, be the bane of horti-
culture, which knows how to profit by in-
cipient sterility, and can generally find a
seed or two, even in a double balsam.
Two principles of plant life act and re-
act in nature, within limits which the
well-being of the plant, or the object of
the cultivator may determine ; but to a
great extent the habit of plants is an in-
herent quality, and individual plants
exhibit dispositions that differ like those
of animals. There are innumerable in-
stances of a sort of fickleness in the
behaviour of plants. We are unable to
assign the cause why the little moon-wort
fern of the Surrey Downs should sicken
and die in sheltered spots below the hill,
or why some varieties of pelargoniums are
sterile and others fertile, under similar
conditions, or why, in other cases, slight
changes in position should make all the
difference, so that a plant may yield seed
at the top of a bank and refuse to do so
at its base. The various cereals are
rigid in reference to their several seed-
producing habits, and cultivators cannot
force any of them to exceed their inherent
powers in this respect. Wheat will yield
from forty to sixty bushels on an acre of
good land, and it runs to stem and be-
comes diseased if forced beyond its bent.
A typical climate for wheat is that of the
Castiles, but that of our south-eastern
counties is not bad for it, or wheat would
not have been the bread corn of King
Alfred's subjects, and of the humblest of
Chaucer's pilgrims. It likes to advance
slowly, by gradations of heat, through a
long spring, and dislikes a sudden jump
from a winter mean of 32^ Fahr. to a
summer heat of 73^=* as at Cincinnati.
The stems dwindle when drawn up too
rapidly, and the coronal roots which are
put forth here in April, become abortive,
pointing to the ground like a necklace of
green thorns surrounding the crown of
the plant, but failing to reach it or to per-
form their function of absorbing nour-
ishment. Wheat, therefore, can only be
grown profitably, on a comparatively
small area in North America, and on
gravel and sands and second-rate soils of
hard texture, which counteract the effect
of climate. Maize is the bread-corn of
North America, yielding, as a maximum,
twenty quarters (a hundred and sixty
bushels) per acre on soft, rich soils, which
cannot be relied on for twenty bushels of
wheat. But maize, too, has its habit. It
yields magnificent crops on the plains of
the Scioto and Miami, feeders of the
Ohio, remaining in the ground only three
or four months, instead of the nine or ten
months during which wheat occupies the
land between its autumn sowing and late
summer ripening; but in Alabama the
giant grain of the New World finds that
undue measure of heat and moisture
which induces abnormal growth. It is
drawn up to a height of sixteen or eigh-
teen feet, and yields only half the crops
that are reaped in Ohio, Tennessee,
Kentucky, and Illinois.
Passing a step further south for other
examples of habit, we find that rice re-
places maize and wheat in the tropics,
and possesses an inherent elasticity and
power of ranging which enables it to
climb from the plains of Bengal up the
lower slopes of the Himalayas, while an-
other variety has produced seeds on the
banks of the Thames, and another flour-
ishes in the watered flats of Carolina.
Another kind, called clammy rice, sub-
mits either to wet or dry lands, while the
common rice of Asia, Africa, and America
is a marsh plant, and must be sown and
brought to maturity in a puddle, with the
aid of a natural or artificial irrigation.
The early kinds ripen in four months, and
the later in six months after sowing, the
slightest frost kills the common kinds,
while the mountain rice of Nepaul is sowa
in autumn, and the young blades are
nursed through the winter under a coat oi
snow.
504 HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION.
Sugar also affords its lessons on habit.
In Cuba — an adopted home which suits
it well — the cane lasts twenty-five years,
and sometimes forty years, without be-
ing renewed ; but in the delta of the Mis-
sissippi and in Louisiana it must be re-
newed every two years ; and in a colder
climate in Alabama it loses the status of
a perennial, and becomes an uncertain
annual, by a rapid transition like that
which affects the annuals of temperate
regions, when they pass, by themselves or
their nearest relative, into the form of
perennials in warm climates, as in the
case of the castor-oil plant and the mal-
lows.
Larger crops of vegetables can be
raised when they are grown for their
tubers, roots, or stems, than when they
are grown for their seed, because the
natural habit of seed-bearing plants is a
bar to increased production. The grain-
consumers of temperate climates live,
therefore, at a dearer rate than the peo-
ple who feed on bananas, potatoes, or
starch-yielding plants, like the manihot,
which yields tapioca and the cassava
bread of Brazil.
It is a serious drawback to the profits
of sewage cultivation that only certain
plants are disposed to consume so much
liquid as is offered to them under that sys-
tem of management. Cereals are not
drinkers to any large extent, and will not
suddenly change their habit. They have
enough to do to swallow the ordinary
amount of wet which prevails in our cli-
mate, being naturally partial to rather
drier countries, like South Russia, Po-
land, and Spain. Italian rye-grass is a
drinker, having learned the habit, per-
haps, in the irrigated plains of Lom-
bardy ; and it is not expected to produce
seed, but only a bulky growth of forage.
It has done its best to please the sewage
farmers in the matter of drink, but on
another point it offers a curious example
of the force of habit. By the use of an
enormous amount of liquid it was ex-
pected to yield unheard-of crops ; and
accordingly it did yield loo tons per acre
in one season, but it made the effort at
the cost of its life, dying during the winter
instead of yielding another crop next year.
The same result has followed whenever
the powers of this great water-drinker
were taxed by stimulating it to over-pro-
.duction. It invariably made the effort
demanded of it, and it invariably broke
down in the attempt, and died afterwards
from sheer exhaustion, like a worn-out
>cab-horse.
Rest is the remedy for over-work in
plants as well as horses. Linnasus, los-
ing his own rest, was the first to ob-
serve that the plants in his garden
slept every night, inaudibly, but mani-
festly, each species having its blossoms
and leaves arranged in characteristic atti-
tudes. The bird's-foot trefoil, for in-
stance, folds up its leaves at night, and
the chickweed closes them ; the vetch,
sweet pea, and broad bein rest them one
against the other. The composite leaves
appear to be the most sleepy of any. The
hours of sleeping are a matter of habit,
and may be disturbed artificially, just as
a cock may be woke up and made to
crow at untimely hours by the light of a \
lantern. De Candolle subjected a sensi- i
tive plant to an exceedingly trying course \
of discipline, by completely changing its
hours ; exposing it to a bright light all
night, so as to prevent sleep, and putting
it in a dark room during the day. The
plant appeared to be much puzzled and
disturbed at first ; it opened and closed^
its leaves irregularly, sometimes noddin<_
in spite of the artificial sun that shed its
beams at midnight, and sometimes wak-
ing up, from the force of habit, to find
the chamber dark in spite of the time of
day. Such are the trammels of use and
wont ! But after an obvious struggle the
plant submitted to the change, and turned
day into night without any apparent ill
effects.
Besides their daily rest, plants require
periodic seasons of repose. They sleep
when the temperature falls below a cer-
tain point, as the bear and the dormouse
enter upon their winter's sleep at the ap-
proach of cold weather; and like the
fishes of some tropical countries, whose
waking functions are arrested by the heat,
which dries up the ponds they live in, so,
too, in the burning deserts of Africa,
bulbs and other plants lie dormant through
the season when the functions of vege-
table life would be impossible, and burst
again into leaf and flower with the return
of the rain and the coolness.
It puzzles plants, or at least subjects
them to trials, to move them out of their
latitudes, and sometimes the effects are
very curious. The peach has been
brought from the gardens of Kurdistan
to those of the Mediterranean, of Europe
generally, and of the far West, and, curi-
ously enough, it still persists, like its
congeners the apricot and almond, ii
putting forth blossoms dangerously earlj
in the spring, though it cannot do s<
with impunity, except under artificii
HABIT IN PLANTS, AND POWER OF ACCLIMATIZATION. 505
covering of glass, or at least of fir
boughs, and other gardener's devices.
The period of flowering, like that of
sleeping, becomes habitual, and some-
times exceedingly persistent ; and of
course the flowering and coming into
leaf of a plant are merely the visible signs
that the torpor of the colder months has
passed, and that their vital functions
have recommenced. Our white clover,
like the peach, retains its habits through
life, and when settled as an emigrant
among the plants of sub-tropical Ala-
bama, it is observed to awaken in spring,
after a brief winter rest, much earlier
than the more drowsy native clovers.
But the Bermuda grass, transported to
Alabama from beneath the blazing sun
of the plains of the Ganges, is particu-
larly late in rising. The early habits of
the Alpine plants are admirable, as in the
case of the saxifrages, and others of the
same habit. Plants are accommodating
on the whole, but they may all be said to
rest, according to their special habit, at
certain temperatures, and they vegetate
sluggishly at certain higher temperatures.
Natives of cool climates, on the other
hand, may be killed in a hot country by
excessive heat, or they may be only
checked, or thrown into leafy growth, if
they are perennials, or changed into win-
ter growers if they are annuals. Flax is
a summer crop in Russia and a winter
crop in Egypt, being brought to maturity
by a certain amount of heat which it ob-
tains there in the winter. The vine is
rather particular, and is killed by cold in
North-eastern Europe, and, like wheat,
and other plants of temperate or warm-
temperate zones, it runs to waste, and
bears no fruit in the hotter zones. The
two plants are not altogether barred from
the tropics, but their habit of growth is
deranged, and they become leafy, fruit-
less, and seedless. Both wheat and the
grape-vine — the one a cosmopohtan grass,
the other a trailer, which has twined round
the world — can bear great heat, provided
it is alternated with cold ; but having be-
come habituated to the winter rest of their
native climes and countries, the perpetual
motion of their sap exhausts them in the
end, though at first it throws them into
leafy and abnormal growth.
Alternation is the law of plant life in
temperate regions. The torpor of the
colder months is necessary to the activity
of the growing period. There is no rea-
son in nature why it should be so, and in
fact, the evergreens of the tropics, being
accustomed to a more equal distribution
of solar heat, do not need the alternatiorf.
The rule of life with plants, is the habit
they acquire under the circumstances
that surround them. This is practically
recognized when chestnuts, ripened in
our southern counties, are preferred by
planters of the chestnut underwoods in
Kent, to foreign seed, which would pro-
duce plants of more tender habit. The
seeds of the Scotch fir, ripened in the
Highlands, would be preferred for their
hardihood, to those, ripened in warmer
districts ; and in endeavoring to extend
the northern range of a plant, as in the
case of a forage plant (the Holcus saccha-
ratus) in this country, it was considered a
great point to get it to ripen a few seeds
which might be expected to produce an
acclimatized variety.
The bread grains have a certain habit
as to the amount of heat they require to
ripen them. Maize and rice have both
been ripened on the banks of the Thames,
but they are out of their latitude, as wine
is, and as perhaps the sugar beet is, in
this country. Wheat gets rapidly out of
bounds in crossing the border counties,
beyond which the oats are the bread corn
of the people. But while a certain equa-
ble temperature may not stimulate the
plant beyond the point at which it pro-
duces leaves and barren flowers, and
while the sum of heat received, in a north-
ern latitude, in six or seven months, may
fail to ripen a particular grain, the same
total amount of heat received in a shorter
time, in a southern latitude, »may cause
maturation. This is exceedingly incon-
venient in some countries, where the or-
dinary crop is produced in summer, while
the winter's sun is utilized for some quick,
imported crop, as in the case of flax in
Egypt. A very short interval between
spring and summer ripens the hardier ce-
reals, such as barley and bere, at their
polar limits, because the summer sun has
great power while it lasts.
There is a curious passage in Lord Ba-
con's writings where he discourses upon
the juices of plants and the theory of heat
and dryness, and accounts for the earlier
or later flowering of different species by
the greater or less degree of moisture in
them. Fanciful as this language and an-
tiquated as this theory may seem, the
great philosopher whose speculations pre-
ceded the investigations into the laws of
physiology and morphology which have
since been aided by the microscope,
rightly surmised, quite in accordance
with the later developments of science,
that the relative activity of the organs, at
5o6
THE BRUNSWICK ONYX VASE.
different temperatures, was dependent on
the qualities of the juices contained in
the vessels ; which qualities are imparted
by the character of the climate. The
unit of life is an atom, and on the atoms
are written, so to speak, the various laws
which give diverse characters and quali-
ties to plants. Climate settles a great
many other matters besides the hours of
work and rest.
" From the extremes of climate," says
Buffon, " we draw our drugs, perfumes,
and poisons, and all the plants whose
properties are in excess. Temperate cli-
mates, on the contrary, only produce tem-
perate things ; the mildest of herbs, the
most wholesome of vegetables, the most
refreshing of fruits, the quietest of ani-
mals, the most polished of men, are the
heritage of the mildest climates."
Mexico is typical of orchids, says the
translator of Figuier's " Vegetable King-
dom ; " but he ought rather to have re-
versed the saying, since it is the plants
which are the types of the country, repre-
senting its climate and characteristics,
and stamping upon them the " aspects of
nature," so far as vegetation is concerned.
Consequently, there are plants for all
kinds of sites, saxifrages for the declivi-
ties of Chimborazo, and palms, bamboos,
and arborescent grasses for the plains of
the Orinocos. Or if we take geographical
space and travel from the equator towards
the poles, we shall pass from the cocoa-
nut and plantain groves of the tropics to
the spongy masses of sphagna, or bog-
mosses, which cover whole countries in
the northern regions of snow and ice.
The intermediate space is too wide for us
to attempt to map it out with a descrip-
tion of the great nations of vegetables,
within whose boundaries are subordinate
tribes and races, more various and more
distinct than the great races of mankind
that people the kingdoms and principali-
ties of the earth. The broad distinctions
between the great families of plants, are
as easy to trace as the difference of colour
in a negro and a white man ; but there
are shades of difference in the habit of
plants which are inherent and obscure in
their origin, like the shades of character
in men. It is easy to say that equatorial
vegetation is evergreen, and that the
leaves are shed occasionally instead of
periodically, because there is no cessation
of growth, and because vegetation is not
arrested by cold ; but who can account
for the anomalies of Australian foliage,
the pale green hues of the trees, and their
vertical leaves that cast no shadow on
the ground, and let the grass grow greea
and rank in the depths of the forest ?
Who can trace all the causes that un-
derlie what is called habit in those plants
which clothe the great central belt of the
earth with perpetual green ? The ever
open page of nature satisfies the spirit of
inquiry within certain limits, and if we have
seemed of late years to come near to an
interpretation of some of the general laws
under which the forms of life around us
have changed with our surrounding cir-
cumstances, let us be careful not to over-
value our achievements. The ultimate
cause of the formative forces of nature,
and the mystery of that original impress
which was stamped on the units, or atoms
of life, by the Former of the Universe, we
cannot comprehend.
From The Academy.
THE BRUNSWICK ONYX VASE.
Dr. Fiedler, of Wesel, recently ad-
dressed a letter to the Allgejneine Zeitung,
in which he gives an interesting account
of the Brunswick onyx vase, whose nu-
merous hair-breadth escapes from capture
and destruction might supply materials
capable of adaptation for many a thrilling
tale of startling vicissitudes, adventurous
wanderings, and critical turns of fate.
What had been the destiny of this nonpa-
reil before the seventeenth century, where
it saw the light, and who fashioned it in
all its incomparable beauty, are questions
which have hitherto balBed enquiry. AH
we know is that when, in the year 1630,
the city of Mantua was captured, after
many months' siege, by the imperialists,
Duke Francis Albert of Saxe-Lauenburg,
who commanded an Austrian contingent,
noticed this now far-famed vase in the
hands of one of his soldiers, and purchased
it for 100 ducats from the man, who valued
it only for the gold of which its foot and
handle were formed. The soldier, when
questioned about it, related that during
the three days' plunder to which the city
had been subjected, he and a companion
had made a raid on some of the apart-
ments of the royal palace, and observing
the gold on the vase, he had snatched it up,
and carried it away as part of his share of
the booty. This palace had been the
favourite residence of Vincenzo II., Duke
of Mantua, and head of the great art-lov-
ing family of the Gonzagas, whose death
without direct heirs in 1627 had drawn
upon the unhappy Mantuans the war
I
THE BRUNSWICK ONYX VASE.
5^7
which laid waste their fair city, and which
originated in the claims advanced by the
Emperor Ferdinand 11. on the duchy, in
right of his empress the sister of Vincenzo.
From the possession of Francis Albert of
Saxe-Lauenburg, who was a connoisseur
in art, and recognized in his newly-ac-
quired treasure a genuine antique, it
passed to his widow, who left it by will
to her sister, the Princess Sophia Eliza-
beth, wife of August, reigning Duke of
Brunswick-Liineburg.
By this lady it was bequeathed as an
inalienable heirloom to her son, Duke
Ferdinand Albert, the Marvellous, whose
zeal in collecting rare and costly works of
art made him a fitting recipient for such
a trust. By his directions a green satin
case, bound with silver cord, was made
for the vase, which was further secured
from risk of injury by being enclosed in a
padlocked and strongly-made wooden
case, covered with silk and gold and sil-
ver lace. What is of more interest to us,
he also caused the learned secretary,
Eggeling of Bremen, to write an explana-
tory treatise in Latin on the goblet, and
its mode of decoration. From this com-
position, entitled Hysteria Cereris et
Bacchi in vasculo ex uno onyche, &^c.
(Bremae, 1682, quarto), we learn that the
vase is fashioned out of a genuine and
precious gem, known as onyx, or sardonyx,
and provided with a pure and massive
wrought gold cover, spout, handle, and
foot. Independently of these metallic
additions, the vase measures about 5 3-4
inches in length, and about three inches
in breadth. The ingenious workman who
prepared the gem for its present adapta-
tion has secured strength and cohesion
for the entire mass by passing two hoops
of gold around it in connection with the
handle and spout, and has thus divided
the surface into three compartments, in
the central one of which the artist has
drawn twelve figures, which are cut into
the stone in bas relief, and represent a
sacrificial or other ceremonial connected
with some religious mysteries. The upper
division is decorated with appropriate em-
blems of fruit, leaves, heads of bulls, &c.,
while the lowermost compartment exhibits
goblets, fruit-baskets, torches, serpents,
and two human heads.
Eggeling's learned treatise was met by
a counterblast of rhetoric from Dr. Feller,
Professor of Poetry at Leipzig, and libra-
rian to the University, who declared that
the figures referred to the Eleusinian
mysteries, and were not Bacchanalian in
character, as the secretary had asserted.
Soon a paper war disturbed the atmos-
phere of German academic literature,
which reached its height in an angry re-
tort by Eggeling, entitled Abstersio Fel-
lerianarn7n Calwnjiiartim atque acerbissi-
inarum Inj iiriam m (Qrtm^e, 1689); but
which left the question of the real signifi-
cance of the bas-reliefs undecided.
The monetary value of the treasure
seemed to have been nearly as difficult of
determination as the subject of its decora-
tions, and in the inventories of the ducal
pretiosa it fluctuated between 60,000 and
160,000 Reichs-thaler. In the beginning
of the eighteenth century an attempt was
made by the then possessors (the widow
of Duke Ferdinand Albert and her sons)
to find a purchaser for the vase, in order
to give the Princess Sophia Eleonora of
Brunswick the sixth part of the purchase-
money in part payment of her dowry, in
accordance with her father's intentions ;
but no one presented himself as a com-
petitor for the prize, and the onyx cup,
after a prolonged public but carefully
guarded exhibition, was restored to its
own iron chest, which was only to be un-
locked in the presence of a high Court
official.
In 1766, after having been the joint
property of the Brunswick and Bevern
branches of the family, it became the sole
possession of the reigning ducal line, and
thenceforth it followed the chequered for-
tunes of those princes. After the battle
of Jena, in 1806, in which Duke Charles
William of Brunswick was mortally
wounded, the onyx vase passed with the
fugitive family from Liibeck to Sweden,
next from Als to Slesvig, and was at length
deposited at Gliicksburg, whence, how-
ever, from fear of Danish interference
and in imminent peril of being seized by
the French, it was conveyed to England
by Colonel Von Nordenfels, whose perils
by sea from privateers, and dangers by
land from hostile armies, would fill a vol-
ume. Napoleon was at that very time
turning a longing eye on the Mantuan
onyx, and in return for its possession he
is said to have offered to remit half a
million francs of the war indemnity in
which poor Brunswick was mulcted, but
in vain ; the family clung with hereditary
tenacity to their precious treasure, and
refused to listen to the tempter. ' On De-
cember 23d, 1810, Colonel Nordenfels,
attended by a faithful servant, left Gliicks-
burg, and after passing through Prussia
and Sweden to disarm suspicion, assuming
disguises of every kind, and having to en-
dure detention, delays, and interrogations
5o8
THE PETRARCHIAN COMMEMORATION.
at every turn, he reached London on April
15th, 181 1, and had the satisfaction, on
the same day, of consigning his precious
charge to the hands of the widowed
Duchess Augusta of Brunswick.
Like many other fugitives of note, the
Mantuan onyx remained in London till
1814, when it returned to Brunswick with
the long exiled princes of the duchy.
For a time it seemed as if nothing more
could now threaten the peaceful rest of
the wanderer ; but in 1830, when the
reigning Duke Charles heard his people
clamouring for his downfall, and saw his
palace in flames, he bethought him of his
Mantuan treasure before he sought safety
in flight, and having sent a confidential
friend to remove it from the ducal mu-
seum, he carried it away with him.
Thenceforth nothing was known of it.
No one ever saw it during the lifetime of
the eccentric Diamond Duke ; and when
the city of Geneva, in conformity with his
testamentary wishes, claimed as his uni-
versal residuary legatee all his works of
art, a fruitless search was made for the
long vanished onyx vase. At length, after
oft-repeated examination of the ducal
treasures, it was noticed that a shred of
flannel protruded from the base of a me-
tallic vase which appeared to be of very
little value. On a closer inspection this
vase was found to be split lengthways,
and to be excessively heavy when com-
pared with another vase of identical form
and external appearance with which it
seemed to form a pair. On separating
the split surfaces the onyx came to view
perfectly intact and uninjured, and thus
the mystery of its supposed disappearance
was at once explained. Genevan art-
lovers were overjoyed at the discovery,
but their hopes of calling the peerless
beauty their own were shattered by the
claim set up by the reigning Duke of
Brunswick for the Mantuan onyx as an
inalienable heirloom of his family ; and
now, after a second separation of thirty-
four years, the gem is restored to the
ducal museum of Brunswick. Since its
unexpected resuscitation, various draw-
ings and photographs have appeared of it
in Germany, and among these the best is
a water-colour sketch by Professor A
Gnauth, which gives a very correct repre-
sentation of the figures with which it is
decorated.
From The Athenaet m,
THE PETRARCHIAN COMMEMORATION.
Avignon, July 2 r.
I OUGHT to date this letter, perhaps,
from Vaucluse, because it was there that
the picture was most effectively, if not
most fervidly, coloured, and that the story
of the poet's life and passion told itself
most eloquently. The only obstacle to a
really poetical sympathy with the occasion
was the inordinate crush of visitors from
every district of the South, all pretending
to an interest in Petrarch's reputation^
yet generally absorbed in picnicking be-
neath the shadow of those trees which
they affect to fancy hallowed. Ten tnou-
sand was the least estimate formed of the
number of persons who arrived by the
trains on Monday alone. But, before
noticing the special Vauclusian celebra-
tion, I may as well remark, in brief, upon
the commemoration at Avignon itself.
Tiiis must have been programmed — if
such an Americanism be permissible —
by some persons who scarcely knew
whether the lover of Laura was an aero-
naut, a gladiator, a soldier, or an actor ;
for nothing could be more incongruous
than the arrangements, including, as they
did, a bull-fight, a boat-race, an'illumina-
tion, and a military procession by torch-
light. Nevertheless, both Avignon and
Vaucluse put on an appearance for the
ceremony such as, I imagine, thev never
put on before — brilliant with co'lour by
day, ablaze with Chinese lanterns by
night ; and, at both seasons, resonant
with martial music. It is a grand city
this, of mingled sarcerdotal and knightly
architecture : its old walls still frowning';
its round towers still stately; its gates
looking as if no enemy could expect to pass
unless after an armed defiance from the
turrets ; half-decayed palaces ; churches
in which the tombs and tablets bear inde-
cipherable inscriptions ; and streets of a
most mediaeval appearance. In one re-
spect, however, a majority of the pilgrims
were disappointed. Tradition had taught
them to believe that the tomb of Laura,
identified in 1533, when Francis the First
visited Avignon, and became poetical
upon the subject, remained, an extant
relic of the Petrarchian period, a centre
of interest in the church of St. Clare.
No such thing. Both the church and the
grave have vanished. Therefore, a doubt
arises why the fifth centenary of Pe-
trarch's death should have been commem-
orated here. He was not born here, but
in Arezzo, in Tuscany ; he did not die
THE PETRARCHIAN COMMEMORATION.
509
here, but at Arqua, among the Enganean
hills ; nor did he generally live here.
Nevertheless, Avignon claims him as its
own while conceding to Vaucluse a large
proportion of the honour. It is at Vau-
cluse that the column in honour of his
memory was erected just seventy-four
years ago, on the anniversary of his birth.
This monument is precisely equal in
height to the famous cascade, — situated
where the most tender of the sonnets are
believed to have been composed ; con-
fronted by a prodigious rock, round, pol-
ished, and white ; and around it cluster
the true memories of Petrarch. But
Avignon will not have it so, and insisted
upon a magnificent ceremony in its own
name. So distinguished a celebration
has certainly not been held within the
present, and probably not during the past,
century. Peculiarly foreign in its fea-
tures, it nevertheless possessed a charac-
ter and an interest essentially its own.
The gathering of the Provengal min-
strels, to meet the French and Italian
poets at the railway station on Saturday
evening, was, for example, a unique spec-
tacle ; while the wonderful apparition of
mounted heralds all over the town, look-
ing as though they had just started from
out the pages of Froissart, confused your
ideas of time. Then came the Roman
effect of the poet's bust, laurelled and
borne on high, and saluted by indescriba-
able — possibly, inexplicable — acclama-
tions ; and such a march took place as
must have warmed, unless, indeed, it em-
bittered, the heart of living literature.
Around this marble head, and around the
statue of Crillon at the same time, burst
forth a variegated radiance exceedingly
beautiful, amid the thousand reflections
of which arose a loud song in the poet's
honour written in Provencal. The pupils
of the Avignonese Conservatoire sang it
remarkably well, and merited the applause
they obtained. Then torches flamed, and
everybody was escorted home, with im-
partial respect, in their lurid light. Sun-
day opened with an open-air mass in the
square over which the antique palace of
the Popes still casts its irregular shadow,
partly as a monastery, partly as a bar-
rack ; and at this ceremony it appeared
as if everything and everybody, including
the prizes won and the heretics present,
were ostentatiously blessed, besides be-
ing overpowered by military music. Next
came the grand event of the celebration
— the "Grande Cavalcade de Charity,"
in two pageants. It was really worth this
thousand miles' journey to witness ; for
1 it was so historically mediaeval, so per-
I fectly studied, so true to truth, if I may
i thus express myself. The trumpeters,
[the archers, the heralls, might have been
1 approved by Sir Walter Scott himself.
I The chariots, of course, were fanciful, as
i were the effigies of Don Quixote and his
j Squire ; but the reproduction, from au-
1 thorities, of the pomp that accompanied
i the crowning of Petrarch at Rome was a
j wonderful reflection from descriptions
five centuries old. This, of course, was
the most fascinating of the demonstra-
tions, although a little bizan'e to modern
j eyes. First rode the halberdiers, in threat-
ening panoply ; then succeeded " the
chariot of war," resplendent in blood-col-
our and gold ; after this, in a strange con-
trast, the innocent fishermen, net-makers,
gondoliers, and harvest-men, with whom
were goldsmiths, tailors, merchants, paint-
ers, and money-changers. Industry and
Commerce succeeded, in a sort of golden
state, but they attracted comparatively
little attention, for the ancient genius of
France was coming into sight, white-
plumed and steel-he) meted, mounted
trumpeters, mounted musketeers again,
mounted lansquenets, mounted Knights
of Malta, and challengers of all descrip-
tions. In the next place, a train of
ghosts, in their manner as they lived,
superbly horsed and mounted — Azzo da
Correggio, Lord of Parma; Malavacina,
Lord of Messina ; the Counts Annibaldi,
Savelli, Montenera, and Cafarelli, whose
figures are so familiar in Italian history ;
the Colonna, the Carrara, and Jourdain
des Ursins, as the French programme
calls him, the terrible Governor of Rome.
They made up a cavalcade of unrivalled
picturesqueness, at the very strangeness
and even grotesqueness of which nobody
seemed inclined to so much as smile. It
was all in honour of Petrarch, and Pe-
trarch here is the presiding spirit of the
day. Nothing could be more evident
than when his particular chariot, on
gilded wheels, and drawn by eight milk-
white palfreys, came along, himself en-
throned, and around him standing Boc-
caccio, Pietro Alighieri, Jacopo Dandolo,
Ugolino da Rosci, Cancelleri, and the
painter Memmi. The Southern enthu-
siasm at this moment took fire, and every
one went into ecstacies, as though Fran-
cesco Petrarca, dead precisely five hun-
dred years ago, had been his intimate
personal friend. No doubt a great deal
of excitement was due to the effective-
ness of the pageant itself. Every detail,
it was obvious, had been carefully and
s^^
THE HEARNE LETTERS.
even learnedly studied ; down to the col-
our, cut, variety of armour and arms
worn ; so that we had, so far as was pos-
sible, a faithful reproduction of a scene
in Petrarch's time. It mattered little
that, at Vaucluse, instead of being wholly
sentimental, we lunched with the learned
societies beneath the shade of trees de-
clared to have been consecrated by the
poet ; that we marched, on our return,
along the newly-named Petrarch Street,
to the sound of various melodies ; or that
we afterwards supped, without stint or
melancholy, at the Hotel de Ville, with
cordial speeches from ihe Mayor, and M,
Mezieres, of the French Academy ; or
that we witnessed with pleasure the
bright red and golden illumination which
made the half-dilapidated Papal palatial
ruins vivid in the evening. The spirit of
Petrarch self-evolved or communicated,
was, notwithstanding, for a few hours, at
any rate, supreme, and gave dignity and
a poetry to the city of Avignon, which
none present could fail to appreciate.
My next will be an exclusively Vauclu-
sian letter. H. J.
From The Athenseum.
THE HEARNE LETTERS.*
The letters contained in this volume
(printed uniformly with the small quartos
of the Camden Series) come from the
Rawlinson MSS. in the Bodleian Library.
There are fifty-five of them, and, speaking
generally, they are of little interest. Nev-
ertheless, he who reads them honestly
through, will find here and there curious
illustrations of life and manners, which
will repay perusal. The dates extend
from 1705 to 1730. At the earlier date
Hearne was twenty-seven years of age.
He went to Oxford in 1696, after, it is
said, having been in some sort a pupil of
pious Henry Dodwell. He began by col-
lecting Biblical MSS. for Mill and Grabe,
and, having taken his degree of M. A., he
was successively assistant and second
librarian in the Bodleian ; and, in 1715,
arch i typographer and esquire bedel of the
civil law. ^ He gave up all, sturdy as he
was, rather than take the oaths of alle-
giance to George the First ; but he con-
tinued to work as a scholar in the Uni-
versity, where he died in 1735.
It is curious that there are no letters in
* Letters Addressed to Thomas Hearne, M.A., of
Edmund Hall. Edited by Frederick Ouvry. (Pri-
vately printed.)
this volume of the year in which Hearne
proved his Jacobitism and his distaste for
Hanover and the Whigs. His Jacobitism
was of a rough and often vulgar sort ; but
he seems to have corresponded with men
who were adversaries, at least in politics.
Their letters, too often prosy, contain, as
we have said, traits of life and manners
worth noting. In 1706, Elias Smith writes
to him, — "Tom Tuddal, Organist of S.
John's, talking in company abt ye Bur-
ghess of Hartford presenting his adress &
being refus'd by ye Q., ' Ay,' sd he, 'if
Dr. Burgess had presented ye Q. would
have receivd it.' Ye Chancellor D. Som-
erset heard of it, & has wrott a pressing
letter to have him expell'd. This you
may tell abt to bid them have a care of
punning in Oxford." A letter from John
Hudson leads us to folk-lore. He writes
from Theddlethorpe, and, alluding to the
Drumming Well, says, " I was told by my
obliging Landlord, who was ye best &
most knowing man in ye town, yt he heard
it beat on ye very day we had ye great
overthrow in Spain." All the town said
the same, and Hudson had no doubt on
the matter. Hudson's letters are by far
the raciest in this collection. He rides
to York, like Turpin, but not at such a
brisk rate, and his notes by the way are
amusing. At Peterborough, he says,
"As I went into the Ch. just as ye Even-
ing Prayers wr ended, I mett ye Bishop,
& beg'd his blessing ; I told him yt I was
a Traveller yt came from Oxon, & yt my
name was . He reply'd a very good
name, & so went his way." Subsequently,
the prelate encountering Hudson in the
Cathedral, showed him over it. " He
then," says Hudson, " invited me to drink a
glass of wine or ale wth him in his House.
. . . Wn I went in he offerr'd me my
choice of Wine or Ale ; I told him wch
his Lordship pleas'd ; & then there came
a tankard of excellt drink such as Hed-
dington cannot afford." Hudson, how-
ever, was disgusted that the Bishop did
not invite him (a stranger) to dinner. " I
fancy," he maliciously adds, " ye reason
was, yt all his daughters wr dispos'd of."
John Hudson loved good liquor. Bound
for Cambridge, the heat caused him to
put up " in ye edge of yt County," where,
he says, " I mett wth such incomparable
liquor, as would have stop't you fr "
reaching the University that nigh
When he arrived there at last. Dr. Be
ley received him "wth a sort of hau
civility, such as it seems is natural to
him." After which, Hudson rode north-
ward, but did not reach Lynn as early
ble
h^
THE HEARNE LETTERS.
5^1
he expected, "ye Norfolcians giveing a
larger measure to yr miles yn to yr cloth."
But Hudson entered York at last, and
" Florence," he says, " is ye liquor we re-
member or friends in ; & good Port wine
& water passes for or small beer." Hud-
son lived cheaply enough during his ride.
He notices having got at Cambridge " ex-
cellt wine at 2od. a bottle." Those good
old times !
The most important letter in the series
is one from Dr. Evans, in which there is
an account of Sacheverell and his famous
sermon, preached at St. Paul's. Hearne
would have differed from the writer, but
he must have been amused by this de-
scription of the preacher : —
Last Saturday being ye vth of Novemb D :
Sacheverel your mighty Boanerges thunderd
most furiously at Paul's against ye phanaticks
for condemning ye King of high treason against
his supream subjects, as he express'd it. He
spoke very freely of ye toleration Act, & charged
ye Mayors and Magistrates with want of zeal
for ye Church, & play'd particularly & ex-
pressly upon ye B. of Sarum ; whom he hoped
was no great friend to popery he said, but
by his exposition on the Articles on wd think
he was halfe channelled over. We were about
30 Clergymen in ye Quire, & among ye rest
ye minister of Battersea who is lately come
over to our Church, Sacheverel having heard of
his Conversion, levelled his arguments and
anathemas most virulently against him, and
ye whole tribe of 'em : in so much yt all ye
Congregation were shaken agen at the ter-
rours of his inveterate expressions. The
whigs says he are Conformists in faction halfe
Conformists in practise, & non Conformists in
Judgment, formerly they labour'd to bring ye
Church into ye Conventicle, but now they
bring ye Conventicle into ye Church, which
will prove its Inevitable ruine. His text was
this word : In perils among false brethren, &
his sermon upon 't was so violent that I think
my Ld Mayor & Court of Aldermen will
hardly desire him to print it : but if it be
printed, I 'le endeavr to get it you, provided
I happen to be then in town.
The sermon, vvkich, denouncing insur-
rections against the sovereiffn. con-
demned the revolution which placed
William and Mary on the throne, and
consequently insinuated that Anne had
no right to occupy it;, was printed. Ben-
nett thus speaks of the manner and the
man : —
I don't question but that you have seen Dr.
Sacheverel's bold discourse at St. Paul's on ye
^th November. I had the Curiosity to hear
It, & so can assure you 'tis verbatim as 'twas
preach't. It lasted a full hour & a half, &was
deliverd with all the Assurance & Confidence
that violent Preacher is so reniarkal le for. I
could not have imagined if I had not actually
heard it my self, that so much Heat, Passion,
Violence, & scurrilous Language, to say no
worse of it, could have come from a Protestant
Pulpit, much less from one that pretends to be
a member of the Church of England. If I
had heard it in a Popish Chappel, or a Con-
venticle, I should not have wonder'd : but in a
Cathedral, it greatly surprized me. I'm sure
such Discourses will never convert any one,
but I'm afray'd will rather give the Enemies
of our Church great advantage over her ;
since the best that her true sons can say of it,
is that the man is mad : and indeed most
People here think him so.
In June, 171 1, Hilkiah Bedford sends
Hearne an account of the illness and
burial of Bishop Ken, at Longleat. The
account of the burial is new : " Bp. Ken
was bury'd before 6 in ye morning by his
own apptmt, for ye more privacy : at-
tended to the grave only by my Ld
W[eymouth]'s Steward (I think) & 12
poore men yt carried him by turns, & had
$5. a piece for it ; ye coffin cover'd wth a
few yards of black cloth, instead of a
Pall, &. yt given to ye minister of ye Par-
ish for a gown."
Mary Barnes, writing of the death of
her husband, the Greek scholar, affords
an example of how words change in sig-
nification in course of time. Hearne had
been kind to Joshua Barnes, and the
widow tells him, " I shall hereafter en-
deavour to shew how much I resent good
Mr. Hearne's continued civilities." Good
Mr. Hearne had to be more than civil tn
various quarters, and particularly to his
father and his household. The old parish
clerk and schoolmaster must have bee6
deep in the vale of years in 1716. H^
was proud of his son as the editor of Livy
and other books, at which he was "rav-
isht with joy," and only wished he had
more Latin to understand them. Thus
writes the father in 1716 : —
The weather proving so bad I know not
whether I may se your face againe, for I expect
to be laid quite up this winter if I live so long
for the pain will kill me if I can goe about,
good son if you have any spare cast Linnen as
shirts bands or handkerchiefs or a pair of old
stockings which will go into a small bundle
send it by the carrier as soon as you can. I
shall be very thankfull and accept them be
they ne're so mean for at present 'tis hard with
me being to pay my Rent that I cannot buy
any thing of apparel & I cannot work. Ned
is Gardener at Coll. Sawyers William & he
gives their loves to you & Wm thanks you for
sending him the Guinea to help his charge he
has only his cloths which were but mean
neither for all his charge he was not married
but was sure to one som time and she married
512
THE HEARNE LETTERS.
another which was the cause of his being un-
settled in minde ever since.
Again, in 1717, George Hearne sends
up a cry to Oxford : " If you have any
old worsted stockings of a sad collour put
up a paire and remember to lend me some
diverting book , . . some diverting His-
tory which shall certainly be returned wth
hearty thanks." Old George endured life
painfull3^ Dr. Morris, of Wells, was de-
termined to go out of it tunefully. This
physician ordered in his will, says John
Tottenham, "yt three Sonatas should be
play'd over his Corps just before it was
carry'd from ye House to ye church.
And ye Ceremony was yesterday per-
form'd." What a subject for a picture !
There was a serious gratefulness in the
playing of those sonatas ; and indeed the
times were serious. In other words,
there was not that general indifference in
religious matters as some persons have
litated. Cuthbert Constable, a Roman
Catholic, writes to Hearne in 1730 as
follows (the " worthy person " alluded to
was Dr. Howarden, but he went by the
name of Harrison, being a Catholic, but
also " a potent enimy to the bad Doctrine
of the Jesuits"): —
I think it will not be amiss to acquaint you
with some of the good qualities of that worthy
person who had a publick dispute with Dr.
Clark at his own house where there were more
Ladys of Quality than Scholars which was the
greater pitty ; however the Gentleman I speak
of was generaly thought to have had much the
better in the dispute and Dr. Clark was so
fair an enimy as to acknowledge and confess
his great learning and abilities and one of the
greatest persons of quality amongst the Ladies
and who was so great an admirer of Dr. Clark
that she ust commonly for her tost to chouse
Dr. Clark Mistress which she was accustomed
to say was truth so blinded she was by this
srnouth Dr. This Lady I say as great an ad-
mirer as she was of Clark yet sent the next
day after the dispute to his adversary and
made him very handsome compliments.
The above are fresh sketches of a by-
gone period, and they are as pleasant to
read as to think over. The collection
contains no other examples of the life of
the eighteenth century of special inter-
est ; but there are many references to
books which will attract the lovers of
such references. The volume would have
been much improved by explanatory
notes, and also by such an Index as gen-
erally accompanies the volumes issued by
the Camden Society.
Mr. Loiseau of Philadelphia has invented
a machine which, with the help of two men,
will produce one hundred and fifty tons of
artificial fuel in a day. The materials are
ninety-five per cent, of coal-dust with five per
cent, of clay, sprinkled during the mixing with
milk of lime. The pasty mass is then moulded
into egg-shaped lumps ; these are dried on
belts of wire-gauze, are dipped into a solution
of resin and benzine, to render them damp-
proof, and are ready for the market. In this
way, it is hoped a means of utilizing the pro-
digious heaps of coal-dust at the Pennsylvania
mines has been discovered.
On the 15th May was sold, in Paris, by
auction, the first part of the curious library of
the late M. Lucien de Rosney, father of the
eminent Japanese scholar. It was rich in fine
and, above all, eccentric bindings, such as in
skins of cat, garnet coloured and buff, croco-
dile, mole, seal, fur of the Canadian black
wolf, royal tiger, otter, white bear, sole, and
rattle-snake. The legendary human skin bind-
ing is alone wanting in the list. The latter
reminds the writer of a visit he paid some
thirty years ago to the Imperial library of the
Hradschin in Prag, when he was shown an
excessively rare MS., written on a small sheet
of parchment by the celebrated John Zizka.
A commercial traveller, who was present, re-
membering that the great Hussite leader de- '^m
sired that after his death his skin should be ™
used for a drum, to frighten the enemies of
his cause, asked if Zizka really wrote on his
own skin. Alhenseum.
. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.
Fifth Series, I
Volume VII. 5
No. 1577.— August 29, 1874.
( From Beginning,
( Vol. CXXII.
CONTENTS.
I. The Countess of Nithsdale, . . . Quarterly Review^
II. The Story of Valentine; and his
Brother. Part XI., Blackwood's MagazirUy
III. Family Jewels, Blackwood's Magazine^ ,
IV. The Manor- House at Milford. Part II., Chambers' Journal^
V. The Convent of San Marco. II. — The
Frate, Macmillan's Magazine^
VI. Fritz Reuter, Pall Mall Gazette^
POETRY.
July Dawning, . ' . , , . 514
In the Spring, ..... 514
On Reading Dora Wordsworth's
Recollections of a Journey
IN Scotland in 1803, with her
Brother and Coleridge,
5^5
530
539
553
565
574
514
Miscellany, 57^
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY
LITTELL. & G-AY, BOSTON
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.
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LiTTELL & Gay.
5^4
JULY DAWNING, ETC.
JULY DAWNING.
We left the city, street and square,
With lamplights glimmering through and
through,
And turned us toward the suburb, where —
Full from the east — the fresh wind blew.
One cloud stood overhead the sun —
A glorious trail of dome and spire —
The last star flickered, and was gone ;
The first lark led the matin choir.
Wet was the grass beneath our tread.
Thick-dewed the bramble by the way ;
The lichen had a lovelier red,
The elder-flower a fairer gray.
And there was silence on the land.
Save when, from out the city's fold.
Stricken by Time's remorseless wand,
A bell across the morning tolled.
The beeches sighed through all their boughs ;
The gusty pennons of the pine
Swayed in a melancholy drowse.
But with a motion sternly fine.
One gable, full against the sun,
Flooded the garden-space beneath
With spices, sweet as cinnamon.
From all its honeysuckled breath.
Then crew the cocks from echoing farms,
The chimney-tops were plumed with smoke,
The windmill shook its slanted arms,
The sun was up, the country woke !
And voices sounded 'mid the trees
Of orchards red with burning leaves.
By thick hives, sentinelled by bees —
From fields which promised tented sheaves ;
Till the day waxed into excess.
And on the misty, rounding gray —
One vast, fantastic wilderness,
The glowing roofs of London lay.
Chambers' Journal.
IN THE SPRING.
lT*is spring, laughs the blue hepatica, as it
gems the garden bed ;
It is spring, breathes the modest primrose, as
it rears its virgin head ;
It is spring, says the pure anemone, amid the
vivid grass.
That waves beneath the merry winds, and
glitters as we pass.
The wild birds hail the spring-time, as they
mate, and sing, and build.
The whole great sweep of earth and sky, with
spring's gay smile is thrilled.
Young lambs in sunlit pastures, young chick-
ens in the croft.
Renew the lovely miracle that Nature sees so
oft.
And someting in my heart revives, that silent,
sad, and strong.
Fades all the early blooms for me, and jars the
thrushes' song.
The life that throbs in April's heart wakes
every mortal thing.
And grief, with birds, and buds, and flowers,
stirs freshly in the spring.
All The Year Round.
ON READING DORA WORDSWORTH'S REC-
OLLECTIONS OF A JOURNEY IN SCOT-
LAND IN 1803, WITH HER BROTHER AND
COLERIDGE.
I CLOSE the book, I shut my eyes,
I see the three before me rise, —
Loving sister, famous brother.
Each one mirrored in the other.
Brooding William, artless Dora,
Who was to her very core a
Lover of dear Nature's face,
In its perfect loveliness, —
Lover of her glens and flowers.
Of her sunlit clouds and showers,
Of her hills and of her streams.
Of her moonlight — when she dreams ;
Of her tears and of her smiles,
Of her quaint delicious wiles;
Telling what best pleasures lie
In the loving, unspoiled eye.
In the reverential heart.
That in great Nature sees God's art
And him — the man " of large discourse,"
Of pregnant thought, of critic force.
That gray-eyed sage, who was not wise
In wisdom that in doing lies.
But who had " thoughts that wander through
Eternity " — the old and new.
Who, when he rises on our sight.
Spite of his failings, shines all bright,
With something of an angel light.
We close the book with thankful heart,
Father of Lights, to Thee, who art
Of every good and perfect gift
The giver, — unto thee we lift
Our souls in praver, that all may see
Thy hand, thy heart, in all they see.
" Arran," in London Spectator."
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
515
From The Quarterly Review.
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.*
Collections of family papers have of
late years much increased in both size
and numbers. Even where no one of the
name has risen to historical importance
there are chests full of documents and
letters that are lavishly poured forth. At
present it not unfrequently happens that
the records of a single not always very
eminent house take up as many printed
pages as would have been deemed suffi-
cient thirty years ago to instruct a young
student in the whole history of England
or almost of Europe.
We are far, however, from complaining
of this abundance. Even when a • man
was not himself distinguished, he may
have had companionship or common ac-
tion with those who were. By such means
a thousand little traits of character may
come unexpectedly to light. Still oftener
there may, nay, there must, be reference
to the domestic economies, the modes of
living and the manners and customs of
past times. Thus, when family papers
are selected with care and edited with
judgment — as was eminently the case,
for example, with the " Caldwell Collec-
tion," comprised in three quarto volumes,
and printed for the Maitland Club in 1854
— they scarcely ever fail to yield fruit of
price to the historian.
In the collection now before us are
contained the records of the Maxwell
family, belonging to Lord Herries, the
present head of that ancient house, and
confided by him to Mr. William Eraser
for arrangement and annotation. The
result has been a truly splendid work.
These are two quarto volumes of the
largest size, almost, indeed, rising to the
dignity — as they certainly exceed the
usual weight — of folios. The one vol-
ume is of 604 pages, the other of 590 : —
Vix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent,
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus.
No expense, we may add, has been
spared in the beautiful types, in the fac-
similes of ancient autographs, and the
engravings of family portraits or family
* The Book of Carlaverock. 2 vols., large quarto.
Edinburgh, 1873 (not published).
\ seats. The book is not for sale ; and the
impression, we observe, has been limited
to 150 copies, so that we should consider
it beyond our sphere, and printed only for
private circulation, had not Lord Herries
made \\. piiblici juris by presenting a copy
in July last year to the Library of the
British Museum.
Mr. Eraser, as editor of this collection,
seems to us to have done his part with —
we may say at least — perspicuity and
candour. We have only to complain that,
in the first half, at all events, of the eigh-
teenth century, to which in these volumes
our attention has been exclusively direct-
ed, he has made himself but very slightly
acquainted with the other writers of the
time. From this cause, as we conceive,
he has left in obscurity some points which
a wider reading would have enabled him
to clear. To give only one instance —
for we should take no pleasure in any
long list of minute omissions — Mr. Era-
ser, in Lady Traquair's letter of January
1724, has failed to see, or certainly, at
least, has failed to explain, that the " Sir
John " therein mentioned was one of the
cant names for the Chevalier de St.
George, or the Pretender, as we used to
call him. Nor has he observed that the
document there discussed is a letter of
that Prince, dated August 20, 1723, and
printed by Mr. Eraser in one of his pre-
ceding pages.
Of the many personages who in these
volumes are presented to us, there is
only one that we shall here produce. We
desire to give our readers some account
of that lady who saved her husband's life
from the extremest peril, by the rare com-
bination of high courage and inventive
skill, a determined constancy of purpose,
and a prompt versatility of means.
Lady Winifred Herbert was the fifth
and youngest daughter of the Marquis of
Powis ; himself descended from the sec-
ond son of the first Herbert Earl of Pem-
broke. The exact year of her birth is
nowhere to be found recorded. The Mar-
quis, her father, was a zealous Roman
Catholic, and, as may be supposed, a
warm adherent of James the Second. He
followed that Prince in his exile, held the
post of Lord Chamberlain in his melan-
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
Si6
choly Court, and received from him fur-
ther the patent of Duke, which was never
acknowledged in England. He died in
1697, but his wife and daughter continued
to reside at St. Germains under the pro-
tection of the Queen, Mary of Modena.
William fifth Earl of Nithsdale had
been left a minor by his father's untimely
death, but was brought up by his surviv-
ing parent in the same principled of de-
voted attachment to the house of Stuart
and to the Church of Rome. On attaining
his majority he repaired to St. Germains,
and did homage to the Prince, whom he
continued to regard as his rightful King.
A more tender motive arose to detain
him. He fell in love with Lady Winifred
Herbert, who proved no inexorable
beauty. They were married in the spring
of 1699, and he bore away his bride to
his house and fair gardens of Terregles.
Since her noble exploit in the Tower
these gardens have been examined with
interest for any trace of the departed
heroine. But, as Mr. Fraser informs us,
they have been greatly changed since her
time. Only " some old beech hedges and
a broad green terrace still remain much
the same as then."
We may take occasion to observe of
the new-married pair that there was some
diversity in the spelling of their name.
English writers have most commonly in-
serted an /, and made it Nithisdale ; but
the Earl and Countess themselves signed
Nithsdaill.
The Countess bore her lord five chil-
dren, three of whom, however, died in
early childhood. At the insurrection of
1715 they had but two surviving, — a son,
William Lord Maxwell, and an infant
daughter. Lady Anne. And here in ordi-
nary course might close the record of her
life, but for the shining events of 1715,
which called forth her energies both to
act and to endure.
It need scarcely be related even to the
least literary of our readers how, in 1715,
the standard of the Chevalier — "James
the Third," as his adherents called him
— was raised, by Lord Mar in the High-
lands and by Mr. Forster and Lord Der-
wentwater in Northumberland. Lord
Kenmure gave the like example to the
Scottish Peers of the southern counties,
setting out to join Forster with a small
band of retainers. Considering the prin-
ciples of Lord Nithsdale in Church and
State, his course could not be doubtful.
He, too, at the head of a few horsemen,
appeared in Forster's camp, and shared
the subsequent fortunes of that little
army. To Lord Kenmure, who was a
Protestant, was assigned the chief com-
mand of the Scottish levies. But, as Mr.
Fraser tells us, " the Earl of Nithsdale,
from his position, and from the devotion
of his family to the House of Stuart,
would have been placed at the head of the
insurrection in the north of Scotland had
he not been a Roman Catholic." But
though Mr. Fraser has printed " north,"
he, beyond all doubt, means " south."
There was never any question as to either
Kenmure's or Nithsdale's command be-
yond the Forth.
We need not relate in any detail the
well-known fate of these hasty levies.
They found themselves encompassed at
Preston by a regular force under General
Wills, and were compelled to surrender
without obtaining any better terms than
the promise to await the orders of the
Government and protect them from any
immediate slaughter by the soldiery. It
was only a short respite that most of the
chiefs then obtained. They were at once
sent off as prisoners to London. The
painful circumstances of their entry aie
described as follows in the journal of
Lady Cowper, the wife of the Lord Chan-
cellor : —
December z^, 1715- — This week the prison-
ers were brought to town from Preston. They
came in with their arms tied, and their horses,
whose bridles were taken off, led each by a
soldier. The mob insulted them terribly,
carrying a warming-pan before them, and say-
ing a thousand barbarous things, which some
of the prisoners returned with spirit. The
chief of my father's family was amongst them.
He is above seventy years old. A desperate
fortune had drove him from home, in hopes to
have repaired it. I did not see them come
into town, nor let any of my children do so.
I thought it would be an insulting of the rela-
tives I had here, though almost everybody
went to see them.
I
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
517
The captive Peers being thus brought
to London were sent for safe custody to
the Tower, while preparations for their
trial by the House of Lords were making
in Westminster Hall. Here again we
may borrow from Lady Cowper's jour-
nal : —
February 9, 1716. — The day of the trials.
My Lord was named High Steward by the
King, to his vexation and mine ; but it could
not be helped, and so we must submit, though
we both heartily wished it had been Lord
Nottingham. ... I was told it was customary
to make fine liveries upon this occasion, but I
had them all plain. I think it very wrong to
make a parade upon so dismal an occasion as
that of putting to death one's fellow-creatures,
nor could I go to the trial to see them receive
their sentences, having a relation among them
— Lord Widdrington. The Prince was there,
and came home much touched with compas-
sion. What a pity it is that such cruelties
should be necessary !
But were they necessary ? Certainly not,
according to the temper of present times ;
while in 1716, on the contrary, far from
exceeding, they seem rather to have
fallen short of the popular expectation
and demands.
The trials were quickly despatched.
None of the prisoners could deny that
they had risen in arms against the King.
It only remained for them to plead
" Guilty," and throw themselves on the
Royal mercy. They were condemned to
death as traitors ; and the execution of
Lord Nithsdale, with that of others, was
appointed to take place upon Tower Hill
on Wednesday the 24th of the month.
While Forster's insurrection lasted
Lady Nithsdale remained with her chil-
dren at Terregies. But on learning her
Lord's surrender and his imprisonment
in London, she resolved at once to join
him. Leaving her infant daughter in the
charge of her sister-in-law, the Countess
of Traquair, and burying the family
papers in a nook of the gardens, she set
out, attended only by her faithful maid,
who had been with her ever since her
marriage, a Welshwoman, Cecilia Evans
by name. A journey from Scotland in
mid-winter was then no such easy task.
She made her way on horseback across
the Border, and then from Newcastle to
York. There she found a place in the
coach for herself alone and was forced to
hire a horse for Evans. Nor did her
troubles end there, as she writes from
Stamford, on Christmas Day, to Lady
Traquair, —
The ill-weather, ways, and other accidents,
has made the coach not get further than Gren-
tum (Grantham) ; and the snow is so deep it
is impossible it should stir without some
change of weather ; upon which I have again
hired horses, and shall go the rest of the
journey on horseback to London, though the
snow is so deep that our horses yesterday
were in several places almost buried in it.
. . . To-morrow I shall set forward again. I
must confess such a journey, I believe, was
scarce ever made, considering the weather, by
a woman. But an earnest desire compasses a
great deal with God's help. If I meet my
dear Lord well, and am so happy as to be
able to serve him, I shall think all my trouble
well repaid.
The writer adds : " I think myself
most fortunate in having complied with
your kind desire of leaving my little girl
with you. Had I her with me, she would
have been in her grave by this time, with
the excessive cold." .It was indeed a
season of most unusual rigour. The
Thames was fast bound in ice, and
many wayfarers throughout England
were, it is said, found frozen to death.
The Countess reached London in
safety, but, on her arrival, was thrown by
the hardships of the journey into " a vio-
lent sickness," which confined her for
some days to her bed. All this time she
was anxiously pleading for admittance to
het Lord in the Tower, which at last,
though with some difficulty and under
some restrictions, she obtained. As she
writes : " Now and then by favour I get
a sight of him." There are some hurried
notes from her at this period to Lady
Traquair. But her proceedings are far
more fully to be traced in a letter which
some years afterwards she addressed to
her sister, Lady Lucy Herbert, the Ab-
bess of an English Convent at Bruges.
It thus commences : " Dear sister, my
Lord's escape is such an old story now,
that I have almost forgot it; .but since
you desire the account, to whom I have
too many obligations to refuse it, I will
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
I forget which
Si8
endeavour to call it to mind, and be as
exact in the relation as I can possible."
And so the narrative proceeds.
This most interesting letter had re-
mained unknown for many years. It was
not till 1792 that it was published by the
Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in the
first volume of their " Transactions."
But it came from a faulty, or, rather we
may call it, a touched-iip copy, putting
"the King," for example, where Lady
Nithsdale had written " the Elector," and
often interspersing the phrase " His Ma-
jesty," which she would never have ap-
plied to George the First. In the same
spirit a few trifling inaccuracies of gram-
mar and language are corrected.
Sometimes, also, it might be desired
to soften some roughness of tone. Thus,
for example, the published letter makes
the Countess say, in reference to the
joint petition which it was intended to lay
before the House of Lords, " We were,
however, disappointed, for the Duke of
St. Albans, who had promised my Lady
Derwentwater to present it, failed in his
word." But what Lady Nithsdale really
wrote was this: "Being disappointed
because the Duke of
of the bastard Dukes
In all these cases the motive of the
finishing touches seems perfectly clear.
But there are some other changes that
really seem made only for the love of
change. Is the phrase, as Lady Niths-
dale wrote, " I took the resolution to en-
deavour his escape," improved by making
it, " I formed the resolution to attempt
his escape " ? Or, again, when the Count-
ess describes how, when at St. James's
Palace, she presented the separate peti-
tion to George the First, lie turned from
her while she clung to the skirts of his
coat, and in that manner was dragged
along the passage on her knees until she
fell back fainting, and the petition dropped
to the ground in the "struggle " — Lady
Nithsdale calls it — then why alter it to
"scuffle"?
The original, meanwhile, in Lady
Nithsdale's own handwriting, was still
preserved at Bruges. It was brought
from thence so recently as 1828, as a
present from the English nuns, and is
now among Lord Herries's papers. As
Mr. Eraser informs us, it consists of
eleven closely-written pages of paper
quarto size. At the foot of the last leaf a
small piece has been cut out, which is
thought to have contained the signature
of the writer, and to have been abstracted
by some one of the autograph-collectors
— an evil-minded race, alas ! to whom, in
many cases, the eighth commandment
appears to be quite unknown.
This letter is not dated. The omission
might seem to be sufficiently supplied by
a copy in the library at Terregles, which,
as Mr. Fraser assures us, is " finely bound
in morocco," and which bears the date
"Royal Palais de Rome, April 16, 1718."
This date is accordingly accepted by
Mr. Fraser. We must confess, how-
ever, that we see very strong objections
to it, which, though derived from Mr.
Eraser's volumes, have not, it appears,
occurred to Mr. Fraser himself.
In the first place, although Lord Niths-
dale was at Rome in April 1718, Lady
Nithsdale certainly was not. This may
be shown beyond dispute from the cor-
respondence now before us. In 1717
Lady Nithsdale had gone to a place she
calls " Flesh," that is. La Fl^che, in An-
jou. There she received a visit from her
nephew, Lord Linton, eldest son of the
Earl of Traquair. We find her writing to
her sister-in-law on the ist of September,
1717, " I hope you have heard something
from my nephew L., who came to take his
leave of me on Friday last, to begin his
journey into Italic, and was to leave An-
glers yesterday in order to it." On the
1st of January, 1718, we find her writing
again: "My husband was very well the
last letter I had from him. ... I hope
very soon to hear of your son's being
happily arrived at his journey's end."
And on the ist of May following : " In
one of the loth of March from my hus-
band, he expected his nephew the next
day." On the 22nd of June Lord Linton
writes himself from Rome as follows : " I
am glad to hear that the good lady I saw
at La Fleche is well, though I have not as
yet received any letter from her; yet I
did not fail to deliver the commission she
gave me for her husband." It is quite
clear from these extracts that Lady Niths-
dale was not in the Eternal City during
any part of the period mentioned ; and
that the date of "Rome, April 16, 1718,"
assigned to Jier letter is entirely erro-
neous.
There is another circumstance which
leads us to think that the real date was
several years later. Lady Nithsdale men-
tions in this letter — as we shall presently
see — a servant of the name of Mitchell,
who followed Lord Nithsdale abroad, and
who, she adds, " is now very well placed
with our young Master." The allusion
is, of course, to the exiled Royal Family.
But " the Chevalier de St. George," or,
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
519
as we used to call him, the " Old Pre-
tender," was in 1718 about thirty years of
age. He had no especial claim to this
distinguishing epithet as " our young
Master ; " and is constantly mentioned in
this correspondence as " our Master,"
without any epithet at all. It is probable,
therefore, that the allusion is rather to
his son Charles Edward, who was born in
December 1720, and who from his early
boyhood appears, according to the custom {
of princes, to have had a small household
assigned him. It may also perhaps be
thought that a longer interval would bet-
ter accord with that failure of recollection
on some points, which in her opening
sentence Lady Nithsdale mentions.
Passing from this point in chronology,
in which we cannot help thinking that
the editor might have shown a little more
critical care, we have further to complain
of a slight injustice that he does to, we
admit, not a very great historian. In one
of his notes to the first volume, he re-
marks : " It is certainly necessary here to
notice that Smollett was so ignorant of
this fact, that, in his ' History of Eng-
land,' he says that the Earl of Nithsdale
made his escape in woman's apparel, fur-
nished or conveyed to him by his own
mother." No doubt that Smollett did
commit the error here described. But if
Mr. Eraser had been more widely con-
versant with the other writers of that or
the next ensuing period he would have
known that such was then the common
impression or belief. As the agent in
Lord Nithsdale's escape, his wife is not
mentioned, but his mother instead, by
Boyer, John Wesley, and, above all, Tin-
dall in his valuable " History of England."
So far as we can see, it was not till the
publication of Lady Nithsdale's own nar-
rative that the true facts of the transac-
tion were established. It seems a little
hard, therefore, to single out Smollett for j
especial blame, when he did no more
than repeat the current and accepted
story of his time.
Full of interest as is Lady Nithsdale's
letter, we do not propose to give any fur-
ther extracts from it in this place, since
it has several times already, though with
verbal variations, appeared in print. It
may be found, for instance, in the Ap-
pendix to the second volume of Lord
Mahon's *' History of England." More-
over, it is a little confused in its arrange-
ment. Thus the delivery of her petition
to the King, which should stand first of
the events in order of time, stands by
retrospect the last in her relation. But
we will endeavour, with Mr. Fraser's aid,
to deduce from it a narrative of her
Lord's escape which shall be more con-
cise and equally clear.
Lord Nithsdale was confined in the
house of Colonel D'Oyly, Lieutenant
Deputy of the Tower, in a small room
which looked out on Water Lane, the ram-
parts, and the wharf, and was 60 feet from
the ground. The way from the room was
through the Council Chamber and the
passage and stairs of Colonel D'Oyly's
house. The door of his room was
guarded by one sentinel, that floor by
two, the passages and stairs by several,
and the outer gate by two. Escape
under such circumstances seemed to be
impossible, and, as Lady Nithsdale notes,
it was one of her main difficulties, when
the moment came, to persuade her Lord
to acquiesce in an attempt which, as he
believed, would end in nothing but igno-
minious failure.
The Countess still placed some reli-
ance on the proceedings that impended
in the House of Lords. There on the
22nd of February, only two days before
that fixed for the execution, a petition
was presented, praying the House to in-
tercede with the King in favour of the
Peers under sentence of death. Lady
Nithsdale herself stood in the lobby, with
many other ladies of rank, imploring the
compassion of each Peer as he passed.
A motion to the same effect as the peti-
tion was made in the House, and, not-
withstanding the resistance of the Gov-
ernment, it was carried through the un-
expected aid of Lord Nottingham and by
a majority of five. But there was added
to it a proviso limiting the intercession
with the King to such of the condemned.
Lords as should deserve his mercy. The
meaning was that those only should be
recommended for pardon who would give
information against others who had en-
gaged, although less openly, in the same
unprosperous cause. This extinguished
all Lady Nithsdale's hopes. She well
knew, as she says, that her Lord would
never purchase life on such terms.
"Nor," adds the high-minded woman,
"would I have desired it."
The axe, as we have seen, was ap-
pointed to do its bloody work on the next
day but one, and there was no time to
lose if Lady Nithsdale sought to carry
out the project she had secretly formed
of effecting her Lord's escape in woman's
clothes. No sooner was the debate con-
cluded than she hastened from the House
of Peers to the Tower, where, putting om
520
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
a face of joy, she went up to the guards
at each station and told them that she
brought good news. " No more fear for
the prisoners," she cried, " since now
their petition has passed." Nor, in say-
ing this, was she without an object. She
rightly judged that the soldiers believing
that the prisoners were on the point of
being pardoned would become, of course,
less vigilant. Moreover, at each station
she drew some money from her pocket,
and gave it to the guards, bidding them
drink " the King's health and the Peers'."
But she was careful, as she says, to be
sparing in what she gave ; enough to put
the guards in good humour, and not
enough to raise their suspicions as though
their connivance was desired.
All this time she had never acquainted
the Earl with her design. This plainly
appears from a letter which Lord Herries
has published, dated on this very day,
the 22nd. It is addressed by Lord Niths-
dale to his brother-in-law, the Earl of
Traquair, and bids an affectionate fare-
well to him and to his sister, speaking of
himself as fully expecting and calmly re-
signed to death.
The next morning, the last before the
intended execution, was spent by Lady
Nithsdale in the needful preparations,
and, above all, in securing the assistance
of one Mrs. Morgan, a friend of her faith-
ful Evans. When she was ready to go,
she sent for Mrs. Mills, at whose house
she was lodging, and said : " Finding now
there is no further room for hope of my
Lord's pardon, nor longer time "than this
night, I am resolved to endeavour his
escape. I have provided all that is requi-
site for it ; and I hope you will not re-
fuse to come along with me to the end
that he may pass for you. Nay, more, I
must beg you will come immediately, be-
cause we are full late." Lady Nithsdale
had, with excellent judgment, delayed
this appeal to the last possible moment ;
so that her landlady might be put to an
immediate decision on the spur of pity,
and have no leisure to think of the dan-
ger she was herself incurring by any
share in the escape of a man convicted of
treason. Mrs. Mills having in this sur-
prise assented. Lady Nithsdale bade Mrs.
Morgan, who was tall and slender — her
height not unlike Lord Nithsdale's — to
put under her own riding-hood another
which Lady Nithsdale had provided, and
after this all three stepped into the coach,
which was ready at the door. As they
drove to the Tower Lady Nithsdale has
noted that she never ceased to talk
with her two companions, so as to leave
them no time to reflect.
On arriving at their destination the
Countess found that, as usual, she was
allowed to take in but one person at a
time. She first took Mrs. Morgan, and
while they went up stairs spoke, so as to
be overheard, of the necessity that, be-
sides the Lords' vote, she should present
a separate petition of her own. Within
the prisoner's chamber she bade Mrs.
Morgan take out and leave the riding-
j hood that she had brought beneath her
I clothes, and then conducted her out
again, saying as she went, " Pray do me
the kindness to send my maid to me that
I may be dressed, else I shall be too late
with my petition."
Having thus dismissed Mrs. Morgan,
the Countess next brought in Mrs. Mills.
As they passed she bade Mrs. Mills hold
her handkerchief to her face, as though
in tears, designing that the Earl should
go forth in the same manner, and thus
conceal, in part at least, his face from
the guards. When alone with him in his
chamber, they proceeded as they best
could to disguise him. He had a long
beard, which there was not time to shave,
but the Countess daubed it over with
j some white paint that she had provided.
In like manner she put some red paint on
his cheeks and some yellow on his eve-
brows, which were black and thick, while
I Mrs. Mills's were blonde and slight ; and
j she had also ready some ringlets of the
, same coloured hair. Next she made
1 Mrs. Mills take off the riding-hood in
which she came and put on instead that
which Mrs. Morgan had brought. Finally
j they proceeded to equip Lord Nithsdale
, in female attire by the aid of the riding-
I hood which the guards had just before
seen on Mrs. Mills — by the aid also of
all Lady Nithsdale's petticoats but one.
Matters being so far matured, Lady
Nithsdale opened the door and led out
the real Mrs. Mills, saying aloud, in a
tone of great concern, " Dear Mrs. Cath-
erine, I must beg you to go in all haste
and look for my woman, for she certainly
does not know what o'clock it is, and has
forgot the petition I am to give, which
should I miss is irreparable, having but
this one night ; let her make all the haste
she can possible, for I shall be uj
thorns till she comes." In the ai
room there were then eight or nine p?
sons, the wives and daughters of the
guards ; they all seemed to feel for the
Countess, and quickly made way for he:
companion. The sentry at the oute
i
A
THE COUNTESS
door in like manner opened it with alac-
rity, and thus Mrs. Mills went out. Lady
Ni'thsdale then returning to her Lord, put
a finishing touch to his disguise, and
waited patiently until it was nearly dark,
and she was afraid that candles would be
brought. This she determined was the
best time to go ; so she led forth by the
hand the pretended Mrs. Mills, who, as
though weeping, held up a handkerchief
to her eyes, while Lady Nithsdale, with
every expression of grief, loudly lamented
herself that her maid Evans had been
so neglectful, and had ruined her by her
long delay. " So, dear Mrs. Betty," she
added, " run and bring her with you, for
God's sake ; you know my lodgings, and
if ever you made haste in your life, do it
now, for I am almost distracted with this
disappointment." The guards, not a
little mollified by Lady Nithsdale's gifts
the day before, and fully persuaded that
a reprieve was at hand, had not taken
much heed of the ladies whom they saw
pass to and fro, nor exactly reckoned
their number. They opened the door,
without the least suspicion, to Lady
Nithsdale and the false Mrs. Mills, and
both accordingly went out. But no
sooner past the door than Lady Niths-'
dale slipped behind her Lord on the way
down stairs, and made him precede her,
lest the guards, on looking back, should
observe his gait, as far different from a
lady's. All the time that they walked
down she continued to call to him aloud
in a tone of great distress, entreating him
to make all possible haste, for the sake of
her petition ; and at the foot of the last
stairs she found, as agreed, her trusty
Evans, into whose hands she put him.
It had further been settled by Lady
Nithsdale that IVfr. Mills should wait for
them in the open space before the Tower, i
Mr. Mills had come accordingly, but was
so thoroughly convinced of the hopeless
nature of the enterprise, that, on seeing
Mrs. Evans and the false Mrs. Mills ap-
proach him, he grew quite dazed, and, in
his confusion, instead of helping them,
ran home. Evans, however, retained her
presence of mind. She took her pre-
cious charge, in the first place, to some
friends on whom she could rely, and
thence proceeding alone to Mr. Mills's
house, learnt from him which was the
hiding-place he had provided. To this
they now conducted the Earl. It was a
house just before the Court of Guards,
and belonged to a poor woman who had
but one tiny room, up a small pair of
stairs, and containing one poor little bed.
OF NITHSDALE.
521
Meanwhile Lady N.thsdale, after see-
ing her husband pass the gates in his dis-
guise, had returned to the chamber,
lately his, upstairs. There, so as to be
heard outside, she affected to speak to
him and to answer as if he had spoken to
her, imitating his voice as nearly as she
could, and walking up and down, as
though they had walked and talked to-
gether. This she continued to do until
she thought he had time to get out of his
enemies' reach. " I then began to think,"
she adds, "it was fit for me to get out of
it also." Then opening the door to de-
part, she went half out, and holding it in
her hand so that thpse without might hear,
she took what seemed to be a solemn
leave of her Lord for that night, complain-
ing again of Evans's delay, and saying
there was no remedy but to go herself in
search of her. She promised that if the
Tower were still open after she had done,
she would see him again that night ; but
that otherwise, as soon as ever it was
opened in the morning, she would cer-
tainly be with him, and hoped to bring
him good news. Before shutting the door
she drew to the inside a little string that
lifted up a wooden latch, so that it could
only be opened by those within, and she
then shut the door with a flap, so that it
might be securely closed. This being
done, she took her departure. As she
passed by she told the Earl's valet de
chauibre, who knew nothing of the plan of
escape, that my Lord would not have
candles till he called for them, for that he
would finish some prayers first.
On leaving the Tower Lady Nithsdale
observed several hackney-coaches wait-
ing in the open space, and taking one,
she drove first to her own lodgings.
There she dismissed the coach for fear
of being traced, and went on in a sedan-
chair to the house of Anne Duchess of
Buccleuch, widow of the ill-fated Mon-
mouth. The Duchess had promised to
be ready to go with her to present, even
almost at the last moment, her single
petition ; and Lady Nithsdale now left a
message at her door, with her " most
humble service," to say that her Grace
need not give herself any further trouble,
it being now thought fit to give a general
petition in the name of all.
From the Duchess of Buccleuch's Lady
Nithsdale, again changing her convey-
ance, and calling a second sedan-chair,
went on to the Duchess of -Montrose's.
The Duke was on the Government side,
but the Duchess was her personal friend.
Lady Nithsdale, being shown into a room
522
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
upstairs, the Duchess hastened to join
her. Then, as Lady Nithsdale writes,
"as my heart was very h'ght, I smiled
when she came into the chamber and ran
to her in great joy. She really started
when she saw me, and since owned that
she thought my head was turned with
trouble, till I told her my good fortune."
The Duchess, on hearing what had
passed, cordially took part in the joy of
her friend, and declared that she would
go at once to Court and see how the news
of the escape was received. She went
accordingly, and next time she saw Lady
Nithsdale told her that " the Elector " —
for so she termed him — had, in her own
phrase, " stormed terribly," and said he
was betrayed, for he was sure it could not
have been done without connivance ; and
he-sent immediately two of his suite to
the Tower to see that the other prisoners
were well guarded. On the opposite side
it was related that his Majesty — perhaps
at a later and calmer moment — made a
far more good-natured remark. He is
rumoured to have said on Lord Niths-
dale's escape, "It was the best thing that
a man in his situation could do." Indeed,
according to one account, Lord Niths-
dale's name was included in a list to be
sent out that very evening of the Peers
to be reprieved. In fact, only two — Lords
Derwentwater and Kenmure — were exe-
cuted the next day.
Lady Nithsdale paid no more visits that
evening. From the Duchess's house she
went straight to her husband's hiding-
place. There in that single narrow room
upstairs they remained closely shut up,
making as little stir as possible, and rely-
ing for their sustenance on some bread
and wine which Mrs. Mills brought them
in her pocket. Thus they continued for
some days, until there arose a favorable
opportunity for Lord Nithsdale to leave
the kingdom. A servant of the Venetian
Ambassador, Mitchell by name, was or-
dered to go down to Dover in his Excel-
lency's coach-and-six, and bring back his
Excellency's brother. By the contrivance
of Mitchell, and without the Ambassador's
knowledge, the Earl slipped on a livery
coit and travelled as one in the Ambassa-
dor's train to Dover, where, hiring a small
vessel, he crossed without suspicion, and,
taking Mitchell with him, landed safe at
Calais. Lady Nithsdale, for whom no
search was made, remained for the time
in London.
In concluding the narrative of this re-
markable escape, we think that even the
most cursory reader cannot fail to notice
its close resemblance to that other escape
of Count Lavalette from the Conciergerie
prison at Paris on the evening of the 20th
December, 1815. The Countess having
changed dresses with her husband in his
prison chamber, he passed out in woman's
attire, leaning on his daughter's arm and
holding a handkerchief to his face, as
though in an agony of tears. Yet, great
as is the likeness between the two cases,
it arose from coincidence, and not at all
from imitation. The detailed account of
the whole affair, as given by Count Lava-
lette in the second volume of his " Me-
moirs," clearly shov/s that they had never
heard of Lady Nithsdale, and knew noth-
ing of any similar attempt in England.
The heroine of this later deliverance
was a niece of the Empress Josephine ;
her maiden name Emilie de Beauharnais.
Her letters since her marriage, several of
which we have seen, are signed Beau-
harnais-Lavalette. She had been in child-
birth only a few weeks before the 20th of
December, her nerves were still unstrung
and her strength was not yet restored.
There was also a great difficulty in the
way of the disguise which she had
planned ; she was tall and slender in per-
son, while Count Lavalette was short and
stout. But muffled up as he was, the dif-
ference failed to be perceived by the
officers on duty, and his escape from the
prison was successfully accomplished.
It is well known, and we need not re-
peat, how the generous spirit of Sir Rob-
ert Wilson, with two others of our coun-
trymen, effected a few days afterwards
his further escape from P>ance to Bel-
gium. The husband was safe, but hard
— hard indeed — was the fate of the wife.
She had to remain behind in the prison
chamber, there to sustain, on the discov-
ery of the escape, the first fury of the ex-
asperated jailers, all trembling for their
places. During six weeks she was kept
in close captivity, all access of friends or
domestics, or even of her daughter, de-
nied her. Weak in health as she had
been from the first, it is no wonder that
her mind would not bear the strain that
was put upon it. Her reason became ob-
scured, and soon after she was set free
from prison she had to be removed to a
Maison de Sante. When, after six years
of exile, her husband obtained his pardon
and was able to return to France, she did
not know him again.
The mental malady of Madame Lava-
lette hung upon her for fi:!! twelve years.
At the end of that time her reason was,
partially at least, restored, and she could
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
523
go back to her husband's house. But she
continued subject to a settled melancholy
and could only lead a life of strict retire-
ment. Her husband died in 1830, while
she survived till June 1855.
Reverting to Lady Nithsdale, we may
observe that while the publication of her
narrative in 1792 made clear all the cir-
cumstances of her Lord's escape, nothing
further was known of his or her further
fortunes beyond the dates of their re-
spective deaths in Italy. It is therefore
with pleasure that, in the correspondence
now before us, we find numerous letters
from the Countess subsequent to the
great act and exploit of her life on the
23rd of February, 1716. To these letters,
as well as to some others by which they
are illustrated, we shall now apply our-
selves, hoping that our readers may feel
some part at least of the interest that we
do in the life of this high-minded lady.
Lord Nithsdale, on landing at Calais,
had gone straight to Paris. There, in the
course of the spring, he received a press-
ing invitation from the Prince, whom he
constantly regarded as his rightful King.
One phrase of that letter is cited by his
nephew Lord Linton : "As long as I have
a crust of bread in the world assure your-
self you shail always have a share of it.''
The Earl accordingly set out for Italy,
there to do homage, and remain for at least
a few weeks' visit. The Countess, on her
part, finding no pursuit made for her in
London, ventured, a little later, to ride
back to Scotland with her faithful Evans,
desiring to arrange her family affairs.
For several weeks she lived without mo-
lestation, and took a fond — it proved to
be a final — farewell of her own Terre-
gles. When again in London she was
advised that she was in great risk of ar-
rest, and would do wisely to leave Eng-
land. Embarking accordingly, she land-
ed on the coast of Flanders, where she
was detained some time by a miscarriage
and dangerous illness. Only half-recov-
ered, she set out again to join, first her
sister at Bruges, and next, in October,
her husband at Lille. Alas ! that reunion
did not bring her all the happiness that
she had fondly hoped. Her letter from
Lille to Lady Traquair has not been pre-
served, but a later one from Paris gives a
full account of her proceedings and
plans : it is dated February 29, 1717.
I could not resolve to leave this place, dear-
est sister, without giving you an account of
the situation of your brother's affairs and
mine. I suppose you have received mine from
Lille, so you are acquainted with the reasons
of our quitting that place, and consequently
have only to tell you that I immediately went
to my old mistress [Mary of Modena, Queen
Dowager of England], who, though she re-
ceived me very kindly, yet there was great
complaints of poverty, and no likelihood of
my getting into her service again. My first
attempt was to endeavour to get a recom-
mendation from her to her son to take my
husband into his service ; but all in vain, it
being alleged tliat as matters now stand with
him, he could not augment his family. . . .
My next business was to see what I could get
to live on, that we might take our resolutions
where to go accordingly. But all that I could
get was 100 livres a month to maintain me in
everything — meat, drink, fire, candle, wash-
ing, clothes, lodging, servants' wages ; in fine,
all manner of necessaries. My husband has
200 livres a month, but considering his way of
managing, it was impossible to live upon it.
. . . For, let me do what I will, he cannot be
brought to submit to live according to what
he has ; and when I endeavoured to persuade
him to keep in compass, he attributed my ad-
vice to my grud^^ing him everything, which
stopped my mouth, since I am very sure that
I would not [grudge] my heart's blood if it
could do him any service. ... It was neither
in gaming, company, nor much drinking, that
it was spent, but in having the nicest of meat
and wine ; and all the service I could do was
to see he was not cheated in the buying it. I
had a little, after our meeting at Lille, en-
deavoured to persuade him to go back to his
Master, upon the notice he received that 50
livres a month was taken off of his pension ;
but that I did not dare persist in, for he
seemed to imagine that I had a mind to be rid
of him, which one would have thought could
scarce come into his mind.
And now, he finding, what I had often
warned him, that he could get no more, some
of his friends has persuaded him to follow his
Master, he having sent him notice where he
was going, and that he might come after him
if he pleased ; and I, having no hopes of
getting anything out of England, am forced to
go to the place where my son is, to endeavour
to live, the child and me, upon what I told you.
All my satisfaction is, that at least my hus«
band has twice as much to maintain himself
and man as I have ; so I hope when he sees
there is no resource, as, indeed, now there is
not, having sold all, even to the necessary
litttle plate I took so much pains to bring
over, he will live accordingly, which will be
some comfort to me, though I have the mortifi-
cation to be from him, which, after we met
again, I hoped never to have separated ; but
God's will be done, and I submit to this cross,
as well as many others I have had in the
world, though I must confess living from a
husband I love so well is a very great one.
. . . He was to be at Lions last Tuesday, and
I cannot hear from him till I am arrived at
La Flesh, for I go from hence to-morrow
524
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
morning at seven o'clock. . . . Pray burn this
as soon as you have read it, and keep the con-
tents to yourself.
Lady Nithsdale, it will be noticed,
speaks of having no hopes of anything
from England. Her meaning here is
best elucidated by the following passage
from her long letter to Lady Lucy Her-
bert which refers to the scene at Court,
when she was dragged along the passage
by the skirts of George the First : —
My being so rudely treated had made a
noise, and gave no good reputation to the
Duke of Hanover ; for several said, what had
they brought themselves to? For the Kings
of England was never used to refuse a petition
from the poorest woman's hand ; and to use a
person of my quality in such a manner as he
had done was a piece of unheard-of brutality.
These talks made the Elector have a particu-
lar dislike to me, which he showed after-
wards ; for when all the ladies whose Lords
had been concerned in this business put in
claims for their jointures, mine was given in
amongst ther^st ; bat he said I was not, nor
did deserve, the same privilege, so I was ex-
cepted, and he would never hear speak in my
favour.
We give the passage as Lady Niths-
dale wrote it, not desiring to emulate,
even at a humble distance, the very great
politeness of the Scottish Society of Anti-
quaries. But we may observe that these
words of the Countess, like many others
from her pen, are most strongly coloured
by political resentment. Ungenerous as
was, beyond all doubt, the exception
made of Lady Nithsdale in the matter
of the Peeresses' jointures, there is no
ground to regard it otherwise than as a
Minis^rial measure — not a tittle of evi-
dence to derive it personally from the
King. We may add that, judging from
the records of this reign, we do not be-
lieve that George the First, whatever
may have been his other failings, was
capable of the petty spite which is here
imputed to him.
In her letter from Paris Lady Niths-
dale mentions that she was going to La
Fleche, on purpose to be with her son,
who, we may conclude, was receiving his
education at the great Jesuit College
there established. From La Fleche she
continued her correspondence with Lady
Traquair ; and, for fear of its being inter-
cepted commonly signed herself " W.
Joanes," or sometimes "W. Johnstone,"
while she addressed her sister Countess
as " Mrs. Young."
Writing on the loth of June, 1717, after
reverting to the recovery from an illness
of her nephew Lord Linton, then in
France, she gives the last news of her
husband : —
Now that I have given you an account of
what is nearest to you, I must let you know
that your friend and mine is well, at least was
so the last time I was so happy as to hear
from him. He has had another great preser-
vation, being six days in so great a danger at
sea that all the seamen left off working, and
left themselves to the mercy of the waves ;
and was at last cast into Antibes, from
whence they coasted it to Lighorn. How-
ever, he is now safe with his Master, and both
of them in good health. I hope these two
narrow escapes in so short a time is not for
nothing, and that God reserves him for some
great good.
Lord Nithsdale, however, was not well
pleased with Italy, He did not receive
from the Chevalier the cordial welcome
to which, with good reason, he deemed
himself entitled-, and was exposed to
divers mortifications at that melancholy
little Court, then established at Urbino.
Nor was he at all edified by his nearer
view of the Pope's government in ecclesi-
astical or in civil affairs. Here are his
own words to Lady Nithsdale as she
transcribes them : " Be assured there is
nothing in this damnable country that
can tend to the good either of one's soul
or body."
We must say that we give Lord Herries
great credit for his candour in allowing
the passage to be printed without change
or comment, since we dare say that no
very zealous Roman Catholic could read
it without something of an AM Sata?ias /
feeling.
Lady Nithsdale herself may have dis-
liked still more what follows, as she re-
ports it to Lady Traquair : —
The remainder of his letter did not much
please me, it running all upon the incon-
veniences of living where he was, and a full
and fixed resolution of leaving his Master.
. . . However, as I sent him word, I hoped
God Almighty reserved his reward for a better
place, and that after the favour he had re-
ceived in his two late preservations, he ought
also to accept the trials from the same hand,
with some other little motives for the doing it,
whose reflections I hoped might render it
more easy as well as meritorious. But he an-
swered it in so great a banter upon my virtue
and resignation, that I believe that it will be
the last time that I shall venture to inspire
him with any such thoughts, not doubting that
he makes better use of them than I do. But
it proceeded from my good will alone. How-
ever, in what regards his temporal good, I
i shall not be so far wanting in my duty as not
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
525
to tell him my thoughts, with a reference to
his better judgment ; after which I have per-
formed my part, and shall submit, as I ever
have done, to what he thinks fit.
Lady Nithsdale therefore, in her next
ensuing letter, takes her stand on tem-
poral grounds : —
You may be sure, my dear Lord, that having
you with me, or near me, would be the great-
est natural satisfaction I could have in this
world ; but I should be a very ill wife if, to
procure it myself, I would let you run into
those inconveniences you would do if you fol-
lowed the method you propose of leaving your
Master. . . . So, if you have any regard for
your honour and family, leave off any such
thoughts ; for from that time your Master will
have a pretence to do nothing for you, whereas
if ever he comes to be in a condition [and
with you near him] he cannot avoid it. . . .
But what would go nearer my heart, if it were
possible, chameleon-like, to live on air, is that
it would ruin your reputation ; and that all
5'our enemies, or rather enviers, who think
others' pretensions a diminution of theirs,
might make it their business to say that it was
not desire of serving your Master that made
you do what you did, but because you could
not live at home on what you had.
Writing from Scotland, Lady Traquair
argued strongly in the same sense as
Lady Nithsdale, and the Earl yielded in
some degree to their joint representa-
tions. It induced him at least to pause
and think again before the final step was
taken. Besides, there was now a strong
rumour of the Chevalier's intended mar-
riage, which would afford an opening for
good places in the new and larger house-
hold to be formed.
Meanwhile Lady Nithsdale was endur-
ing some of the sharpest privations of
poverty. But for a little timely aid from
the kind-hearted Lady Traquair she
would have wanted all through the winter
both warmth and light. Thus she writes
in reply : —
May God Almighty reward you in this and
the next world for your goodness to us and
ours ! . . . My nephew paid me the sum you
ordered, and never thing came more providen-
tially, for I had tugged on in summer with
much ado ; but did not know in the world
what to do for the addition of wood and can-
dle, which it will enable me to get. But I
fear I must soon think of repaying it again,
since I took it up from a gentleman, who took
my bill for it on the goldsmith you bid me
take it from. . . . Had I not had so pressing
a need of it, I would not have taken it, your
son having lent your brother 200 livres.
Another calamity was now close im-
pending on this ill-fated lady. On the
7th of May, 1 718, died at St. Germains
her former mistress and her constant
friend, the Queen Dowager of England.
It was a grievous blow to the whole mel-
ancholy train of exiles. Father James
Carnegy, a Roman Catholic priest, writes
thus from Paris : —
The desolation amongst the followers of her
son, her servants, and other poor dependants,
amongst whom she used to divide all her pen-
sion, is inexpressible. It is said the Regent
will assist the most indigent of them ; but
nothing is yet certain. It is feared whatever
he do to others, he dare not help the King's
followers.
Lady Nithsdale herself writes as ioU
lows irom Paris on the 28th of June, and
still to Lady Traquair : —
My husband is now fully resolved not to
leave his Master ; for when he went to take
his leave of him, his Master was pleased to
tell him that he had so few about him, that he
would not part with him ; that he should
probably be married before winter, and then
he desired to have me in his family, and so
desired him to leave off the thoughts of a
journey for two or three months, which you
may be sure he agreed to.
Full of these hopes, Lord Nithsdale de-
sired that the Countess should join him
in Italy as soon as possible, since as he ob-
serves in these matters it is "first come,
first served." He could send her no
funds for the journey, but bade her apply
to Lord and Lady Traquair, which Lady
Nithsdale, mindful of their many obliga-
tions, was most unwilling to do. How-
ever, in the same letter of the 28th of
June, she proceeds to say : —
Though he bid me lose no time in writing
to you about borrowing money, I would not
do it, because, though he did not know it, my
dear Mistress, who was, underhand, the occa-
sion of furthej^ing my promotion, and who,
though it must never be known, was resolved
I should be about her daughter-in-law, had
promised me to give me notice when it was fit
for me to go, and would have given me what
was requisite to carry me ; and writ to me
four days before her illness what she would
have me write to her son in order to it, which
I did the first post, and sent it enclosed in a
letter to her. But, alas 1 it arrived the
day she died, some hours after her death.
Imagine, you, whether her loss is not a great
one to me. I may truly say I have lost a kind
mother, for she was truly that to me whilst I
had her. I would not write to you, being
sensible that you have already done a great
deal ; so that nothing but unavoidable neces-
sity could make me mention any such thing.
But, alas ! I am so far from being able to com-
ply with my husband's desire now, that I know
$26
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
not how scarce to keep myself from starving,
with the small credit I have here, being re-
duced to the greatest of straits.
The kindness of Lord and Lady Tra-
quair, as shown on many former occa-
sions, was not denied her on this. A
small sum in addition was paid her by
order of the Chevalier. There was also as
it chanced one of her sisters then at Paris
— Lady Anne Herbert by birth, and mar-
ried to P>ancis Smith, Lord Carrington
— **a person," writes Lady Nithsdale,
" that one would have thought should
have helped me in this juncture. But so
far from it that I have not got a sixpence,
but a promise to keep my little girl who
stays with her. But I oblige myself to
pay what masters she has, without which
she would have lost all the learning I
have done my endeavours to give her,
notwithstanding all my strait."
By the aid of the Traquair subsidy and
that from her so-called Royal " Master,"
Lady Nithsdale was enabled to join her
husband at Urbino, and, after a brief in-
terval, proceed with him in the Cheva-
lier's train to Rome. From Rome there
soon went forth another melancholy
letter to Lady Traquair : —
January 3, 17 19. — Dearest sister, I have
still deferred writing to you since I came to
this place, hoping to have some agreeable
news to make a letter welcome that had so far
to go ; but we still are in the same situation,
and live upon hopes ; and, indeed, without
hope, hearts would break ; but I can say no
more. ... I found him [my Lord] still the
same man as to spending, not being able to
conform himself to what he has, which really
troubles me. And to the end that he might
not make me the pretence, which he ever did,
I do not touch a penny of -what he has, but
leave it to him to maintain him and his man,
which is all he has, and live upon what is
allowed me. . . . Now as to ot^er things : the
great expectations I had some reason to have
conceived from my husband's letters when he
sent for me hither, are far from answered. 1
am kept at as great a distance from my Mas-
ter as can well be, and as much industry used
to let me have none of his ear as they can ;
and though he is going to a house that his
family can scarce fill, I could not obtain to be
admitted under his roof. But that and many
other things must be looked over ; at least we
shall have bread by being near him, and I
have the happiness once again to be with my
dear husband that I love above my life.
The real fact as explaining the cold re-
ception of Lord and Lady Nithsdale ap-
pears to be that the Chevalier was at this
time greatly under the dominion of two
unworthy favourites, — Colonel the Hon.
John Hay, a son of Lord Kinnoul, and
his wife Marjory, a daughter of Lord
Stormont. Some years later James
named John Hay his Secretary of State,
with high rank in his titular peerage as
Earl of Inverness. Both the wife and
husband are described as follows in
Lockhart of Carnwath's *' Memoirs : "
" The lady was a mere coquette, tolerably
I handsome, but withal prodigiously vain
and arrogant. Her lord was a cunning,
false, avaricious creature of very ordinary
parts, cultivated by no sort of literature,
and altogether void of experience in
business." It was now the object of this
well-matched pair to confirm and main-
tain their influence by keeping away as
much as possible all persons who would
not declare themselves their followers
and their dependants.
Within a few weeks, however, of Lord
and Lady Nithsdale's arrival at Rome,
James himself was suddenly called away
from it. He was summoned to Spain,
there to sanction and direct the expedi-
tion against Great Britain, which the
Prime Minister Cardinal Alberoni had
been preparing. It is well knov/n how
soon and how signally that project was
baffled by the winds and tempests ; and
with how much of disappointment the
Chevalier had to return to Italy.
In this journey to Spain James appears
to have been attended by Lord Nithsdale,
while the Countess remained at Rome.
There she witnessed the arrival of James's
bride, the Princess Clementina Sobieski,
whom she describes (May 17, 1719) as
follows : —
This, dearest sister, is barely to acquaint
you that yesternight arrived here our young
Mistress. I and my companion went out a
post to meet her, and, indeed, she is one of
the charmingest, obliging, and well-bred young
ladies that ever was seen. Our Master cannot
but be extremely happy in her, and all those
who has the good fortune to have any depend-
ence on her. To add to it, she is very pretty ;
has good eyes, a fine skin, well shaped for her
height ; but is not tall, but may be so as yet,
for she is but seventeen, and looks even
younger. She has chosen a retired place in
the town in our Master's absence.
It had been hoped by Lord and Lady
Nithsdale that on the return of James to
Italy there would be expressed to them
some disapproval of the mortifications to
which they had almost daily been ex-
posed. But it did not prove so. Lady
Nithsdale writes, October 10, 1719: —
The first of August our young Mistress went
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
527
to meet her husband, who could not come
hither by reason of the great heats, in which
time it is thought dangerous to come into this
town ; so she went to a small place six or
seven posts from hence, a very good air, but
so small a place that she took but one person
with her, which was Mrs. Hay. The strait-
ness of the place was the reason given for my
companion's and my stay behind ; but there is
some reason to believe that our Master did
not care for to have more about him than
what he has there. He has not permitted
anybody to go to him but those he sends for,
which has been but few persons, and such
only as those who addressed themselves to
Mrs. Hay's brother or husband. ... As be-
fore mentioned, our Master and Mistress
comes hither, and are, probably speaking, to
stay this winter, though the master of this
town [the Pope] does not much approve of it.
Where we shall go after God knows. His
company he used to have about him is much
diminished ; many are gpne, and more is a-go-
ing daily. My companion is a-going to her
husband, and I fear neither he nor she intend
to return ; so that I am the only one now left
of my station, and shall in all appearance be
yet more trampled on than were both in our
Master's absence. At his return we hoped
for some redress, but now we have reason to
believe we are to expect none, for everything
is approved that was done in his absence,
which has made many one withdraw ; and I
wish that may be the greatest ill that follows
from the retirement of some. My husband
would fain have been of the number, and have
had me, but I told him my pleasure did not
draw me hither, nor the slights and troubles I
daily meet should make me go, but be over-
looked by me for the same end that brought
me, which was the good of my children and
family ; so I intend to act as if I saw nothing
but what pleased me, and expect God Al-
mighty's time for an alteration.
In this same letter Lady Nithsdale la-
ments to her sister-in-law her husband's
want of forethought and consideration in
borrowing, or, as she calls it, " taking up "
money where he finds it practicable, and,
above all, in drawing bills on Lord or
Lady Traquair without their consent and
approval first obtained. She grieves at
this money being
all taken up and spent already, which [she
adds], is but too true ; so that if his Master
does not pay it, as I very much fear he will
not, his reputation is quite lost. . . . All my
comfort is that I have no share in this misfor-
tune, for he has never been the man that has
offered me one farthing of all the money he
has taken up, and as yet all is spent, but how,
is a riddle to me, for what he spends at home
is but 30 pence a day in his eating. He has had
but one suit of clothes since, and now he must
have one fjr winter. For my part I continue
in mourning as yet for want of wherewithal to
buy clothes, and I brought my mourning with
me that has served ever since I came, and was
neither with my Master's or husband's money
bought. But now I have nobody to address
myself to but my Master for wherewithal to
buy any. I know, between you and I, but
that I neecV not tell my Master, that he [my
Lord] blames me and his daughter for what he
is obliged to take up ; whereas I have not had
one single penny, and as for our daughter,
whose masters I must pay, or she forget all
the little I have been at the expense of before,
and have done it hitherto, I have neither paid
out of his nor my own pension, which is too
small to do it, but that I had 30 pistoles from
the Pope for her, which has done it. But now
they are at an end, and I know not what to do.
For as to my sister I suppose she will not see
her starve or go naked, but for more I cannot
rely on.
Thus wearily and heavily the months
dragged along at Rome. In March 1720,
however, there came a gleam of joy when
Lady Nithsdale found herself able to an-
nounce that the Princess gave hopes of
an heir. Even this brief gleam was
clouded over by signal mortifications.
James would allow at this juncture no in-
timate access of any lady to his consort,
except only Mrs. Hay, —
who is one as you know [Lady Nithsdale
writes], that has never had any children ; . . .
and though I have had occasion to be better
versed in these things, having been so long
married and had so many children, yet they
prefer one who has had no experience of that
kind, and my Mistress has not so much as
ever let me know how she was in any kind.
And when she was indisposed, which she has
been frequently since her being with child was
spoke of, and that I was there constantly three
times a day to see how she did, I never was
thought fit to be admitted into the secret, but
it was told me by herself and others that it was
nothing but a cold, though I knew in what
condition she was.
In spite of these unpromising signs,
Lady Nithsdale ventured at this juncture,
"humbly begging," to know whether she
"might have any hopes of having care of
the young Lord or Lady when it pleased
God to send it." She was not precisely
refused — that is, there was no other per-
son preferred. But the Chevalier an-
swered that, " having taken a resolution
to take no servants while I am abroad, I
will make neither governess nor under-
governess. My wife has but little to do,
and will look to it herself."
Great was the delight of the whole
mournful company of exiles when, on the
last day of the year, the Princess gave
birth to a son, Charles Edward, the hero
128
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
of "The Forty-five." Henceforth the
letters of Lady Nithsdale teem with ac-
counts of his teething and weaning, and
other incidents of childhood. Scarcely
less were they rejoiced when, four years
afterwards, there came a second son,
Henry, afterwards Cardinal York.
But during this time the circumstances
of the Nithsclales by no means improved.
They were constantly reduced to dismal
straits. Thus, on the occasion of Prince
Charles's birth, when some gala dresses
were required, Lady Nithsdale writes : —
I have had the happiness to have one hand-
some suit procured me by the means of a Car-
dinal, who got it from the Pope, but that is
between you and I, for I was forbid to let it be
known. I have bought two others, the one as
good as that, the other more for bad weather,
being obliged to walk on foot to my Master's
several times in the day, so that I am much out
of pocket, but shall in time get free, I hope,
without taking a farthing from my husband
for it. The reason why I thought myself
obliged to provide myself so well, was that my
Master might not think that because I was
disappointed of what I had some reason to ex-
pect I did not care how I went ; and also that
if I had not he might have taken the pretence
that he was ashamed I should be seen with
his wife because I had not decent clothes.
Still more grievous was it, for Lady
Nithsdale at least, when dire necessity
compelled them to draw bills on Lord
Traquair, and trust to his generosity for
their acceptance. In 1722 there went out
a bill of a larger amount than usual, namely
150/., and for this Lord Nithsdale desired
that his sister should sell a little house-
hold furniture which his wife had left in
her care, and apply the proceeds in its
discharge.
But [as Lady Nithsdale writes], it will
not answer our end if the money be not paid
twenty days after the receipt of the bill ; so I
beg you by all that is dear to you to have com-
passion of us ; for if this fails, if we were
a-starving nobody would let .us have a six-
pence. \Ve have pawned all our credit to
hinder our being molested till this can be an-
swered and have had no small difficulty in
getting it done, and are quite out of the power
of doing it longer.
Lord Nithsdale, on his part, adds, in
another letter, " This, if not answered, will
infallibly ruin me."
Neither in this instance, nor in any
other, so far as we are made aware of it,
did Lord Traquair fail in the expected aid.
But it must be owned that Lord Nithsdale
made him a strange return. This was in
1723. Either to enhance his own import-
ance, or for some other object, he inti-
mated to the Chevalier that some property,
belonging of right to himself, was unfairly
detained by his brother-in-law. Here-
upon James, desiring to do an act of
justice at the same time with an act ol
kindness, wrote as follows to one of
agents in Scotland : —
p^^
The Earl of Nidsdale tells me he has p
vate means of his own in the Earl of Tra-
quair's hands, from whom he has never yet
got any account of them ; and as you know
the just regard I have, particularly for the
first, I would have you get Mr. Carnegy to
take a proper method of letting Traquair know
that I should take it kindly if he would settle
these affairs with his kinsman here to his sat-
isfaction, which I am persuaded he will do
when he knows it will be agreeable to me.
Even the most placable of men must
here have been roused to resentment.
Here, in complete reversal of the real
facts, was Lord Traquair, a steady ad-
herent of the exiled Prince, held up to
that Prince, whose good opinion he was
of course anxious to secure, as the spoiler
of that kinsman whom he had so con-
stantly befriended. No wonder if we find
Lady Traquair writing to her brother as
follows (January 1724): —
It is but within these few days that my hus-
band was in a condition that he could know
the contents of your letter, or what Sir John
[the King] writ of your affairs. I do not pre-
tend to write to you what his sentiments were
upon knowing this most unexpected and unac-
countable piece of news. He was not a little
grieved that matters had been so misrepre-
sented as if he had effects of yours in his
hands, and were so unjust to so near a relation
as not to transmit your own to you, though
you be straitened and suffer in such a cause.
This is indeed, dear brother, a very strange
office from you to my husband, after so many
services done by him to you and your family.
I must say it is very unkind and a sad return
for all the favours my husband has done you
before and since you went last abroad ; for he
having no effects of yours save a little house-
hold furniture of no use to us and what I
could not get disposed of, has honoured your
bills, supplied your wants without scrape of
pen from you ; besides the considerable sum
Sou owed him formerly, he even under God
as preserved your family which without his
money credit, and his son's assiduous attend-
ance and application, must, humanly speak-
ing, have sunk. He might reasonably have
expected other returns from you than com-
plaints to one we value so infinitely as we do
Sir John, as if my husband had wronged yc
and detained your own when your suffering
justly call for the greatest consideration.
THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE.
529
This affair, however little to the credit
of Lord Nithsdale, produced no breach
between the sisters : " I having been al-
ways kept ignorant of his affairs," writes
Lady Nithsdale, in a previous letter (March
22, 1723). And subsequently (March 7,
1725), adverting to this very incident, she
says to Lady Traqualr : —
As to what you imagined to be the reason
of my not writing you wronged me very much
in the matter, for what happens between your
brother and you yourselves are best able to
judge. I am only sorry that he should do any-
thing that gives you reason to take ill, and if
it lay in my pov/er I am sure he would not.
As for my part I am so sensible of all your
kindnesses and favours to my son and family
that I never think I can sufficiently acknowl-
edge them, or return you my grateful thanks.
But although there might be no abso-
lute breach of friendship, there was cer-
tainly a decline of correspondence. From
this period the letters, as we find them, of
Lady Nithsdale to her sister-in-law are
few and far between. The latest of all,
after six years' interval, bears date Janu-
ary 29, 1739, '^^'^ ^^ this she excuses her-
self that " my great troubles, and' ill-
nesses occasioned by them, has hindered
me from writing hitherto."
In this period of years, however, there
had been several events to cheer her.
Lord Maxwell, her sole surviving son,
after much litigation in the Court of Ses-
sion and the House of Lords, was admit-
ted by the latter tribunal to the benefit of
an early entail which Lord Nithsdale had
made, so that at his father's death he
would, notwithstanding his father's for-
feiture, succeed to Terregles and the
family estates. Practically he succeeded
to them — in part, at least — even sooner,
since the life-interest of his father was
purchased from the Government in his
behalf.
Pass we to the daughter, Lady Anne,
who had come to join her parents in Italy.
There she chanced to meet Lord Bellew,
an Irish nobleman upon his travels. He
conceived for her a strong attachment,
apparently on but slight acquaintance.
As he writes himself to Lord Nithsdale
;ApriI 27, I73I): —
I propose to be entirely happy in the pos-
session of the lady, who has so fine a character
vvith all those that know her. But it is not
3nly hearsay on which I ground my happiness,
'laving had the honour and pleasure to see
Lady Anne, though, perchance, not the good
fortune to be remembered by her.
The offer of his hand, which this letter
LIVING AGE. VOX,. VII. 346
' conveyed, was by the young lady ac-
i cepted, and the marriage took place at
{ Lucca in the course of the same year.
I Another marriage, at nearly the same
period, must have been still more inter-
esting to Lord and Lady Nithsdale. Lord
Maxwell, now a resident in Scotland, had
become attached to his cousin Lady Cath-
erine Stuart, daughter of Lord and Lady
Traquair. Considering the old connec-
j tion, and the constant friendship between
the two families, and their agreement
both in religion and in politics, to say
nothing of the benefits conferred by the
one Earl upon the other, it might have
been supposed that the prospect of this
alliance would have given Lord Nithsdale
especial pleasure. But such was by no
means the case. We may perceive the
contrary from the following sentence of
Lady Nithsdale, writing to Lady Traquair
(October 2, 1731): "Dear sister, I have
this considerable while been expecting
every post the good news of the conclu-
sion of my son's happy marriage with
Lady Catherine ; a happiness he has long
coveted, and I as long been endeavouring
to procure him his father's consent to."
The marriage, however, did take place in
the course of the same year. It appears
to have been a happy one, as Lady Niths-
dale, by anticipation, called it. No sons
were born from it, and only one daughter,
through whom the line of Maxwell was
continued.
Lord Nithsdale did not live to witness
the last enterprise on behalf of the exiled
Stuarts. He died at Rome in March 1744..
After his decease his widow was induced,,
though not without difficulty, to accept an
annuity of 200/. a year from her son, whO'
then came into full possession of the
family estates. Of this annuity she re^
solved to apply one-half to the discharge-
of her husband's debts, which would in*
that manner be paid off at the end of
three years.
Lady Nithsdale herself survived till
the spring of 1749. Nothing further is
known of her declining years. We con-
jecture, however, that she had grown very
infirm, since her signature, of which some
specimens are given at this period, is
tremulous and indistinct to a most un-
common degree.
Both Lord and Lady Nithsdale died at
Rome, and, in all probability, were buried
there. When the late Mr. Marmaduke
Maxwell, of Terregles, came to that city
in the year 1870 — so the editor of these
volumes informs us — he made inquiries
for any monument or grave of these two
530
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
ancestors ; but, after much research, was
unable to find the least trace of any such.
Here then ends our narrative of the life
of Winifred Herbert, as she was by birth,
the worthy descendant of that first Earl
of Pembroke of the last creation, the
chief of the English forces at the battle
of St. Quentin and the Lord President of
Wales, In her was nobly sustained the
spirit of that ancient race. Nor in our
own century has that spirit declined.
When we look to what they have done,
or may probably yet do, in the present
age — to the past of Sidney Herbert — to
the future of Lord Carnarvon — to the
future also perhaps of that son of Sidney
Herbert, who, young as he is, has already
wielded his pen with considerable power,
though not always quite discreetly, and
who has been so recently named Under-
Secretary of State in that very War De-
partment where his father gained and
deserved such high distinction — we can-
not but feel how much of sap and growth
is left in the ancestral stem, and how aptly
it might take for its motto revirescit.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS
BROTHER.
CHAPTER XX.
This was Val's last summer at Eton ;
'he went away with deep regret, as all
•well-conditioned boys do, and was petted
and made much of at home in the interval
ibetween his school and his university life.
Lady Eskside, who had once carried little
Val with her, with care so anxious, was
proud and happy beyond description now
when Val accompanied her anywhere with
that air of savoir fai?'e ^nd. intimate knowl-
edge of the world which distinguishes his
kind. He had already a circle much en-
larged from hers, and knew people whom
even the Dowager Duchess, who was
more in the vi^orld than Lady Eskside,
could not pretend to know. He was a
head taller than good-natured Lord High-
towers, and a thousand times handsomer
and better bred. " But not the least like
his father," said her Grace, with pointed
particularity. " Not so like as he was,"
said Lady Eskside, not unprepared for
this attack ; " but I can still see the re-
semblance— though the difference of
complexion is bewildering to those who
don't know both faces as well as I do,"
she added, with a smile. To be sure, no
one else could know the two faces as well
did. Val was extremely well re-
in the county, and considered,
as she
ceived
young as he was, an acquisition to general
society ; and was asked far and wide to
garden-parties, which were beginning to
come into fashion, and to the few dances
which occurred now and then. He had
to go, too, to various entertainments
given by the new people in Lord Esk-
side's feus. During Val's boyhood, the
feus which the old lord and his factor laid
out so carefully had been built upon, tc
the advantage of the shopkeepers in Lass-
wade for one thing ; and a row of, on the
whole, rather handsome houses, in solic
white stone, somewhat urban in architec
ture for the locality, and built to resis
wind and storm for centuries, rose on th(
crown of the green bank which overlookec
the road, and were to be seen from th(
terrace at Rosscraig. There were tw(
ladies in them who gave parties, — on<
the wife of a retired physician, the othe
a well-connected widow. Val had ti
dance at both houses, for the very gooi
reason that the widow was well connectec
which made it impossible to refuse her
while the other house had a vote, mor
important still. " It is your business t
make yourself agreeable to everybod"
Val," said Lord Eskside, feeling as h
looked at the boy's long limbs and broa
shoulders, that the time was approachin
in which his ambition should at last b ?'
gratified, and a Ross be elected for tl
county, notwithstanding all obstacle
Within the next four or five years a aM|
eral election was inevitable; and it^||
one of the old lord's private prayers th "
it might not come until Val was elijiib]
He did all he could to communicate to hi
that interest in politics which every youi %
man of good family, according to Lo
Eskside, should be reared in. Val h;
been rather inattentive on this point
held, in an orthodox manner, those co
ventional and not very intelligent Tc
principles which belong to Eton ; but
had not thought much about the subje"
if truth must be told, and was rath
amused than impressed by Lord Esksid
eloquence. " AH right, grandpapa,"
would say, with that warm general ass<
of youth which is so trying to the ea;
instructor. He was quite ready to acC'
both position and opinions, but he '
not care enough about them to take
trouble of forming any decision for bij
self. :j
But he went to Mrs. Rintoul's pa^
and made himself very agreeable ; r
not only the retired doctor himself,
^
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
531
what was perhaps more important, his
daughters — from Miss Rintoul of five-
and-thirty to the little one of sixteen —
were ready as one woman to adopt his
cause, and wear his colours when the time
came. "What does it matter between
them, papa ? " said Miss Rintoul, who was
very strong-minded. " Tory or Radical ;
what does it matter ? They are all con-
servative in office, and destructive out of
it. If I had a vote — and at my age it's a
disgrace to England that I haven't —
I should stand by friends and neigh-
bours. That's a better rule than your old
fashioned Tory and Whig. A good man
is the one thing needful ; over whom, if
necessary, one can exert intelligent influ-
ence," said this amiable woman. I do
not think her papa, who was better aware
how very impossible it is to influence
any human creature, was entirely of her
opinion ; but he informed Willie Maitland
that probably on the whole, if no candi-
date exactly of his own way of thinking
appeared in the field, he would not hesi-
tate to support Mr. Ross, if he carried out,
as there was every reason to expect, the
promise of his youth. Thus Val, in gay
unconsciousness, was made to begin his
canvassing before he was nineteen, and
while still the episode of the university
lay between him and public life. Lord
Eskside invited a large party for the 1st
of September, and the house continued
full up to the time of Val's departure for
Oxford ; and besides this party of guests
at home, there was such a succession of
entertainments given at Rosscraig as had
not been known before for many years, —
not since Val's father was on his promo-
tion, like Val. Mary Percival was one of
the party during this time, aiding Lady
Eskside to receive her guests and do the
honours of her house. She came when
it was definitely ascertained that Richard
was not coming, as his parents wished.
He wrote that he was deeply occupied,
and that in the present state of Italian
politics it was impossible that he could
leave his post — a letter over which Lady
Eskside sighed ; but as Mary came to
make up the deficiency, there was some-
thing gained to atone for this loss.
Mary, however, never would commit
herself to that enthusiasm for Val which
his grandmother felt was her bo'y's due.
She liked him very well, she said — oh,
very well : he was a nice boy ; she was
very glad he had done so well at school,
and' she hoped he would take a good place
at Oxford ; but I leave the reader to judge
whether this mild approbation was likely
to satisfy the old people, who by this timj
I — husband as well as wife — were, as the
' servants said, altogether "wrapt up" in
Val. Mary offended her friend still more
by the perverse interest she took in the
Pringle family, and her many visits to the
Hewan, where Val was delighted to ac-
company her as often as she chose to go.
Violet was " in residence," as he said, at
the cottage, living a somewhat lonely life
there, though the others of the family
came and went, spending a day or a night
as they could manage it. I do not know
if any thought of "falling in love " had
ever come into Valentine's boyish head ;
but there was a delicate link of affection
and interest between Violet and himse'
which affected him he could not quite teh
how. As for poor little Vi, I fear her
young imagination had gone further than
Valentine's. It was not love in her case,
perhaps, any more than in his ; but it was
fancy, which at seventeen is almost as
strong. I think this was the primary
reason of Mary's frequent visits to the
Hewan. She saw what was going on in
the girl's young head and heart ; and with
that intense recollection of the circum-
stances which decided her own fate which
such gentlewomen, thrown out of the
common path of life, often have, she had
conceived an almost exaggerated anxiety
for the fate of Vi, which seemed to be
shaping itself after the model of her own.
" I wish my dear old lady would not
spoil that boy so," she said one Septem-
ber morning, when she had walked alone
through the woods to the Hewan. Her
pretty particular grey gown (for Mary
was not without something of that precise
order which it is usual to call old-maid-
ishness, about her dress) was marked here
and there with a little spot from the damp
ferns and grass, which she rubbed with
her handkerchief as she spoke, and which
suddenly brought back to Violet's mem-
ory that one day of "playing truant"
which had been about the sweetest of her
life. Mary had perceived that Violet gave
a quick look for the other figure which
generally followed, and that there was a
droop of disappointment about her, when
she perceived that her visitor was alone.
" I wish she would not spoil that boy so.
He is not a bad boy "
" Is it possible you can mean Val.?"
said Violet, with dignity, erecting her
small head.
"Yes, indeed, my dear, it is quite pos-
sible ; I do mean Val. He is a good boy
enough, if you would not all spoil him with
adulation — as if he were something quite
532
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
extraordinary, and no one had ever seen even vice
his like before."
"You do not like Val, Miss Percival —
you never did ; but he likes you, and al-
ways walks with you when you will let
him."
" Ah, that is when I am coming here,"
said Mary, with a momentary compunc-
tion. Then perceiving a pleased glow
diffuse itself over Vi's face, she added,
quickly, " I mean, he likes to go with me
when it pleases himself ; but if I were to
ask any little sacrifice of his will from
him, you would see how he would look.
He is one of the most self-willed boys I
know."
Violet did not make any answer. She
patted her foot upon the carpet, and the
corners of her little mouth were drawn
down. She would have frowned had she
known how ; as it v/as, she averted her
face in wrath and dismay.
" Violet, my dear, I take a great inter-
est in you," said Mary. " When I look at
you, I sometimes think I see myself at
your age. I don't like to think that you
may grow up to make a demigod of Val
— or indeed of any other."
" Miss Percival ! — I ! Oh, how dare
you ! — how can you say so ! " cried Vio-
let, springing to her feet, her face crim-
son, her eyes shining. "I! make a —
anything of Val ! Oh, how can you be
so unkind, you grown-up people ! Must
a girl never speak to a boy unless he is
her brother? And Val has been just
like my brother. I think of him — as I
think of Sandy."
"Oh, you little story-teller!" cried
Mary, laughing in spite of herself, as Vio-
let's indignant voice faltered into uncer-
tainty ; " but, Vi, I am not going to scold
— don't be afraid. I am going to tell you
for your good what happened to me. I
don't like doing it," she said, with a blush
that almost neutralized the difference of
age between herself and the girl who lis-
tened to her; "but I think it may be for
your good, dear. Violet, when I was your
age there was some one — whom I was
constantly in the habit of seeing, as you
might be of seeing Val. There was never
any — flirtation or nonsense between us.
How shall I say it, Violet ? — for I don't
care to speak of such things any more
than you would. I liked him, as I thought,
as you do, like a brother ; and he was
always kept before me — never any one
but Richard. After a while he went out
into the world, and there did — some-
thing which separated us forever ! oh,
Qot anything wrong, Vi — not a crime, or
but something that showed
me that I, and all I was, such as I was,
was nothing in the world to him — that
nothing was of value to him but his own
caprice. I never got over it, Violet.
You see me now growing old, unmarried ;
and of course 1 never shall marry now,
nor have young ones round me like your
mother "
" Oh dear, Miss Percival," cried Violet,
with tears in her eyes, " who cares for
being married ? What has that to do
with it ? Is it not far finer, far grander,
to live like you, forever constant to your
first love ? Is not that the best of all ?"
cried the little enthusiast, flushing with
visionary passion. Mary caught her by
her pretty shoulders, shook her and
kissed her, and laughed, and let one or
two tears drop, a tribute, half to her own,
half to the child's excitement.
"You little goose ! " she cried. "Vi, I
saw him after, years after — such a man
to waste one's life for! — a poor petty
dilettante^ more fond of a bit of chin.i
than of child or wife, or love or honour
Ah, Vi, you don't understand me ! but tc
think I might have been the mother of 2
child like you, but for that poor creaturt
of a man ! "
" Oh, don't, don't ! " cried Vi, putting
her hands to her ears ; " I will not lister
to you, now. If you loved him," said th(
girl, hesitating and blushing at the word
" you never, never could speak of hin
like that."
"I never — never could have been de
X:eived in him, — is that what you mean
Vi, I hope you will never follow my ex
ample." ™-
" Hollo ! " cried another voice of soHl
one coming in at the door, which stdff ■
open all day long, as cottage doors do-
" is there any one in — is Mary here
Are you in, Vi ? " and Val's head, glowin
with a run up the brae, bright with T
and mirth, and something which look*,
very much like boyish innocence an
pleasure, looked in suddenly at the pai
lour door. , Val was struck by consternj -
tion when he saw the acjitated looks whic
both endeavoured to hide. " What's tli
row ?" he asked, coming in with his hi
in his hand. " You look as if you ha
been crying. What have you been doio;
Mary, to Vi .^ "
" Scolding her," said Miss Percij
laughing. " I hope you have no obi
tion, Val."
" But I have great objections ; nobe
shall bother Violet and make her cry,
can help it. She never did anythia<
THE STORY OF VALENTINE) AND HIS BROTHER.
533
her life to deserve scolding. Vi," cried
Val, turning to her suddenly, "do you
remember the day we played truant ? If
Marv hadn't been here, I meant to carry
you off again into the woods."
Violet looked up first at him and then
at Mary : the first glance was full of de-
light and tender gratitude, the other was
indignant and defiant. " Is this the boy
you have been slandering?" Vi's eyes
said, as plain as eyes could speak' to her
elder friend. Miss Percival rose and
made the gentleman a curtsy.
" If Mary is much in your way, she
will go ; but as Vi is a young lady now,
perhaps Mary's presence would be rather
an advantage than otherwise. I put my-
self at your orders, young people, for the
woods, or wherever you like."
" Well," said Val, with the composure
of his age, " perhaps it might be as well
if you would come too. Run to the
larder, Violet, and look if there's a pie.
I'll go and coax Jean for the old basket
— the very old basket that we had on
that wonderful day. Quick ! and your
cloak, Vi." He rushed away from them
like a whirlwind ; and soon after, while
the two ladies were still looking at each
other in doubt whether he should be hu-
moured or not, Jean's voice was heard
approaching round the corner from her
nest.
" Pie ! Set you up with dainty dishes !
Na, Mr. Valentine, you'll get nae pie from
me, though you have the grace to come
and ask for it this time ; but I'll make
you some sandwiches, if ye like, for
you've a tongue like the very deil himself.
Oh ay — go away with your phrases. If
you were wanting onything you would
take little heed o' your good Jean, your
old friend."
^' Listen," said Mary to Vi.
" No that ye're an ill laddie, when a's
said. You're not one of the mim-mouthed
ones, like your father before you ; but I
wouldna say but you were more to be
lippened to, with all your noise and your
nonsense. There, go away with you. I'll
do the best I can, and you'll take care of
missie. Here's your basket till ye, ye
wild lad."
Vi had grasped Mary's arm in return
when old Jean continued ; but being piti-
ful, the girl in her happiness would not
say anything to increase what she felt
must be the pain of the woman by her
side. Vi had divined easily enough that it
was Valentine's father of whom Mary
spoke ; and the child pitied the woman,
who was old enoujrh to be her mother.
Ah, had it but been Valentine ! He nev-,
er would disappoint any one — never turn
into a dilettante, loving china better than
child or wife. She kissed Mary in a
little outburst of pity — pity so angelic
that Violet almost longed to change places
with her, that she might see and prove
for herself how different Valentine was.
As for Mary, she made herself responsi-
ble for this mad expedition with a great
confusion and mingling of feelings. She
went, she said to herself, to prevent
harm ; but some strange mixture of a
visionary maternity, and of a fellow-feel-
ing quite incompatible with her mature
age, was in her mind at the same time.
She said to herself, with a sigh, as she
went down the slope, that she might
have been the boy's mother, and let her
heart soften to him, as she had never
done before ; though I think this same
thought it was which had made her feel a
little instinctive enmity to him, because
he was not her son but another woman's.
How lightly the boy and girl tripped
along over the woodland paths, waiting
for her at every corner, chattering their
happy nonsense, filling the sweet, mellow,
waving woods with their laughter ! They
pushed down to the river, though the
walk was somewhat longer than Mary
cared for, and brought her to the glade in
which the two runaways had eaten their
dinner, and where Vi had been found
asleep on Val's shoulder. " It looks ex-
actly as it did then, but how different we
are ! " cried Violet, on the warm, green
bank, where her shoes and stockings had
been put to dry. Mary sat down on the
sunny grass and watched them as they
poked into all the corners they remem-
bered and called to them with maternal
tremblings, when the boy once more led
the girl across the stepping-stones to the
great boulder, by the side of which Esk
foamed and flashed. She asked herself,
was it possible that this bold brown boy
would ever turn to be like his father.?
and tried to recollect whether Richard
had ever been so kind, so considerate of
any one's comfort, as Val was of Vi's.
Was it perhaps possible that, instead of
her own failure, this romance, so prettily
begun, might come to such a climax of
happiness as romances all feign to end
in ? Mary, I fear, though she was so sen-
sible, became slightly foolish as she sat
under the big bank, and looked at the
two in the middle of the stream together,
Esk roaring by over his rocks, and mak-
ing the words with which she called them
back, quite inaudible. How handsome
534
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
Val looked, and how pretty and poetic
his little companion ! The bank of wood
opposite was all tinted with autumn col-
our, rich and warm. It was a picture
which any painter would have loved, and
it went to Mary's heart.
" But you are too big, Val, to play at
the Babes in the Wood nowadays," said
old Lady Eskside, with a little wrinkle in
her brow, when she heard of the freak ;
"and I wonder the Pringles leave that
poor little thing by herself at the Hewan,
sometimes for days together. They say
it's for her health ; but I think it would
be much better for her health if she were
under her mother's eye."
" But you must remember that I was
with them," said Mary, " representing
her mother, or a middle-aged supervision
at least."
" My dear," said Lady Eskside, half
angry, half smiling, as she shook her
finger at her favourite, " I have my doubts
that you are just a romantic gowk ;
though you might know better."
"Yes, I might know better — if experi-
enee could teach," said Mary ; but ex-
perience so seldom teaches, notwith-
standing all that is said to the contrary !
And Mary could not but reflect that Lady
Eskside had not frowned, but smiled
upon her own delusion. Perhaps in such
cases parental frowns are safer than
smiles.
CHAPTER XXI.
There was a great dinner at Rosscraig
before Val went to Oxford : as much fuss
made about him, the neighbours began to
say, as was made for his father who came
home so seldom, and had distinguished
himself in diplomacy, and turned out to
be a man of whom the county could be
proud ; whereas Val was but an untried
boy going to college, of whom no one
could as yet say how he would turn out.
Mr. Pringle was invited to this great
ceremonial, partly by way of defiance to
show him how popular the heir was, and
partly (for the two sentiments are not
incapable of conjunction) out of kind-
ness, as recognizing his relationship. He
came, and he listened to the remarks,
couched in mysterious terms, yet compre-
hensible enough, which were made as to
Val's future connection with the county,
in grim silence. After dinner, when the
ladies had retired, and as the wine began
to circulate, these allusions grew broader,
and at length Mr. Pringle managed to
make out very plainly that old Lord Esk-
side was already electioneering, though
his candidate was but eighteen, and for
the moment there was very little chance
of a new election. Val, careless of the
effect he was intended to produce, and
quite unconscious of his grandfather's
motives, was letting loose freely his boy-
ish opinions, all marked, as we have said,
with the Eton mark, which may be de-
scribed as Conservative in the gross with
no very clear idea what the word means
in detail, but a charming determination
to stick to it, right or wrong. Lord Esk-
side smiled benignly upon these effu-
sions, and so did most of his guests.
" He has the root of the matter in him,"
said the old lord, addressing Sir John,
who was as anxious as himself to have
"a good man" elected for the county,
but who had no son, grandson, or nephew
of his own ; and Sir John nodded back
in genial sympathy. Mr. Pringfe, how-
ever, as was natural, being on the oppo-
site side from the Rosses in everything,
was also on the other side in politics, and
maintained an eloquent silence during this
part of the entertainment. He bided his
time, and when there came a lull in the
conversation (a thing that will happen
occasionally), he made such an interpola-
tion as showed that his silence arose
from no want of inclination to speak.
"Your sentiments are most elevated,
Valentine," he said, "but your practice is
democratical to an extent I should scarcel)"
have looked for from your father's son,
I hope your friend the boatman at Eton
is flourishing — the one you introduced
to my daughter and me ? "
"A boatman at Eton," said the olc
lord, bending his brows, "introduced tf
Violet ? You are dreaming, Pringle.
hope Val knows better than that."
" Indeed I think it shows very fine
feelings on Valentine's part — this wa-
one of nature's noblemen, I gathered fron
what he said."
" Nature's fiddlestick ! " exclaimei
Lord Eskside, and the Tory gentlemc
pricked up their ears. There was scarce-
one of them who did not recollect, o
find himself on the eve of recollecting, a
that moment, that Val's mother was '•no
a lady," and that blood would out.
" I introduced him to you as a boat
man, sir," said Val, " not as anythin,
else ; though as for noblemen, Browoii
worth twenty such as I have known wfll
handles to their name. We get to eiP '
mate people by their real value at Etpr
I not by their accidental rank," said
youth splendidly, at which Mr. Prini
cried an ironical " Hear, hear ! "
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
535
" Gently, gently, my young friend,"
said Sir John. " Rank is a great power
in this world, and not to be lightly spoken
of : it does not become you to talk lightly
of it; and it does not agree with your
fine Tory principles, of which I warmly
approve."
''What have Tory principles to do with
it ? " said Val. " A fellow may be rowdy
or a snob though he is a lord ; and in that
case at Eton, sir, whatever may happen
at other places, we give him the cold
shoulder. I don't mean to set up Eton
for an example," said Val, gravely, at
which there was a general roar.
'' Bravo, bravo, my young Tory ! " cried
the Duke himself, no less a person, who
on that night honoured Lord Eskside's
table. "In that respect, if you are right,
Eton is an example, let any oae who
pleases take the other side."
" If Wales had been at Eton, and had
been wowdy, we'd have sent him to Co-
ventry as soon as look at him," said Lord
High lowers, smoothing an infantile down
on his upper lip.
"A very fine sentiment; but I don't
know if the antagonistic principle would
work," said Mr. Pringle. " I am a Lib-
eral, as everybody knows ; but I don't
care about admitting boatmen to my in-
timacy, however much I may contemn an
unworthy peer."
"Did Brown intrude upon you ? " said
Valentine, bewildered; "was he impu-|
dent ? did he do anything he oughtn't to ? ^
Thouijh I could almost as soon believe
that I had behaved like a cad myself, if
you say so I'll go down directly and kick '
the fellow." And poor Valentine, flushed |
and excited, half rose from his seat.
" Bvvown ! " said Lord Hightowers from '
the other side of the table. " Beg your ;
pardon, but you're mistaken ; you must ;
be mistaken. Bwown ! best fellow that '
ever lived. Awfully sorry he's not a gen- ,
tleman ; but fo^ a cad — no, not a cad — ;
a common sort of working fellow, he's '
the nicest fellow I ever saw. Couldn't ^
have been impudent — not possible. It I
ain't in him, eh, Ross ? or else I'd go and |
kick him too with pleasure," said the i
young aristocrat calmly. I
Between the fire of these two pairs of j
young eyes, Mr. Pringle was somewhat ^
taken aback. |
'"Oh, he was not impudent; on the
contrary, a well-informed nice young fel-
low. My only wonder was, that young gen-
tlemen of your anti-democratical princi-
ples should make a bosom friend of a man
of the people — that's all. For my part,
I think it does you infinite credit," said
Mr. Pringle, blandly. " I hope you have
been having good sport at Castleton,
Lord Hightowers. You ought to have
come out to my little, moor at Dalrulzian,
Val. I don't know when the boys have
had better bags."
And thus the conversation fell back
into its ordinary channels ; indeed it had
done so before this moment, the battle
about Brown having quickly failed to in-
terest the other members of the party.
Lord Eskside sat bending his brows and
straining his mind to hear, but as he had
the gracious converse of a Duke to at-
tend to, he could not actually forsake
that potentate to make out the chatter of
the boys with his adversary. Thus Mr.
Pringle fired his first successful shot at
Val. The Tory gentlemen forgot the
story, but they remembered to have
heard something or other of a love of low
company on the part of Valentine Ross,
"which, considering that nobody ever
knew who his mother was, was perhaps
not to be wondered at," some of the good
people said. When Lady Eskside heard
of it, she was so much excited by the
malice of the suggestion, and expressed
her feelings so forcibly, that Val blazed
up into one of his violent sudden pas-
sions, and was rushing out to show Mr.
Pringle himself what was thought of his
conduct, when his grandfather caught
him and arrested him. "Do you want
to make fools of us all with your intem-
perate conduct, sir," cried the old lord,
fire flashing from under his heavy brows.
" It is only a child that resents a slight
like this — a man must put up with a
great deal and make no sign. ' Let the
galled jade wince ; my withers are un-
wrung.' That is the sort of sentiment
that becomes us." I don't know if this
good advice would have mollified Val but
for the sudden appearance just then at
one of the windows which opened on the
terrace, of Violet in her blue gown, whose
innocent eyes turned to them with a look
which seemed to say, " Don't, oh don't,
for my sake ! " Of course Violet knew
nothing about it, and meant nothing by
her looks. It was the expression habitual
to her, that was all ; but as the old man
and the young, one hot with fury, the
other calming down his rage, perceived
the pretty figure outside, the old lord
dropped, as if it burned him, his hold on
Val's arm, and Val himself stopped short,
and, so to speak, lowered his weapons.
" Is my lady in, please .'"' said Violet
through the glass — which was all she
536
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
had wanted to ask — with those sweet
imploring looks. They opened the win-
dow for her eagerly, and she stepped in
like something dropped out of the sky,
in her blue gown, carrying her native
colour with her. After this Val could not
quite make out what it was that he had
against Mr. Pringle, until Violet in her
innocence brought the subject up.
" Mamma was scolding papa for some-
thing — something about Valentine," said
Violet. " I did not hear what it was."
"Indeed your papa seems to have
spoken in far from a nice spirit, my dear,
thongh I don't Hke to say it to you," said
Lady Eskside. " What was it about,
Val "i some boatman whom he called
your bosom friend."
" Oh ! " cried Violet, clasping her
hands together, " it must have been that
Mr. Brown. Papa used to talk of him
for long and long after."
" And did you think, Violet," said the
old lady, severely, " that my boy made
him his bosom friend ?"
" Oh, Lady Eskside ! he was so nice
and so grateful to Val. I took such a
fancy to him," cried Vi, with a blush and
a smile, " because he was so grateful. He
said Mr. Ross had done everything for
him. Bosom friend ! He looked — I
don't think I ever saw a man look so be-
fore. Women do sometimes," said Vio-
let, with precocious comprehension, "as
if he would have liked to be hurt or done
some harm to for Val's sake."
" It is the boy I told you about, grand-
ma," said Val — "the one that Grinder
made himself disagreeable about ; as if a
fellow couldn't try to be of use to any
other fellow without being had up. He
rowed them up the river on the 4th of
June. He ain't my bosom friend," he
added, laughing; "but I'd rather have
him to stand by me in a crowd than any
one I know — so that Mr. Pringle was
right."
" But he did not mean it so ; it was ill-
meant, it was ill-meant ! " cried Lady
Eskside. Violet looked at them both
with entreating eyes.
" Papa may have said something wrong,
but I am sure he did not mean it," said
Vi, with the dew coming to her pretty
eyes. Lady Eskside shook her head ;
but as for Val, his anger had stolen away
out of his heart like the moisture on the
grass when the sun comes out ; but the
sun at the moment had an azure radiance
shining out of a blue gown.
Then Val went off to the University
with a warm sense of his approaching
manhood, and a new independence of
feeling. He went to Balliol naturally, as
the college of his country, and there fell
into the hands of Mr. Gerald Grinder,
who had condescended to be his private
tutor long ago, just before he attained to
the glories of his fellowship. Boys were
thus passed up along the line among the
Grinder family, which had an excellent
connection, and throve well. Val was
not clever enough nor studious enough
to furnish the ambitious heads of his col-
lege with a future first-class man ; but
as he had one great and well-established
quality, they received him with more than
ordinary satisfaction ; for even at Balliol,
has not the most sublime of colleges a
certain respect for its place on the river?
I have heard of such a thing as a Boating
scholarship, the nominal examination for
which is made very light indeed for fa-
mous oars ; but anyhow, Val, though per-
haps a very stiff matriculation paper
might have floored him, got in upon com-
paratively easy terms. I will not say
much about his successes, or even insist
on the fact that Oxford was an easy win-
ner on the river that triumphant day when
Lichen rowed stroke and Val bow in the
University boat, and all the small Etoni-
ans roared so under their big hats, that
it was a mercy none of them exploded.
Val did well, though not brilliantly, in his
University career, as he had done at
Eton. He had a little difficulty now and
then with his hasty temper, but otherwise
came to no harm ; and thus, holding his
own in intellectual matters, and doing
more than hold his own in other points
that rank quite as high in Oxford as in
the rest of the academical world, made
his way to his majority. I believe it
crossed Lord Eskside's mind now and
then to think that in Parliament it was
very soon forgotten whether a man had
been bow or even stroke of the 'Varsity
boat ; and that it could count for little in
political life, and for less than nothing
with the sober constituency of a Scotch
county ; but then, as all the youth of
England, and all the instructors of that
youth, set much store by the distinction,
even the anxious parent (not to say
jjrandfather) is mollified. " What jjood
will all that nonsense do him .'^ " the old
lord would growl, curling his shaggy eye-
brows, as he read in the papers, even the
most intellectual, a discussion of Va|
sinews and breadth of chest and "fori
before the great race was rowed,
least it cannot do him any harm," said
my lady, always and instantly on the d4~
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
537
fensive ; " and I don't see why you should
o-rudge our boy the honor that other folks'
boys would give their heads for," " Other
folks' boys may be foolish if they like — I
am concerned only for my own," said
Lord Eskside ; "what does the county
care for his bowing or his stroke-ing ? it's
a kind of honour that will stand little
wear and tear, however much you may
think of it, my Jady." But to' tell the
truth, I don't think my lady in her soul
did think very much of it, except in so far
that it was her principle to stand up for
most things that pleased Val.
In the meantime, however, the depart-
ure of Val from Eton had produced a
much more striking effect upon some
nameless persons than even on any of
his other friends. Dick missed him with
unfeigned and unconcealed regret. He
insisted upon carrying his bag to the sta-
tion for him, notwithstanding the cab
which conveyed Val's other effects ; and
went home again in very depressed spir-
its after having bidden him good-bye.
But Dick's depression was nothing to
that with which his mother sat gazing
blankly over the river, with that look in
her eyes which had for some time de-
parted from them — that air of looking for
something which she could not tind,
which had made her face so remarkable.
She had never quite lost it, it is true ; but
the hope which used to light up her
eyes of seeing, however far off, that one
boat which she never failed to recog-
nize shooting up or down the stream,
had softened her expression wonder-
fully, and brought her back, as it were,
to the things surrounding her. Val,
though she saw so little of him, was
as an anchor of her heart to the boy's
mother. In the consciousness that he
was near, that she should hear his name,
see the shadow of him flitting across the
brightness of the river, or that even when
he was absent, a few weeks would bring
back those dim and forlorn delights to
her, kept the wild heart satisfied. This
strange visionary absorption in the boy
she had given up did not lessen her at-
tachment to the boy she retained — the
gooa Dick, who had always been so good
a son to her. She thought that she had
totally given up Val; and certainly she
possibility of revealing herself to him
ever been in her mind, it would have dis-
appeared after their first interview. After
that she had always kept in the back-
ground on the occasions when he came to
see Dick, and had received his " Good
morning, Mrs. Brown," without anything
but a curtsy — without objecting to the
name, as she had done on their first meet-
ing. No, alas ! a gentleman like that,
with all the consciousness about him of a
position so different, — with that inde-
scribable air of belonging to the hijjhest
class which the poor tramp-woman recog-
nized at once, remembering her brief and
strange contact with it in that episode of
her existence which had been so incom-
prehensible at the time, but which had
gradually unveiled and disentangled itself
through hours and years of brooding
thought ; a gentleman like that to have a
mother like herself revealed to him — a
mother from the road, from the fairs and
racecourses ! She almost cried out with
fright when she thought of the possi-
bility, and made a vow to herself that
never, never would she expose Valentine
to this horror and shame. No ! she had
made her bed, and she must lie upon it.
But when he went away, the visionary
support which had sustained her visionary
nature — the something out of herself-
which had kept her wild heart satisfied —
failed all at once. It was as if a blank
had suddenly been spread before the eyes
that were always looking for what they
could find no more. She never spoke of
it — never wept, nor made any demonstra-
tion of the change ; but she flagged in
her life and her spirit all at once. Her
work, which she had got through with an
order and swiftness strangely at variance
with all the habits which her outdoor life
might have been supposed to form, began
to drag, and be a weariness to her. She
had no longer the inducement to get it
over, to be free for the enjoyment of her
window. Sometimes she would sit drear-
ily down in the midst of it, with her face
turned to the stream by a forlorn habit,
and thus Dick would find her sometimes
when he came in to dinner. "You are
not well, mother," the lad said, anxiously.
" Oh yes, quite well — the likes of nie
is never ill — till we die," she would say.
never hoped, nor even desired, any more with a dreamy smile. "You have too
of him than she had from her window.
Indeed, in her dim perpetual ponderings
on this subject, the poor soul had come to
feel that it could be no comfort, but much
the reverse, to Val, to find out that she
was his mother. Had any hope of th'e
much work, mother," said Dick ; " I can't
have you working so hard — have a girl
to help you ; we've got enough money to
afford it, now I'm head man." " Do you
think I ve gone useless, then.'"' she
would ask, with some indignation, rous-
538
THE STORY OF VALENTINE; AND HIS BROTHER.
ing herself; and thus these little contro-
versies always terminated. Dick watched
her, with a wonder growing in his mind.
She was very restless during the autumn,
but when the dark days of winter came,
relapsed into a half-stupefied quiet. Even
when Val was at Eton, he had of course
been invisible on the river during the
winter. "The spring will be the pull,"
Dick said to himself, wondering, with an
anguish which it would be difficult to de-
scribe, whether it was his duty to pull up
the stakes of this homely habitation, which
he had fixed as he thought so securely for
himself, and to abandon his work and his
living, and the esteem of his neighbours,
to resume for her sake the wanderings
which he loathed ; could it be his duty ?
A poor lad, reared at the cost of visible
privations by a very poor mother, has a
better idea of the effort and of the sacri-
fice made for him than a young man of a
higher class for whom even more bitter
struggles may have been. Dick knew
what it must have cost the poor tramp-
woman to bring him up as she had done,
securing him bread always, keeping him
from 6vil communications, even having
him taught a little in his childhood. For
a tramp to have her child taught to read
and write involves as much as Eton and
Oxford would to another ; and Dick was
as much above the level of his old com-
panions in education as a university
prizeman is above the common mass ;
and he knew what it must have cost her,
therein having an advantage over many
boys, who never realize what they have
cost their parents till these parents are
beyond all reach of gratitude. Was it,
then, his duty to give up everything — his
own life — and open the doors of her
prison-house to this woman to whom he
owed his life .-^ Such questions come be-
fore many of us in this world, and have to
be solved one way or other. Our own
life, independence, and use ; or the hap-
piness of those who have guarded and
reared us, though without giving up their
all to us, as we are called upon to do for
them. Perhaps it is a question which
women have to decide upon more often
than men. Dick thrust it away from him
as long as he could, trying not to think of
it, and watching his mother with an anx-
iety beyond words, as the days lengthened,
and the spring freshness came back, and
the Brocas elms got their first wash of
he saw her gfive an
green.
could she
No, it was
the vvhoU
her. Sometimes he found her half bent ' situation bitterly enough, poor fellovvJ
^.x,v-.i. Sometimes ^.^ ^^., ».v,r g,
unconscious gasp as if for breath, as
though the confined air of the room stifled
out of the open window, with her rapt
eyes gazing, not at the river, but away
over the distant fields. She got paler and
thinner every day before his eyes ; and
he owed everything (he thought) to her,
and what was he to do ?
What the sacrifice would have been t
Dick, I dare not calculate. In these thre
years he had become known to everybod
about, and was universally liked an
trusted. He was his master's right-han
man. He had begun to know what con:
fort was, what it was to have a little monc
(delightful sensation !) what it was to ge
on in the world. The tramp-boys abou
the roads, and the new lads who wen
taken on at the rafts, attracted his sym
pathy, but it was the sympathy of a per
son on a totally different level — who ha
indeed been as they were, but who h.\
long gone over their heads, and was of
class and of habits totally different. Ha
Lord Hightowers been called upon to di
vest himself of his title, and become sim
pie John Seton in an engineer's shop, th
humiliation would not have been compar-
able to that which Dick would have en
dured had he been compelled to degrade
himself into a vagrant, a frequenter o
fairs and races. Indeed I think Lor
Hightowers would rather have liked the"
change, having a mechanical turn, — while
to Dick the thought was death. It made
him sick and faint to think of the possi-
bility. But, on the other hand, was he to
let his mother pine and die like a caged
eagle ? or let her go away from him, to
bear all the inevitable privations alone ?
One day the subject was finally forced
upon his consideration in such a way that
he could not disregard it. When he went
home to his early dinner, she was gone.
Everything was arranged for him with
more care than usual, his meal left by the
fire, his table laid, and the landlady in-
formed him that his mother had left word
she would not be back till night. Dick
did not run wildly off in search of her, as
some people would have done. He h;\d
to look after his work, whatever happened.
He swallowed his dinner hastily, a prey
to miserable thoughts. It had come then
at last, this misfortune which he had so
long foreseen ! Could he let her wander
off alone to die of cold and weariness be-
hind some hedge ? After the three years*
repose, her change of habits, and the de'
dining strength which he could no
deceive himself about, how
bear those privations alone ?
impossible. Dick reviewed
II
FAMILY JEWELS.
539
He knew what everybody would say : how
it was the vagrant blood breaking out in
him again ; how it was, once a tramp al-
ways a tramp ; how it was a pity, but well,
on the whole, that he had done nothing
wild and lawless before he left. And
some would regret him, Dick thought,
brushing his hand across his eyes — " the
gentlemen " generally, among whom he
had many fast friends. Dick decided
that he would do nothing rash. He would
not give up his situation, and give notice
of leaving to the landlady, till he had first
had a talk with his mother ; but he
"tidied " the room after his solitary din-
ner with a forlorn sense of the general
breaking up of all his comforts — and
went to his afternoon's work with a heavy
heart.
It was quite late when she came home.
He could hear by her steps upon the stair
that she was almost too tired to drag one
foot after another, as he ran to open the
door for her. Poor soul ! she came in
carrying a basket of primroses, which she
held ou^ to him with a pathetic smile.
"Take them, Dick ; I've been far to get
'em, and you used to be fond of them
when you were little," she said, dropping
wearily into the nearest seat. She was
pale, and had been crying, he could see ;
and her abstract eyes looked at him
humbl}', beseechingly, like the eyes of a
dumb creature, which can express a
vague anguish but cannot explain.
" Was it for them you went, mother ? "
cried Dick, with momentary relief: but
this was turned into deeper distress when
she shook her head, and burst out into a
low moaning and crying that was pitiful
to hear.
"No," she said, — "no, no, it wasn't
for them ; it was to try my strength ; and
I can't do it, Dick — I can't do it, no
more, never no more. The strength has
gone out of me. I'm dying for free air
and the road — but 1 can't do it, no more,
no more ! "
Poor Dick went and knelt down by her
side, and took her hand into his. He
was glad, and conscience-stricken, and
full of pity for her, and understanding of
her trouble. " Hush, mother ! hush ! "
he said; "don't cry. You're weakly
after the long winter, as I've seen you
before "
" No, lad, no," she cried, rocking her-
self in her chair ; "no, I'll never be able
for it again — no more, no more ! "
Dick never said a word of the tumult
in his own mind : he tried to comfort
her, prophesying — though heaven knows
how much against his own interests ! —
that she would soon feel stronger, and
coaxed her to eat and drink, and at length
prevailed upon her to go to bed. Now that
they had become comparatively rich, she
had the little room behind which had
once been Dick's, and he was promoted
to a larger chamber up-stairs. He sat
up there, poor fellow, as long as he could
keep awake, wondering what he must do.
Could it be that he was glad that his
mother was less strong ? or was it his
duty to lose no, time further, but to
take her away by easy stages to the open
air that was necessary for her, and the
fields that she loved .'' Dick's heart con-
tracted, and bitter tears welled up into
his eyes. But he felt that he must think
of himself no longer, only of her. That
was the one thing self-evident, which re-
quired no reasoning to make clear.
The next day a letter came from Val-
entine Ross, the first sign of his exist-
ence all this time, which changed en-
tirely the current of affairs.
From Blackwood's Magazine,
t FAMILY JEWELS.
What lover of poetry, whose studies
have made him familiar with the singers
of the elder day, can fail to find interest
in tracing scenes, characters, and similes
which have now become the common
property of poets, to their often dim and
distant origin "i The course of such an
explorer is at times like his who seeks in
a mountainous district for the well-spring
of a river. It is an easy task to follow its
upward course to where the broad stream
issues from some fair, large lake ; but
whence did that lake itself derive its
waters ? They flow into it down many a
mountain vale ; and the largest brooks
are themselves the outlets of smaller lakes
which lie far up on the bosom of the sur-
rounding hills. In like manner, we may
trace with little trouble the tale of some
wronged and deserted Mariana of modern
times to its true origin in the story of the
hapless Queen of Carthage ; but when we
come to inquire whence Virgil himse'f
derived the notion of his Dido's fortunes,
the answer is more complex. We are
commonly referred to the Odyssey, where,
in truth, we find Calypso detaining
Ulysses, and watering her island-rocks
with angry tears at his departure. But
the power and the passion, the anguish
and the suicide, of which Homer sang not,
540
FAMILY JEWELS.
whence came they to the Mantuan bard ?
We find hints of them in the epic, and
still more in the dramatic, Medea ; we
catch gHmpsesof them in the " Deianeira"
of Sophocles ; could the lost treasures of
the tragedy of " Hellas " be recovered to
us, farther sources yet might be unveiled.
So far, however, we can track with some
success the bright waters of the lower
lake to those higher homes where they
mirror mountain-ash and rock in their
deep, still bosoms. But the climber who
rests awhile by the lonely tarn knows that
its waters, too, have a higher fount, and
that, if he can scale the overhanging crags,
he shall find it somewhere bubbling up
among the ferns and heather far above
him. Even so, the heroines of the Greek
plays were not the dramatists' own inven-
tion ; they themselves received from tra-
dition the story which they shaped so
grandly ; and in the wanderings of Ulys-
ses, as told by the minstrels who preceded
Homer, there was probably a place for
the bright-haired Calypso in her cedar-
scented cavern. Yet could we summon
those early bards before us, and listen to
their artless strain, should we think less
of Homer than we do now? In like man-
ner, is Virgil other than a great poet be-
cause he owes debts, even in one of the
two finest books of the ^neid, to his
gifted predecessors ? Is he not rather
(following the analogy which guided our
choice of our title) to be commended, like
one who, having inherited from, different
lines of ancestry several precious stones
(they, too, the gift of nature to their first
possessors, not the work of man), should
set them in one rich necklace, and en-
hance their value many times by engrav-
ing each with a clear-cut and nobly-shaped
intaglio ? It is otherwise, of course,
where the poet adds nothing of his own
but the setting. No one would give the
praise of invention to Dryden for his
*' Palamon and Arcite " (a version of the
" Knighte's Tale " into modern English),
or to Tennyson for his " Elaine " and
" Passing of Arthur " (translations from
the prose of the " Morte d'Arthur" into
verse), or deny their inferiority on the
score of inventive genius * to Chaucer ;
* How entirely Tennyson (with all his other poetic
gifts) is wanting in this great endowment, is conclu-
sively proved by his " Last Tournament." The colour
of hiS picture, with its brown autumnal hues, is ad-
mirable ; but what a composition as regards the central
figure! Many a previous idyl has told of Arthur's
freatness ; now at last we are promised a sight of it.
n all the pomp of war the kmg rides forth with his
attendant chivalry ; and this is all that the poet can de-
vise for him by way of exr,loit, — to look on \yhile his
drunken adversary falls off his horse by accident, to
and to that nameless poet who is known
to us by the prose of " Sir Thomas Mal-
lory." But the gems, new-set by Dryden
and by Tennyson, have delighted hun-
dreds who would never have searched for
them in their first receptacles. A beau-
tiful style, a musical verse, have charms
for all lovers of poetry ; and, where the
higher gifts of the creative imagination
are wanting, cannot be employed better
than in adorning what it has produced of
old. Not such, however, are the rela-
tions between Virgil and Homer. Even
where the former copies the latter most
closely in details, he yet transfuses into
them a new spirit from the sense which
pervades his great poem of the vast com-
ing fortunes of Rome. Thus, the main
idea of his sixth book is unquestionably
borrowed from Homer. The journey of
^neas among the dead seems at first
sight a mere reproduction of the same
awful visit of Ulysses. Were it no more
than this, its exquisite verse, its marvel-
lous matchings of sound with sense,
would suffice to establish its writer's po-
sition as one of the greatest poets of the
second order. But, on a closer inspec-
tion, two points of difference emerge.
Virgil's descent into Hades is dignified
by a far stronger ethic feeling than Ho-
mer's, awing the listener's mind by its
representation of the essential and ever-
lasting distinction between right and
wrong, between good and evil. And
again, its supernatural horrors are justi-
fied, as Homer's could not be, by the pur-
pose for which they are exhibited. Ulys-
ses only seeks to learn his own fortunes
from the soothsayer Teiresias ; the proph-
esy of Anchises to ^neas is big with the
future fates of Rome. There, too, we
find (no doubt a dangerous example to
succeeding poets) the most beautiful of
references in an epic to contemporary
events. Of all the wreaths which have
been twined for an untimely bier, where
is there one which equals this introduc-
tion of the early-lost Marcellus beside his
renowned ancestor at the end of the grand
procession of Roman worthies ? —
Here spake ^neas, — for he saw there walked
By him a youth of beauty rare, in arms
Bright flashing, yet sad-browed, with down-
cast eyes, —
" Who, father, thus attends that hero's steps ?
Son, or late offspring of his mighty line .''
What hum of courtiers roimd ! how like in]
look!
watch his castle fired by his own disobedient troops,
and then quietly ride home again 1
I
FAMILY JEWELS.
541
Yet round his head black Night floats with
sad shade."
With rising tears began Anchises then :
" Son, search not the great mourning of thy
race ;
Him shall the fates but show to earth, not
suffer
To stay there. Ye had thought the Roman
line
Too mighty, gods ! this gift retained its own.
How loud those groans the Field to Mars'
great city
Shall send ! yea, Tiber, what funereal pomps
Shalt thou behold when by his new-raised
mound
Thou glidest ! Never boy of Ilian race
Shall lift a Latin grandsire's hopes as he :
Nor Romulus' earth so boast of other nurs-
ling.
Alas his piety ! alas his faith,
Fit for an elder time ! his hand in war
Unconquered ! for unscathed could none have
met
His sword, whether on foot he charged the
foe,
Or spurred his foaming courser's flanks. Oh,
boy.
So to be wept ! if fate could be annulled
Thou too wert a Marcellus. From full hands
Pour forth your lilies : mine be darker flosA^ers
To strew, heaping such gifts, (what else is
left ?)
The empty honours of my grandson's shade."
A gem indeed ! And yet, of all the
treasures in the muse's casket, the most
easily imitated in paste, the quickest set
in gaudy tinsel. Alas for the shameless
flatteries of worthless scions of the house
of Este by Ariosto and by Tasso which
bear a superficial resemblance to this
great passage ; and for numberless other
instances of a poet's readiness
To heap the shrine of luxury or pride.
With incense kindled from the muse's flame !
Let us turn to a far nobler result of the
sixth book of the yEneid, the very grand-
est ever produced by any poem, to
Dante's " Divine Comedy." The great
Italian, at whose mighty voice "dead
poesy rose " from her grave fairer and
more vigorous than before, sedulously
represents the first part of his magnifi-
cent work as the offshoot of the descent
of ^neas into Hades, while his references
to the ^neid are frequent in its two other
divisions. He has expressively marked
his obligations to Virgil, by representing
him as the guide whose steps he follows
to the nether glooms ; and there is scarce-
ly a striking description, or even line, in
Virgil's sixth book of which we do not
find the counterpart, or the expansion, in
the "Divine Comedy." But everything
there is new, stamped by the presence of
a greater genius, animated by a diviner
fire — a fire kindled from that altar in
the heavens from which the pagan poet
could liuht no torch ; the oldest materials
— the shapes of an outworn mythology — •
are combined into new forms and en-
dowed with a new life ; so that Dante,
the frankest among poets in acknowledg-
ing his obligations to the past, stands
forth as the most original of writers : in
a word, by a miracle not to be paralleled
amo-ng the achievements of art, the pre-
cious antique gem bequeathed to modern
times by Homer and by Virgil, has re-
ceived from their great successor's hand
a new intaglio, which can be scanned and
admired without interfering with our de-
light in its earlier engraving — a mystic
and spiritual emblem which has brought
forth a latent brightness, never seen be-
fore, from the stone which, through it, is
now hallowed and honoured like that
which of old glittered in the centre of the
high priest's breastplate.
But not to dwell longer on this greatest
but best-known instance of a transmitted
poetic glor)', let us survey for a moment
one of the results in English poetry of
the journey of Ulysses to the Cimmerian
regions. What fruit it has borne in Mil-
ton's pages we will leave our readers to
investigate for themselves ; but we shall
scarcely err in supposing that they are
not so familiar with its effect on Spenser.
The second book of " The Faery Queen "
derives its name from the virtue of Tem-
perance. Taking that quality in its lar-
gest sense, Spenser, in its seventh canto,
conducts his hero, Sir Guyon, into the
cave of Mammon, that he may have an
opportunity of showing himself temperate
as to the love of gold as well as the love
of pleasure, and of seeing through and
despising all the snares of covetousness.
The way into Mammon's secret treasure-
houses leads men (by a fine allegory)
close past the gates of hell. The com-
pany which surrounds those gates recalls
Virgil's —
Mala mentis
Gaudia ; mortiferumque adverso in limine
Bellum
Ferrique Eumenidum thalami, et Discordia
demens,
Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis ;
for Spenser tells us that —
By that way's side there sat infernal Pain,
And fast beside him sat tumultuous Strife,
The one in hand an iron whip did strain,
The other brandished a bloody knife.
And both did gnash their teeth, and both did
threaten life.
542
FAMILY JEWELS.
XXII.
On th' other side, in one consort there sate
Cruel Revenge, and rancorous Despite,
Disloyal Treason and heart-burning Hate :
But gnawing Jealousy, out of their sight
Sitting alone, his bitter lips did bite ;
And trembling Fear still to and fro did fly,
And found no place where safe he shroud
him might ;
Lamenting Sorrow did in darkness lie,
And Shame his ugly face did hide from living
eye.
XXIII.
And over them sad Horror, with grim hue,
Did always soar, beating his iron wings ;
, And after him owls and night-ravens flew,
The hateful messengers of heavy things.
But Spenser has altered the position of
the " ultrices Curae " and " consangui-
neus Leti Sopor " of the elder poet to suit
his own allegory, placing the former (em-
bodied as one, not many) as the appro-
priate warder of the door of Plutus in-
stead of Pluto. Mammon leads Guyon
past the first dread shapes, and then —
At last him to a little door he brought.
That to the Gate of Hell, which gaped wide.
Was next adjoining, ne them parted ought :
Betwixt them both was but a little stride
That did the House of Riches from Hell-
Mouth divide.
XXV.
Before the door sat self-consuming Care ;
Day and night keeping wary watch and
ward,
For fear lest Force and Fraud should un-
aware
Break in and spoil the treasure there in
guard.
Ne would he suffer Sleep once thitherward
Approach, albe his drowsy den were next ;
For next to Death is Sleep to be compared.
Therefore his House is unto his annext :
Here Sleep, there Riches, and Hell-Gate them
both betwixt.
They enter and find themselves in vast
caverns hewn out of gold, full of chests
and coffers holding the wrought metal ;
which, further on in its earlier stage,
busy fiends are preparing to add to the
store by purifying from dross in large fur-
naces. But the golden floor is strewn
with dead men's bones, the bright roof
dimmed and overhung with spider's
webs ; a grisly fiend walks behind the
knight, ready to seize him if he is
teiiTpted by any of Mammon's glittering
baits ; and amid those boundless stores
of wealth all is darkness, uncertainty,
and danger ; for, as to i^neas and the
Sibyl,
View of cheerful day
Did never in that house itself display ;
But a faint shadow of uncertain light,
Such as a lamp whose life doth fade away,
Or as the moon,* clothed with cloudy night,!
Doth shew to him that walks in fear and sadl
affright.
Guyon resists the deadly attractions of
the hoarded gold : he is likewise prooi
against the subtler charms of ambition,]
personified as
A woman gorgeous gay,
And richly clad in robes of royalty ;
of whom Spenser, with a yet more skilful]
use of alliteration says —
Her face right wondrous fair did seem to be.
That her broad beauty's beam great brightness
threw
Thro' the dim shade, that all men might it see,
She is the daughter of Mammon, wh
offers her in marriage to Sir Guyon, and,'
on his refusal, alleging his " troth yplight "
to " other lady," leads him to the " Gar-
den of Proserpina," to tempt him with
some of the golden apples which have
wrought so much strife on earth. But
the tree on which they grow stretches its
branches far indeed, for they dip into the
black river Cocytus ; and the sight of
souls tormented therein would have
moved one even less prudent than Spen-
ser's hero to reject them. The two
selected out of many for detailed descrip-
tion, just before Guyon's victorious re-
turn to upper air, are Tantalus and Pon-
tius Pilate. By the former of these
Spenser binds his view of the infernal
regions to Homer's, of whose only three
criminals the Phrygian king occupies the
central place, and whose description o"
the torments of Tantalus, cast by Mr,
Worsley into two of his beautiful Spen-
serian stanzas, may throw h'ght on the
mind of the reader of Spenser's own four.
But the image of the Roman governor is
a grand and original conception, though
possibly influenced by some of Dante's
pictures of punishment, and must be re-
ceived as a successful effort of Spenser's
to supply an omission on the part of the
great Italian at which men have often
wondered, and which no man, so far as we
know, has satisfactorily explained. Thes
are Spenser's powerful stanzas : —
LXI.
He looked a little further, and espied
Another wretch, whose carcase deep wj
drent
* " Quale per incertam lunam sub luce maligna
Est iter in silvis, ubi ccelum condidit umbrS
1 Jupiter, et rebus nox abstulit atra colorem."
11
FAMILY JEWELS.
543
Within the river, which the same did hide ;
But both his hands, most filthy feculent,
Above the water were on high extent.
And fained to wash themselves incessantly;
Yet nothing cleaner were for such intent.
But rather fouler seemed to the eye,
So lost his labour vain and idle industry.
LXII.
The knight, him calling, asked who he was.
Who lifting up his head him answered thus,
** I Pilate am, the falsest judge, alas !
And most unjust, that by unrighteous
And wicked doom to Jews dispiteous.
Delivered up the Lord of Life to die,
And did acquit a murderer felonous ;
The whiles my hands I washed in purity.
The whiles my soul was soiled with foul in-
iquity."
Nor is Spenser indebted to Virgil only
in the second division of his beautiful
poem. Its third part (the Book of Chas-
tity, owes much more to the Mantuan
bard, since its most pleasing character,
that of Britomart, is evidently derived
from his Camilla. Of the great Italian
copies of that enchanting model, by
Boiardo, Ariosto, and Tasso, it is the first
heroine of the two former, Bradamante,
not their second, Marphisa (still less the
Clorinda of the " Jerusalem Delivered "),
whom Spenser's sweet British princess
recalls to us. Her pure and feminine
dignity, combined with her faithful devo-
tion to the yet unseen Arthegal, lift the
character of Britomart into a higher
sphere of romance than that in which her
Italian prototype abides ; but, like the
haughty Amazons of the two •' Orlandos,"
her career is too successful to evoke the
pathetic interest aroused in the reader's
mind by the death of the Volscian maid.
Combined by Virgil, in all probability,
from the old traditions of Italy, blended
with traits from that death of Penthesilea
of which a lost Cyclic poet sang, the
Camilla strikes every reader as one of
the most touching episodes of the^neid.
We afterwards see the jewel Which there I
first flashed upon us sparkle under later
poets' touch, with far different surround-
ings, amid the chivalry of " Charlemain
and all his peerage," and that yet nobler,
knightly company concerning whom Sid-j
ney listened while Spenser sang. But it is
in the hands of Tasso that the gem shines
with its purest lustre, emitting an un-
earthly light on the pale white brow
whereon the baptismal waters glisten, as
Clorinda — her life-blood ebbing from the
wound made by her hapless lover's un-
witting hand — resigns her new-born soul
to Its Creator and Sanctifier, and, signing
Tancred's pardon, sinks into her death-
sleep.* Here in one small instance the
Christian faith has enabled Tasso, though
of inferior genius, to outdo Vigil as de-
cidedly as Dante has done, in part by the
same means, on a far larger scale.
Our next example will illustrate literally
the " Progress of Poesy " from Hellas to
Italy and from Italy to England ; and,
requiring for its clear setting forth the
investigation of authors less widely read
than Virgil is, may haply detain us some-
what longer than the foregoing. We
would ask our readers to accompany us
on a perilous voyage to the Hall of Circe
and to the Gardens of Armida. May we
go and return unscathed, protected by
the appropriate talisman !
To begin then, as we ought, with the
father of poetry, we find scattered up and
down in the Odyssey most of the traits
which Ariosto, Tasso, and Spenser have
afterwards combined into their pictures
of a knight and his enchantress : the idea
of a brave man detained from active ser-
vice by one supernatural being, and lib-
erated through the intervention of another,
in Ulysses long kept hid by Calypso, and
released by her at the command of Her-
mes ; again, the story of a powerful sor-
ceress, whose spells turn men into beasts,
frustrated by a mightier counter-charm,
and constrained to restore her victims to
their natural shapes, in the victory won
by Ulysses over Circe through the heaven-
sent herb Moly ; not to speak of the
Sirens and of Scylla and of Charybdis
blended by Spenser with the tale of Circe
for the sake of the moral lesson. The
things of which Homer gives only hints
for his successors to amplify, are, as we
might expect, the personal charms of his
enchantresses and the loveliness of the
garden-bowers in which they dwell. On
them he is even less diffuse than in his
brief description of the orchards of King
Alcinous, which we quote from Worsley's
charming translation, that our readers
may mentally contrast it with the elabo-
rate enumerations of later times : —
There in full prime the orchard trees erow
tall, ^
Sweet fig, pomegranate, apple fruited fair,
Pear and the healthful olive. Each and all
Both summer droughts and chills of winter
spare ;
All the year round they flourish. Some the
air
Of ZephjT warms to life, some doth mature.
Apple grows old on apple, pear on pear,
* " Passa la bella donna e par che dorma."
544
FAMILY JEWELS.
Fig follows fig, vintage doth vintage lure ;
Thus the rich revolution doth for aye endure.
XVI II.
With well-sunned floor for drying, there is
seen
The vineyard. Here the grapes they cull,
there tread.
Here falls the blossom from the clusters
green,
There the first blushings by the sun are
shed.
Last, flowers forever fadeless — bed by bed ;
Two streams : one waters the whole garden
fair ;
One through the courtyard, near the house
is led ;
Whereto with pitchers all the folk repair.
All these the god-sent gifts to King Alci-
nous were. Book vii.
Here the flowers only receive one line,
and in the two books which are our more
especial concern, they are only once men-
tioned. Homer tells us of Circe's gold
and silver plate, her purple and fine linen,
of her
Silver-studded chair,
Rich, daedal, covered with a crimson pall ;
but of her bower of bliss he says nothing.
Calypso's is a vine-clad cave, embosomed
in trees, which extorts the admiration of
even Hermes himself ; but it is despatched
by Homer in comparatively few words : —
There dwelt the fair-haired nymph, and her
he found
Within. Bright flames that on the hearth
did play.
Fragrance of burning cedar breathed around
And fume of incense wafted every way.
\ There her melodious voice the live-long day,
Timing the golden shuttle, rose and fell.
And round the cave a leafy wood there lay
Where green trees waved o'er many a shady
dell.
Alder and poplar black and cypress sweet of
smell.
X.
Thither the long-winged birds retired to
sleep.
Falcon and owl and sea-crow loud of tongue,
Who plies her business in the watery deep ;
And round the hollow cave her tendrils flung
A healthy vine, with purpling clusters hung ;
And fountains four, in even order set,
Near one another, from the stone out
sprung.
Streaming four ways their crystal-showery
jet
Through meads of parsley soft and breathmg
violet. Book v.
Calypso's beauty is left to be conjectured
from the epithet in the first of these two
stanzas, and from the unwilling confession
of Ulysses ;
Well may Penelope in form and brow
And stature seem inferior far to thee.
For she is mortal and immortal thou ;
— while Circe stands at the "bright gate*
of her mansion marble-walled," a " dreac
goddess, gleaming-haired," to be paintec
by each reader for himself, as to coloui
and features. Far more distinct is Spen-]
ser's portrait of Acrasia, the Circe of th(
" Faery Queen ; " and yet she is a compar^
atively inconsiderable form in his lon<
gallery of beauties, — needed by him aj
she is for one canto only. He depicts t(
us her akibaster skin, and also most poet^
ically how —
Her fair eyes sweet smiling in delight
Moistened their fiery beams, with whicl
she thrilled
Frail hearts, yet quenched not ; like starr
light,
Which sparkling on the silent waves doea
seem more bright.*
Ariosto is much more minute still ; and'
gives us a complete inventory of the
charms of his Alcina, which " surpassed
those of her ladies as does the sun the
stars." He begins with her graceful
form, her long fair hair " as gold resplen-
dent," and the roses and lilies of her
cheeks. Then we have her "glad fore-
head " of smooth ivory and the finely-
pencilled black eyebrows, beneath whose
arches two black eyes (or rather suns)
prove lurking-places whence Love, who
ever gambols round them, shoots at the
unwary. And then, with an attention as
to details seldom shown by more recent
poets, Ariosto points out to us the nose
in its due central position, so shaped that
even "envy could suggest no improve-
ment on it," before he goes on to the ver-
milion lips that parted with such an en-
chanting smile, and to the double row of
choice pearls which they enclose. It is
mortifying, after we have wasted a good
deal of admiration on such a bewitching
person, to be assured (as we are before
the canto's close) that all this beauty was
only the work of enchantment ; and that
a strong counter-charm revealed Alcina
to its possessor as the oldest and ugliest
woman in the world : a shrivelled, wrin-
kled, diminutive, and disreputable fairy,
without a single tooth in her head.
Perhaps this disclosure (made in the in-
terests of truth) is as indiscreet on our part
asit is on Ariosto's. We should scarcely
* Tasso' s —
" Qual raggio in onda, le scintilla un riso,
Negli umidi occhi tremulo e lascivo."
— from which Spenser copied this, is here far surpas
FAMILY JEWELS.
545
have risked it if we had not had the genuine
and indisputable beauty of Tasso's Ar-
mida to fall back on. How well he paints
her when she appears in Godfrey's camp
as a distressed princess needing succour ;
but in truth devising how to draw away
after her some of the bravest of the Cru-
saders and shut them up in her castle's
dungeon, so as, if possible, to deprive
the Cross of its champions in the hour of
need !
Not Argos, nay, not Cyprus, could behold,
Or Delos, such a robe, such beauty rare !
Now through her white veil shine her locks
of gold,
Now flash uncovered making bright the air.
So, when the sky grows clear now shines
through fold
Of some white cloud the sun, anon more fair.
Forth issuing from that cloud he darts each
ray
Clearer around, and makes a double day.
XXX.
Her loosened hair the breeze has curled
again,
Which nature bade in curling waves to -flow.
Her eyes seem misers and each glance re-
strain
Lest men Love's treasure and their own
should know,
Tender-hued roses are 'mid ivories fain
In that fair face scattered and mixed to
blow :
But on those lips that Love's own breath
has parted.
Reddens the rose alone and single-hearted.
G. L., c. V.
Of the island-homes of these enchant-
resses, Ariosto's description is the least
attractive. It comprises a golden wall, a
bridge adorned with emeralds and sap-
phires, and a magnificent palace never-
theless ; and the park-like ground on
which Roger alights from the Hippogryph
which bore him to its remote coast, is at
least well furnished with game, which
supplies him with one of his most inno-
cent diversions during his sojourn there.
When he first descends from his strange
courser he beholds " delicious hills, clear
water, and soft meads."
XVIII.
There groves delightsome of sweet laurel
bowers,
Of palm-trees' and of pleasant myrtles' shade ;
Cedars and orange-trees, whose fruits and
flowers —
Wreaths diverse-shaped, but each one lovely
made.
Gave shelter sure in summer's hottest hours
To pilgrim 'neath their thick-pleached branches
laid ;
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 347
And 'mid those boughs, secure that none as-
sail
Her flight, moved, singing sweet, the night-
ingale.
XIX.
'Mid the red roses and the lilies white,
By mild airs ever with fresh life possessed,
The hares and conies sport which none af-
fright ;
And stags erect their proud and antlered crest
Dreading no hunter's snares or murderous
might,
Then crop the grass and chew their cud at
rest :
There, too, swift roes and nimble wild-goats
bound,
Those many tenants of that sylvan ground.
XXI.
And near beside, where rose a fount to view,
The which to girdle palms and cedars stand.
His shield he laid down, from his forehead
drew
His helmet, and ungauntleted each hand :
Now to the mount, now to the sea's dark blue
He turned his face, by cool fresh breezes
fanned,
Which with glad murmurs the high summits
stir,
To trembling motion of the beech and fir.
Here, as on Calypso's island, the trees
preponderate over the flowers, only they
belong to a more southern clime, and are
richer and gayer than hers. Directly
after, the reminiscences of Homer change
to Circe, and Roger receives a warning
of Alcina's guile from a luckless knight,
whom she (going a step beyond her pro-
totype) has changed into a myrtle-tree.*
Others of her victims bear the shapes of
rocks and fountains, but most of strange
and monstrous beasts. Roger, thus fore-
warned, prepares to ride past the wicked
fairy's gates, and does valiant battle to
the rabble rout of monsters which as-
sail his course ; but he is weak enough,
to yield to the entreaties of two fair dam-
sels, who lead him through a gateway (of
which the architrave, covered with the
rarest gems of the East, rests on four
large columns, each an entire diamond)
to the presence of their mistress. The
sight of those fictitious charms, which we
chronicled before, at once subdues the
knight's resolution. " In Alcina's every
word, smile, song, or even step, there
lurked a snare," says Ariosto ; " no mar-
vel that Roger was taken by them." So
far from profiting was he by the myrtle's
warnings, that he rather inclined to be-
* An idea derived through Daute from Virgil. — Inf,
xiii. ; JE.. lib. iii.
546
FAMILY JEWELS.
lieve the transformation a just punish-
ment ; and as to possible risk to himself,
he felt a strong conviction —
That never treason or injurious guile
Could live and plot along v^rith such a smile.
His instant forgetfulness of Bradamante
— "That beauteous woman whom he
loved so well " — is ascribed by the poet
to Alcina's spells, which are not broken
till the wronged lady sends to her recre-
ant knight, by the hand of the good fairy
Melissa, a ring, which has the happy
power of dispersing all enchantments
when once slipped on the finger. Luckily
finding Roger alone, the worthy Melissa
scolds him well, and then makes him put
on the ring. At once the knight feels
*'too much ashamed to -look any one in
the face, and wishes himself many feet
underground." The sight of Alcina as
she really is soon completes his cure, and
he takes the first convenient opportunity
of riding away from her court to that of
her virtuous sister. Alcina pursues him
with a fleet, to no purpose, and during
her absence Melissa undoes her spells
and restores her victims to their true
forms.
It is thus that Ariosto, according to his
manner, gives a semi-burlesque treatment
.to the legend told by Homer with such
•grave simplicity. His sorceress is viler
than Circe ; and Roger, duped by her
arts, and delivered from them, as it were,
in his own despite, offers a contrast to
the commanding position held all along
'by Ulysses, who compels the restitution
-to their pristine shape of his comrades,
and from first to last makes his own terms
•with the enchantress.
Spenser, on the other hand, deals with
the subject seriously throughout — nei-
ther with the Italian's indifference to, nor
the Greek's childlike unconsciousness of,
evil. He scorns to degrade a Red-Cross
knight or a Sir Arthegal by making him
fall into Acrasia's snares : her victim is
•an unconsidered youth, and Sir Guyon
treads the bower of bliss only to rescue
him from the toils which surround him.
Attended by a grave Palmer he sets sail
for Acrasia's island, steering a safe course
betwixt Charybdis, the Gulf of Greedi-
ness or Avarice, and Scylla, the Rock of
Vile Reproach, which awaits the Prodi-
gal. Here we find ourselves at once on
the old familiar track of the wise Ulysses,
the order alone being changed in which
the various objects are presented to us.
But those well-known shapes have now
another meaning : they have grown neb-
ulous, allegoric forms ; the perils which
they set before us are temporal no more,
but spiritual.
Shortly after, the Sirens' song break?
on our ears, inviting to the sloth which
kills all the divine in man. Those mer«
maids dwell, according to Spenser, in "a
still and calmy bay," between a hoary hill
and a high-towered rock. Their melody
is as sweet as it was when Ulysses signed
to his seamen to stay their rowing at its
bidding ; the words which accompany it
as inconsiderable : —
™
I
XXXII.
So now to Guyon, as he passed by,
Their pleasant tunes they sweetly thus ap
plied —
" O thou fair son of gentle Faery,
That art in mighty arms most magnified
Above all knights that ever b?ttle tried,
O turn thy rudder hithervvard awhile !
Here may thy storm-beat vessel safely ri
This is the port of rest from troublous toil,
The world's sweet inn from pain and weari
some turmoil."
XXXIII.
With that the rolling sea resounding soft,
In his big bass them fitly answered ;
And on the rock the waves breaking alo^fi
A solemn mean unto them measured ; S!
The whiles sweet Zephyrus loud whisteled
His treble, a strange kind of harmony
Which Guyon's senses softly tickeled,
That he the boatman bade row easily,
And let him hear some part of their
melody.
The Palmer, however, promptly "dis
counsels " from such vanity ; and th
boat glides on, through fogs of Cimme
rian gloom and flocks of "all the natio
of unfortunate and fatal birds," to th
island-shore. Passing throuijh the beast.'
which assail them on landing but crou'j
before the Palmer's staff, they enter th
"bower of bliss " by an ivory gate carve
with Jason's story.
Thus being entered they behold around
A large and spacious plain on every side,
Strowed with pleasance, whose fair gra^
ground
Mantled with green and goodly beautified
With all the ornaments of Flora's pride,
Wherewith her mother Art, as half in sec.
Of niggard Nature, like a pompous bride
Did deck her and too lavishly adorn,
When forth from virgin bovver she come
th' early morn.
LT.
Thereto the heavens always jovial,
Looked on them lovely still in steac
state,
FAMILY JEWELS.
547
Ne suffered storm nor frost on them to fall,
Their tender buds or leaves to violate,
Nor scorching heat nor cold intemperate
T' afflict the creatures which therein did
dwell ;
But the mild air with season moderate.
Gentle attempered and disposed so well,
That still it breathed forth sweet spirit and
wholesome smell.
LII.
More sweet and wholesome than the pleas-
ant hill
Of Rhodope, on which the nymph that bore
A giant babe herself for grief did kill ;
Or the Thessalian Tempe, where of yore
Fair Daphne Phoebus' heart with love did
gore;
Or Ida, where the gods loved to repair
Whenever they their heavenly bowers for-
lore ;
Or sweet Parnasse, the haunt of Muses -fair,
Or Eden, if that ought with Eden mote com-
pare.
This last stanza is a good example of the
way in -which Spenser habitually uses
classic and sacred illustrations mixed.
But at this point the whole atmosphere
of the poem is changing. Fast as in the
middle of Goethe's Helena, we pass from
the classic to the romantic, and breathe
already in the fifty-first stanza the air of
the gardens of Armida. We are brought
back to the Odyssey at the close of the
canto; but till then — after a porch of
Spenser's own invention, vine-trellised
with grapes,
Some deep empurpled as the hyacinth,
Some as the ruby laughing sweetly red,
Some like fair emeraudes, not yet well ri-
pened —
he contents himself with abridging, and
sometimes actually translating, Tasso.
The stanzas marked witfe asterisks are
versions, and very beautiful and success-
ful versions, of one of the most difficult
of poets to translate ; a difficulty owing
to that love of antithesis and conceit
which was Tasso's besetting sin.
LVIII.
There the most dainty paradise on ground
Itself doth offer to his sober eye,
In which all pleasures plenteously abound,
And none does other's happiness envy ;
* The painted flowers, the trees upshooting
high,
The dales for shade, the hills for breathing
space,
The trembling groves, the crystal running
by; _
And that which all fair works doth most
aggrace,
The art which all that wrought, appeared in
no place.
LXX.
Eftsoons they heard a most melodious sound,
Of all that mote delight a dainty ear.
Such as at once might not on living ground.
Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere ;
Right hard it was for wight which did it
hear
To read what manner music that mote be ;
For all that pleasing is to human ear
Was there consorted in one harmony.
Birds, voices, instruments, winds, waters, all
agree.
LXXI.
The joyous birds, shrouded in cheerful
shade.
Their notes unto the voice attempered
sweet :
Th' angelical soft trembling voices made
To th' instruments divine respondence meet ;
The silver sounding instruments did meet
With the bass murmur of the water's fall ;
The water's fall with difference discreet,
Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ;
The gentle, warbling wind low answered to all.
LXXIV.
* The whiles some one did chaunt this lovely
lay :*
* These stanzas are sung by Tasso's marvellously sweet-voiced parrot. It is an ordinary commonplace of
comment to ascribe their first origin to Catullus through Ariosto. But the sentiment of the celebrated Epitha-
lamium is different, as will be seen by the annexed version of the lament (borrowed from it) of Sacripant over
his faithless Angelica, like as are the forms of expression : —
42.
" La verginella h simile alia rosa,
Che 'n bel giardin su la natlva spina,
Mentre sola e sicura si riposa,
Ne gregge, n6 pastor, se le avvicina;
L'aura soave e I'aiba rugiadosa
L' acqua, la terra al suo favor s' inchina :
Giovani vaghi e donne innamorate
Amano averne e seni e temple ornate.
43.
" Ma non si tosto dal matemo stelo
Rimossa viene e dal suo ceppo verde
Che quanto avea dagli uomini e dal cielo,
Favor, grazia, e bellezza, tutto perde,
La Vergin che il candor di che piu zelo
Che de' begli occhi e della vita aver-de',
Pregiar non mostra ; il pregio che avea innante
Perde nel core d'ogni saggio amante."
Orl. Fur., c. i.
42.
*' The maiden pure is like unto that rose,
The which, while safe upon its native thorn
In some fair garden, it doth lone repose,
No flock has cropped, no shepherd's hand has torn ;
Her leaves soft airs and dewy dawns unclose,
Rains and rich soil with vivid hues adorn :
Her loving youths and maids delight to set
Upon their breast, or twine for coronet.
43.
" But from her mother-stem so soon as rent.
She from her leafy bovver is riven away ;
The favour, grace, and beauty, by consent
Of men and heaven hers, no longer stay.
The maid, who shows that pureness innocent
(Which should her fair eyes, yea her life outweigh),
She prizes not — the place she held before
In each wise lover's heart can hold no more."
548
FAMILY JEWELS.
*' Ah ! see, whoso fair thing dost fain to see,
In springing flower the image of thy day :
Ah ! see the virgin rose how sweetly she
Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty.
That fairer seems the less ye see her may ;
Lo ! see soon after, how made bold and free
Her bared bosom she doth broad display ;
Lo ! see soon after, how she fades and falls
away.
LXXV.
* " So passeth in the passing of a day
Of mortal life the leaf, the bud, the flower,
Ne more doth flourish after first decay
That erst was sought to deck both bed and
bower
Of many a lady, many a paramour :
Gather therefore the rose whilst yet is prime.
For soon comes age that will her pride de-
flower ;
Gather the rose of love, whilst yet is time,
Whilst loving thou mayst loved be with equal
crime."*
With a sterner tread than that of
Ulysses, Guyon, under the Palmer's
guidance, hushes this alluring song, and
lays waste this perilous garden of delight.
Ere they depart with the captured en-
chantress, we read —
But all those pleasant bowers and palace
brave,
Guyon broke down with rigour pitiless ;
and the restoration of the transformed
beasts to human shapes is so told as to
bring out the moral lesson latent in Ho-
mer's myth, with an added touch of sar-
casm at the close, which has passed with
readers of the " Faery Queen " into a
proverb. Guyon has learned from the
Palmer that the brutes which beset his
exit, as they did his entrance, were once
men —
Now turned into figures hideous,
According to their minds, like monstruous.
" Sad end," quoth he, " of life intemperate
And mournful meed of joys delicious :
But, Palmer, if it mote thee so aggrate,
Let them returned be unto their former state.
LXXXVI.
Straightway he with his virtuous staff ther
struck.
And straight of beasts they comely men bt
came;
Yet being men they did unmanly look.
And stared ghastly, some for inward shame
And some for wrath to see their captiv
dame :
But one above the rest in special
That had an Hog been late (hight Gryll b
name)
Repined greatly, and did him miscall
That had from hoggish form him brought t
natural.
LXXXVII.
Said Guyon ; " See the mind of beastly mai
That hath so soon forgot the excellence
Of his creation when he life began.
That now he chooseth with vile difference
To be a beast and lack intelligence."
To whom the Palmer thus : " The dunghi
kind
Delights in filth and foul incontinence ;
Let Gryll be Gryll and have his
mind, —
But let us hence depart whilst weather serv«
and wind." t ^1
Faery Queen, B. II. c. iH
Tasso's treatment of the tale of Circ
and Ulysses is far more composite tha
that of Ariosto or of Spenser. His R
naldo, lured by the spells of Armida for
time to forget his duty, does not sugg-^
to us the Odyssey, but is the Achilles
his Iliad — the knight without whose a
the magic forest and mightiest pagan d
fender of Jerusalem cannot be ove
thrown. He too is wroth with Agamer
non (Tasso's pious Godfrey), and qui
hoggi;
Tasso's stanzas (sweeter, but far less wholesome in meaning) are as follows: —
" Deh mira (egli cant6) spuntar la rosa
Dal verde suo modesta e verginella :
Che mezzo aperta ancora e mezzo ascosa
Quanto si mostra men, tanto h piu bella :
Ecco poi nudo il sen, gii baldanzosa,
Dispiega : ecco poi langue, e non par quella ;
Quella non par, che desiata avanti
Fu da mille donzelle e mille amanti.
" Cosl trapassa al trapassar d'un giorno
Delia vita mortal il fiore e '1 verde :
N6, perch^ faccia indietro April ritomo,
Si rinfiora ell a mai, no si rinverde.
Cogliam la rosa in sul mattino adomo
Di questo di, che tosto il seren perde :
Cogliam di Amor la rosa : amiamo or quando
Esser si puote riamatoamando."
Ger. Lib., c. xvi
* The beginning of the next stanza is likewise modelled on Tasso's. We subjoin a version of the wh
stanza : —
' Tacque ; e concorde degli augelli il core
Quasi approvando il canto indi ripiglia,
Raddopian le colombe i baci loro :
Ogni animal d'amar si riconsiglia ;
Par che la dura querela e '1 casto alloro,
E tutta la frondosa ampia famiglia ;
Par che la terra e I'acqua e formi e spiri
Dolcissimi d' amorsensi e sospiri."
" He ceased ; and then the choir of birds approving
(So seemed it) tuned their notes inlo his strain.
The doves redoubled then their kisses loving ;
Each creature unto love returned again ;
The oak-tree hard, the laurel chaste seemed movln|
With all the leaf}' distant-spreading train ;
The verj' earth and water seemed to sigh.
As though their souls sweet thoughts of love came nl
t English readers who wish to see Ulysses and Circe masquerade in Spanish court dresses of the seventy
centur}', should read Mr. MacCarthy's clever version of Caldefon's " Love the greatest Enchantment."
f.ranslation, subjoined in the same volume, of "The Sorceries of Sin" (an Auto containing a spiritiu
plication of the same legend) is a quaint instance of the way in which the Spanish dramatist t'm/
iacient story to edifying uses.
FAMILY JEWELS.
549
the crusading host ; incurring soon after
the enmity of Armida by setting free the
captive warriors whom her first deception
bound. She lies in ambush for him, and
falls into her own toils ; then carries him
away with her to the fortunate islands
where her love is for a season everything
to him. When Godfrey is warned in a
dream to recall Rinaldo to the fight, his
messengers are directed where to go and
how to proceed by a Christian magician,
who gives them the plan of Armida's
labyrinth, tells them how to rouse Ri-
naldo"s dormant spirit, and provides a
magic bark to take them swiftly to the
island. Their course along the Mediter-
ranean cannot possess the charm of the
adventurous voyage of Ulysses. They
but survey the relics of those long-past
civilizations, at whose dawn Homer, in
whose maturity Virgil, sang. It is as
they pass the ruins of Dido's city that the
poet exclaims at the thought of so many
fallen grandeurs, '' E 1' uom d' esser mortal
par che si sdegrfi." Still one fresh source
of interest opens alongside of those back-
ward glances, in the anticipation of the
discovery of America by Columbus. But
when, having safely passed the Pillars
of Hercules, they land on Armida's chosen
home —
One of those isles of delight that rest
Far off in the breezeless main —
Homer's Calypso and Circe are outdone
by the wealth of descriptive riches lav-
ishly poured forth by the poet. The two
messengers climb the snow and ice by
which the sorceress has striven to make
the sides of the mountain into which the
island rises inaccessible, and find a
blooming paradise at the summit. Its
guardian dragon and lion are put to flight
by a golden wand intrusted to the knight
by the benevolent magician ; so is the
whole herd of savage beasts which they
encounter ; and the stately palace of the
enchantress discloses itself to them
standing beyond the flowery solitude on
the shore of a lake. The messengers pass
the perilous fount whereof whoso drinks
laughs till he dies of it, disregarding the
song of the dangerous Naiads who dis-
port themselves therein, and enter the
enchanted garden ; which they find in its
labyrinthine enclosure by the help of the
clue which they received. They pass its
gates richly sculptured with the triumphs
of love — Hercules with lole, Antony
with Cleopatra ; and having threaded its
mazes find themselves amid the fair land- '
scape, the wealth of ever-blooming flow-
ers and ever-ripening fruitage, the deli-
cious concert of sweet sounds, which
Spenser has, with some added touches,
transferred to his own pages. But where-
as the catastrophe of the English poet is
borrowed from the eighth book of the
Odyssey, Tasso has followed Statins, and
depicted Rinaldo as recalled to his duty
by a similar expedient to that by which
Ulysses detected the youthful Achilles in
his disguise among the maidens of Dei-
dameia. Armida has left him for a while
to busy herself among her magic spells,
when the two armed knights quit their
ambush and make Rinaldo, at the sight
of their flashing steel, start like a war-
horse at the sound of the trumpet. One
of them holds before him his shield of
polished metal, and in its bright mirror
the young warrior beholds his own degra-
dation, and blushes at his effeminate at-
tire. A few well-chosen words complete
his cure, and he at once prepares to re-
join the crusading host. Armida's suspi-
cions are aroused : she flies at once to
her mighty spells, but the mightier coun-
ter-charm at work defeats them all.
Then she leaves her incantations and
trusts to her suppliant beauty. It is here
that the great difference between Tasso
and his predecessors and follower is most
apparent. Circe, Alcina, and Acrasia are
mere sorceresses ; Armida is an enchan-
tress whom genuine love has touched
and made a woman. We are told ex-
pressly that till she met Rinaldo she had
" turned and overturned Love's kingdom
at her will, hating all lovers, loving her-
self alone ; " but that now, though
scorned, and neglected, and abandoned,
she needs must follow him who flies from
her, "adorning with her tears that beauty
which in itself he seemed to despise."
Her last pleadings with Rinaldo possess
some of the pathos, though they lack
the dignity, of Dido's with yEneas, from
which they are closely copied. But they
do not lead up to any such tragedy as
Dido's, only to the forsaken beauty's reso-
lution to revenge herself at any price on
the knight who has left her fainting on
the sandy shore ; while a later book of
the " Jerusalem Delivered " tells how,
after the failure of her design of ven-
geance, Rinaldo comes to her in his hour
of victory in time to avert her long-de-
layed suicide, and of their final reconcilia-
tion. But meantime Armida, destroying
her magic palace by the same spells
which created it, and departing to seek
revenge in her magic chariot, like Medea
5jO
FAMILY JEWELS.
'after completing hers, forms a striking
picture : —
LXVIII.
Soon as she reached her halls, with summons
dread,
She called th' Infernal Gods unto her aid.
Then o'er the sky a pall of black clouds spread,
And straight the sun grew pale with ghastly
shade,
The wind's fierce blast shook every mountain's
head.
While Hell beneath a sullen roaring made ;
And through the palace wide nought met the
ear
Save noises, howlings, murmurs, shrieks of
fear.
LXIX.
Then darker shade than gloom of starless
night,
Egyptian-like wrapped the gay palace round,
Pierced here and there by lightning, gleaming
bright
One instant 'mid the murky mist profound.
Then cleared that shade at last, the sun to
sight
Broke pallid through the air, all sorrow
drowned :
But of the palace then was left no trace, —
No stone remained to mark its former place.
LXX.
E'en as the clouds build works that will not
last
To image some enormous pile in air.
Which winds soon scatter, which the sun melts
fast ;
As flies the dream that some sick couch might
scare :
So quickly out of sight those rich halls passed.
Leaving the mount to native wildness bare.
Then on her chariot rose Armida high
As was her wont, careering through the sky.*
G. L., c. xvi.
We have seen how many rich cabinets
of far-famed gems Tasso has unlocked to
deck this most elaborate of his numerous
episodes with their spoils. The two great
epics of Greece, Virgil and Statius, Ovid
and Euripides, among the ancients — the
Orlandos of Boiardo and of Ariosto,
among the moderns — have all been laid
under contribution to enrich it. But it
would be unjust to Tasso not to point out
(as we have done by anticipation) how
many jewels of no inferior brilliancy be
has added to those he found already pre-
pared ; or to deny that that speedy trans-
ference of them by the great Elizabethan
poet to his own treasure-house which we
* These versions from Tasso, like the preceding
from Ariosto and from Virgil, appear for the first time.*
So does the subsequent extract from the Ajax of
Sophocles.
have already indicated, is a testimonial
to their high merit which it would be i
possible to set aside. For, if it is tr
that
iial
I
Nothing so soon the drooping spirit can raise,
As praises from the man whom all mea
praise, —
P
how would it have rejoiced the shy an
sensitive spirit of Tasso could he have
known of such a compliment from one flj
the greatest of his contemporaries ? It ffl
a compliment which only a very great
poet could safely pay ; and it is one that
will be seldom paid to other than a great
poet. Dryden has remarked that, when
men steal from the ancients, they acquire
the credit of erudition — when from the
modern, the disgrace of plagiarism ; the
truth being, that a debt to a well-known
classic writer needs no acknowledgment,
because it cannot be hidden — and that a
skilful transfer of a noble thought from
Greek or Latin to the living languages is
felt to be a public benefil^ Spenser, by
placing three or four of Tasso's stanzas
amidst the hundreds which testify to his
own fertile invention and exuberant fancy,
has honoured the great foreigner by
treating him in his lifetime as a classic.
The same honour has been paid by the
latest as well as by the earliest English
poets to the loftiest hand which has
sounded the lyre of Italy, to Dante. In
Tennyson's " Palace of Art," these two
lines —
Plato the wise and large-browed Verulam
The first of those who know,
give a plural translation of Dante's
gular
Vidi '1 maestro di color che sanno.
Longfellow's touching words —
She is not dead, the child of our affection.
But gone unto that school
Where she no longer needs our poor protec-
tion,
But Christ himself doth rule, —
vary only slightly from the Florentine's —
chiostro
Nel quale e Cristo abate del collegio.
Gray's —
The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
is a variation, though no improvement, of
Dante's most exquisite
squilla di lontano,
Che paia '1 giomo pianger, che si muore ; *
* " Distant bell
That seems to mourn the dying of the day.'
Dayman's Da
FAMILY JEWELS.
551
while Chaucer tells the sad tale of Count
Ugolino here and there in Dante's own
words ; and has been so impressed by
the beauty of St. Bernard's prayer to the
Virgin in the closing canto of the " Divine
Thou maide and mother, doughter of thy son,
Thou well of mercy, sinful soules cure,
In whom that God of bountie chees to wonne ;
Thou humble and high over every creature,
Thou nobledest so far forth our nature,
That no desdaine the maker had of kinde
His son in blood and flesh to clothe and winde.
Within the cloyster blissful of thy sides
Toke mannes shape the eternal Love and Pees,
That of the trine compas Lord and Gide is,
Whom erthe, and see, and heven out of relees
Ay nerien ; * and thou, vergine wemmeles t
Bare of thy body (and dweltest maiden pure)
The creatour of every creature.
Assembled is in thee magnificence
With mercy, goodnesse, and with swich pitee,
That thou, that art the sun of excellence,
Not only helpest them that praien thee,
But oftentime of thy benignitie
Ful freely, or that men their help beseche.
Thou goest beforne, and art their lives leche.
Chaucer, " Second Nonnes Tale."
On Milton's obligations to Dante, as to
Homer and to Virgil, it is needless to say
anything here. Is his exquisite reference
to Proserpine in his fourth book of the
"Paradise Lost" to be r&ckoned in their
number ? Certainly, when he proclaims
the superiority of Eden to
that fair field
Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers.
Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis
Was gathered, —
he reminds us strongly of Dante's address
to Matilda, who, as she bends to pluck the
flower, brings to his thoughts Proserpine,
and the hour
When her the mother lost, and she the spring. J
But Shakespeare was no student of Dante ;
and yet his charming Perdita cries out,
when she needs them for Florizel —
O Proserpina
For the flowers now that frighted thou lettest
fall
From Dis's wagon ! daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty; violets,
dim.
* Praise ceaselessly.
t Spotless.
t "Tu mi fai rimembrar dove e qual' era
Proserpina nel tempo che perdette
La madxe lei, ella primavera."
Dayman's Dante.
Comedy," that he has freely reproduced
it in his own great poem. We extract it
side by side with the most literal version
known to us of its original : —
O virgin mother, daughter of thy son.
Humbler than creature and more elevate,
Determined end of counsel unbegun,
'Tis thou that hast ennobled man's estate
To such as He disdained not to assume,
Its own Creator and Himself create !
Then was the love rekindled in thy womb,
By whose prolific heat thus blossoming
Doth yonder flower * in peace eternal bloom.
For us thou art meridian lamp to bring
Warmth of pure love, and down where mortals
lie
Thou art of hope the vivifying spring.
Lady, thou art of rank and might so high,
Whoe'er needs grace, nor yet to thee repairs .
Wills his desire without a wing to fly,
Thy bounty succours not alone for prayers
Of any asking, but times numberless.
Freely prevents them ere to ask be theirs.
With thee is mercy, thine is tenderness,
Thine is munificence, in thee arrayed
All goodness meets that creature can possess.
Par., c. xxxiii. (Dayman's Dante).
But sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,
Or Cytherea's breath —
coming closer than the other two, by his
dropped flowers, to the common original
of all three poets, Ovid's description of
the frightened girl (too young and simple
to comprehend the gloomy honours that
await her) looking back regretfully for
her lost nosegay f from Pluto's chariot.
Our examples of gems transferred from
one great epic narrative poem to another
should not end without one single instance
of the many jewels that the drama has
derived from the elder Muse's store. One
of the most touching scenes in Sophocles
is his Ajax resolved on death, resisting
his wife the captive Tecmessa's entreaties,
and taking a last farewell of his infant
son. Had Sophocles never read the Iliad,
some such scene might yet have naturally
suggested itself to his mind ; but who
can doubt that it has been greatly influ-
enced, and moulded into the particular
form which it has assumed, by the part-
ing of Hector with Andromache .'* There
the dreaded evil is still remote : here it
is close at hand. The fond husband's
foreboding of his widow's miseries after
his own death in Homer are transferred
by Sophocles, with some incongruity, to
the mouth of Tecmessa, as she pleads
* The assembly of glorified saints seated in a rose-
like circle.
t Met. book v.
552
FAMILY JEWELS.
with her lord to avert such woes from her-
self. Hector prays for his infant son,
that he may surpass his father's glory ;
Ajax for his, that he may be like himself
in all things but in his misfortunes. The
fear of the young Astyanax at his father's
'• brazen helm and horse-hair plume " has
suggested by contrast the declaration of
Ajax, that the boy, if indeed he be his
own son, will not dread the sight of blood.
Let our readers peruse the sixth book of
the Iliad, either in Pope's far-famed ver-
sion, or in the more accurate rendering
of Lord Derby or of Mr. Worsley, and
then say whence Sophocles derived these
sorrowful words of the captive woman
who, unlike Andromache, owed her earlier
griefs to the same hand from which she
.now looks for their consolation.
I supplicate thee, by the household Zeus,
By thine own nuptial couch (by thee made
mine),
Suffer me not to bear insulting speech
From foes of thine when made their wretched
thrall.
For if thou dying leav'st me here forsaken,
Be sure that on that self-same day the Argives
Shall force thy child and me to be their slaves.
Then shall some tyrant cry with bitter speech,
Smiting me with his tongue, " Behold the wife
Of Ajax, greatest chief of all the host,
How servile now her lot after such bliss ! "
So shall men speak : then mine the anguish
keen.
But thine the shame, thine and thy kindred's
too.
Likewise revere thy father's sad old age,
Forsake him not : revere the weight of years,
Thy mother's lot ; who often prays the gods
For thy return to home alive and well.
But most of all, oh king, pity thy child,
Bereft of thy kind care, an orphan charge
To guardians left, not friends. How great a
woe
Thy death, if die thou wilt, leaves him and me !
For I too know of no kind sheltering arm
Save thine ; whose spear my country rent from
me ;
My mother likewise, but 'twas fate that sent
My sire to dwell where dwell the dead in
Hades.
What country have I then save thee ? what
wealth .'*
But in the address to the unconscious
child, Sophocles has put forth his own
wonderfully pathetic powers. He makes
Ajax say —
Bring him to me, bring him, for at the sight
Of this fresh blood he will not feel afraid,
II
If verily and in deed he is my son.
Child, be more fortunate than is thy sire,
Like him in all things else, so shall thy lot
Be happy. Yet for this I count thee blest
Even now that of these ills thou canst feel
none : ^|
For life is sweetest to the ignorant flj
Ere knowledge brings us joy but sorrow too. ^*
We need not remind our readers of
Gray's well-known comment on these two
last lines. Who can look on a child's
sweet open face without the pity they ex-
press rising in the heart, as we think of
the awful pages in the book to be turned
one day by those small fingers which
now sport so carelessly with the title-page
on which the rosy lips spell out — Hu-
man Life .'' Goethe's grand old German
knight, Gotz von Berlichingen, responds
to a friend's congratulation at the sight o£H|
his little son, "Bright lights bring black™
shadows ; " and when he is dying, to his
wife's offer to send for the boy from his
convent to receive his father's last bless-
ing, the old man replies, with a humility
and a faith unknown to the Hellenic he-
roes,— " Leave him there ; he needs not
my blessing ; he is holier than I."
With this one instance out of many of
the gems which the dramatic has bor-
rowed from the epic Muse, we must brin
our remarks to a close. We have di
rected our readers' attention throughou
to no case of spurious imitation by baser
hands of noble jewels, nor to instances
where they have been meanly purloined ;
we have aimed at exhibiting their de-
scent in the right line to one generation
after another of the royal family of poets.
To whose eyes the precious stone was
first revealed, is, as we have shown, in
many cases most uncertain ; but the
rightful heir is always he at whose ap-
proach, instead of growing dim, the gem
emits a livelier sparkle, gives out a la-
tent fire, and whose skilful hand is able
to place it alongside of others equally fair
in a diadem of exquisite beauty, or to en-
grave on it some form of perfect shape,
or — best of all — to write on it some
holy name like those which the beloved
apostle saw sparkling on twelve jewels of
splendour inexpressible in the foundation
of that mystic city, the
Stadt Gottes deren diamentnen Ring
Kein Feind zu sturmen wagt.
k
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
553
From Chambers' Journal.
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
CHAPTER III.
Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,
And look on death itself !
Rap-a-tap-tap ! Knocks sounded
thick and fast against the outer door of
Collop's shop in Biscopham High Street,
waking the draper and his daughter out
of their morning dreams. Emily peeped
out from behind her blind, and seeing
Mrs. Kennel's chaise standing below,
went and called her father, who seemed
strangely startled at the intelligence, and
went down-stairs with a flannel dressing-
gown wrapped round him, his face as
white as a sheet, and his hands trem-
bling.
" Missus is dead," cried Skim hoarsely,
as soon as the door was open ; " and I've
come for you."
Collop dressed himself hurriedly, and
took his seat in the chaise. "We must
go to the doctor's first," said Collop.
" What do you want him prying about
for ? " cried Skim.
" It's necessary ; she can't be buried
without his certificate."
They stopped at Mr. Burgess the sur-
geon's, a large red house, curiously orna-
mented with brick mouldings. Having
made the requisite intimation, the pair
drove on, quickly through the town, furi-
ously when they got out of it. With all
their haste, when they reached the manor-
house, they found somebody else's dog-
cart standing at the gate. Sailor was at
the horse's head, nodding knowingly to
Skim.
" Who's here ? " cried Collop. " If it's
Tom Rapley, I'd have him know "
But a very different person stood in the
doorway of the house — Mr. Frewen, the
lawyer, a tall, large-boned man, with
stooping shoulders, a heavy face, promi-
nent teeth, a glittering smile, and with
rough fringes of hair hanging in a tangled
way about his face.
" Hollo ! Collop," he said, " you're in
too much of a hurry ! There's nothing
like quickness in business, but you're a
little bit too quick."
'• Excuse me, sir," said Collop stiffly ;
•but my dear old friend wished me to
ake everything upon myself at her de-
:ease."
'• Then your dear old friend had
jhanged her mind, for I have her will in
ny possession, dated yesterday, appoint-
ng me executor and trustee. Can you
=hew any later instrument ? "
Collop staggered, and caught hold of
Skim by the arm.
" Good-day, Collop ; I'm sorry I can't
give you the funeral order, but the old
lady's instructions are precise," said
Frewen, slamming the door in his face.
Sailor watched the scene with a delighted
grin.
Tom Rapley heard of his aunt's death
at the same time that he was told that
Frewen had arrived and taken possession
of everything. The news excited him
greatly. He told himself that he had no
hope of any advantage by her death, but
at the same time he did hope. At his
wife's instigation, he went up to the man-
or-house, but found that Frewen had
placed a woman from the village in charge
of everything, with orders to admit no
one except the doctor and the under-
taker's man, who had been telegraphed
for from London. Then, by Sailor's ad-
vice, and with him for a companion, he
took the carrier's cart to Biscopham, and
obtained an interview with Frewen.
"Yes, there was a will, and he was exec-
utor ; but it wasn't customary to reveal
the contents of such documents till after
the funeral. None of her relatives would
be invited to take part in the funeral ;
indeed, Frewen didn't know that there
were any relatives, except Tom ; and the
ceremony would be strictly private, and
conducted by a firm from London."
"Won't there be bearers, sir?" in-
quired Sailor, who acted as amicus curia
in this interview.
Frewen shook his head. " At the same
time," he went on, " I shall go to the
house on the day after the funeral, which
is fixed for Tuesday week, and shall be
prepared to read the will to all whom it
may concern."
" A mean old creatur ! " cried Sailor,
when they were on the way home again.
" Nobody had any satisfaction with her
when she was alive, and she meant as no-
body should have a day's pleasure over
her after she was dead. I'll bet a penny
she ain't left me a farden, and my wife
own servant to her for ever so many
years, and me leaving her a cowcumber
every Saturday while they lasted, for ever
so long ! "
Aunt Betsy's funeral arrangements
caused great excitement in the village.
Much indignation was felt at the slur cast
upon the neighbourhood by the fact that
the funeral preparations were intrusted to
strangers, and by the secrecy in which
everything was enwrapped. Several men
came down, and stopped many days at
554
the old house.
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
Lights were seen there [ every respect a carefully drawn and ere J.
itable instrument. I will proceed to read
it to you ; " and so he commenced :
" In the name of God, Amen. I
Elizabeth Rennel, of Milford, in the
county of , widow, being feeble in
body, but of a perfect disposing mind
and memory, do make, ordain, substitute,
and appoint this my last will and testa-
ment in writing, in manner and form fol-
iate at night, and mysterious packages
were brought to the house in a light
spring-van. But where she was to be
buried, nobody could find out. It was
reported that Frewen himself didn't know,
and that a sealed letter was in his posses-
sion, not to be opened till after the pro-
cession had started, that contained Aunt
Betsy's wishes in regard to her burial
Speculation was rife as to the cause of lowing
the strange reticence ; the explanation
offered by Sailor was generally accepted
as the most feasible.
" They say," quoth he, "that she swal-
lowed a farden when she was a little gal,
and as how she was afraid people would
dig her up to get at it, if they knowed
where she was laid."
A curious circumstance was that no-
body saw the funeral cortdge set out.
There was a hearse in the village one
night, and next day it was said that Aunt
Betsy's body had been removed. The
windows were opened and the house
cleaned out, on the Tuesday afternoon, by
workmen from Biscopham. There were
two or three of them — an upholsterer's
man and a couple of brick-layers — and
they were to stay at Milford some days,
but for what purpose, they didn't know.
Mr, Frewen would be over next day,
Wednesday, to give them their orders.
Tom was dressed in his best suit on the
eventful morning that was to witness the
reading of the will.
Lawyer Frewen was waiting for them
in Aunt Betsy's parlour. Everything was
arranged just as Aunt Betsy had left it
on the night of her death, except that
"Suppose," said Mr. Collop, interpos-
ing, " that as time is valuable, and legal
phraseology confusing, you will explain
to us in plain language what the will
effects."
" As you wish it, and it will save time,
so be it," said the lawyer. " I may remind
you once more, that the will wasn't
drawn at my office ; but I am bound to
remark, that it is an extremely well exe-
cuted instrument. Well, our lamented
friend has, I regret to say, made a very
singular disposition of her property ;
there are no legacies, except a condi-
tional one to myself ; and the whole oi
the realty and personalty is settled or
trustees, myself and others "
Collop and Tom drew eagerly forward.
"On trustees — in trust, to invest the
rents and profits — subject to necessar}
outlay for repairs and expenses of man
agement — which are to accumulate unti
Herbert, the son of Thomas Rapley an(
Eliza his wife, shall attain the age o
twenty-one years, when the whole of th*
corpus of the estate and its accumula
tions devolve upon him."
Tom drew a long breath. Well, hi
boy, at all events, would be a rich
ma
there was a jug of cold water and a couple j by-and-by, and surely there would be
of tumblers on the table. Sailor peered
about in hopes to discover some signs of
other refreshment, but there was none.
Collop was there, pale and nervous,
seated in a high-backed chair. Aunt
Betsy's arm-chair, with the cushion in it,
sufficient allowance made to his parents.
" In the event," the lawyer went on t
say, "of the said Herbert Rapley dyin
before he attains his majority, the estat
devolves upon the eldest son of Charle
Frewen (myself), provided he lives to th
was occupied by her big black cat, who age of twenty-one years (my boy is ju
assumed a cramped and disconsolate posi- [ the age of yours, I think, Rapley) ; failir,
tion, and watched the progress of events him, to the first of my sons who sha
with dislike and alarm. Lawyer Frewen | come of age. Should these contingencie
sat by the window — it was a warm sunny all fail, then to the heir-at-law of her lai
day, although mid-winter — reading let- { husband. The will expressly forbids an
ters and papers. Presently, he looked at ! allowance being made for the educatio
his watch, rose, and came to the the table,
unlocked his bag, and brought out a white
sealed packet. An irrepressible quiver
of excitement went through the audience.
"Ahem! The will of our lamented
friend is dated the very day before her | taken, or to bring up other people'.-.
death ; it was made by my worthy friend, spring at her expense. Her object
Mr. Spokes of Gomersham, and is in pears to have been to keep her niera^
or maintenance of the child Herbert,
of any of the other contingent remai
ders. Testatrix declaring that she hasf
desire to relieve the parents of chidq
of the duties they have voluntarily undj
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
555
alive and the property intact for a certain I wife been her faithful servant for ever so
time, and then to make one rich man. It's
a disappointing will, there's no doubt."
" Pray, sir," said Collop severely, " will
you inform me the amount and conditions
of your legacy ? "
" It's a legacy of a hundred a year, un-
der a secret trust to perform certain du-
ties."
'' What duties ? "
" I said a secret trust," said Frewen,
vvith a bland smile, " and I can't reveal it,
except at the bidding of the Court of
Chancery."
" I don't think the will can stand," said
Collop.
"Surely you have no interest in disput-
ing it, especially as, by one of its clauses,
you are to be allowed a whole year to re-
pay the advances made to you by de-
ceased. However, we will talk that over
together by-and-by. There are lengthy
provisions here for the care of the estate.
The house is to be shut up for eighteen
years."
" Shut up ! " echoed the company.
"Yes; the windows and doors are to
be bricked up from the outside, leaving
the rooms, and the furniture, and so on,
in the same condition as at the time of
many years ; but I ain't going to make no
more complaint. But for our friend Tom
here, who's a gentleman at heart, as every-
body says, and ought to have the property
— why, I proposes, as we're all friends
together, as you m'ay say, and nobody in-
jured, only children as oughnt't to be set
to rob their parents, let us stick this
leathery old docyment into the fire, and
let Tom Rapley come into it all."
The lawyer laughed, and shook his head,
and presently departed, with a rather cer-
emonious good-bye.
" Well ? " said Lizzie, coming to meet
her husband as he wearily entered the
house.
Tom. sank into a chair, and covered his
face with his hands.
"Nothing.?" said Lizzie.
"Not a penny," said Tom. "Every-
thing goes to that young brat, but locked
up so that nobody can touch it for near
eighteen years." Tom looked enviously
at his boy, who was playing on the kitchen
floor, happily indifferent to the destiny in
store for him.
" There, don't take on about it, dears,"
said Sailor, who had followed Tom into
the house. "Things sometimes turns
her death. The windows inside are to be out well in the end. Why, when we was
covered with iron plates, over which are
to be placed large boards, screwed down
with long screws, and sealed with the
seals of the trustees. A respectable mar-
ried couple are to live in the outbuildings
at the back, which they are to occupy rent
free, with an allowance of ten shillings a
week, and the use of the garden, on con-
dition of their attending carefully to the
preservation of the fabric of the house
and its inviolability. The pony is to be
shot, the cat to be drowned, the poultry
to be wrung by the neck, and all to be
buried in the straw-yard,
trie will, no doubt, but there is no reason
to doubt its perfect validity. There is
one peculiarity about it : testatrix has
carefully enumerated all her property, and
bequeathed it accordingly, but she has
made no disposition of the residue."
" Then to whom does that go ? " cried
Tom eagerly.
"Well, there isn't any, as it happens ;
so there is no use in discussing the ques-
tion," said Frewen, with lawyer-like re-
luctance to give an opinion for nothing.
Tom looked puzzled ; he didn't quite
understand what Frewen meant.
" Well, gentlemen," said Sailor, " I own
I felt a little bit remorseful, when I found
as there was no legacy for me, and my
pretty nigh shipwrecked, a roun'ing of
Cape Horn, when the waves "
" O Sailor, this is worse than ship-
wreck, this," cried Lizzie. — " But, Tom,
tell me all about the will, and what it
says. And so Bertie is to be a rich man.
— O Bertie, why can't you give up some
of it to your poor father ! "
" Cheer up, cheer up, my lass ! " cried
Sailor. "Why, look here! what I've
saved out of the fire, and lain as still, too,
in my pocket as though she'd heard the
will, and know'd I was her friend. Here's
It's an eccen- 1 the cat, ma'am, the old lady's black cat,
as the old fiend willed was to be drowned ;
[and I collared her as we was coming
; away, and popped into my pocket. She'll
I bring you luck, ma'am. Skim says as his
I missus' soul is gone into that old cat ; but
I then I don't believe him; pussy 'ud be
; twice as spiteful as what she is. And
[whisper, ma'am : thinks I, perhaps if I
takes the creature, it'll break the will !
i Don't you see ? "
[ Tom shook his head. " It's too well
i drawn for that. Sailor," he said.
[ Sailor went out, and left Tom and his
I wife to themselves. Presently he came
in again with further news. '• My good-
ness ! " he said, " Skim is in a rare taking.
It seems as he'd heard from Collop about
556
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
the man as was to live rent-free in the
back part of the house, and have ten shil-
lings a week ; and he goes to Charley
Frewen, the lawyer, to ask if he might be
the man ; and Frewen he says not by no
means, for a man must be married and re-
spectable ; and, says he, I knows you ain't
the one or the other."
" You didn't tell me about that ! " cried
Lizzie. "A respectable married man and
his wife to live rent-free, and have ten
shillings a week ! O Tom, if we could
only get it ! Has Mr. Frewen gone ?
No ; his chaise is here still ; he is just
starting. There he stands with the whip
in his hand. O Tom, I will go and ask
him."
Lizzie ran out into the front, where
Frewen was standing beside his chaise,
talking to his servant about the horse. —
Would she like to live in the old place,
with her husband, and get the ten shillings
a week ? Well, there wouldn't be any
difficulty about it, if they really wished it ;
but wasn't Mr. Rapley going back to his
business again ?
Lizzie here tearfully explained, that
Tom wasn't likely ever to be strong
enough to go back to his business, and
that they were now a burden to their aunt,
who was old and poor, and couldn't keep
them much longer. Frewen wasn't inac-
cessible to the sentiment of pity, at the
sight of a handsome woman in distress ;
and he spoke very kindly to her, promised
her that they should have the house and
the ten shillings a week ; and that, more-
over, if Tom wrote a decent hand, and
would get into the cramped lawyer-like
style, he would give him some copying to
do at home, by which he might earn fif-
teen shillings, or even a pound a week, if
he stuck to it.
Lizzie was full of joy and gratitude.
Here was a home secure, however hum-
ble, and livelihood for them all, if a bare
one.
Frewen drove off with quite a warm
feeling in a corner of his heart ; but he
hadn't gone many yards before he stopped
suddenly, and put his head out of the
chaise.
" Oh, I forgot to tell your husband one
thing," he said ; "perhaps you'll tell him.
When Mr. Rennel bought the property,
the manor of Milford was thrown in ; now,
the old lady didn't dispose of that in her
will. I don't think that Spokes, who drew
the will, knew that there was a manor.
But there is one, and as Tom is the heir-
at-law, he is now the lord of it. The com-
mon is all enclosed, and the copyholds
are all enfranchised, and there isn't a
penny to come from it ; but still there it
is ; you tell your husband."
As Frewen said, the manor wasn't worth
a sixpence ; and the only good Tom got
out of it was the nickname of " Lord Tom,"
which the villagers bestowed upon him,
in sad mockery of his present condition.
CHAPTER IV.
Men's judgments are
A parcel of their lEortunes.
BiscoPHAM town lies in an oval, flat-
bottomed vale like a dish, or the bed of
some dried-up lake, a warm red town,
nestling along the trough of the valley,
among hop-gardens innumerable. In
winter-time, it seems as though some
army had encamped among its streets and
lanes, and encompassed it about. Hop-
poles everywhere, in conical stacks like
huts. What would be a back-yard any-
where else, is here a loamy hop-garden,
with its wigwams of poles, and a little
kiln hard by. But that the churchyard
was inclosed, and occupied long before
the hops were a staple in this little town,
depend upon it, the good people of Bis-
copham would have grown hops there
too, and buried their dead on the tops of
the houses, like the Fire-worshippers,
or in cellars or catacombs, as the ancient
Egyptians did.
In autumn-time the very air is loaded
with the grateful sleepy fragrance of the
hop, and the less grateful fumes, the
choky hiccoughy fumes, of sulphur, and
all the square pyramidal kilns are vomit-
ing forth vapours from their cowled sum-
mits. To the little wooden station on
the outskirts of the town, all kinds of
wheeled vehicles are struggling with their
burdens, from the huge high-piled wagon
of the leviathan grower, with its team of
fat satin-coated horses, to the rickety
spring-cart, and dilapidated pony of the
small burgher, laden with his one or two
precious ewe lambs — all of the same
stuff — round yellow hop-pockets, huge
vegetable sausages, uncomfortably tight
and plethoric, in their canvas skins
There are special trains for hops, and th(
stout railway porters grow thin ere thi
season be well over, in rolling and haul
ing these overgrown cylinders froi
wagon to truck, and from truck to wag(
By Christmas-time, the excitement
pretty well over, and people know wheth(
they have won or lost ; whether they cs
lay down that pipe of wine, or give ihi
grand dinner-party ; whether they C3
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
557
have a month in London or Paris, or
o-ive George another half-year's school-
ino". or pay those long-standing, worry-
ing tradesmen's bills, or float at all, in-
deed, and keep the head, above water;
whether it shall be a time of joy and
gratulation, or a sad penitential season,
to be spent wrapped up in the sacking of
unpaid-for hop-pockets, grovelling in
ashes from the unprofitable kiln.
It is now getting on towards Christmas,
and, judging from the outward aspect of
matters, the hop-season would seem to
have been a bad one. Anyhow, the street
is very quiet and dull this winter's night.
There is a drizzling rain falling, the light-
ed shop-windows hardly serve to shew
the dripping footway, and the black night
overhead hovers over the town like a huge
bird with outstretched wings. The clock
strikes eight, and there is a general rattle
and clatter all along the line ; the shop-
boys are banging the shutters up : there
are no lagging customers to delay the
process. Soon only the glowing red light
over the chemist's shop, and the drowsy
street lamps mistily shining through the
fog, remain to scare the black vulture from
his prey. Stay ; there is one shop yet open,
although it contributes little to the store
of light — a shop with a long low-browed
window, and deeply recessed narrow door-
way, a very cavern of a place, over which
is written in faded letters, hardly dis-
cernible — " James Collop, Draper,
Clothier, Undertaker, and General Out-
fitter— Funerals neatly furnished." En-
tering the cave, you see a light burning
here and there, and a subdued glow from
an inner recess ; from the roof hang sta-
lactites in the shape of corduroy trousers,
white slops, leather gaiters, hobnailed
boots, waistcoats with gleaming buttons
of glass ; and as soon as the eye becomes
accustomed to the gloom, you discern a
counter on each side, piled high with
smocks and frocks, jerseys and panta-
loons, and fixtures behind crammed with
other various articles of rural habiliments.
The smell is powerful of corduroys, ker-
seys, and other highly scented fabrics
everywhere.
Making your way towards the faint
glow at the other end of the shop, you
come to a little counting-house or office,
divided from it by a partition half wood
and half glass. Here sits Collop among
his books and invoices, at a battered ma-
hogany table, full of the accumulated de-
bris of years of patient trading — a ner-
vous, anxious man, with sunken hollow
cheek, compressed lips, and deeply wrin-
kled brow. The gas is turned low, for he
is not writing; he is only sitting there
brooding, in hazy profitless thought. He
has a paper in his hand, at which he oc-
casionally glances. It seems to be a
rough statement of affairs, and an unsat-
isfactory statement too, as he shrinks
away from it, holds it at arm's-length, and
yet is obliged to glance at it ever and
again. There is a letter, too, on the"
table, which also seems to contain a long
statement of account. It is written in a
round lawyer's-hand, and is signed
" Charles Frewen."
The year of grace has expired : a year
since Mrs. Rennel's death ; a short year
it has seemed, for days fly fast that are
days of grace. Now, what is Mr. Collop
to do ? He has no hope of paying Mrs.
Rennel's executor. There is no way that
he can see except the way of bankruptcy
and utter ruin, and this he fights against
to the very last. He, a bankrupt, who
has been so severe upon all other peo-
ple's defaults ! he who has been such a
shining light among the peculiar sect to
which he belonged !
Somehow, under these circumstances,
the leading tenets of his belief did not
comfort him as they might have done.
If there were really a chance of every-
thing coming to an end before to-morrow
morning — such being a prominent article
of belief — he need not trouble himself
about these matters. But brought face
to face with ugly, importunate fact, this
belief of Collop's paled and dissolved into
a shadow. Inexorable to-morrow morn-
ing— to-morrow morning, with all its
load of troubles and anxiety, would dawn
upon him sure enough, unless, indeed, he
took the matter into his own hands, and
put an end, so far as he was concerned,
to all to-morrows from henceforth.
As he sat thus musing, he heard a foot-
step in the outer shop. The shopman
had gone home, the boy was away on an
errand. Collop rose, and looked through
the glass screen. A man in a battered
wideawake and white slop was peering
curiously about.
" What can I serve you with ? " cried
Collop, putting his head out of the door.
" With a good many things, Mr. Col-
lop," the man replied ; " if you don't mind
trusting me till to-morrow morning ; ha,
ha ! "
" Oh ! it's you, Skim," said Collop,
frowning. " Well, what do you want ? "
" Some few words with you, master."
" Come in here, and be sharp, for I'm
busy."
55S
Skim entered the counting-house, look-
ing about him cautiously, and sat down in
an awkward, stiff-jointed way. He had
not inproved in outward appearance ; his
face was more blurred than ever, his eyes
duller and less human, the occasional
gleam of ferocity that lighted them up of
a more sinister kind.
" You ain't too busy to see me, govern-
or," he said with a certain significance.
"Times are uncommon hard with me,"
he went on in a kind of suggestive way.
" So they are with me," replied CoUop.
" As I have told 3'ou before, Skim, I can
do no more for you."
" But you see it all come upon me at
once, losing my house and my garden,
and the money as you paid me, and every-
thing."
" You have only yourself to thank for
it, Skim. I paid you for doing a certain
thing — and you didn't do it."
'"Twasn't my fault; the old woman
was so cunning. Didn't I risk everything
for you, master ? But come, sir," said
Skim, drawing his hand across hislips, a
strange light breaking over his face, " let
by-gones be by-gones. I believe you and
I can do a good stroke of business yet."
" What do you mean .'' "
" Well, suppose we hark back a little
way, master, and go to the time when the
old woman died — in a fit, as we'll say.
My I weren't she terrified, when she turns
round and sees me standing ahind of
her 1 "
Collop shuddered, and turned pale.
" Don't speak of that again. I think I
see her now, looking in upon us there —
there, Skim ! " he cried, leaping hastily
to his feet, and putting him between
the window and himself. " Skim, she's
there ! " .
" Bother the man, what a fool he makes
of himself," cried Skim, whose nerves
seemed imperturbable. " Tain't here she
walks about, man, but where she's buried
her gold."
'• What do you know about her gold ? "
cried Collop.
"Why, I know all about it, master.
Don't you think I was took in by you.
You didn't go and pay me seven and six-
pence a week just to find out where the
old lady put away a few dirty old papers.
It was gold we were after, you and I ;
only the old lass out-manoeuvred us. But
I've got a scent of it now, master."
" How, S.kim ! Are you sure ? Skim,
hush ! Let me be sure everything is
quiet. Here, Skim ; come over here,
and sit beside me here by the fire ; you
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
must be cold." Collop gave the dyinj
cinders a vigorous poke or two with thl
hook that did duty for a poker, finally ex-
tinguishing the fire, and sending a shower
of white ash about the room. S
" Ah ! I thought I should fetch yo™
there, master," cried Skim, laughing, and
rubbing his hands. "Never mind the
fire, master, only it's dry work talking. I
daresay you've got a bottle in the cupS;
board yonder ! " SI
Collop went out into the shop, and
brought out a bottle of gin, that was kept
in a cupboard there, for the entertain-
ment of good country customers. Skim
tossed off a glass of this with relish, and
then began his tale. flj
"A year ago this Christmas, mastei^'
you'll remember old Mother Rennel was
found dead in her bed — in a fit, as they
said — including the doctor — so there
could be no mistake about that. Well as
sooii as ever old Charley Frewen came
down and took possession of everything,
I got notice to quit, and he wanted me to
clear off immediate. But I knew the law
just as well as he did, and says I : No,
not afore my notice runs out, and that's
next Saturday week. Now, you remem-
ber my telling you how we broke open a
door-way as the old woman had stopped
up?"
" No ; yau didn't tell me ; certainly
not," said Collop ; " you never told me at
the time. I didn't sanction it."
" No ; but you put it into my head. I
should never have foCind out about the
door that was blocked up between my
part of the house and hers, if you hadn't
told me. But anyhow, there it was, so as I
could prowl about inside there whenever
I liked. But, to tell you the truth, mas-
ter, I was frightened to go in there after
she died — there was such strange noises,
and there was chaps up and down, night
and day. It was't till the very day as my
time was up, and Frewen came driving
over, and says he : Now, man, why aren't
you cleared out .'' and says I : Not to-
night, master ; for I knew he could do
nothing, and I wanted to have a bit of fun
with him. So says he : Very well, I'll
have you out by a policeman, first thing
on Monday morning. All right, says I.
And then I see him drive off, as I thinks,
home. Well, says I to myself, I'll have
a look round for the last time, and see if
everything looks decent and respectable ;
and up I goes into the bedroom, and
opens my little door into the old house,
and prowls along quietly. The chap as
1 was looking after the things had gone
i
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
559
off to the Royal Oak. I'd watched him
out ; and I was strolling about with my
hands in my pockets, as unconcerned as
you please, when I come to the parlour-
door, and lo and behold, there was a light
there — shining underneath ! "
"Yes; go on!" cried Collop, shiver-
inof all over.
My heart turned round in my mouth ;
and almost afore I could jump behind the
kitchen-door, the handle of the parlour
lock was tuvned, and out walks Charley
Frewen. It's lucky for him he didn't see
me, else, perhaps, he'd a got a nip he'd not
have liked ; but he walks straight out at
the front-door, and leaves it open, as if
he'd gone out for a bit of fresh air, like.
Thinks I, I'll know what you're after, and
I pops into the sitting-room. Well, I
didn't wonder as he wanted a mouthful
of air, for the room was full of a nasty,
sweet, sickly sort of a smell, notwith-
standing as the window was wide open,
and a fire burning too. There was a ket-
tle on the fire, and thinks I, Charley's
having his 'lowance, for there was a jug
on the table full of hot water. But no ;
that wasn't his game at all. There was a
letter lying there open, the wax just
melted, and it was in the old woman's
writing too ; and there lay her gold seal,
all ready to seal it up with again. And
there were pen, ink, and paper, and a bit
of Frewen's writing ; and I look at one
and another, and I see that what Frewen
wrote was the same as what Mrs. Ren-
nel wrote "
" A copy of her letter, in fact," sug-
gested Collop.
" That's it, master. Well, just then it
happened, luckily for me, that a gust of {
wind come in through the window, and '
blows out the candles, and scatters the '
papers about the floor ; but not the pa- ,
per he wrote, which I holds in my hand, \
and so I runs off quick, and hides in the j
kitchen again ; and I hears Frewen come ;
in, and grope about for a light, and mut- 1
tering and mumbling when he found all
his papers blowed about, and more still, ;
when he couldn't find that letter he'd :
wrote. Well, after he'd looked high and |
low, he takes it into his head that it's ;
blowed out of the window, and he goes |
out there with a candle, and gropes about
here and there, while I lay hidden, laugh-
ing at him. But I shouldn't have laughed
so much, if I'd known what a dance I
should have, all along of that letter.
Here it is, sir." !
Collop took the paper, and'read it care-
' fully. "Well," he said, "it confirms
! what I always knew."
I " But what do you make of it ? Don't
I it say that that 'ere treasure lies under
j the bed of herbs ? I read it so, certainly.
I went to work, and dug and trenched all
over the garcien ; for there was hardly an
I inch of it where there wasn't mint, or
thyme, or some sort of a harb agrowin."
" And you found nothing '^. "
" Nothing but a few oyster-shells and a
rusty ha'penny. Such a beautiful lot of
carrots too, as Tom Rapley got out of
that garden, and all out of my digging, as
you may say."
" What brings you to me, then .'' "
" Why, you see, master, though I've
had education enough to read and write,
I ain't the knowledgeableness that you
have. You're up to all sorts of games,
and can turn things inside out. You'll
know what is to be done. And now, mas-
ter, I want a bit of money."
There was a long dispute over this, but
eventually Skim obtained a trifling ad-
vance, and departed, apparently well sat-
isfied.
CHAPTER V.
But mice and rats, and such small deer,
Have been Tom's food for seven long year.
One would hardly have recognized
Tom Rapley, the smart shopman, in the
dejected-looking, somewhat slipshod man
who occupied the back part of the old
house at Milford. His thin whiskers had
given place to a long thick beard, and his
mouth was covered by a heavy mous-
tache, that gave a somewhat melancholy
and fierce expression to a face that had
formerly been bland and good-tempered.
He was pale, too, and his eyes were
sunken and dim, as of one who had been
living in the shade. In the shade, he
had been living, both literally and meta-
phorically, ever since his aunt's death.
Milford Manor faced south-west, and
the front parlour and the kitchen had
been bright, pleasant rooms, getting
plenty of sunshine and warmth ; but the
outbuilding in which Tom and his wife
lived was, as you will remember, in the
back part of the house, and had a north-
easterly aspect ; so that, except in early
morning, they were in the shadow all day
long, and the place felt cold and vault-
like, whenever you entered it. Tom's
premises consisted of the back-kitchen, a
wash-house or scullery, and a bedroom
above, which looked upon a narrow-
560
paved yard. At one end of this, was a
wood-shed and coal-house ; in the mid-
dle, a draw-well with windlass and
bucket ; the brick pathway that ran
along the side of the house, de-
bouched upon the yard at the other end.
In front, a thick privet hedge reared it-
self, a great receptacle for slugs and
snails, whose nightly wanderings were
unmistakably traceable upon the brick
pavement of the yard. At the other side
of the private hedge was the garden ; at
this end, planted thick with raspberry
and gooseberry bushes ; the rest of it de-
voted to potatoes, cabbages, and onions,
and such-like homely products. A nar-
row strip along the edges of the gravel-
paths was ornamented with flowers —
marigolds and peonies, straggling beds of
white " pinks," sweet-williams, and Lon-
don-pride. There was an orchard be-
yond, but that was let to a fruiterer at
Biscopham, and the gate rigorously se-
cured.
Considering all things, Tom Rapley
might think himself fortunate in securing
such a haven from the storm in which he
had barely escaped shipwreck. He had
ten shillings a week for looking after the
house, a residence rent-free, the produce
of the garden ; besides this, he earned
ten, or sometimes fifteen shillings a week
by copying for Mr. Frewen. His wife,
too, added to their means by taking
in sewing, earning a precarious shilling
or two with much toil and painstaking.
Still it was a dull and leaden life. The
shadow of the shut-up house seemed to
darken their lives. Regrets and vain, un-
satisfactory longings for a bright, more va-
ried existence ; a sense of injury and ex-
clusion ; so that the daily contemplation of
unused, hoarded-up means, which might
have been theirs to enjoy, ever renewed
in their minds, tainted their lives, and
blinded them to the advantages they
possessed. Their boy, too, whose future
prospects so glaringly contrasted with
their present position, did not thrive
kindly in the new home. He felt the
want of sunshine and cheerfulness, and
grew up rather pale and weedy. The
village doctor had recommended sea-
bathing for him in the summer, and Tom
had asked Mr. Frewen if he would ad-
vance ten pounds to give the young heir
a chance of gaining strength among the
breezes and sunshine of the coast ; but
Frewen had refused. There were no
funds available, he said ; and in justice to
his own family, he couldn't lend the money
out of his own pocket. Frewen was not
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
a hard-hearted man, but he never lost
sight of the paramount importance of his
own interests ; and he could not forget
that Rapley's boy stood in the way of his
own children. He would take no unfair
advantage, but neither would he throw
away any of the advantages he possessed.
It was no business of his to look after
the health of young Rapley ; there was
nothing of the sort enjoined upon him by
the instrument under which he acted.
That his own lad had a betiter chance of
attaining to manhood, from the greater
care and attention that his father's means
insured him, was one of those favourable
conditions that Providence had bestowed
on the Frewens, of which he would be
foolish to refuse to avail himself.
Thus, Christmas came round again,
the first Christmas the Rapleys had spent
at their new home — a soaking wet,
clammy, uncomfortable season. Young
Bertie, pale and thin, and with a hard
shrill cough, had gone to spend a week
with Aunt Booth. There was generally
a good fire there, for the sake of the
visitors, and there the boy would sit all
day long with a picture-book on his lap,
and note the changing faces about him,
with shrewd precocious intelligence. It
was anything but a merry Christmas for
the Rapleys. An event had come upon
them, not unexpectedly, indeed, but
scarcely welcome — one of those events
that are so often the subject of facetious
raillery, but that are anything but comedy
to the poor sufferer. However, there
was one great comfort ; it was over
Mrs. Rapley was getting on very nicely'
and the baby, healthy and vociferous, wa
the pride and plague of poor Tom's exist-
ence. They had been very much crampec ■
for room, of course, during these recent -
troubles. Tom had stretched som( ^
boards over the sink, to make a couc!
for himself, and Bertie had been put t
bed on one of the kitchen shelves.
All this time, the roomy, comfortab
house adjacent, with its once sun-
chambers, and broad passages, was lyir
dark, silent, and useless, alongside the;.:
Tom Rapley sat by a small chilly firi
in the kitchen, watching a saucepan 0
gruel, that was trying to warm itself iiit<^
a simmer. He had just dined, on a ^'^1
piece of boiled beef that was very h^"
and stringy, and a suet pudding, wi
plums in it few and far between. Evej
body was holidviy-making now, _
thought with a sigh, visiting relations an
friends, drinking sherry wine and por
mixing punch, roasting chestnuts, an
i
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
generally going on gloriously. But Tom
had not even a holiday ; for a lot of manu-
script lay on the little round table beside
him. some copying that Frewen wanted
done in a hurry, Christmas or no Christ-
mas. It had become quite dark all of a
sudden ; a thick gloom was in the sky,
betokening a heavy fall of something,
rain or snow, and Tom could work no
more without lighting a candle. He had
half a mind to smoke a pipe, but hardly
felt festive enough to manage it. Then
he heard a rap, rapping on the ceiling
above him, which meant that his wife was
knocking on the floor, and wanted to see
him. Tom waited to stir up the gruel,
and see if it was ready for use ; but an-
other more impatient rap-a-tapping on
the floor above informed him that Mrs.
Rapley did not wish to attend his leisure.
" You'll spoil your eyes, Tom, if you go
on working by this light," said Lizzie ;
" and then, what will become of us ? You
had much better go for a nice brisk walk.
You may go as far as the Royal Oak, if
you like, and see how Bertie is getting
on."
Tom went out. The snow was falling
quickly and silently, laying a thin silvery
coating on everything. All the objects
about loomed strangely in the snow-laden
air : the old barn looked like a distant
mountain ; the hedge on the other side of
the road, a gloomy, impenetrable wall.
He turned up the collar of his coat, pulled
his hat over his eyes, and started briskly
away — not towards the Royal Oak, how-
ever ; he had no money to spend there,
and was too proud to be treated — but
along the Biscopham road. His footsteps
fell silently on the well-padded track. In
the silence and stillness and enwrapping
gloom, all things around seemed alike
vague and unsubstantial — himself a
shadow among shades.
Presently, be heard behind him a muf-
fled sound, which he made out to be the
beat of hoofs. A vehicle silently passed
him, also ghost-like. It was the carrier's
cart. Sheppard the carrier had been to
dine with his daughter in the village, and
was now going home in his own vehicle.
He had picked up somebody on the road
tco, for a conversation was going on, that
sounded with startling distinctness in the
quiescent air.
" Old Patch, he be gone at last, then,"
said a mellow, leisurely, country voice out
of the cart — the voice of Sheppard the
carrier, no doubt.
" Ah, to be sure. Well, he didn't ought
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 348
561
to complain. I expect he died pretty well
off."
" That he did, you may be sure. Why,
as I tell you, he'd been the 'sistant over-
seer for thirty years, and he'd seventy
pounds a year all that time. — How much
does that come to, Sally .? " cried the
' speaker, appealing to some one in the in-
terior of the wagon.
" Two thousand one hundred pounds,"
said a treble voice, with a promptness
that spoke well for the arithmetical train-
ing of the national school of the period.
" Think of that ! Why, call it two
thousand," said the speaker liberally.
" There's a deal of money — and the in-
terest on it too."
" Ah, yes," said the voice of Sheppard ;
"but there's a deal to be drawn back out
of that. Tom had thirteen children, and
he brought 'em all up and educated 'em
respectable ; then he bought the cottage
as he lives in ; and there was stationary,
and pens, and ink to come out of it, as
well as meat and drink. Oh, I expect he
were comfortably off when he died, but
nothing more."
The voices were lost in the mist ; but all
pf a sudden the thought occurred to Tom :
" Why, if old Patch be dead, shouldn't I
have his place ? " He had no hope of
emulating the old man, and laying by a
fortune out of his salary, but it would be
a very comfortable subsistence for him.
The idea put new life and vigour into
him.
Now, Frewen was a great man in these
matters ; he was clerk to the guardians ;
he was all in all with the local vestries :
if Tom could secure Frewen's interest, he
would be safe. But there was no time to
be lost, for there would be many candi-
dates, and if Frewen promised himself to
any one of them, Tom's chance would be
gone. He would walk on to Biscopham
at once, and ask Frewen for his support
this very night. A little before, he had
thought with something like a shudder of
the risk of crossing Thornton Common,
which was on the way to Biscopham, this
snowy evening, but all fear of such a peril
had now left him ; he dwelt only on the
danger of being too late for the appoint-
ment he had the chance of getting.
He pushed briskly on, singing to him-
self as he walked. For a mile or two, the
way was through an enclosed country,
with hedgerows on each side, and every
now and then a cottage, farmstead, or
the lodge of some mansion. Beyond that,
the road led across the common : it was
562
a orood track, with a deep ditch on each
side, and under ordinary circumstances it
would be impossible to lose one's self in
crossing ; but in a heavy snowstorm it is
dangerous to travel by night along any
road that is not inclosed by hedges or
walls.
There was enough daylight, however,
left in the sky to shew Tom his way across,
and by-and-by he came among the hedge-
rows once more, and thought himself
nearly at Biscopham. But it seemed a
long time before the first gas-lamp shone
nebulously in the gloom, and he felt the
pavement of the outskirts of the town firm
under his tread. The streets were quite
deserted ; but cheerful lights shining
from windows, and the occasional rattle
of a piano, or a gust of harmony from
within, told that the worthy burgesses of
the town were duly celebrating their
Christmas revels.
Frewen lived in the centre of the town,
in a handsome, warm-looking, red brick
house. The windows were all alight, and
the forecourt of the house shewed numer-
ous tracks of wheels in the freshly fallen
snow. Tom felt a little nervous now ;
Mr. Frewen had a dinner-party, no doubt,
and might be angry at being disturbed.
But he could not go back without seeing
him, after coming all this distance.
A servant opened the door, in whom
Tom was glad to recognize a Milford man.
He could not disturb his master now, he
said, for dinner was hardly over ; but by-
and-by, when the ladies had gone up to the
drawing-room, he'd tell Mr. Frewen. In
the meantime, Tom might sit down in the
hall, if he'd shake the snow off before he
came in. Tom sat down, with his back
to the wall, on a wooden chair with an
upright back; he was tired, and glad of
the rest ; and presently the door opposite
him was thrown open, and, with a great
burst of talk and laughter, a dozen or
more gaily dressed ladies came clattering
out into the hall, and up the broad stair-
case at the other end. What a different
world it was, Tom thought, for the rich
and the poor ! Tom sitting there hungry,
shabby, forlorn, gazing at that long well-
furnished table, glittering with crystal,
gay with flowers and fruits from the four
quarters of the globe ! What a contrast
between that and the scantily furnished
deal-table in the back-kitchen at Milford !
And then Tom thought a little bitterly of
how, if his aunt had taken him up as she
might have done, he might have been sit-
ting in a black coat and white neck-tie at
that very table, with his carriage at hand
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
to whisk him home by-and-by. It woulc
have seemed all right to him, in that case
no doubt ; he would not have troublec
himself much about the inequalities of so-
ciety then ; but he did feel it very strongly
at that moment. Ah ! even if his aunt
had left him that hundred pounds a year
which had seemed a flea-bite to Frewen,
no doubt, what a difference if would have
made to him !
" Master says you're to go into the
'ousekeeper's room, and have something
to eat and drink, and he'll see you. by-and-
by," whispered the servant ; and pres-
ently Tom was sitting opposite a noble
joint of cold beef, with some mince-pies
and a slice of Christmas pudding in th(
background, and a tankard of strong ak
beside his plate. It was very hospitable
and kind of Mr. Frewen ; but it was get
ting dreadfully late. What would poo
Lizzie think, left all alone this night, an(
not knowing what had become of him
The matter was too important, however
for such considerations to weigh with hiir
If he carried home to his wife the assur
ance of his being in a fair way to earn
decent living, that would be ample coir
pensation for any uneasiness he migl
have caused her.
It was just striking nine, when Frewei
on his way to the drawing-room, foun
himself at liberty to speak to Tom. Toi
told him of the vacant appointment, an
Frewen was very well disposed to he
him to secure it. " It rests with the eve
seers and the vestry ; and you must cai
vass your neighbours, and make all t! -
friends you can in the village ; but if n
good word can serve you, you shall ha'
it." Then Tom asked him if he'd wr
him a letter of recommendation. Freu
consented ; and dashed off a letter, whii
he shewed to Tom, in which he spoke
him in very handsome terms.
Tom bounded off the hall-steps into t
snow, with his letter buttoned up in 1
breast-pocket, so full of exultation as
feel quite young and strong again. N'
that Frewen had taken him up, the
would be no doubt of his success. Fre
en had the parish of Milford in 1
pocket, you might say. Tom felt qu
sure of the post already. He woulc
home by midnight, with a joyous buj
of news for poor Lizzie. And thus,
of happy thoughts, he disappeared
the great world of snow, outside the w
snug town.
When he reached Thornton Comi
he realized, for the first time in his
what it was to be abroad in perfect
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
ness, with a heavy snow falling. The
thick, incessant flakes beating against his
face, almost took away his breath ; each
step he made with difficulty — and he had
miles and miles before him. He struggled
on gamely for a while, but presently he
was overcome with intolerable fatigue and
drowsiness. Then he felt that he was
treading in water, and came to a stand,
finding himself up to the ankles in some
pond. There was no pond near the road,
Tom knew, and then came the bitter con-
viction that he had strayed from the road,
and was lost on Thornton Common. He
had lost all idea of direction ; he was
helpless, and utterly lost. He found his
way to terra firma, and wandered blindly
about, till he sank into a snow-drift,
through which he hadn't the heart to drag
himself. Terror and grief were all over
now, a sleepy weakness had swallowed up
all other sensations. With a feeling of
thankfulness almost, and sleepy relief, he
abandoned himself to a fatal torpor — to
the sleep that knows no waking.
Tom hadn't been gone long, before
Sailor looked in at Back Milford's, as
somebody had named the Rapleys' man-
sion. Finding nobody at home down be-
low, he thumped on the floor ; and Mrs.
Rapley called to him from her room, say-
ing that Tom had gone as far as the Roy-
2I Oak. Sailor therefore went in that
direction, not sorry of an excuse for hav-
ng a chat with Mrs. Booth. But, of
:ourse, Tom wasn't there. Young Bertie
.vas — sitttingby the fire with his picture-
Dook.
" There he is, bless him ! the young
Drince, as '11 be the master of his thou-
sands and thousands when he grows up.
\nd what'U you give old Sailor when you
:ome into your propertv, my fine young
■hap ? "
" Sailor have a big ship, and Sailor be
:aptain."
" We shall all be in our graves long be-
ore then," said Widow Booth in a tone
hat gave Sailor no encouragement to
tay ; and he went back to his cottage
ather disconsolately. His hearth was
old this Christmas night, and he looked
slankly around at the orderly, chilly
oora. He put his candle on the little
ound table, took out his pipe, and put-
ing a pinch of tobacco on the top of the
xtinguished remnant in the bowl, lighted
t, and began to puff vigorously away. ,
But he didn't feel at all easy and com- j
ortable in his mind. Sailor was very
ond of the Rapleys, especially of Mrs. |
•lapiey and her son. He was never tired
of making things for Bertie ; and the at-
tachment between the boy and the sailor
was warm and reciprocal. Bertie's pale
face and wistful precocious expression
had struck him with uneasiness and fear.
He couldn't bear the thought that per-
haps the boy wouldn't live long. After
he had rested a while, he made up his
mind to go once more to Back Milford's,
and see if Tom had come home, and talk
to him about the boy. He was always a
little nervous at approaching Milford by
night ; there were such queer tales about
the place, and Sailor himself had seen
sights there which had not tended to re-
assure him. Consequently, when, on
nearing the house, he saw a light flitting
about the empty straw-yard, and then
shining in the old deserted barn, he felt
a strong thrill of superstitious terror. He
was not, however, a timid man, and
after mastering his first inclination to
turn tail and hurry home as fast as possi-
ble, he made up his mind to investigate
the cause of this remarkable light.
Crossing the old straw-yard, he cautiously
approached the barn, and feeling his way
to the small side-door at the farther end,
he peeped cautiously in, through a hole
in the wood- work.
A lamp was burning dimly in one cor-
ner of the barn, and several figures —
more than one, at all events — were flit-
ting to and fro in its light. There was a
subdued muffled sound, as of knocking or
digging with a pickaxe. Presently, "this
ceased and the light disappeared. Sailor
now came to the conclusion, that proba-
bly there were tramps encamped here for
the night. Curiosity, however, overcame
prudence, and opening the side-door of
the barn, he crept quietly and cautiously
to the farther end. He could see noth-
ing, except that several of the boards of
the floor had been removed, and there was
a dark chasm in the floor of the barn sev-
eral feet below him. As he watched,
however, a light shone out again, and
Sailor noticed that it proceeded from a
subterranean archway that, only a few
feet in height, had hitherto been con-
cealed by the boarded floor. Then Sailor
bethought him of the old stories of the
secret passages leading away from Mil-
ford Manor, and of the priest who had
been starved to death in one of them,
whilst in hiding ; and he felt terribly
frightened for a moment, lest he should
be on the point of beholding some dread-
ful apparition. Looking hurriedly about
him for a place of concealment, he saw
hanging up against the wall a bundle of
5^4
old sacking that had once done duty for
the lining of hop-bins, and he concealed
himself behind this. Soon he heard a
scuffling, scrambling, kind of noise, as of
people crawling on hands and knees ;
then two men emerged through the low
archway. No grisly phantoms these, but
two men plainly enough to be seen in
flesh and blood. One, he knew, was
Skim ; and the other, he thought to be
Collop, the shop-keeper of Biscopham.
Skim put down his lamp upon the floor
whilst he proceeded carefully to replace
the boards. " Now we shall work it,
master, I think," he said, wiping his fore-
head with the palm of his hand.
*' I don't know," said Collop, gloomily ;
" it seems to me we are as far off as ever."
" Come, we know it must be there
somewhere ; and we can get at the place
whenever we like ; all thanks to me, find-
ing out this here hole. To think of the
old black cat shewing of it me ! She
shan't shew it no other body, though ;
just let me get hold of her, that's all.
She shan't escape me next time, I'll bet
a penny. Look at the nasty thing, how
she scratched me. I'll break her back for
her. I'll give her just such another nip
as I give "
"Hush, hush!" cried Collop: "how
do you know who may be listening to
your wild talk ! "
" If there was anybody here, I'd pretty
soon settle him ! " cried Skim.
After that. Sailor was glad to see them
file off towards the door ; and when they
had passed out, he followed at a respect-
ful distance. It seemed that a dog-cart
was waiting a little way up the lane, and the
two men diverged to reach it. Sailor took
advantage of this to regain the high-road.
The snow was still falling fast, obliter-
ating all existing tracks. Sailor thought
for a moment : he was intensely curious,
and anxious to assure himself that it
really was Collop he had seen. If it were
Collop, he would presently be driving
home to Biscopham. Sailor made up his
mind to follow that road for a little while,
and wait till the dog-cart overtook him.
Then he would stop it, and ask the sup-
posed Collop to give him a lift to Bis-
copham. If the man refused, he would
still have the opportunity of identifying
him thoroughly. If he consented — well,
it was pension-day to-morrow, and he
knew an old comrade who kept a little
tavern in the town, who would swing a
hammock for him gladly. Sailor trudged
away along the Biscopham road ; and
presently, as he expected, he heard the
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
rattle of wheels behind him, and he shou
ed loudly to the advancing vehicle t
stop.
" What's the matter ? " cried Collop -
who was alone in the dog-cart — reinin
up suddenly, and peering over the splasl
board into the dark snow-flecked night.
" Can you give a poor old sailor a 11
to Biscopham, as is going there to dra
his pension to-morrow ? "
Collop recognized the man as arespec
able villager, and was not averse to con
pany that dark snowy night.
" Yes, you can jump up," he said.
It was late at night, and Mrs. Rapk
was lying awake, wondering what he
become of Tom. When he went out f(
his walk, she had expected him back
an hour or so ; but as time went on, si
became, first impatient, then uneasy, ar
after that, seriously alarmed. Up to mi
night, there was a possibility that 1
might be staying at the Royal Oak.
was quite unlike Tom to stay out so lai
but there was possibly some merry-ma
ing there, into which he had been draw
But, when the solemn bell from t
church-tower tolled out the hour of tweh -
and nobody came, Mrs. Rapley grew mc
and more terrified. She was all aloi
The old woman who acted as nurse h
gone home for the night, and there \\
nobody in the house but herself and 1
helpless, unconscious infant.
A single rushlight was burning in t
room, throwing perplexing shadows ,
familiar things. There was an afll
stillness and silence everywhere, W\
broken by the ticking of the clock do\
stairs. Sometimes there would be a k J
crack upon the stairs, as though a pi
son were stealthily ascending thrg
Sometimes there would be a viol
commotion in the next house, and
flesh would creep for a moment, till
assured herself that it was only a r
rush of rats that had caused the disti
ance.
After all, her fears were groundle
Tom was coming home ; she distin
heard footsteps. She sat up, and
tened greedily. Yes, surely he was c
ing ! But the footsteps died away,
was not Tom ; she would have heard
stamping and scraping his feet at
door. This was some stealthy foots
some truculent midnight prowler,
haps, one of the hideous band of wan
ing ruffianhood, for whom the law
vides a nightly shelter and repose
they may choose to roam. At
ment she might see some lowerii
Hi
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
55s
debased by crime and vice, staring in
upon her, lying there helpless.
Then a new terror seized her, for she
distinctly heard strange sounds in the
old house — footsteps wandering here
and there, and the noise of spade or pick.
It must be Aunt Betsy, Lizzie said to
herself, wandering about, looking for her
money ; Aunt Betsy, who had been so j
iiard and cruel to them when alive.
Again the footsteps seem to be ap-
Droaching; there was somebody in the
eery next room ! Lizzie cried out in the
extremity of her terror ; perspiration j
nood in heavy beads upon her face. She
:ried to pray ; she tried to think of some
ippropriate efficacious prayer, but she
:ould only cry out in terror and agony :
' Heaven, send home my Tom.-'
Then there came a tremendous crash.
Something had burst through the parti-
ion into the room — some black object
vith fiery eyes : the candle was over-
hrown, and everything left in darkness.
Lizzie gave a wild despairing cry, and
uink back fainting on the bed.
When she came to herself, a dull morn-
ng glow was lighting up the window.
3aby, deprived so long of her natural
ood, was screaming dreadfully. The
)lack cat was lying on the bed, blinking
ingrily at the crying child. There was a
;;reat hole visible in the partition oppo-
site, that shewed that her fears had not
)een groundless. Daylight was here,
lowever, and all horrific forms had dis-
ippeared before its cheerful gleam.
Morning was here, cold, chill morning ;
he snow piled high against the window,
he glare of it shining on the ceiling —
inow everywhere, in great white wreaths,
ind piled-up drifts. And Tom had been
)ut in it all night ! Would he ever more
:ome home ?
From Macmillan's Magazine.
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
II.
THE FRATE.
" What is the use of the cloister in
he midst of society," says Padre Mar-
:hese (himself a Frate Predicatdre of San
Marco), " if it is not a focus and centre
)f morality and religion, diffusing and
)lanting deeply in the hearts of the peo-
ple ideas of honesty, justice, and virtue,
n order to temper and hold in balance
he brutal force of the passions, which
hreaten continually to absorb all the
thoughts and affections of men ? In this
brief description of the monastic life is
summed up the life of Sant' Antonino
and of his disciples. The saintly Cos-
tanzo da Fabriano, and Fathers Santi
Schialtesi and Girolamo Lapaccini, with
a chosen band of students, went through
the cities, towns, and villages of Tus-
cany, or wherever necessity called them,
extinguishing party strife, instructing the
people, and bringing back the lost into
the path of virtue. Sant' Antonino used
his ability and wonderful charity in en-
couraging the best studies, aiding in the
reform of the clergy, and giving a help-
ing-hand to all the charitable works which
were rendered necessary by the distresses
of those unhappy times. And since the
people of Florence took great delight in
the arts, and were in the habit of drawing
comfort and pleasure from them, the
blessed Giovanni Angelico undertook the
noble office of making those very arts
ministers of religious and moral perfec-
tion ; educating a school of painters,
pure, heavenly-minded, and toned to that
high sublime, which raises man from the
mud of this world and makes him in love
with heaven." Such is the affectionate
decsription given by a son of the convent
of its first inhabitants. And his praise
scarcely seems too liberal, either of the
pure-minded and gentle painter, or of the
loftier figure of the Archbishop, his friend
and brother in the community, who was,
as the story goes, preferred to his high
office by Angelico's modest recommenda-
tion. Antonino was a man accustomed
to influence and rule men, and his posi-
tion was of much more note in the eyes
of the world, no doubt, than that of the
humble painter, or would have been so
in any community less penetrated with
the love of Art than Florence. We can-
not pass over his name without notice,
notwithstanding that a greater awaits us a
few years further on in the history. The
story of Antonino's life and works and
miracles — those prodigies which pro-
cured him his canonization, as well as
many fully authenticated acts of loving-
kindness which might well entitle him to
rank among those whom their fellow-men
called Blessed — are painted under the
arches of the cloister of San Marco, I do
not say with supreme skill, or with any
lingering grace of Angehco's art, but
clear enough to give an additional reality
to the history of the man. Among those
frescoes, indeed, is one poor picture,
i which has a historical interest much
above its value in point of art — a picture
566
in which the Archbishop is represented
as entering (barefooted, as it is said he
did, in humility and protest against the
honour which he could not escape) in
solemn procession at the great west door
of the Cathedral for his consecration.
The fagade, now a mass of unsightly
plaster, as it has been for generations,
here appears to us decorated half-way up
with the graceful canopy work of Giotto's
design, showing at least the beginning
which had been made in carrying out
that original plan, and its artistic effect.
This makes the picture interesting in
point of art ; but it has still another in-
terest which probably will strike the spec-
tator more than even this reminiscence
of the destroyed fagade, or the picture of
good Sant' Antonino affable with the gor-
geous vestments appropriate to the occa-
sion. In the foreground of the crowd
which looks on at the procession, stands
a tall figure in the Dominican habit, with
the cowl as usual half covering his head,
and his marked and powerful, but not
handsome features standing out with all
the reality of a portrait against the vague
background. To be sure it is an anach-
ronism to introduce Savonarola, for Arch-
bishop Antonino was dead long years
before his great successor came to Flor-
ence ; but painters in those days were
not limited by vulgar bonds of accuracy
in point of date.
Antonino was not, so far as the evi-
dence shows, a man of genius like his
friend the painter, or like that later Prior
of San Marco whose name is forever
associated with the place. But he pos-
sessed that noble inspiration of charity
which perhaps more than any other makes
the name of a churchman dear to the race
among which he lives. The sagacious,
shrewd, and kindly face which looks at
us, still, with an almost humorous obser-
vation, in the bust which remains in the
convent, would scarcely perhaps suggest
to the spectator the tender depths of lov-
ing-kindness which must have been in
the man. In Florence, with its perpetual
succession of governments, its contin-
ually varying ascendency, now of one
party, now of another, the community
was exposed to still greater vicissitudes
of fortune than are the inhabitants of our
commercial towns, who have to bear all
the caprices of trade. Those who one
day had power and office and the ways of
making wealth in their hands, were sub-
ject on the next to ruinous fines, impris-
onments, exile, descent from the highest
to the lowest grade. After Cosmo de'
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
Medici had returned from the banish-
ment which his rivals had procured, he
treated those rivals and their party in the
ordinary way, degrading many of their
adherents from their position 3.sgrandi or
nobles, and spreading havoc among all the
opposing faction who held by the Albizzi
against the Medici. The result was, as
may be easily supposed, a large amount
of private misery proudly borne and care-
fully concealed, that poverty of the gen-
tle and proud which is of all others the
most terrible. I have said that probably
Antonino was not a man of genius at all :
but I revoke the words, for what but the
essence of Christian genius, fine instinc
tender penetration, could have fir^^
thought of the necessity of ministering tc
i poveri vergogHosi, the shamefaced poor
Florence had misery enough of all kin.,
within her mediaeval bosom, but nont
more dismal than that which lurked un •
seen within some of those gaunt, grea ::
houses, where the gently born and deli
cately bred, starved, yet were ashamed t(
beg — each house bringing down with i
in its fall, through all the various grade
of rank which existed in the aristocrati'
republic, other households who could di -
but could not ask charity. The kin
monk in his cell, separated from th
world as we say, and having the miserie
of his fellow-creatures in no way force" "
upon his observation, divined this sacred
est want that uttered no groan, and in hi
wise soul found out the means of aidin
it. He sent for twelve of the best me
of Florence, men of all classes — shoe
makers among them, woolspinners, men-
bers of all the different crafts — and tol
them the subject of his thoughts. H
described to them " to the life," as Padr .
Marchese tells us, the condition of th
fallen families, the danger under whic
they lay of being turned to suicide or
wickedness by despair, and the nece
sity of bringing help to their hidde ^
misery. The twelve, touched to th ^'
heart by this picture, offered themselvt
willingly as his assistants ; and th'
arose an institution which still exists ai
flourishes, a charitable society which h
outlived many a benevolent schem
and given the first impulse to mai
more. Antonino called his charital
band Provveditori del poveri vergognos
but the people, always ready to percei
and appreciate a great work of charii
conferred a popular title more hanc
and natural, and called those messengj
of kindness the Buotuiotnmi de
Martino — the little homely churcl
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
St. Martin, the church in which Dante
was married, and within sight of which he
was born, being the headquarters of the
new brotherhood. On the outside wall of
this humble little place may still be seen
the box for subscriptions, with its legend,
which the Good Men of St. Martin put up
at the beginning of their enterprise, a
touching token of their long existence.
The nearest parallel I know to this work
is to be found in the plan which Dr. Chal-
mers so royally inaugurated in the great
town of Glasgow, abolishing all legal re-
lief in his parish, and providing for its
wants entirely by voluntary neighbourly
charity, and the work of Buonuomini,
like those of St, Martin — one of the most
magnificent experiments made in modern
times, but unfortunately, like a song or a
poem, ending with the genius which in-
spired and produced it. It is curious to
think that the Scotch minister of the nine-
teenth century was but repeating the idea
of the Dominican monk in the fifteenth.
We are in the habit of thinking a great
deal of ourselves and our charities, and
of ranking them much more highly than
the works of other nations ; but it is
nevertheless a fact, that while Dr. Chal-
mers" splendid essay at Christian legisla-
tion died out in less than a generation and
was totally dependent upon one man's
influence. Prior Antonino's institution
has survived the wear and tear of four
hundred years.
There is another institution still in
Florence to which Prior Antonino's ini-
tiation was of the greatest importance.
Every visitor of Florence must have no-
ticed the beautiful little building at the
corner of the piazza which surrounds the
Baptistery — which is called the Bigallo,
This house had been the headquarters of
an older society specially devoted to the
care of orphan children and foundlings,
which had been diverted — perverted —
into an orthodox band of persecutors for
the suppression of the heresy of the Pate-
rini by another Dominican, St. Peter
Martyr, a gory and terrible saint, whose
bleeding head appears perpetually in the
art records of the Order. Antonino was
not of the persecuting kind, and perhaps
the Paterini, poor souls, had been extir-
pated and got rid of. However that may
be, the gentle Prior got the captains of
the Bigallo also within the range of his
tender inspiration. He sheathed their
sv.ords, and calmed down their zeal, and
turned them back to their legitimate
work ; and within the charmed circle
which holds the Baptistery, the Campa-
nile, and the Cathedral, standing where
Dante must have seen it many a day from
the stone bench whence he watched the
Duomo, the Bigallo carries on its work of
charity, bringing up orphans, and receiv-
ing destitute children. Under the lovely
little loggia, than which there are few
things more beautiful in all the beautiful
city, it was the custom to put lost chil-
dren whom the officers of the society had
found about the streets to be recognized
by their parents, a fact which suggests
many a pretty and touching scene.
In the year 1446, the Prior of San Mar-
co (specially by the recommendation, as
has been already told, of the Angelical
painter) was made Archbishop of Flor-
ence, an honour which he is said neither
to have sought nor wished, but which .
filled the city with rejoicing. Of all the
good things he did in this office we have
not space enough to tell ; but one or two
special incidents must be recorded. A
few years after his consecration, in the
years 1448 and 1449, ^"^ ^^ those great
Plagues which terrified the mediaeval
mind, and of which we have so many
terrible records, came upon Florence, and
what Boccaccio recorded a century before
became again visible in the stricken city.
Almost all who could leave the town fled
from it, and the miserable masses smitten
by the pestilence died without hope and
almost without help. But we need not
add, that the Archbishop was not one of
the deserters. He gathered round him
some "young men of his institution,"
Padre Marchese tells us, and bravely set
himself to the work of charity. He him-
self went about the miserable streets
leading an ass, or mule, laden with every-
thing that charity required — food and
wine and medicine, and that sacramental
symbol of God which was the best charity
of all — necessary's ad salutem ani7)icB et
corporis^ as an ancient writer testifies.
At a later period, when Florence was af-
flicted with a plague of another kind, this
noble old man came to its rescue in a way
still more original and unlike his age.
The people, ignorant and superstitious as
they were, had been deeply terrified by
some unusual convulsion of the elements,
the appearance of a comet for one thing;,,
which was followed by earthquakes, ter-
rific storms, and many signs and wonders
very alarming to the popular mind. Be-
sides these natural terrors, they were
excited by foolish addresses, prophecies,
of the approaching end of the world, and
exhortations to fly and hide themselves
among the caves and mountains, like the
568
lost in the Apocalypse. The Archbishop
was not before his age in scientific knowl-
edge ; but he instantly published a little
treatise, explaining as well as he could
the nature of the commotions that fright-
ened the ignorant, " according to the doc-
trine of Aristotle, and the blessed Al-
bertus Magnus." It was poor science
enough, the historian allows, but yet as
good as could be had at the time ; and
the authority of the Archbishop calmed
the minds of the people. The reader will
find, if he wishes, in the legend of Sant'
Antonino, and in the pictorial story of his
life which may be seen in the lunettes of
the cloister of San Marco, a great num-
ber of incidents purely miraculous ; but
Padre Marchesedoes not enter into these
pious fancies. He finds enough to vindi-
cate the saintship of his Archbishop in
the honest and undeniable work for God
and man which he did in his generation ;
and so indeed do I. There is but one
incident in this noble and simple record
in which the good Antonino was a little
hard upon nature. The garden attached
to the Archbishop's palace was a beauti-
ful and dainty one, in which former pre-
lates had taken great delight, refreshing
their dignified leisure in its glades. But
an Archbishop who takes his exercise in
the streets, leading a panniered mule
laden with charities, has less need, per-
haps, of trim terraces on which to saun-
ter. Archbishop Antonino had the flow-
ers dug up, and planted roots and vege-
tables for his poor, in respect to whom
he was fanatical. One grudges the inno-
cent flowers ; but the old man, I suppose,
had a right to his whim like another, and
bishops in that age were addicted some-
times to less virtuous fancies — ravaging
the earth for spoil to enrich their families
and to buy marbles for their tomb. It
was better on the whole to ravage a gar-
den, however beautiful, in order to feed
the starving poor.
Antonino died in 1459, gliding peace-
fully out of the world " as morning whit-
ened on the 2nd of May," when Glrola-
mo Savonarola, coming into it, was just
seven years old, a child in Ferrara. The
good Archbishop ordered that all that
was found in his palace when he died
should be given to the poor. All that^
could be found was four ducats ! so true
had he been to his vows of poverty. And
thus the greatest dignitary of San Marco
passed away, followed out of the world
by the tears and blessings of the poor,
and the semi-adoration of all the city. It
is not difficult to understand how the
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
^nev^
perpetual appeals of the people who kne
him so well and had occasion so good to
trust in his kindness living, should have
glided with natural ease and fervour into
the Ora pro nobis of a popular litany,
when the good Archbishop took his gen-
tle way to heaven, leaving four ducats
behind him, on that May morning. The
world was a terribly unsatisfactory world
in those days, as it is now ; and full of
evils more monstrous, more appalling,
than are the sins of our softer genera-
tion ; but at the same time, the gates of
heaven were somehow nearer, and those
rude eyes, bloodshot with wars and pas-
sion, could see the saints so unlike them-
selves going in by that dazzling way. JBjl
We must turn northward, however, tfll
find the greatest monk of San Marco, the
man who has writ himself large upon the
convent, and even on the city, and who
is one of the greatest of the many great
figures that inhabit Florence. Savonarola
was born in Ferrara in September, 1452,
the grandson of an eminent physician at
the court of the Duke, and intended by
his parents to follow the same profession.
He was one of a large family, not over
rich, it would appear, and is said to have
been the one in whom the hopes of his
kindred were chiefly placed. He was a
diligent student, " working day and night,"
as we are told by his earliest biographer
Burlamacchi, his contemporary and disci-
ple, whose simple and touching narrative
has all the charm of nearness and personal
affection — and attained great proficiencPB
in " the liberal arts." He was learned in
the learning of his day, and in that phi-
losophy of the schools which held so high
a place in the estimation of the world —
studying Aristotle, and afterwards, with
devotion, St. Thomas Aquinas. But the
young man was not of those who take
their leading solely from books, however
great. He was deeply thoughtful, looking
with eyes of profound and indignant ob-
servation upon all the ways of man, so
vain and melancholy. They were, how-
ever, more than vain and melancholy in
young Girolamo's day ; the softer shades
of modern evil were exaggerated in those
times into such force of contrast as made
the heart of the beholder burn within him.
On one side, unbounded luxury, splen-
dour and power ; on the other, the deep^
est misery, helplessness, abandonment
t-ie poor more poor, the rich more brutall
indifferent of them than we can undel
stand ; and every familiar human crim?
with which we are acquainted in thes
latter days set out in rampant breadth
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
colour and shameless openness. Italy
was the prey of petty tyrants and wicked
priests : Dukes and Popes vying with
each other which could live most lewdly,
most lavishly, most cruelly — their whole
existence an exploitation of the helpless
people they reigned over, or still more
helpless " iiock " of which these wolves,
alas ! had got the shepherding. And
learning was nought, and philosophy vain,
in those evil days. What were grammat-
ical disquisitions, or the subtleties of
mediaeval logic to a young soul burning
for virtue and truth, to a young heart
wrung with ineffable pity for suffering
and horror of wrong .'* So soon as Savo-
narola began to judge for himself, to feel
the stirrings of manhood in his youth,
this righteous sorrow took possession of
the young man's mind. Some poems
composed at this time show how deeply
penetrated he was by indignation and dis-
gust for all the evils he saw around him.
" Seeing," he cries, " the world turned up-
side down : "
... in wild confusion tost,
The very depth and essence lost
Of all good ways and every virtue bright ;
Nor shines one living light
Nor one who of his vices feels the shame.
Happy henceforth he who by rapine lives,
He who on blood of others swells and feeds,
Who widows robs, and from his children's
needs
Takes tribute, and the poor to ruin drives.
Those souls shall now be thought most rare
and good
Who most by fraud and force can gain,
Who heaven and Christ disdain,
Whose thoughts on other's harm forever
brood.
This profound appreciation of the evils
round him made the young Girolamo a
sad and silent youth. " He talked little
and kept himself retired and solitary,"
says Burlamacchi. "Retook pleasure,"
adds Padre Marchese, "in solitary places,
in the open fields, or along the green
banks of the Po, and there wandering,
sometimes singing, sometimes weeping,
gave utterance to the strong emotions
which boiled in his breast." The city
raged or revelled behind him, its streets
running blood or running wine — what
mattered ? — according to the turn of for-
tune ; the doctors babbling in their places,
of far-fetched questions, of dead gram-
matical lore ; and no man thinking of
truth, of mercy, of judgment, with which
the lad's bosom was swelling, or of the
569
need of them ; but only how to get the
most wealth, honour, pleasure, fine robes,
and prancing horses, and beautiful things,
and power. Outside the gates on the
river side, the youth wandered solitary,
tears in those great eyes, which were re-
splendenti e di color celeste, his rugged
features moving, his strong heart beating
with that high and noble indignation
which was the only sign of life amid the
national depravity. But in the midst of
these deep musings there came a moment,
the historians say, when the music and
the freshness of existence came back to
the boy's soul, and the gates of the
earthly paradise opened to him, and all
the evil world was veiled with fictitious
glamour, by the light which shone out of
the eyes of a young Florentine, the
daughter of an exiled Strozzi. How long
this dream lasted, no one knows ; but
one of his early biographers informs us
that it ended with a scornful rejection of
the young Savonarola, on the ground that
his family was not sufficiently exalted to
mate with that of Strozzi. Here is one of
his verses written about the time, which
will touch the reader's mind with sympa-
thy for the full heart and forlorn confi-
dence of the rejected lover. One hope
still remains to him, he says,
I cannot let it leave me like the rest —
That in that other life, the best.
Well will be known which soul most highly
springs,
And which to noblest flight uplifts its wings.
Thus separated from the magic web of
human happiness which might have
blinded him temporarily, at least, to the
evils around him, his darker musings
came back with renewed power. He de-
scribes to his father in the touching letter
which intimates his entrance into the
cloister, the motives which moved him,
" In order that you may take comfort from
this explanation, and feel assured that I
have not acted from a juvenile impulse,
as some seem to think . . ." These
were : " the great misery of the world,
the iniquities of men, ... so that things
have come to such a pass that no one can
be found acting righteously. Many times
a day have I repeated with tears the verse,
Heu fuge crudeles terras, fuge littus avarum !
I could not endure the enormous wicked-
ness of the blinded people of Italy ; and
the more so because I saw everywhere
virtue despised and vice honoured. A
greater sorrow I could not have in this
world." Alone and solitary among peo-
57°
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
pie who did, and who put up with, all
these evils, with no one to sympathize
with his feelings, perhaps even scoffed at
for his exaggerated views, he endured as
long as it was possible ; while he was si-
lent, his heart burned. Disgusted with
the world, disappointed in his personal
hopes, weary of the perpetual wrong
which he could not remedy, he had de-
cided to adopt the monastic life, for some
time before his affectionate heart could
resolve upon a separation from his family.
" So great was my pain and misery," he
says in the letter to his father already
quoted, " that if I had laid open my breast
to you, I verily believe that the very idea
that I was going to leave you would have
broken my heart." He relieved his bur-
dened mind during this melancholy time
by writing a little essay on "Disdain of
the World," which he left behind with
simple art, "behind the books that lie in
the window-sill," to prove hereafter an
explanation of his conduct. His mother,
divining some resolution in him which he
had not expressed, looked at him with
such meaning and pitiful eyes, "as if she
would penetrate his very heart," that the
young man could not support her look.
One April morning, as he sat by her play-
ing a melancholy air upon his lute, she
turned upon him suddenly and said, " My
son, that is a sign we are soon to part."
Giralomo durst not risk himself to look at
her, but, with his head bent, kept fingering
the strings with a faltering touch.
Next day was a great festa in Ferrara,
the 24th of April, St. George's Day — one
of the many holidays which stood instead
of freedom and justice to conciliate the
people. When all the family were gone
out to those gay doings, which were bright-
ened and made sweet by the glorious
spring of Italy, the young man stole out
unnoticed, and with a full heart left his
father's house forever. This was in the
year 1475, when he was twenty-three. He
went away, lonely, across the sunny plain
to Bologna, where he presented himself
at once at the Convent of St. Dominic.
At this melancholy moment of his life,
the youth, his heart sick of all the learned
vanity as well as the louder crime of the
world, had no desire to be either priest
or monk, having an almost hatred in his
weary bosom of the vain studies in which
he had already spent so much time. He
asked only in his despair to be a lay
brother, to ease his soul with simple
work in the garden, or even, as Burla-
macchi tells us, in making the rude robes
of the monks — rather than to go back
all day long to "vain questions and doc-
trines of Aristotle," in which respect, he
said, there was little difference between
the frati and ordinary men. But pres-
ently his mind changed as the lassitude
which succeeds an important step
brought down his very soul into un-
questioning obedience. It might indeed
seem yet another commentary on the
vanity of human wishes that the young
monk, so tired of all mundane things, and
sick at heart for truth and contact with
nature, should have found himself thrown
back again as soon as he had fairly taken
refuge in his cloister, upon the old mis-
erable round of philosophy, as lecturer of
his convent. He obeyed readily, we are
told, which good Burlamacchi takes as
a sign of grace in him — but who can tell
with what struggles of the reluctant
heart and that deep disappointment
which so often attends the completion of
a long-maturing resolve ? Soon after he
wrote the letter to his father which I
have quoted — a letter full of the tender
sophistry which we find in so many
letters of this time (and indeed of all
times), in which the question of duty is
begged w^ith many a loving artifice, and
heart-broken beseechings brought in in-
stead. " Do you not think that it is a
very high mark of favour to have a son a
soldier in the army of Jesus Christ ? " . .. .
" If you love me, seeing that I am com-
posed of two parts, of soul and body, say
which of them you love most, the body or
the soul. ... If, then, you love the soul
most, why not look to the good of that
soul?" These arguments have been re-
peated from the beginning of the world,
I suppose, and will be to its end, when-
ever a good and loving child obeys a per-
sonal impulse which is contrary to filial
duty, but not to filial tenderness. " Never
since I was born did I suffer so great
mental anguish as when I felt that 1 was
about to leave my own flesh and blood
and go among people who were strangers
to me," adds the young man. But the
sacrifice had then been accomplished,
and for years thereafter the young Sa-
vonarola, now Fra Girolamo, had to con-
tent himself with " the Aristotle of the
cloister instead of the Aristotle of the
world," and to go on with those dry and
useless studies, making what attempt he
could to separate from them "all vain
questions, and to bring them back as
much as he could to Christian simplicity,"
while yet his heart burned within him,
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
571
and wickedness unwarned and wrong un-
redressed were rampant in the outside
world.
Perhaps, indeed, the first effects of
this desperate resolution of his, this
plunge into the Church by way of escap-
ing from the world, was to convince the
young man of the corruption of the
Church in a way more sharp and heart-
felt than before. No doubt it directed
him to look with eyes more critical and
enlightened upon those ecclesiastical
powers who were now the officers of his
own army, and more distinctly within his
range of vision ; and with a Pope such as
Sixtus IV., and many inferior prelates
worthy of their head, it is not to be won-
dered at if the bitter wrath and sorrow of
the young Reform.er blazed higher and
clearer still. As he had written in De
Ruina Mundi (in the verses which we
have already quoted), his horror of the
sins of the world, so in De Ruiiia Ec-
clesice, which now followed, he laments
the sins of the Church. He sees the true
Church herself in a vision, and hears
from her that her place has been invaded
by a shameless creature, — una fallace su-
perba tneretrice, " With eyes that are
never dry, with head bowed down, and
sad soul," the " ancient mother " replies
to him.
She look my hand, and thus with weeping, led
To her poor cave, and said —
" When into Rome I saw that proud one pass
Who 'mid soft flowers and grass
Securely moves, I shut me up, and here
Lead my sad life with many a tear."
The wondering spectator listens, and sees
her bosom torn with a thousand wounds,
and hears enough " to make stones
weep " of the usurpation of the harlot.
Then his whole soul breaks forth in a cry,
" Oh God, lady ! that I could break these
great wings ! " What utterance was
ever more characteristic of the future
purpose of a beginning life ? Though
the '' ajitica w«^r^"bids him rather be
silent and weep, the thought of breaking
those grandi alt, and striking a blow at
the thousand corruptions which dis-
graced Christendom, never abandoned
the thoughts of the young Dominican.
He had to be silent perforce for years,
and to teach the novices, and lecture
upon philosophy, as if there was no
greater evil in the world than a definite
syllogism ; but his heart burned all the
more in his breast, and his time was to
come.
Even, however, out of these undesired
studies, Savonarola's active intelligence
— which seems to have been restored to
the steadiness of common life, and to that
necessity of making the best of a lot, now
unalterable, which so often follows a de-
cisive step — seems to have made some-
thing useful and honourable. He wrote a
Compendium of Philosophy, "an epitome
of all the writings, various as they are, of
the Stagyrite," a work which, according
to Padre Marchese, " might have acted
as a stepping-stone to the Novum Or-
gatttimP Another work of a similar char-
acter he had begun upon Plato, the study
of whose works had been much promoted
in Italy by the learned Greeks who were
so highly thought of in many of its intel-
lectual centres, but this Savonarola him-
; self tells us he destroyed. " What good
i is there in so much wisdom, when now
I every old woman knows more "i " he asks,
with characteristic simplicity. Such were
his occupations during the seven years
which he passed in Bologna, a time of
quiet, of rest in some respects from the
chaos of youthful fancies, and of dis-
tasteful, but bravely surmounted work.
His convent seems to have acted upon
the sorrowful young dreamer as sharp
contact with actual life so often acts upon
visionary youth. It forced him to take
up his burden and labour at common
things in the long interval of waiting be-
fore the real mission of his life came to
him. Monastic writers throw a certain
ecclesiastical romanticism over this natu-
ral result, by distinguishing it as the
fruit of monastic obedience, the new soul
of the cloister ; but the same thing ap-
pears in almost all noble and strong na-
tures when life in its real aspect is ac-
cepted, not as a matter of fancy and
choice, but of unalterable necessity and
duty. There was no particular value in
the logic which Fra Girolamo taught the
young Dominicans ; but there was effi-
cacy inestimable in that sense of cer-
tainty and life established which led him
to do the work which lay at his hand and
accept it, though it was not that which
pleased him best.
After some years of this obscure v/ork
he came to Florence, and now at last we
find him in the scene to which his his-
torical existence belongs. Professor Vil-
lari informs us, though without giving
any authority, that the young monk came
to his new home with hopeful and happy
anticipations, pleased with the fair
country, the purer language, the higher
civilization of the people, and with the
saintly associations which the blessed
572
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
Antonino had left so fresh and fragrant.
It is easy indeed to believe that after
toiling across the rugged Apennines,
when the Dominican, still young and full
of natural fervour, came suddenly out
from among the folds of the hills upon
that glorious landscape ; when he saw
the beautiful vision of Florence, seated
in the rich garden of her valley, with flow-
ers and olive-trees, and everything that is
beautiful in nature, incircling that proud
combination of everything that is noble
in art ; his heart must have risen at the
sight, and some dilation of the soul, some
sense of coming greatness have been
permitted to him in face of the fate he
was to accomplish there.
The state of Florence at this period
was very remarkable. The most inde-
pendent and tumultuous of towns was
spell-bound under the sway of Lorenzo
de Medici, the grandson of that Cosmo
who built San Marco ; and scarcely
seemed even to recollect its freedom, so
absorbed was it in the present advantages
conferred by "a strong government," and
solaced by shows, entertainments, festi-
vals, pomp and display of all kinds. It
was one of those moments of classic re-
vival which have occurred more than
once in the later history of the world,
when the higher classes of society, having
shaken themselves apart with graceful
contempt from the lower, proceed to
frame their lives according to a pagan
model, leaving the other and much bigger
half of the world to pursue its supersti-
tions undisturbed. Florence was as near
a pagan city as it was possible for its rulers
to make it. Its intellectual existence was
entirely given up to the past ; its days
were spent in that worship of antiquity
which has no power of discrimination,
and deifies not only the wisdom' but the
trivialities of its golden epoch. Lorenzo
reigned in the midst of a lettered crowd
of classic parasites and flatterers, writing
poems which his courtiers found better
than Alighieri's, and surrounding him-
self with those eloquent slaves who make
a prince's name more famous than arms
or victories, and who have still left a pre-
judice in the minds of all literature-lov-
ing people in favour of their patron. A
man of superb health and physical power,
who can give himself up to debauch all
night without interfering with his power
of working all day, and whose mind is so
versatile that he can sack a town one
morning and discourse upon the beauties
of Plato the next and weave joyous bal-
lads through both occupations — gives
I
his flatterers reason when they applaud
him. The few righteous men in the city,
the citizens who still thought of Florence
above all, kept apart, overwhelmed by the
tide which ran in favour of that leading
citizen of Florence who had gained the
control of the once high-spirited and free-
dom-loving people. Society had never
been more dissolute, more selfish, or
more utterly deprived of any higher aim.
Barren scholarship, busy over grammat-
ical questions, and elegant philosophy
snipping and piecing its logical systems,
formed the top dressing to that half
brutal, half-superstitious ignorance which
in such communities is the general por-
tion of the poor. The dilettante world
dreamed hazily of a restoration of the
worship of the pagan gods ; Cardinal
Bembo bade his friend beware of reading
Paul's epistles, lest their barbarous style
should corrupt his taste ; and even such
a man as Pico della Mirandola declared
the " Divina Commedia" to be inferior
to the " Canti Carnascialeschi " of Lo-
renzo de Medici. This extraordinary
failure of taste itself, in a period which
stood upon its fine taste as one of its
highest qualities, is curious, but far from,
being without parallel in the history of
the civilized world. Not so very long ago,
indeed, among ourselves, in another age
of classic revival, sometimes called Au-
gustan, Pope was supposed a much
greater poet than Shakespeare, and much
inferior names to that of Pope were
ranked as equal with, or superior to, our
prince of poets. The whole mental
firmament must have contracted about
the heads of a people among whom such
verdicts are possible ; but the opinion of
such a time generally is that nothing has
ever been so clever, so great, so elevated
as itself. Thus limited intellectually, the
age of Lorenzo was still more hopeless
morally, full of debauchery, cruelty, and
corruption, violating oaths, betraying
trusts, believing in nothing but Greek
manuscripts, coins, and statues, caring for
nothing but pleasure. This was the world
in which Savonarola found himself when,
waking from his first pleasurable impres-
sions, he looked forth from the narrow
windows of San Marco, by the side of
which Angelico's angel faces stood watch-
ing the thoughts that arose in his mind.
Those thoughts were not of a mirthful
kind. Fair Florence lying in bonds, or
rather dancing in them, with smear of
blood upon her garments and loathsome
song upon her lips ; and the Church, yet
more fair, groaning under the domiaatioi
THE CONVENT OF SAN MARCO.
573
of one evil Pope, looking forward to a
worse monster still, for the reign of the
Borgias — culmination of all wickedness
— was approachiiig ; — who can wonder
if visions of gloom crossed the brain of
the young lecturer in San Marco, how-
soever he might try to stupefy and silence
them by his daily work and the subtleties
of Aristotle and Aquinas ? A sense of
approaching judgment, terror, and pun-
ishment, the vengeance of God against a
world full of iniquity, darkened the very
air around him. He tried to restrain the
prophetic vision, but could not. Wher-
ever he was allowed to speak, in Brescia,
in San Geminiano, the flood poured forth,
and in spite of himself he thundered from
the pulpit a thousand woes against the
wicked with intense and alarming effect.
But when he endeavoured to speak in let-
tered Florence itself, no one took any
trouble to listen to the Lombard monk,
whose accent was harsh, and his periods
not daintily formed, and who went against
all the unities, so to speak, as Shake-
speare once, when England was in a simi-
lar state of of refinement, was held to do.
In San Lorenzo, when Savonarola first
preached, there were not twenty-five
people, all counted, to hear him ; but San
Geminiano among the hills, when it
heard that same voice amid the glooms of
Lent, thought nothing of the Lombard
accent, and trembled at the prophetic
woe denounced against sin ; and in
Brescia the hearers grew pale, and paler
still years after, when the preacher's
words seemed verified. Woe, woe, he
preached in those Lent sermons ; woe —
but also restoration and the blessing of
God if men would turn from their sins.
Between these utterances of his full heart
and glowing soul, Fra Girolamo came
back to teach his novices in the dead
quiet of San Marco — not preacher
enough to please the Florentines, who
loved fine periods — and lectured in the
cool of the cloister or in some quiet room,
as if there had been nothing but syllo-
gisms and the abstractions of meta-
physics in the world.
The crisis in his life occurred when,
probably on one of his preaching tours,
he attended the Dominican chapter at
Reggio, and was there seen and heard by
a genial, gentle young courtier, Giovanni
Pico della Mirandola, one of Lorenzo's
most affectionate flatterers and friends.
This court butterfly was the most learned
creature that ever fluttered near a prince,
full of amiable sentiments and tender-
heartedness, and the kindly insight of an
unspoiled heart. He saw the Frate cf
San Marco among the other Dominicans,
his remarkable face intent upon the de-
liberations of the Council ; and heard him
speak with such power and force of utter-
ance that the whole audience was moved.
Probably something more than this, some
personal contact, some kindly gleam from
those resplendent blue eyes that shone
from underneath Fra Girolamo's caver-
nous brow ; some touch of that " urbanita
humile, ornato e grazioso " upon which
Burlamacchi insists, went to the heart of
the young Pico, himself a noble young
gentleman amid all his frippery of courtier
and virtuoso. He was so seized upon
and captured by the personal attractions
of Savonarola, that he gave Lorenzo no
peace until he had caused him to be
authoritatively recalled from his wan-
derings and brought back permanently
to Florence. Young Pico felt that he
could not live without the teacher whom
he had thus suddenly discovered. Lo-
renzo thus at his friend's request or-
dered back into Florence the only man
who dared stand face to face with him-
self and tell him he had done wrong.
Savonarola came back perhaps not very
willingly, and betook himself once more
to his novices and his philosophy. But
he had by this time learned to leaven his
philosophy with lessons more important,
and to bring in the teachings of a greater
than Aristotle, taking the Bible wjiich he
loved, and which, it is said, he had
learned by heart, more and more for his
text-book ; and launching forth into a
wider sea of remark and discussion as
day followed day, and his mind expanded
and his system grew.
We are not told whether Pico, when
his beloved friar came back, made Fra
Girolamo's teaching fashionable in F'lor-
ence ; but no doubt he had his share in
indicating to the curious the new genius
which had risen up in their midst. And
as the Frate lectured to the boy Domini-
cans, discoursing of everything in heaven
and earth with full heart and inspired
countenance, there grew gradually about
him a larger audience, gathering behind
the young heads of that handful of con-
vent lads, an ever-widening circle of
weightier listeners — men of Florence,
one bringing another to hear a man who
spoke with authority, and had, if not
pretty periods to please their ears, some-
thing to tell them — greatest of all attrac-
tions to the ever-curious soul of man.
It was summer, and Fra Girolamo sat
in the cloister, in the open square which
574
FRITZ REUTER.
was the monks' garden, under a rose-tree.
" Sotto un rosajo di rose damaschine " —
a rose-tree of damask roses ! Never was
there a more touching, tender incongruity
than that perfumed canopy of bloom over
the dark head covered with its cowl.
Beneath the blue sky that hung over
Florence, within the white square of the
cloister with all its arching pillars, with
Angelico's Dominic close by kneeling at
the cross-foot, and listening too, this
crowd of Florentines gathered in the
grassy inclosure incircling the scholars
and their master! A painter could not
desire a more striking scene. The roses
waving softly in the summer air above,
and the lads in their white convent
gowns with earnest faces lifted to the
speaker — what a tender central light do
they give, soft heart of flowers and youth
to the grave scene ! For grave as life
and death were the speaker and the men
that stood around and pressed him on
every side. Before long he had to con-
sent, which he did with reluctance, to
leave his quiet cloister and return to the
pulpit where once his Lombard accent
had brought him nothing but contempt
and failure. Thus the first chapter of
Fra Girolamo's history ends, under the
damask rose-tree in the warm July weath-
er, within those white cloisters of San
Marco. In the full eye of day, in the
pulpit and the public places of Florence,
as prophet, spiritual ruler, apostle among
men, was the next period of his life to be
passed. Here his probation ends.
From The Pall Mall Gazette.
FRITZ REUTER.
The same telegram which brought us
the news of Prince Bismarck's escape
announced the death of him who has
been called Germany's Dickens — Fritz
Reuter. Fritz Renter, who died last
month at Eisenach, was an obscure teach-
er in a small town of Brandenburg only
twelve years ago. He was one of those
men of whom honest, well-established,
and thriving citizens are apt to say that
they have turned out badly, and of whom
they have a certain right to say it. Born
during the Franzosentid (the time of the
French occupation), in a country town of
the Duchy of Mecklenburg, he studied
law at Rostock and Jena, where towards
1830 conspiracies in favour of German
unity were rife among young men. What
was the real aim of the juvenile patriots
of the Burschenschaft has never beec
clearly ascertained ; and the members o;
that widely-spread association perhaps
knew as little of it themselves as anybody
else. The German governments hon-
oured them and disgraced themselves by
taking them au sirieiixj and shortly after
the French Revolution of' July and the
Frankfort attempt, organized a dema-
gogue hunt on a large scale which will
always leave a stain upon their reputa-
tion. It was natural enough for the
smaller potentates, whose instinct of self-
preservation taught them that nothing
could be more dangerous to them than
aspirations towards German unity ; it was
natural enough for Austria, who had a
distinct presentiment that a restoration
of the German Empire could never be
made in behalf of the house of Hapsburg ;
but that Prussia, which already at this
time was the secret hope of the young
enthusiasts, and which was perfectly
aware that the schoolboys' plans were
national — that Prussia should have taken
the lead of these odious and ridiculous
persecutions is a fact more difficult to
understand even than to excuse.
Fritz Reuter was one of the victims;
and, after a year of "preventive" impris-
onment, was condemned to death at the
age of twenty-one. King Frederick Wil-
liam III., however, granted him a re-
prieve and commuted the capital punish-
ment into thirty years' imprisorfment in
a fortress. After seven years Reuter was
set at liberty upon the accession of Fred-
erick William IV. (1840). He has him-
self told us in his very amusing book,
" Ut mine Festungstid " (My Time a.t the
Fortress), how he and his fellow suffer-
ers spent their days in card-playing,
cooking, lovemaking with the command-
er's and guardians' daughters, above all
in practical joking. If patriotism and
beer had prevented the student from em-
ploying his time profitably at the univer-
sity, natural laziness and the prospect of
a life likely to be lost in prison were not
adapted to make a worker of our prisoner.
When, at nearly thirty years of age, he
came out of prison, he found himself
without a career, without means, and with
nothing acquired by which he could earn
a livelihood. He repaired to his fathers
little property in Mecklenburg, but he
was no more an agriculturist than a law-
yer, in spite of his professional studies ;
accordingly he soon found himself in
debt, and obliged to sell his small estate
in order to satisfy his creditors. He then
tried to freshen up his college studies.
FRITZ REUTER.
575
and began to give lessons at Treptow at
the rate of about 6d. a lesson. Of the
sixpences thus earned he is said to have
sacrificed the greater part on the altar of
sociability, and he was well known in the
Wirthshaus at Treptow as a most hu-
morous story-teller.
He had as yet no idea of turning his
extraordinary talent to account, and went
over to New Brandenburg in order to
obtain a better price for his lessons.
Here the new friends to whom he read
the poems and stories he had written in
Plattdeiitsch (North German dialect) for
the amusement of his tavern and family
audience urged him to have them printed.
Reuter thought this sheer folly, still, as
his friends offered to advance the neces-
sary funds, he reluctantly consented.
The success was immense. Allowance
being made for the difference between a
country like England and one without
any centre like Germany, between a work
written in a language known to everybody
and one composed in a provincial dialect.
Renter's success may fairly be compared
with that of the " Pickwick Papers." His
fortune was made. He was immediately
recognized as Germany's greatest hu-
morist, and his books sold by thousands.
It was then (1864) that he repaired to
Eisenach, in Thuringia, where he built
himself a small villa, and where he died
a week ago, writing very little (and that
little of a not very remarkable character),
and still courting the consolatory bottle,
for the enjoyment of which he did not
even feel any longer the want of the com-
pany of delighted listeners.
Fritz Reuter is a true painter of country
life in North Germany. His poems as well
as his novels are all admirably humorous,
and vividly describe the customs and
prejudices, interests and ideas, of a vil-
lage or a little town in Mecklenburg.
The poet, not unlike some of those great
Dutch artists whom all the world admires,
contrived to depict within a little space
the whole extent of human life, with its
frailties, its errors and its passions, its
sorrows and joys. Of his fourteen vol-
umes, five only will outlive him ; but
these will last as long as the Low-German
language is understood. These are the
poems, " Lauschen " and " Hanne Niite "
(one volume), the novel* " Ut mine
Stromtid " (three volumes), and the little
tale " Ut the Franzosentid," which Mr.
Charles Lewes has translated into Eng-
* This novel was translated for, and published in,
The Living Age, in 1871. — Ed.
lish under the title '"' In the Year 13.*'
Although written in Plattdeutsch, Ren-
ter's tale loses less than one might ima-
gine by translation ; the Low-German
language having a nearer relationship to
English than to literary German, which is
derived, as everybody knows, from High
or South German. Of course the reader
would draw more enjoyment from the
original than from the English transla-
tion ; but he would certainly prefer this
to a High-German version. Nor is Low-
German a very difficult language ; almost
all Germans, even Southerners, read
Reuter in the dialect he wrote in, and it
suffices to read ten or twenty pages care-
fully to be able to read the rest flu-
ently. Renter's works in High-German
are of little value. There his humour be-
comes coarse, his sentimentality false, his
pathos affected, or at least they appear
so, as soon as he gives up his native
tongue ; while his chef d'oetivre^ the novel
" Ut mine Stromtid," ranks high in Ger-
man — nay, in European literature at
large — precisely on account of its admi-
rably natural simplicity. In it satire
always remains good-humoured, feeling
never degenerates into sentimentality,
the comic never becomes caricature, and
the merest realism never lacks poetry.
A good deal of this merit must cer-
tainly be placed to the account of the
language. Germany has a scientific and
a political language ; she has no- social
language, and in this respect bears great-
er resemblance to Italy than to England,
France, or Spain. The consequences
are a want of truth, an unbearable affec-
tation, in nearly all German novels and
comedies, as well as in German actors.
They speak a conventional language,
spoken nowhere except on the stage and
in books, just as they describe a life
which exists nowhere in Germany. The
few painters of real life, who, like Jere-
mias Gotthelf ('' Uhly der Knecht "),
Gottfried Keller (" Romeo und Julia auf
dem Dorfe "), Louise von Francois (" Die
letzte Reckenburgerin "), and Fritz Reu-
ter, having condescended to choose for
their subjects what they had before their
eyes, and to treat of it in the language
they use every day, are by no means infe-
rior to the best Englis,h and French nov-
elists of the age. But there are exceed-
ingly few of them ; and the average liter-
ature of amusement in Germany remains
tiresome, pretentious, and heavy beyond
description, because the authors either
look for their models out of Germany or
imagine themselves able to take the high
576
walk which Goethe alone has successfully
trod. This is so true that even a vulgar
Vorstadt-theatre in Berlin or Vienna,
coarse and tasteless as are their products,
is a relief after the comedies which the
German public endures in its fashionable
theatres. As for Renter, he certainly was
no longer himself when he undertook to
speak the language of " good society ; "
FRITZ REUTER.
the eternally fresh stream of humour,
poetry, and life which flows in his admi-
rable novel immediately begins to slack-
en when he dips his pen into literary ink.
Fortunately he was rarely tempted to do
so ; and he began his career as a writer
too late, and finished it too early, to ob-
literate the vivid impression his master
work produced.
i
The letters of Matthew Prior, which were
included in our summary of the contents of
the Macclesfield papers, now belonging to the
Britisii Museum (see Academy for February
21, 1874), do not appear, upon examination, to
possess much literary or biographical interest.
They are chiefly short semi-official communi-
cations to the Under-Secretary of State, John
Ellis, giving the chief items of continental
news during Prior's mission to the Hague and
Paris, a period ranging from July, 1695 to
July, 1699. We give here the few passages
which most attracted our attention.
Writing from the " Hague ye 26-16 July,
'95," Prior concludes : —
I have printed in Dutch and French the bombarding
St. Malo, and distributed it to all the Ministers and
Politicians here, to the great discouragement of some
of our Nouvellists, who give a certain French turn to
our afEairs when they relate them.
Another letter, dated June 5, 1796, has an
allusion to one of his minor writings : —
I ought to be angry with you for drawing up a letter
of immoderate praises in the name of Mr. Secretary,
which I hope He only subscribed as the King does the
circular letter, and for recapitulating the same Praises
in j-our own of the next post the 19th, however my re-
sentment at this time shall go no further then to tell
you that I wish the poem but half so good in its kind as
your Prose upon it, and that having written what you
will see to Mr. Secretary I have no more to trouble you
with then that I am &c.
" Mr. Secretary " we would fain believe to
be Prior's friend and Patron, Charles Mon-
tague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, though it
was hardly his ofiicial designation at that time.
Our next selection exhibits the poet hard at
work on the details of the Treaty of Ryswick,
which was signed on September 1 1 following.
Hag: ye 23-13 Augt 1697.
Our o^vn affair is (God be thanked) in agitation, and
is doing as most things in this world with violence
and hurry, you that have been in business in all its
shapes know so well how it happens in these cases
that you will easily excuse my not answering yours of
tlie 3d sooner, and believe me that the 8 last days of
my life have been not unlike every day of poor Car-
donnel's, that is, writing my self blind, and going to
bed at 3 in the morning without having eaten my sup-
per : if all this trade ends in a Peace I shall not regrett
my pains, our Ministers are every day at it, and I think
it advances every way but towards Vienne, these
people (like those in the Scripture) must be compelled
to come in, and necessity which they say has no law
must give us Jus pads.
Cardonnel was the hard-working secretary
of the Duke of Marlborough.
We have space but for one elegant extract
from his correspondence after reaching Paris.
This is dated Paris, Sept. 6, 1698, and runs
thus : —
I have nothing worth troubling Mr. Secretary with,
and am not in a very good stile at present, having been
for these 3 days past with Custom house officers and
Porters fighting and squabbling about les petits droitt
et les aides afentrSe, so that Maltotier, chien and
bougre are the civilest words that have come out of my
mouth. I have only time to alter the language one
moment, whilst I tell you that I am most truly, &c.
A volume of miscellaneous correspondence
in the same collection contains a few letters of
Richard Steele to Ellis, chiefly remarkable
from their having been written before he had
abandoned the profession of arms for that of
letters ; they are dated between March and
July, 1704. It may be worth while to print
one as a specimen ; —
Sr,
March 25, 1703-4,
Land-Guard- Fort.
I was ordered hither on a sudden, or had waited on
you to receive your commands, but indeed I do not
trouble you only to make my apology for that, but also
to desire your Friendship and interest to the Duke of
Ormond in my behalfe : What I would pretend to is a
Troop in a Regiment of Dragoons I understand he is
going to raise to be commanded by His Grace himself:
This request is the more reasonable for that it is no ad-
vancement of my post in the dignity, but the income of
it only, since I am already a Captain. If I can be so
fortunate as to have any encouragement from you in
this matter, I'll hasten to town. In the mean time any
commands from you will be receiv'd as a very great
Honour to, Sr,
Yr most obedient Humble Servant,
RiCHD. Steele-
Endorsed " Capt Steele."
Academy.
LITTELL'S LIVIN'G AGE,
wuJra} No. 1578. -September 5, 1874. PX,^o^&T'
CONTENTS.
I. King Victor Amadeus of Savoy and
Sardinia : the Verdict of History
Reversed, Quarterly Review^ . . . 579
II. A Rose in June. Conclusion, . . . Cornhill Magazine^ . ... 595
III. St. Thomas. By W. G. Palgrave, . . Cornhill Magazine, . . . 609
IV. The Manor- House at Milford. Part III., Chambers' Journal^ . . .619
V. Dorothy Wordsworth's Scotch Jour-
nal, Spectator, 630
VI. M. Gambetta's Speech, .... Pall Mall Gazette, . . . 633
VII. M. Leon Gambetta on the Situation, . Spectator^ 635
VIII. The Count of Paris's History of the
American War, Saturday Review^ .... 637
POETRY.
The Sea- Fog, 578 j Dora Wordsworth, . . . .578
The Ruined Chapel, .... 578 I
Miscellany, 640
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578
THE SEA-FOG, ETC.
THE SEA-FOG.
Upon the cliff's steep edge I stand ;
The moaning sea I hear ;
But gray mists hang o'er sea and land,
The mists that sailors fear.
The lichened rocks, the mosses red,
With silver drops are sown ;
Each crimson foxglove hangs its head ^
Amid the old gray stone.
The fearful rock within the bay,
Where gallant ships go down,
Shews but a faint white line of spray,
A glimmering mass of brown.
A broken boat, a spot of black,
Is tossed on sullen waves,
Their crests all dark with rifted wrack,
The spoil of ocean caves.
Now sails my love on sea to-day ;
Heaven shield his boat from harm !
Heaven keep him from the dangerous bay.
Till winds and waves be calm !
Oh, would he sat beside our stove.
Where mother turns her wheel ;
I know too soon, for you, my love,
What wives of sailors feel.
Oh, that within the wood-fire's glow.
He told us tales of yore,
Of perils over long ago.
And ventures come to shore.
His hand belike is on the helm ;
The fog has hid the foam ;
The surf that shall his boat o'erwhclm.
He thinks the beach at home.
He sees a lamp amid the dark,
He thinks our pane alight ;
And haply on some storm-bound bark.
He founders in the night.
Now God be with you ; He who gave
Our constant love and troth ;
Where'er your oar may dip the wave,
You bear the hearts of both.
Through storm and mist, God keep my love,
That I may hear once more
Your boat upon the shingled cove.
Your step upon the shore.
Chambers' Journal.
THE RUINED CHAPEL.
Unroofed, below the mountain stands
The shrine within the pine-trees' shade ; .
Prom memory, as from sight, the hands
Have passed its crumbling walls that made.
There rose the tower ; o'er hill and glen,
What time last rang its peal of bells.
If hushed for aye by wrath of men.
Or storm, or time, no record tells.
The priest is gone ; now Solitude
To lead the soul above is there ;
The murm'ring Silence of the wood
Now seems to make responsive prayer.
The winds, pure acolytes unseen.
Swing to and fro the dark pine's head.
And from the mighty censer green
An incense aromatic shed.
And there, in man's forge tfulness.
For ruin's havoc to atone.
With eglantine and ivied tress,
Her graceful work has Nature strewn.
Deserted shrine ! how many a heart
Has been, as those in ages past,
Beloved, revered, that, as thou art.
From man's esteem and love is cast —
Yet still, as on thy form defaced
The verdure's cheering tints arise.
In each there blooms, though wrecked, de-
based,
Some growth of good for men to prize.
Chambers' JoumaL
DORA WORDSWORTH.
Only a sister's part — yes, that was all.
And yet her life was bright and full and free.
She did not feel, " I give up all for him,"
She only knew, " 'Tis mine his friend to be."
So what she saw and felt the poet sang, —
She did not seek the world should know her
share ;
Her one great hunger was for "William's"
fame,
To give his thoughts a voice her life-long
prayer.
And when with wife and child his days were
crowned,
She did not feel that she was left alone,
Glad in their joy, she shared their every care.
And only thought of baby as " our own."
His " dear, dear sister," that was all she ask'(
Her gentle ministry her only fame ;
But when we read his page with gratefl
heart.
Between the lines we'll spell out Dora's narai
Spectator. CeCY.
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA.
579
From The Quarterly Review,
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND
SARDINIA: THE VERDICT OF HISTORY
REVERSED.*
The domestic tragedies of royal and
princely houses seem commonly en-
dowed with an irresistible attraction
for the historian. The summary exe-
cution of Don Carlos by paternal de-
cree, the condemnation and punishment
of Queen Caroline Matilda and her
paramour, the last fatal meeting of the
Princess Sophia Dorothea with the
doomed Konigsmark, the appalling catas-
trophe of the Kirk of Field, the " many a
foul and midnight murder " traditionally
associated with our own fortress-prison,
— these have been one and all exhaust-
ively discussed ; and no false delicacy, no
misapplied tenderness for the reputation
of the living or the dead, has been per-
mitted to suppress or mystify the motives
or the facts. It is, therefore, the more
remarkable that incidents of the stran-
gest, most startling, and suspicious char-
acter should have taken place in one of
the most ancient and illustrious of t'ne
sovereign houses of Europe, without
provoking investigation or protest : that
events like the abdication, imprisonment,
and death of Victor Amadeus II., occur-
ring within the short space of two years,
(i 730-1 732), should have beentamel}' re-
corded almost as things of course, with
haply a passing comment on the fickle-
ness of fortune : that the statesman, war-
rior, and legislator who had baffled and
humbled the Grand Monarque, won a
kingdom, led armies to victory, framed
codes and systems of finance that endure
still, — who was the grandfather of one
powerful monarch and the father-in-law
of another, — that such a personage
should be suddenly removed from the
stage on which he had played so conspic-
uous a part, like a Sultan deposed by a
Grand Vizier, or a roi faineant set aside
* Memorie Aneddotiche sulla Corte di Sardegna
del Co?ite di Blondel, JMittistro di Fraticia a Torino
sotto I Re V'ittorio A viedeo II. e Carlo Emaiiuelelll,
Edite da Vincenzo Promis. Torino : Stamperia Reale.
1873. (Anecdotical Memoirs on the Court of Sardinia.
By the Count de Blondel, Minister of France at Turin
under King Victor Amadeus II. and Charles Emmanuel
III. Edited by Vincenzo Promis. Turin: Royal
Printing Press.)
by a mayor of the palace in the Middle
Ages. But the interest and importance
of the historical episode to which w'e in-
vite attention, will best appear from a
brief outline of his career.
Victor Amadeus, born May 1666, as-
sumed the government of his hereditary
duchy, reluctantly surrendered to him by
the regent-mother, in September 1684.
The position of his dominions on the
French side of the Alps placed him en-
tirely at the mercy of his powerful neigh-
bour, and Louis le Grand treated him as
a vassal not entitled to a will or even an
opinion of his own. Sorely against the
grain he obeyed a peremptory mandate to
co-operate in the religious persecution
which followed on the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. Putting himself at the
head of an armed force, he made a clean
sweep of all the Huguenots and Wal-
denses within his territory ; but his luke-
warmness in the cause was obvious, his
secret communications with the Protes-
tants got wind, and Louis took the deci-
sive step of sending Marshal Catinat, at
the head of a French army, to bring mat-
ters to a point. The proffered terms were
nothing short of unconditional submis-
sion. The castle of Verrue and the cit-
adel of Turin were to be delivered up,
and the whole Savoyard army was to be
merged in the French. Driven to ex-
tremities, the Duke at length resolved on
a measure he had long meditated. He
joined (June 1690) the famous League of
Augsburg, thereby putting an end to the
peaceful if humiliating relations which
had bound Savoy to France for sixty
years, and boldly challenging a prolonged
contest, which, ominous and threatening
at the commencement, left him the vic-
torious monarch of an independent nation
at the end.
The announcement of the breach with
France, which he made in person to his
assembled nobles and justified in a mani-
festo, was received with enthusiasm by his
subjects of all classes ; and with the aid
of volunteers the principal towns were
supplied with sufficient garrisons, and an
army more numerous than that of Ca-
tinat was got together for the defence of
the capital. But the allies on whom the
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA!
580
Duke mainly counted lost heart after the
battle of Stafarda, and remained inactive
whilst one after the other of his strong
places was taken and his country overrun.
The first campaign of 1690 was disas-
trous ; and that of 1691 was rendered
still more so by the explosion of a pow-
der-magazine at Nice, which so weakened
the defences that a capitulation became
inevitable. This opened the mountain
passages it commanded to the French,
and after blowing up the fortifications of
Aveillane, for which military reasons
might have been alleged, Catinat wan-
tonly set fire to the Duke's favourite Villa
at Rivoli ; who, watching from the
heights of Turin the progress of the
flames, exclaimed, " Ah, would to God
that all my palaces were thus reduced to
cinders, and that the enemy would spare
the cabins of my peasantry ! " Like
Turenne in the Palatinate and (we re-
gret to say) like Victor Amadeus when
his turn came, Catinat burnt and de-
stroyed whatever fell in his way ; and on
one occasion some peasants, flying be-
fore him, threw themselves at the feet of
the Duke to implore his help. After
emptying his purse amongst them with
the warmest expressions of sympathy, he
tore off the collar of the Order round his
neck, broke it into pieces, and flung them
the bits. Traits of this kind abound.
His brilliant courage enhanced the popu-
lar fondness and admiration ; and he was
hardly guilty of exaggeration, when he
told M. de Chamery, a secret French
agent, who warned him in 1692 that, if
the war went on much longer he would
be entirely denuded of troops : " Mon-
sieur^ je frapperai du pied le sol de mon
pays, et il en sortira des soldatsy
Although he was beaten again by Ca-
tinat at Marsaglia, and underwent a va-
riety of reverses, he inspired so much
respect in his opponents, that it was
deemed of the highest importance to de-
tach him from the League, and such
tempting offers were made to him, that,
in August 1696, he signed- a separate
treaty with France, stipulating that all
the territory taken from him should be
restored, that the Duke of Burgundy
(grandson of Louis) should marry his eld-
est daughter, that his ambassadors should
be received on the same footing as those
of kings at Versailles, and that France
and Savoy should join in compelling the
recognition of Italian neutrality by Aus-
tria and Spain ; in which case it was to|
be equally recognized by the French.)
As this grand object was eventually!
effected, his reputation and consideratioaj
on the south of the Alps were materially
enhanced, although it was literally true
(as stated by Voltaire) that he was gen-
eralissimo for the Emperor and general-
issimo for Louis Quatorze within the
month. His defection proved catching,
and led to consequences which, withoutsj
reference to the motives or precise qual- •
ity of his acts, have been set down as
redounding to his credit by his biog-
raphers. Each of the allies hastened to
open a separate negotiation : all the prin-
cipal belligerents were parties to the
Treaty (or Treaties) of Ryswick in 1697;
and after the Treaty of Carlowitz in Jan-
uary 1699, it was recorded as an extraor- ■
dinary phenomenon for that age — it
would be no less extraordinary in ours —
that the whole of the civilized world was
actually at peace for nearly two years.*
This halcyon period was abruptly ter-
minated by the war of the Spanish Suc-
cession in 1701, and Italy again became
the battle-field, in open defiance of the
boasted recognition of neutrality. Victor
Amadeus, with the Savoy contingent,
formed part of the army (French and Span-
ish) which was defeated by the Imperi-
alists at Chiari, where he had a horse
killed under him whilst covering the re- ■
treat, and is allowed on all hands to have ;
displayed the most chivalrous braver} ;
and given signal proofs of his good faith '■
But this merely excited the jealousy of ;
Villeroy, who had superseded Catinat ■
! and fought the battle contrary to th(
best military opinions, including the
: Duke's. "This Marshal," says Voltaire j
' " entered Italy to give orders to Marsha
! * " II fut glorieux pour un due de Savoie d'etre 1
cause premiere de cette pacification gen^rale. So
cabinet acquit un tres-grand credit, et sa personne on
tres-haute consideration." — JMemoires Historiqtiessu
la Maison Royale de Savoie, &c. &c. Par M. Mai
quis Costa de Beauregard, Quartier-maitre-g^n^ral c
. I'Armee. Turin, i8i6. Vol. iii. p. 55.
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY REVERSED.
;8i
de Catinat and umbrage to the Duke of
Savoy. He made no secret of his ab-
solute conviction that a favourite of Louis
XIV., at the head of a powerful army,
was far above a prince : he called him
nothing but Monsieur de Savoiej he
treated him as a general in the pay of
France, and not as a sovereign, master
of the barriers that Nature has placed
between France and Italy." The effects
of French arrogance were aggravated by
the absurdity of Spanish etiquette. In
pursuance of the policy to which French
statesmen of the old school are still
firmly wedded, of having weak states on
their frontier, Louis had made up his
mind to prevent, at any price, the ag-
grandizement of Savoy ; but as a cheap
mode of conciliating the Duke at a criti-
cal moment, the young King of Spain
had been married to his second daughter.
Within a few months of this event, the
father-in-law and son-in-law met, by ap-
pointment, a short way from Alexandria
— Philip in a chariot or caliche^ and Vic-
tor Amadeus on horseback. The obvi-
ous course was for Victor to dismount
and take the vacant seat in the chariot;
but here thfe Marquis de Lonville, the
grand master of ceremonies, interposed,
declaring that this seat was exclusiveb''
reserved for kings. He similarly de-
cided that the Duke could not be allowed
an arm-chair in the apartment of the
King ; and Victor, wounded to the quick,
soon afterwards left Alexandria in a pet.
At the battle of Luzara, in the ensuing
:ampaign, the conduct of the Piedmont-
ise troops was highly commended by
: King Philip, who presented a gold-hilted
^ oword and a Spanish horse to their com-
[ nander, the Comte des Hayes ; but the
. ibsence of the Duke from his usual post
') it their head was the subject of invidious
\ :omment, and it speedily became known
\ hat a German envoy had been in fre-
^ [uent communication with his ministers.
'■ ^Guis acted with characteristic haughti-
less and promptitude. After sending
5 'rders for the disarmament of the Pied-
\ nontese troops and the seizure of the
\ 3uke's person, he wrote to him :
I Monsieur, — Since religion, honour, and
f our own signature are of no account between
us, I send my cousin, the Due de Vendome, to
explain my will to you. He will give you
twenty-four hours to decide.
Victor Amadeus replied in the same
number of lines :
Sire, — Threats do not frighten me: I
shall take the measures that may suit me best
relative to the unworthy proceedings that have
been adopted towards my troops. I have
nothing further to explain, and I decline listen-
ing to any proposition whatever.
His people we're as sensible of the
slight put upon him as he could be. The
gallant little nation seconded him with
such spirit and goodwill, that in an in-
credibly short space of time he was in
a condition to make the haughty despot
feel the weight a Duke of Savoy could
throw into either scale when European
supremacy was wavering in the balance.
The President Henault, writing from the
French point of view, distinctly states
that his defection was the principal cause
of all the misfortunes of the war. The
art of changing sides, the policy of ter-
giversation, was certainly carried to per-
fection by this Prince ; but it is far from
clear that on this particular occasion he
stood in need of the rather compromising
apology made for him by Voltaire : " If
the Duke of Savoy was slow to consult
the law of nature, or the law of nations,
this is a question of morality, which has
little to do with the conduct of sover-
eigns." The date of the Act of Confed-
eration between him and the Emperor,
January 5, 1703, proves that they had
come to no definite arrangement for more
than three months after the forcible
disarmament of the Piedmontese troops
by the French.
The ensuing campaigns of 1703, 1704,
1705, were an almost unbroken series of
disasters for the Duke. There was a
time when his situation closely resem-
bled that of Frederick the Great in 1757 ;
when Macaulay describes him as riding
about with pills of corrosive sublimate in
one pocket and a quire of bad verses in
another : ?>., with the exception of the
verses, for Victor Amadeus was never
guilty of rhyme. But he resembled
Frederick in intrepidity, in constancy of
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA:
582
purpose, and in the capacity for bearing
up against the strongest tide of bad for-
tune till it turned. In May 1705 he was
fairly driven to bay in his capital, which
was invested with an overwhelming force
by the French. Its fall was confidently
anticipated, and Louis gave out that he
would be present in person to witness
the crowning humiliation of the most
hated and formidable although (in respect
of dominion) most insignificant of his
foes. The eyes of all Europe were fixed
upon the siege as on a duel of life and
death between two redoubtable combat-
ants ; for if the immediate issue looked
less threatening for one, the result proved
that it was equally a turning-point for
both.* It commenced like an affair of
honour in the days of chivalry. Before
opening fire on the town, a French officer
came with a flag of truce to offer pass-
ports for the Sardinian Princesses, if
they wished to withdraw to a place of
safety, and to request on the part of M.
de la Feuillade, the French Commander-
in-chief, that the Duke would be pleased
to specify the locality he had selected for
his own head-quarters, a special order
having been given by the King that it
should be spared. The Duke replied,
that, till the siege was raised, his quarters
would be everywhere where his presence
might be useful, and that, as for pass-
ports, he most humbly thanked his
Majesty for this most courteous proceed-
ing, but as he remained master of one of
the gates of the city, the Princesses could
leave it whenever they thought fit.
The fortifications, including the out-
works, covered too large an extent of
ground to admit of complete investment,
and hardly a day passed without a sally
by the Duke at the head of a chosen
body of infantry and dragoons, to cover
convoys, or distract the attention and
intercept the communications of the
besiegers. Hoping to bring the war to a
rapid conclusion by a coup de main, the
French general suspended the opera-
tions of the siege to give chase, and on
one occasion Victor was overtaken and
surrounded by a superior force. The
Prince Emmanuel de Soissons, his cous-
in, and the Count de Saint-Georges, the
captain of his guards, were wounded at
his side ; and he himself was unhorsed
and thrown down under the horses' feet.
But he managed to extricate himself,
* " Turin rendu, dit un ^crivain politique de nos
jours, le Piedmont est fini. Louis XIV. pour 1' avoir
manque perdit avec lui 1' Italic." — Becniregard., vo\.
iii. p. 405, ?wte.
and re-entered Turin the same day on
which M. de la Feuillade returned to his
lines after a bootless pursuit of three
weeks.
The enthusiasm of the inhabitants
rose in proportion to the call made upon
them. It extended to both sexes and all
ages ; and many a prototype for the
Maid of Saragossa might have been
found amongst the damsels of Turin.
Women to the number of three hundred
(writes an eye-witness) were seen carry-
ing earth-bags on their shoulders for the
repair of the breaches on the most ex*
posed part of the defences, unmoved, or
at least unappalled, by the sight of the
bleeding bodies of their companions who
were struck down ; whilst children of
tender years, employed in carrying mes-
sages or provisions under fire, met dan-
ger with a laugh. One act of heroism,
inspired by this exalted spirit of loyalty
and patriotism, has never been surpassed
in any age, ancient or modern. Pietro
Alicca, a private of artillery, with another
(name unknown), had charge of a mine
under a gallery which led direct into the
heart of the citadel. The enemy, by a
night surprise, had reached the gallery
door facing the counterscarp, and were
thundering at it with their axes before
the alarm was given. There was no time
to lay a train, and Pietro, seizing his
comrade by the arm, told him to get
away as fast as he could ; then, after the
pause of a few seconds, he applied a
match to the mine, which exploded,
blowing himself with three companies
of French grenadiers into the air.*
A general assault was repulsed with
great slaughter ; but provisions began to
fail, and the issue of the siege was still
doubtful, when Prince Eugene, at the
head of the relieving army of Imperial-
ists, forty thousand strong, arrived under
the walls, and had an interview with the
Duke, at which it was agreed to turn the
lines of the besiegers and give battle.
In the French council of war, a party
headed by the Duke of Orleans was for
anticipating this movement by an attack.
" If the battle is gained," they urged,
" the place will fall of itself. If the bat-
tle is lost, there will be no alternative
but to draw off." Marsin, the military
govenor or dry-nurse of the Prince, over-
ruled this opinion, and it was decided to
await the enemy in the lines, which,
* " Storia del Regno di Vittorio Amedeo II., scritta
da Domenico Carutti." Torino, 1856. P. 268. It is
added, to enhance the self-sacrificing character of the
act, that he was a husband and a father.
A
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY REVERSED.
being fifteen miles in extent, necessarily
abounded in weak points. The allied
infantry broke through after being twice
driven back in disorder : the Piedmont-
ese cavalry following under the Duke put
the French cavalry to flight ; and the garri-
son opportunely sallying forth, turned
the defeat into a rout. Never was vic-
tory more complete. That same even-
ino-' the two Princes made their trium-
phant entry into Turin to the sound of
bells ringing and cannon firing, and amid
the acclamations of a people drunk with
joy. The battle of Turin delivered Italy,
as the battle of Blenheim had delivered
Germany, from the French. The Duke,
besides recovering all he had lost, was
strong enough to carry the war into the
enemy's country by invading Province
and Dauphind ; but the reception he en-
countered was such as to elicit the re-
mark that, easy as it might be to enter
France, it was not so easy to get out of
it.
His position at the conclusion of the
war was such as must have exceeded
his most sanguine expectations when he
engaged in it. Under the treaties of
Utrecht and Radstadt (1713-1714), be-
sides a liberal increase of boundary for
his Alpine provinces, be acquired Sicily
with the title of King and a formal recog-
nition of the right of succession to the
Spanish throne after the Bourbons, as de-
vised to him by the will of Charles II. of
Spain. Sicily was wrested from him
within four years, but by the treaty of
London, 1718, he was indemnified by be-
ing made King of Sardinia, a title which
his successors maintained without dis-
pute till it was merged in the prouder
title of King of Italy.
He was now at leisure to indulge his
genius for administration, and he is al-
lowed on all hands to have introduced
the most beneficial reforms in every de-
partment of the State, civil and military.
By dint of good management, he more
than doubled his revenue without un-
duly reducing his establishments or op-
pressing his subjects. " Savoy and
Piedmont in his time," states an unim-
peachable authority, " presented the
spectacle of a monarchy as well regulated
as a republic could have been. They
Lormed, so to speak, a State, tire ait cor-
ieau. Everything was provided for :
the great monarchies, to repair the effects
-)f the indolence which their greatness
entails on them, might learn useful les-
ions, applicable to each of their provin-
583
ces, in these." * It is further recorded
to the honour of Victor Amadeus, and in
evidence of his force of character, that
he was the first Christian Prince who de-
prived the Jesuits of the control of his
conscience and the guidance of public
education in his States. His distrust of
them (he told M. Blondel) arose from a
death-bed communication made to him
by his own confessor, a Jesuit : " Deep-
ly sensible of your many favours, I can
only show my gratitude by a final piece
of advice, but of such importance that
perhaps it may suffice" to discharge my
debt. Never have a yestiit for con-
fessor. Do not ask me the grounds of
this advice. I should not be at liberty
to tell them to you."
Economical reformers are rarely pop-
ular, and he had alienated the nobles by
the resumption of grants and the sale of
titles. But this sagacious and enlight-
ened monarch was at the height of his
influence and prosperity at home and
abroad, when he suddenly announced an
intention of abdicating jn favour of his
youngest and only surviving son. Inge-
nuity was taxed to account for this pro-
ceeding. One theory was that he had
entered into contradictory engagements
with the Imperialists and the French in
contemplation of a threatened renewal of
the war. Another, that being denied ab-
solution so long as a marriage recently
contracted with his mistress was kept
secret, and fearing to declare it as a king,
he reduced himself to the condition of a;
subject to comply with the joint requisi-
tion of the lady and the priests.f Nei-
ther of these solutions will hold water ;
and the probabilities are that, having re-
cently suffered from domestic affliction
and severe illness, he abdicated because
he was oppressed by the cares and re-
sponsibilities and sick of the gilded
trappings of a throne.
On the 3rd September, 1730, he caused
to be convoked at the Chateau of Rivoli
the knights of the Order of the Annuncia-
do, the ministers, the presidents of the su-
preme courts, and all the grandees, with-
out communicating the object of the
meeting to any one, except the Prince of
Piemont and the Marquis del Borgo.
The assembly being formed, the King im-
posed silence, and the Marquis del Borgo
* Le Comte d'Argenson, " Int^rets de la France
avec ses Voisins."
t Both these motives are suggested by Count Litta
in his " Famiglie Celebri Italiane ; " in which an entire
volume is devoted to the House of Savoy.
584
read aloud the Act by which his Majesty
renounced the throne and transferred
the sovereign authority to Charles Em-
manuel. This document was conceived
in the same terms as the act of abdica-
tion of Charles V. It alleged the same
motives — advancing age, illness, and the
desire to place an interval between the
anxieties of the throne and death. But
the circumstances were as widely dif-
ferent as the results. Victor Amadeus
acted from impulse : Charles V. from
long self-examination and reflection. We
learn from Sir William Stirling Maxwell
that " although it is not possible to de-
termine the precise time when the Em-
peror formed his celebrated resolution,
it is certain that this resolution was
formed many years before it was carried
into effect. With his Empress Isabella,
who died in 1538, he had agreed that as
soon as State affairs and the ages of their
children should permit, they were to retire
for the remainder of their lives — he into
a convent of friars, and she into a nun-
nery. In 1542 he confided his design to
the Duke of Gandia ; and in 1546 it had
been whispered and was mentioned by
Bernardo Navagiero, the sharp-eared en-
voy of Venice, in a report to the Doge."
The same well-informed writer almost
contemptuously refutes the oft-repeated
assertion that the Emperor's life at Yuste
was a long repentance for his resignation
of power, and that Philip was constantly
tormented in England and in Flanders by
the fear that his father might one day re-
turn to the throne. The son, he main-
tains, seems to have been as free from
jealousy as the father was free from re-
pentance. " In truth, Philip's filial affec-
tion and reverence shine like a grain of
fine gold in the base metal of his charac-
ter ; his father was the one wise and
strong man who crossed his path, whom
he never suspected, undervalued, or used
ill. But the repose of Charles cannot
have been troubled with regrets for his
resigned power, seeing that, in truth, he
never resigned it at all, but wielded it at
Yuste as firmly as he had wielded it at
Augsburg or Toledo." *
It is difficult to conceive a more marked
contrast than was presented by the
situation and position of the royal per-
formers in what was meant to be the cor-
responding drama at Turin. The son had
been brought up in slavish awe of the
father, and the father till within a short
* " The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles the
Fifth." A valuable and interesting contribution to
history, made eminently attractive by the style.
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA I
time of the resignation made no secret of
the low estimate he had formed of the
capacity of the son. As if distrustful of
himself, the ex-king started for his chosen
place of retreat, Chambdry, the day after
the ceremony, at seven in the morning.
In the farewell interview, Charles Em-
manuel having reiterated the wish that the
abdication should not be deemed abso-
lute, received for answer : " My son, the
supreme authority will not endure shar-
ing. I might disapprove what you might
do, and this would do harm. It is better
not to think any more of it." Yet he
stipulated that a weekly bulletin or report
should be sent to him of the progress
and conduct of affairs, and the cessation
of this report first provoked the language
and demeanour which were construed
into proofs of a conspiracy to resume
possession of the throne by force.
A year and three weeks after the abdi-
cation (September 26, 1731) a council was
held under the presidency of King Charles!
Emmanuel, which was attended by three'
of the great nobles, the generalissimo of
the forces, and the Archbishop of Turin in
addition to the ordinary members, and it
was unanimously resolved, on the motion
of the Marquis d'Ormea, the Prime Min-
ister, that Victor Amadeus should be
placed under arrest. The young King
melted into tears, and was unable to sign
the order without the aid of the Marquis,
who guided his hand or (as others say)
forced him to trace the letters of his
name by the same rude means which
Ruthven employed with Queen Mary at
Lochleven. The order once obtained,
D'Ormea lost not an hour in acting on it,
and took in person the direction of the
troops, by whom it was executed in
the harshest, most humiliating, and
most insulting manner. This illustrious
Prince, then in his sixty-sixth year and
suffering from a recent attack of apo-
plexy, was pulled out of bed in the dead
of night, thrust half-dressed into a car-
riage, and hurried off to a place of con-
finement ; where, exemplifying the famil-
iar maxim touching the brief interval be-
tween the prisons and the graves of
princes, he died on the 31st October,
1732.
The amount of sensation excited bv
these events, with the general manner of
regarding them, may be collected from
Voltaire :
Four sovereigns in this age renounced the
crown : Christine, Casimir, Philip V., and
Victor Amadeus. Philip V. only resumed the
government against his will : Casimir never
i
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY REVERSED.
585
thought of it : Christine was '.empted to it for
some time through an affront she received at
Rome ; Amadeus alone wished to reascend by
force the throne that his restlessness had in-
duced him to abandon. The result of this
attempt is well known. His son, Charles
Emmanuel, would have acquired a glory above
crowns, in remitting to his father what he held
from him, if his father alone had demanded it,
and if the conjuncture of the times had per-
mitted it ; but it was, it was said, an ambitious
mistress who wished to reign, and the whole
Council was forced to prevent the fatal conse-
qicences, and to have him who had been their
sovereign put tinder arrest. He died in prison
in 1732. It is utterly false that the Court of
France meditated sending 20,000 men to de-
fend the father against the son, as was stated
in the memoirs of that time. Neither the
abdication of this king, nor his attempt to re-
sume the sceptre, nor his prison, nor his
death, caused the slightest movement amongst
the neighbouring nations.*
Muratori, after mentioning the fears
entertained that King Victor would be
guilty of some fresh extravagance, pro-
ceeds :
Thus the King, his son, saw exposed to
injury and degradation not only his royal
dignity, but his own honour and the good of
the State ; and, after vainly trying every ex-
pedient to calm the mind of his father, and
bring him back to a more becoming tone of
thought, called together the wisest of his
councillors, civil and military, and, after lay-
ing before them the state of things, with a
protest of his readiness to make any personal
sacrifice consistent with his public duty, de-
manded their advice. Giving every considera-
tion its weight, they were of one mind in be-
lieving that a remedial measure was necessary,
and it was unanimously resolved that the per-
son of Victor Amadeus should be secured.
Accordingly, on the night of the 28th Septem-
ber, the castle of Moncalieri was surrounded
by various bodies of troops, and Amadeus
was suddenly required to enter a carriage pre-
pared for him. He thought fit to yield, and
he was conducted to the vast and delightful
palace of Rivoli.f
All succeeding historians and biogra-
phers concur in assuming that the father
did conspire to resume the throne by
force ; that the son was actuated by an
imperious sense of duty to prevent a still
greater scandal or a civil war, and that
the Premier was amply justified in look-
ing solely to the safety of his master, the
welfare of the State, and the dignity of
the Crown. The utmost the most recent
and professedly best informed historian
will admit is that the treatment of the
* " Precis du Siecle de Louis XV.," chai). iii.
t " Annali d' Italia," Svo. edition, vol. xvi. p. 231.
aged and invalid ex-sovereign was un-
necessarily harsh.*
How the whole affair was treated by
diplomatists may be learnt from the lan-
guage of a Venetian ambassador at
Turin, who reports in substance that,
whatever may have been the reasons that
induced King Charles to resort to such
extreme measures, " the details of this
tragical event are too voluminous to find
place in a simple ambassadorial report,
and the affair is so delicate that it is bet-
ter to be silent about it altogether until
it can be thoroughly discussed without
restraint." f Silence, or rather a studied
mysterious reticence, was accordingly
observed on all sides to the complete
falsification of history until the appear-
ance in 1873 of the " Memorie Aneddo-
tiche"t of the Comte de Blondel, who
was French Minister at Turin during the
whole of the transactions in dispute :
knew everybody mixed up with them :
was in constant communication with both
kings, ex- and actual, before and after
the abdication ; supports his printed
statements by documentary evidence, and
maintains without equivocation or reserve
that Victor Amadeus was the victim of a
plot : that Charles Emmanuel was guilty
of the most inexcusable weakness at the
best, and that the sole apology that can
be made for him is that he was the tool
of an unscrupulous minister, who sought
to remove a bar to his own grasping am-
bition or to consolidate his ill-gotten
power.
The editor, librarian to the King of
Italy, states that the manuscript copy
from which he prints passed some years
since from the library of Count Prosper©
Balbo to the royal library. The book is
* "U arresto di Vittorio Amedeo II. fu necesiti di
Stato : la sua detenzione, le molestie, le cautele, i modi
furono opera iniqua." " Storia del Regno di Vittorio
Amedeo II. scritta da Domenico Carutti." Torino,
1856, p. 513. M. Carutti was during many years
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and must be sup-
posed to have had free access to official documents ; on
which, however, as will presently appear, very little
reliance is to be placed.
t " Relazione di Marco Foscarini, Cavaliere e Pro-
curatore Veneto, Ambassadore Straordinario Ritornato
dalla Corte di Torino, data li 2 Marzo, 1743." This
curious Relation has never been printed. The manu-
script to which we refer is in the possession of the Mar-
quis d' Azeglio, during many years the able and popular
representative of the Sardmian (now Italian) Govern-
ment at the British Court. We are likewise indebted
to him for our copy of M. de Blondel' s " Anecdotical
Memoirs."
X The editor, in his prefatory Notice or Advertise-
ment, speaks of these Memoirs as " sinore inedite e da
pochi scrittori conosciute." They were evidently
known (at least part of them) to M. de Beauregard,
and apparently to M. Carutti; but their real interest
and importance seem to have struck no one till they
appeared in print.
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA!
586
already out of print, only a limited num-
ber of copies having been issued ; and
there is no publisher's name on the title-
page. We shall, therefore, be more co-
pious in our extracts than when dealing
with an easily accessible publication.
The value of M. de BlondePs reminis-
cences does not consist merely in the
rectification of the facts. His portraits
and sketches of character are eminently
useful in enabling us to appreciate mo-
tives and weigh probabilities. For ex-
ample, the manner in which the Marquis
minister is brought upon the stage, with
the account of his origin and rise, go far
to explain his subsequent conduct. It
was as a clerk in the Department of Fi-
nance, named Ferrero, that this man first
attracted the attention of Victor Ama-
deus. Having occasion to transact busi-
ness with him during the illness of the
Finance Minister, the King found him so
quick-witted, so full of resources and ex-
pedients, that the notion occurred of
sending him to Rome to settle the pend-
ing differences with the Pope, which had
come to such a pitch that the benefices in
Piedmont had not been filled for thirty
years, and there was only one bishop left
in the dominions of his Sardinian Ma-
jesty, Acting with his. wonted prompti-
tude, he named Ferrero Marquis d'Or-
mea, General of Finance, and Roman
Ambassador, in rapid succession or at
once ; and the improvised diplomatist
started for the Holy See, provided with a
present of six massive silver candle-
sticks and a richly-worked cross, valued
at 100,000 crowns, to conciliate the Pope,
and carte blanche in the way of letters of
credit to secure the Cardinal Coscia, who
governed the successor of St. Peter and
was notoriously open to a bribt.
The Marquis is described as tall, good-
looking, ready and eloquent in speech,
and very insinuating by an air of frank-
ness which he affected and did not pos-
sess. After assailing the position on one
weak side, he made adroit and indirect
advances in an opposite direction. Hav-
ing ascertained that his Holiness com-
monly attended mass at five in the morn-
ing in St, Peter's, the ambassador made
a point of being found there on his knees
at half-past four, as in ecstacy, holding a
chaplet with beads as big as pigeon's
eggs, to attract attention. This gave oc-
casion for his ally, the Cardinal, to en-
large upon the austerity, probity, regu-
larity, and piety of the Sardinian min-
ister, who was cut to the heart to think of
the ecclesiastical condition of his country
and the growing irreligion of his country-
men. D'Ormea did not think it neces-
sary to keep his royal master accurately
informed of the precise means by which
he proposed to attain the desired end;
and instead of accepting the co-operation
of the French ambassador, the Cardinal
de Polignac, an ecclesiastic in high es-
teem, he managed to persuade the King
that it was not offered in good faith and
was more likely to impede than acceler-
ate 'a settlement. When all was ripe.
Coscia formed (or packed) a congregation
of the least scrupulous cardinals, in
which a Concordat was prepared, gloss-
ing over the more delicate matters so as
to throw dust in the eyes of the cardinals
who might be expected to oppose it in
the Consistory.
The Consistory was fixed for a time
when these cardinals could not attend,
for reasons of health or country residence ;
and the Concordat was passed, compris-
ing many privileges that are commonly
not granted by the Court of Rome till
after the solicitations of years and con-
siderations of merit and good service to
the Holy See. Then came the crowning
feat of trickery and audacity. When the
Concordat had been duly considered by
the Pope and the time arrived for affixing
the papal seal and signature, Coscia sur-
reptitiously withdrew it and substituted
another, in which all the pretensions and
desires of the King of Sardinia were rec-
ognized and gratified, got it regularly ex-
ecuted, and handed it over to the Marquis,
who hurried with it to his master and
was forthwith rewarded by the ap-
pointment of First Minister. It is in
this iniquitous and simoniacal fashion
(says M. de Blondel) that the King of
Sardinia extorted, by the roguery of his
representative, the Concordat for the ec-
clesiastical administration of his States.
Victor Amadeus was unfortunate in
his domestic relations. One of his
daughters, the Dauphiness, died in 1713;
the other, the Queen of Spain, in 1714;
and his eldest son, the Prince of Piemont,
a young man of extraordinary promise,
the Marcellus of Savoy, in 1715. His
death was a terrible blow to the father,
who gave way to such extravagance of
grief, that fears were entertained for his
reason. After wandering up and down
his stables with an air of distraction, he
ran his sword through the body of a
favourite horse. Gradually he calmed
down, and by a strong effort threw all
his hopes on his remaining son, Charles
Emmanuel, aged 14, whom he had hitherto
i
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY REVERSED.
treated with the most marked neglect
and dislike, because (according to M. de
Blondel) he was very ugly, of dwarfish
stature, hump-backed, afflicted with a
goitre, and of so weakly a constitution as
to threaten a failure of successors to
the dynasty. He stood in such awe of
his father that he hardly ever answered
him except by monosyllables. There is
a court anecdote handed down by tra-
dition, that when the prince, whose head
hardly rose above the dinner-table, was
asked by the father what he would have
to eat: ''^ Cosa veiis-tu, Carlinf^ he
again and again in his terror stammered
out " -^/(/V" (boiled beef, or boiiilli^ still
a standing dish at Piedmontese tables),
which commonly provoked the reply :
" // as gia avii?ie, coyon " (Thou hast had j
some already, blockhead). However, the j
King saw no help for it but to make the (
best of a bad matter, and resolutely set
about forming the mind and improving
the body of " Carlin," with a view to his
now inevitable succession to the throne.
To give a practical turn to his education,
he was sent to study fortification in for-
tified places with engineer officers, and
made to pass regiment after regiment in
review, noting down the most minute de-
tails of the arms and equipments of each
branch of the service, with their cost.
Then came tours of inspection to civil
and commercial establishments, especial-
ly the silk and woollen manufactories ;
after each of which he had to undergo a
searching examination, to test his dil-
igence and capacity.
He was married, in 1722, to a Prin-
cess of Neubourg, a woman of sense and
spirit, who would have emancipated him
from the paternal thrall and placed things
on a more becoming and improving foot-
ing, had she lived. But she died in
child-birth the year following, after be-
ing delivered of a son still-born ; and he
was remarried in 1724 to a Princess of
Hesse, who, with many personal attrac-
tions, was unluckily not endowed with
sufficient strength of character to en-
counter the stern volition of the father,
or inspire a sense of personal dignity and
independence in the son. Under pre-
tence that the uxorious habits of the
Prince, after his second marriage, led to
idleness and frivolity, he was restricted
in connubial intercourse, being only per-
mitted to pass one day a week with his
wife. M. de Blondel was present when
after censuring the similar
the young King of France,
Louis XV., turned to the Prince and
the Kin^,
habits of
said : " Cest egaletnent pour toi, Carlin^
ce que je dis sur mo7i petit-tils^ The
Prince, with the most respectful air, re-
plied that at twenty-seven a man must
surely know how to conduct himself with
his wife : " Voild, comme voits etes,
j'eune prisomptueux. Vous it'etes qii'uit
sot, qui ne saves ni vous conduire ni vous
moderery
It was not until 1727 that, beginning to
feel the advance of age, the King deter-
mined to initiate the Prince in the per-
sonal arts of government, which, as prac-
tised by his Majesty, it was no easy
matter to teach. He had no council, and
his method was to work separately with
each minister on the affairs of the depart-
ment, and to give orders and decisions
according to justice, or (as not unfre-
quently happened) according to expedi-
ency. Moreover his system was never to
bring his ministers into conference to-
gether, but to foster a sufficient degree of
misunderstanding between them to put
each upon his guard and facilitate the
discovery of any misfeasance, error, or de-
ceit. " In my familiar conversations with
him," says M. de Blondel, "he has re-
peatedly told me that, if I did not want to
ruin myself, I should always keep up a
misunderstanding between my steward
and my cook, as he did between his min-
isters ; which he had found answer capi-
tally since the commencement of his
reign."
Coming next to the second wife of the
King, who plays a most important part
whether she was the main mover in the
approaching catastrophe or not, we learn
that she was born Comtesse de Cumiana,
of an illustrious house, and endowed with
great personal attractions. Her first hus-
band was the Comte de St. Sebastian,
whose name she bore (having been some
years a widow) till she was made Mar-
quise de Spigno. M. de Blondel denies
the current story that she had been the
King's mistress, and states that the pro-
posal of marriage was elicited by her in-
dignantly drawing back on his familiarly
placing his hand on her shoulder, telling
him that she would never use the private
staircase again. She was Mistress of the
Robes to the Princess, and in attendance
when this incident occurred. The King
satisfied her at once by declaring that he
regarded her as his future wife ; citing
the example of Louis XIV. and Madame
de Maintenon, to show that a private mar-
riage with a Sovereign might place the
honour of a subject beyond reproach.
His love of mystery was betrayed in
SS8
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA
^
the whole management of this affair. A
dispensation was obtained through the
Marquis d'Ormea, then at Rome, for a
Knight Commander of the Order of St.
Maurice, a widower, to marry a widow,
which is contrary to the rules of that
order.^ On the 12th of August, 1730, his
affianced bride being in waiting, he sent
the Princess a permission to dine with I
her husband, whilst the Marquise on her
part, prayed for leave of absence on the
plea of a headache, and hurried to the
King's cabinet, where the marriage took
place in the presence of two witnesses.
They then separated, and the lady re-
turned to prepare her apartments for the
reception of her spouse. After ordering
a chicken for supper, and giving direc-
tions to be not at home to any one but
one female friend (the Comtesse de Pas-
seran, from whom M. de Blondel had the
details), she told her maid to open a
coffer containing sheets of the finest Hol-
land, and pillows adorned with rose-col-
oured ribbons, which she professed to
have procured for a niece. Then, re-
marking that her niece was of the same
height and her bed of the same size, she
said they might as well see how ^he
sheets and pillows looked, and had her
own bed made with them accordingly ;
into which she got, after supping on the
chicken, and putting on a cap trimmed
with lace. Her maid thought her mad,
until informed of the grand secret, and
was not perfectly reassured until the
arrival of the King, about ten, attended
by a single valet.
Early next morning, the bridegroom, to
avert suspicion, left for his hunting seat,
and the bride continued to discharge her
duties about the Princess until the day
before the abdication, when the King
nominated the Comtesse Salasque in her
stead. She then heard, for the first time,
that she was to be disappointed in her
cherished expectation of a throne, al-
though the King had spent his whole
time since the marriage in preparing for
the abdication, and, so to speak, setting
his house in order. In this interval he
named the Baron de Rhebinder First
Marshal and Generalissimo of all his
troops, and drew up a recommendation to
his son to give all his confidence to the
Marquis of St. Thomas, who could boast
forty years of integity, fidelity, and dis-
cretion, but for action and execution to
employ the Marquis d'Ormea, who, he
said, would never be found wanting in
adroitness, suppleness, boldness, readi-
ness, necessary dissimulation, enterprise
combined with judgment, and capacity
for great ideas as well in the project as
the execution. The soundness of this
appreciation was speedily verified to his
cost.
M. de Blondel's account of the formal
abdication comprises details which have
escaped the chroniclers. After the read-
ing of the Act, the King, taking his son
by the hand, made the round of the circle,
reminded his son of the services of each,
and spoke to each with a firmness, an
heroic courage, and a tenderness, which
drew tears from all.
Almost all the members of this Assembly
\yere creations of King Victor by titles, digni-
ties, and places ; nevertheless most of them
fell in with the conspiracy of the Marquis
d'Ormea, whether through seduction or im-
becility, through hope or through fear. I
therefore look upon the tears of the Pied-
montese as tears shed at a tragedy. Before
the curtain has well fallen, they are' dried up,
and the heart remains where it was.
In the course of a private interview the
same evening. King Victor told M. de
Blondel : " I start to-morrow morning at
seven for Chambdry, whither I retire
without any mark of royalty, since I am
no more than a private individual. I
have neither gentlemen nor guards in my
suite. I retain but one carriage ani
horses, four footmen, one valet-de-
chambre, two cooks, and 150,000 livres
of revenue. This is enough for a coun-
try gentleman." Then turning to his
son, he said : " Carlin, although I no
longer wish to have any influence in
affairs, I flatter myself that )^ou will have
the goodness, to amuse me in my retreat,
to send me every week a bulletin of all
the business you have transacted, so as
to keep me au fil of the history of the
events of Europe more clearly than they
will be detailed in the Gazettes." This
the young King promised to execute with
the utmost exactness.
Victor -Amadeus was remarkable for
the simplicity, amounting to homeliness,
of his dress and mode of life. The taste
of his successor was the reverse : one of
his first exercises of royalty being to
furnish his palaces in the most magnifi-
cent style, and arrange a pleasure trip to
the fair of Alexandria with the utmost
splendour and costliness of equipage and
dress. Hearing that the female aristoc-
racy of Milan, Genoa, Parma, Modena, and
Florence were in the habit of repairin*
there for the display of their finery ana
their charms, as the English ladies repair
to Ascot, he named six of the most beaut||
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY REVERSED.
589
ful women of his cc urt to attend on the
Queen, and, in contormity with the Ital-
ian custom, attached a cicisbeo or cava-
lier servente to each. M. de Blondel
was attached to the Comtesse de Fros-
saque, and as she was young (only eigh-
teen) and very handsome, he had appar-
ently no reason to complain of his lot ;
but the duties of the appointment proved
somewhat wearisome, and his descrip-
tion of them may help to dissipate the
popular misconception of their quality
and tendency, for which Lord Byron is
mainly answerable :
An English lady asked of an Italian
What were the actual and official duties
Of the strange thing some woman set a value
on,
Which hovers oft about some married beau-
ties,
Called " cavalier servente," a Pygmalion
Whose statues warm — I fear, too true 'tis —
Beneath his art. The dame, pressed to dis-
close them.
Said : " Lady, I beseech you to suppose them.''''
Honi soit qui Dial y poise. There is
no occasion for supposing ; nothing at
which morality, delicacy, or prudery can
take offence.
This party of pleasure and pain passed thus.
The day of departure, I had to hand Madame
into her coach, and follow her in mine exactly
to the half-way station, where I had ordered a
grand dinner, to which she invited all the per-
sons of her acquaintance who were on the
road to Alexandria. After the dinner, and
after having handed her into her coach, I
went on before to make the necessary arrange-
ments in the rooms engaged for her, and order
the supper. The next day I was obliged to
be at the Court by eight, to learn the plea-
sures of the day, report them to Madame, and
return to the Court at ten to accompany the
King to mass. After taking leave of the
King, I had to go for Madame, and escort her
to the fair. The first time I was obliged to
buy her a fan, at a cost of ten or twelve louis.
She gave me a sword-knot in exchange. At
half-past one, I accompanied her wherever
she was invited ; and, after presenting her
with a basin of water and napkin, I took my
place at her side ; for the cicisbeo is always
understood to be invited with his lady, and I
had to help her to everything, both food and
wine. Towards five, I escorted her to the
opera ; where I was obliged to remain in her
box so long as she was alone, but as soon as
any gentleman arrived, I was bound to go out
and remain in the pit till he went away, and
then resume my place in it.
On leaving the opera, I presented her her
gloves, her fan, her cloak, and took her to the
royal apartments, where she supped at the
King's table, and I at the Grand Master's, for
men do not eat with the Queen. On rising
from table, I took her to the theatre, which,
after the performance, had been converted
into a ball-room. Whenever Madame wished
to dance, I was obliged to dance with her, if
no one else asked her. The ball never finished
before five : I had then to escort my lady to
her apartments, and as a reward in full for my
trouble, she gave me her hand to kiss, and I
went home. This routine lasted eight days,
and I was very glad when it was over, and
Madame had given me my discharge, which
was not till our return to Turin, and after I
had given her another dinner at the half-way
station.
He adds that the aristocracy of Alexan-
dria had preserved most of the manners
and customs of the Spaniards.
That which struck me most in their repasts
was, that at their table of forty covers, there
were only four dishes of roast, in pyramids, at
the four corners, of such enormous size that
two servants could hardly carry one of them.
The first layer was of sucking pigs, the second
of turkey poults, the third of pheasants, the
fourth of chicken, the fifth of partridges, the
sixth of quails, the seventh of thrushes,
crowned by seven or eight silver skewers of
ortolans.
All went on smoothly enough for the
best part of a year, during which Charles
Emmanuel took no step of importance
without consulting his father, and paid
the most respectful attention to his rep-
resentations and advice. This by no
means suited the plans of the Marquis
d'Ormea, who was intriguing to get the
uncontrolled admimistration of affairs
into his own hands, whilst amusing the
young king with a succession of fetes.
He was really a superior man, of politi-
cal genius and capacity as well as grasp-
ing ambition, a kind of Italian Alberoni,
and he speedily gained an ascendency
over the mind of the young king, which
required nothing but the cessation of the
weekly reports to become paramount.
His preparatory tactics for getting rid of
them were to tell all who applied to
him that he could do nothing without a
reference to Chambdry : " We have the
representation at Turin, but the organ
that puts the puppets in motion is in Sa-
voy." This was repeated so often that it
sank into the public mind, and at length
reached Charles Emmanuel, who under-
went the mortification of hearing that his
subjects had no confidence in him, that
they looked elsewhere for favour or pre-
ferment, and that he was universally sup-
posed to have had a mere phantom of
royalty transferred to him. Most oppor-
590
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA:
tunely for the Marquis, the ex-king had
an attack of apoplexy at the beginning of
1 731, on hearing of which a royal fete^
which had been planned on a scale of
extraordinary magnificence, was put off,
and the king was on the point of start-
ing for Chambery, when a letter dictated
by King Victor was received, saying that
he was already better and insisting that
the journej across the mountains at such
a season should be given up. It was
consequently delayed, and the King did
not arrive at Chambery till the 29th of
March. He stayed with his father till
the 14th of April, and during the whole
time the best possible understanding
prevailed ; which M. de Blondel adduces
in disproof of the assumption that Victor
had taken offence at the delay of the
visit, and that the Marquise had availed
herself of the circumstance to irritate
him against his son.
Dating from the 9th of February, when
the news of the illness reached Turin,
the Marquis d'Ormea had suppressed
the weekly bulletins ; and on the King's
asking, a month after the visit of Cham-
bery, whether they had been regularly
despatched, he was told that they had
been discontinued altogether. To have
sent them, it was urged, during the ex-
king's illness would have been to expose
secrets of State to the curious eyes and
ears of doctors and nurses ; and to re-
sume them after his recovery would
necessitate the composition of volumes
to connect the present with the past.
"King Charles was weak enough to be
swayed by this bad reasoning, which was
the unhappy source of the monstrous
events which followed, for King Victor
did not think it consistent with his dig-
nity, after the sacrifice he had made to
his son, to demand an account of his
administration, and each day added to
his causes of irritation, which, it appears,
the Marquise de Spigno did not soften
down." King Victor, however, so dis-
sembled his mortification and resent-
ment, that it only began to be observed
at the end of July 1731, when King
Charles was obliged to take Chambery
in his way to the baths of Evian. Al-
though M. de Blondel saw the ex-king
soon after this meeting, and conversed
with him in the usual tone of confidence
and familiarity on all subjects, his first
notion (he states) of the misunderstand-
ing between the two princes was given
him at a Chambery ball the same even-
ing by a lady, who told him " that King
Victor was not? satisfied either with his
>i
son or his minister, and that ther
been ill feeling and a much shorter stay
than had been intended."
He was in France when he heard t
a downright breach had occurred at
return meeting at Chambdry, which Ki
Charles, after announcing a visit of fif-
teen days, had abruptly quitted on the
second day at eleven at night, on horse-
back, accompanied only by an equerry, a
page, and a footman, through the moun-
tain passes of the Tarantaise, where the
roads were abominable. The authentic
explanation, subsequently acquired and
confirmed, was that King Victor, while
receiving the Queen, his daughter-in-law,
with the customary marks of affection,
threw the most marked air of coldness
and offended dignity into his reception
of his son : that his manner remained
unaltered the next day, when, on the
Marquis d'Ormea and the Marquis del
Borgo presenting themselves to pay their
respects, he overwhelmed them with re-
proaches, saying that he repented having
given such bad ministers to his son,
whose confidence they abused. They
forthwith carried an exaggerated version
of what had passed to King Charles, who,
bred up in panic awe of his father, was
led to believe that his life was no longer
safe at Chambery, and that there was no
violence of which the old man was not
capable in his present mood, to the ex-
tent even of drawing his sword upon his
son. The upshot was that they left
secretly by one route, whilst King Charles
started off by another : they taking the
best and most frequented, under the
pretence of putting King Victor upon
false scent ; as if a pursuit were possi
in his state of health and with the mea
at his disposal, had he really entertained
so absurd a notion. They clearly over-
acted their parts, except so far as the
immediate object of frightening and fatal-
ly committing their young sovereign was
attained.
The morning after their departure King
Victor sent to inquire if his son was
awake, and, on being informed that he
had started for Turin the night before,
hurried immediately to the Queen, who
told him that King Charles, having re-
ceived a courier from Turin, had been
forced to repair thither with his minis-
ters ; her directions and intentions being
to follow as soon as the carriages and re-
lays could be got ready. He highly com-
mended her resolution of following her
husband, and during the remaining two
days of her visit treated her with the
»i
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY Rl!VERSED.
591
greatest kindness and attention. As soon
IS she was gone, he ordered preparations
which took six days) to be made for his
Dwn return to Piedmont, with the alleged
Dbject of bringing back his son to his old
aabits of deference and of controlling the
baneful influence of the ministers. But
that, at this time, he had avowed an inten-
tion of resuming the throne, is negatived
by the fact that, on reaching Mont Cen^,
he dispatched a courier to announce his
having left Chambery because the air was
absolutely injurious to his health, re-
questing the King to indicate the prov-
ince and town that might be deemed
preferable for his residence, adding that
he should sleep the next night at Rivoli,
where he hoped to receive the decision of
his Majesty. He further requested the
payment of his next quarter's revenue in
advance, to defray the expenses of his
journey.
King Charles reolied that he might
choose any place he thought best for his
health, and made a point of being at Ri-
voli to receive him ; but the coldness con-
tinued, and all sorts of stories were got
up by D'Ormea to widen the breach and
excite the apprehensions of the young
King. The garrison was largely rein-
forced, as if in anticipation of a coup de
main; and numerous promotions were
made, as if to secure the wavering fidelity
of the army. It was simultaneously given
out that the Marquis de Fonsberi had
come to an understanding through the
Marquis de Rivard to deliver up the city
of Turin to his old master, and that the
court physician and apothecary had been
engaged to poison King Charles ; who be-
tween fright and some lingering remains
of filial piety would, it was said, have
readily surrendered the throne had he
not been repelled and disgusted at the
thought of allowing his Queen to be
superseded by her former mistress of the
robes, by whom (he was assured) the
whole intrigue and conspiracy had been
set on foot. '' The recent example of
Philip v., of Spain," observes M. de
Beauregard, " whose first care on reas-
cending the throne had been to sacrifice
the ministers of his son, was not calcu-
lated to tranquillize the ministers of King
Charles." *
But it was not enough for them to over-
rule this wavering resolution of their
young sovereign, if he really entertained
* " M^moires Historiques," vol. iii. p. 149. Philip
abdicated in favour of his son, Louis, January 4, 1724,
and resumed the throne on his son's death in the Au-
gust following.
any notion of resigning. Their fate now
hung on his complete emancipation from
the influence of King Victor, who was
only to be conciliated by the dismissal of
D'Ormea from the court and councils
of his son. The struggle was rapidly
becoming one of life and death, and
D'Ormea was not the man to resort to
half-measures in an emergency. The bill
of indictment he drew up against his old
master and laid before the memorable
council of the 28th of September, was so
overwhelming, that without asking for
evidence or looking to the internal im-
probabilities of the charges*, the council-
lors were unanimous in pressing the King
to sign the order of arrest. He was still
hesitating, when a knock was heard at
the door. It was an officer with a billet
from the governor, announcing an attempt
of the old King to introduce himself into
the place, and all hesitation ceased. Now,
in the document purporting to be a faith-
ful relation, afterwards circulated by the
Marquis, we find —
He (King Victor) hoped to gain entrance
into the citadel by a feint, which failed. He
drove round this fortress in his carriage, and
when he was near the parte de secours he pre-
tended to have the colic, to which he was
much subject, and sent for the Baron de S?int
Remy,* the governor, to allow him to enter
and repose. The governor came out to speak
to him, and said he had not the key, which
was in the possession of King Charles. King
Victor hoped that, being master of the cita-
del, he should raise the inhabitants of Turin
in the fear of seeing it bombarded, and arrest
King Charles with the aid of persons gained
by the commandant. Or\ the failure of this
attempt, he reproached his son, saying that he
was unfit to reign, and that he (King Victor)
would resume the government ; otherwise he
would kindle the flames of war in the four
corners and in the middle of his states, and
that he would procure foreign troops to sec-
ond him.
The attempt to enter the citadel, there-
fore, must have been perfectly well known
to the Council ; but, in point of fact,
there was no such attempt. The story is
a pure fiction ; and so is the allegation of
a conspiracy or plot. None of the persons
to whom King Victor's strong language
was reported to have been addressed
were misled by it : not a single friend or
former servant acted with him ; and the
five or six persons arrested on pretended
suspicion, for form's sake, were set at
liberty at the end of a few days, not a
* Count Litta says that the alleged attempt to enter
the citadel was proved by a letter from Pallavicino, the
governor.
592
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA:
vestige of complicity being proved against
them. As one of the first acts of the
Marquis d'Ormea, on arriving at Mont-
calieri with the order of arrest, was to
break open the writing-boxes and seize
the papers of the ex-king, it may be taken
for granted that, if any evidence of a con-
spiracy had existed, it would have been
produced. The circumstantial details of
the arrest will be read with mingled in-
dignation and surprise.
The brigadier, Comte de Perouse, ac-
companied by four colonels and the
officers of a company of grenadiers, pre-
sented himself an hour after midnight at
the door of the ex-king's bed-room, and,
having tried false keys, had it broken
open with hatchets. The Marquise de
Spigno was the first to take the alarm.
Springing out of bed she rushed to the
door, and seeing grenadiers with bay-
onets fixed and flambeaux, she rushed
back and woke the King, exclaiming :
*' Ah, 1710 ti Roi, nous so77imes perdus I "
The King, sitting up in bed and inquiring
what was meant by such an outrage at
such an hour, the brigadier, having first
secured his sword, expressed a hope that
he would spare them the pain of having
recourse to violence by submitting to the
execution of their orders ; on which the
King, after a vain appeal to their loyalty
and the sacredness of his person, sank
back on his bed, flung his arms around
the Marquise, and remained motionless
for a quarter of an hour, during which
the brigadier was silent, regarding it as a
last adieu. At length, seeing no other
way of ending the scene, he three times
summoned the King to yield, and receiv-
ing no answer, ordered the Chevalier de
Birage, major of grenadiers, who was
charged to arrest the Marquise, to do his
duty whilst he (the brigadier) did his.
It was as much as both, aided by the
four colonels, could do to separate the
King and his wife, who clung together
with legs and arms intertwined ; the bed-
clothes being scattered all over the floor
in the struggle. The room was lined
with armed grenadiers, forming a circle,
in the centre of which stood the twelve
officers with their swords drawn. The
Marquise was finally torn from her hus-
band with her night-dress in tatters,
drao^o^ed on her back from the bed to her
dressing-room, and exposed to the rude
gaze of the soldiers whilst she was still
struggling in this dishevelled condition to
rejoin the King, who kept making the
most passionate and touching a[ peals to
the grenadiers ; reminding them that he
had mingled his blood with theirs a
dred times in defence of their country,
and demanding if they had the heart to
treat as a prisoner him to whom they had
sworn allegiance as their King. The
officers threatened death to any one who
should raise a finger in his behalf; and
refusing to put on his clothes, and vow-
ing that he would endure the utmost ex-
tent of ignominy rather than tamely sub-
mit to such treatment, he was half-led,
half-carried to the carriage in waiting.
One of the colonels, a soldier of fortune,
was about to get in with him, when the
ex-king repelled him by a blow, crying
out : " Wretch, learn the respect which is
my due, and know that people of thy de-
gree should never enter the carriage of
their king." On being shown the written
order, he tore it to pieces, vowing that no
such order could have emanated from his
son, and that the indignities heaped upon
him were all owing to the " vile minis-
ters."
The road from Montcalieri to Rivoli
was cleared by a detachment of dragoons,
who caused all the doors and windows in
the villages to be closed under pain of
death. On arriving, the royal victim was
so broken by fury and fatigue, that his
tongue, covered with foam, hung two
inches from his mouth, and his eves
glared more wildly at the sight of the
blacksmiths securing the windows of the
apartment destined for him with iron bars.
A marble slab which he broke by a blow
of his fist, used to be shown as one of the
curiosities of the chateau. The orders
of the officers were to watch him night
and day ; to report everything he said or
did ; and to make no reply to him, even
by Yes or No, but simply by a bow. One
officer slept on a mattress inside his
chamber across the door, and another
outside. As for his wife, the Marquise,
after being compelled to dress, she was
placed in a coach with the major, her
fe77t77ie-de-cha77tbre in another with a pri-
vate soldier, and they were thus conveyed
under an escort' of fifty dragoons to the
fort of Ceva, a reformatory prison or pen-
itentiary, in which women of bad char-
acter {iTiauvaise vie) were ordinarily con-
fined.
M. de Blondel states that soon after
these details had been supplied to him on
good authority, he met the Archbishop of
Turin and Marshal de Rhebinder, who
each separately confirmed the strict accu-
racy of his informants. The Marshal,
referring to the first council after the
arrest, at which the Marquis d'Ormea was
4
THE VERDICT OF HISTORY REVERSED.
593
Iriven to confess that no evidence of the
lleo-ed plot was forthcoming, used these
vords : —
At this first Council of State I was seized
vith horror at the enormous crime that had
)een committed, reflecting on the small means
)f King Victor for resuming the crown, seeing
10 intelligence with the foreigner, and know-
nt^ the little love his subjects and the nobility
lad on account of his former arbitrary pro-
eedings ; but what aggravated my regret was
he report made at another Council of the
nnocence of all the prisoners that had been
rrested. I then felt that the imprisonment
if these gentlemen had been an excess of
coundrelism on the part of the Marquis
.'Ormea to embolden the King to so frightful
step.
M. de Blondel sent regular reports of
.11 he heard or saw to his own Court ;
nd a despatch from M . le Garde des
Jceaux, dated October 30th, 1731, be-
ins : —
I have received your letter of the 20th of
his month. The Cardinal de Fleury and my-
elf are perfectly satisfied with the details you
ave given us of the event of the 29th Sep-
2mber, as likewise with all you said in the
udience which the King of Sardinia granted
ou when you appeared for the first time at
.a Venerie. Even had we not reason to be-
eve you as well informed as you are, all you
sport to us would not fail to appear true ;
ae rather that nothing has reached the King
Df France) of a nature to clear up and justify
le causes and motives of so singular an event.
His subsequent instructions were to
e extremely guarded in his language,
nd not to be thought to condemn what
ad been done. "You would thus be-
ome the object of grave suspicion on
lie part of the Marquis d'Ormea ; and
his minister, thinking himself blamed by
Vance, would have no other resource
han to make common cause with the
Imperor."
The most plausible justification, that
Cing Victor was insane, was hardly at-
smpted ; indeed, it was utterly incapa-
le of proof, for, except in his by no
leans unnatural fits of passion, his lan-
uage was calm and reasonable, persist-
ntly asserting that his son could never
e such a monster of ingratitude, and
lat the '' vile ministers " were exclu-
ively responsible.
According to M. Carutti, who adopts
hat may be taken as the Marquis d'Or-
lea's version throughout, the Marquis
ad no less than five interviews with
Cing Victor subsequently to his return
rem Chambery. The angry scene which
LIVING AGE.' VOL. VIL 35O
caused the precipitate and unceremonious
departure of King Charles and his Min-
isters, would thus appear to have made
no change in their relations to King Vic-
tor, who, on his son's saying that the
Marquis was always at his orders, is
made to reply: "Well, let him come to-
morrow ; but this kind of people ought to
come without being sent for." He did
come to-morrow (September 16), and on
his own personal unattested report of
what took place, "Charles Emmanuel un-
derstood, the Ministry understood, that
the catastrophe of the drama was drawing
near."* No authority whatever is ad-
duced for these interviews, which are
highly improbable. There are two con-
flicting stories of the manner in which
the alleged intention to revoke the Act of
Abdication, or treat it as null and void,
became known. M. de Beauregard's is,
that a young priest, concealed behind a
curtain, overheard a conversation be-
tween King Victor and the Marquise, in
which they talked over their plans. M.
Carutti says that it was the Abbd Bog-
gio di Sangano, the ex-king's former con-
fessor, who, having been peremptorily
required by him to take a formal minute
of the revocation on the 26th, carried the
information to the Secretary of the Cabi-
net. Certain it is that, when the Cabinet
met, little or nothing but hearsay evi-
dence of the most suspicious character
was forthcoming.
Although M. de Blondel could not ven-
ture to remonstrate openly or directly,
he found means to convey his own im-
pression of the whole affair, as well as
that of the French Court, to the Marquis,
who could hardly have been ignorant of
the light in which it was also viewed in
Spain, where the King had made one ab-
dication and was meditating another.
On the 4th October, 1731, the Comte de
Rottembourg, French Ambassador at
Madrid, writes to M. de Blondel: —
The King of Spain thinks the action of
King Charles very cruel, inhuman, and in-
finitely blamable. The Queen dwells strong-
ly on the ingratitude of children, on what
is to be expected from them, and that
commonly one nourishes a viper in one's
bosom. People here speculate much on the
results of this event. They presume that it
will divide Europe ; that France, with some
other power, will take the part of one of the
two kings ; that the Emperor, who regards
himself as the master of Italy, will protect the
other. France, with the view of opening
Italy to herself, and the Emperor with the
* Carutti, p. 495.
594
KING VICTOR AMADEUS OF SAVOY AND SARDINIA.
view of securing this passage which is the
only gap he has to keep, whilst leagued with
the maritime powers he has nothing to fear
from a war of transport {sic). Such are the
current reasonings on this subject. The
Queen has got such complete hold of the
King's mind on the subject of the detention
of King Victor, that you cannot imagine to
what extent this prince is animated. He told
me with fury that all Europe ought to arm
against such a monster : that the reign of
Nero supplied nothing so inhuman.
Although considerations of policy pre-
vented the interference of foreign powers,
it was not deemed safe to defy European
opinion to the extent of detaining the ex-
king in solitary confinement and continu-
ing the harsh treatment which was
known to be telling fatally on his health.
Accordingly he was transferred to the
Chateau de Montcalier, where he was
allowed the range of a terrace and a
small wood, fenced round by palisades,
and carefully guarded. The Marquise,
his wife, had been allowed to rejoin him
on the loth December, 173 1, upon very
hard conditions. She was forbidden,
under penalty of decapitation, to tell
King Victor that she had been a prisoner
in the Castle of Ceva, and ordered to say
that she had been during the whole time
of separation at the convent of Pignerol,
They were both conveyed to the Cha-
teau de Montcalier on the 12th April,
1732, at twelve at night — each in a litter,
escorted by a detachment of dragoons
and thirty-six body guards, where they
remained without communication with
any one whatever till the death of King
Victor on the 31st October, 1732.
This unhappy prince (says M. de Blondel)
never ceased praying King Charles to come to
see him ; causing him to be assured that he
should be exposed to no reproaches, that his
(the father's) sole wish was to embrace and
give his parting benediction to the son. Fif-
teen days before his death, he reiterated his
most earnest entreaties, saying, that if this
last consolation was granted him, he should
die content. But the Marquis d'Ormea had
such empire over his master, that he dis-
suaded him from complying, urging that the
interview might so agitate King Victor as to
shorten his days, and would certainly bring on
a second attack of apoplexy, which would be
badly interpreted in Europe.
During the reign of Charles Emman-
uel, which lasted forty-three years, "the
threatening spectre of the Castle of Mi-
olans closed the mouths " of the good
people of Turin. But it was not deemed
enough to silence contemporaries. Ef-
fective means were taken to poison or
trouble history at its source. First came
the document preserved by M. de Blon-
del, as one of his Pieces yustijicatives
under the title of " Copy of a Letter fab-
ricated by the Marquis d'Ormea, and
spread amongst the Public as a Faithful
Relation of the Event of 28th Sep-
tember, 1731." Then, partly based upon
it, what purported to be a full and faith-
ful Account of the Abdication, Arrest,
and Death of King Victor, by Count Ra-
dicati, an exile who hoped to make his
peace with the Sardinian Court and pro-
cure his recall by popularizing their ver-
sion of the facts. He succeeded to the
extent of being implicitly accepted as an
authority by succeeding annalists, with
the exception of Muratori, who, in Jan-
uary 1749, wrote thus from Modena to
the Count Bogino, then principal Minis-
ter of Charles Emmanuel : —
Excellence, — Since the peace, so delayed
by difficulties, is about to be completed, and
I am on the point of concluding my " Annals,"
with a view to publication, — in speaking of
the last years of King Victor Amadeus, I
should wish to say nothing that could dis-
please the most gracious reigning sovereign,
his son, from whom I have received so many
favours. Therefore, I send your Excellence
the paragraphs touching the resolutions taken
by him, with the request, if thought right, to
submit them to his Majesty, in order that they
may undergo correction or addition, as may
seem meet to his superior prudence.
The accompanying sheets of the An-
nals, with the marginal notes of Bogino,
have been preserved in the royal archives.
One of the notes expressly negatives the
statement that Victor Amadeus, during
his sojourn at Chambery, gave any sign
of repenting the abdication. Another
note is in these words : " The threat of
cutting off the head of one of the princi-
pal Ministers, the application to the Mar-
quis del Borgo for the Act of Abdication,
the billet to the governor of the citadel,
are facts current at the time, but without
foundation." Adhering (as we have seen)
to the essential statement, Muratori gave
up the fanciful accessories, or "fables"
as M. Carutti terms them, whilst admit-
ting numerous statements which bear the
same marks of fiction or bad faith.
We further learn from M. Carutti that,
four years before Muratori's application,
the Abb^ Palazzi had been officially re-
tained to compose an authentic Narra-
tive, founded on oral communications
with King Charles and documents in the
royal archives, most of which, strange to
say, have subsequently disappeared. Asj
A ROSE IN JUNE.
595
this Narrative has been studiously kept
back, there is no want of charity in as-
suming that it would not bear the broad
light of day ; and, as the case stands at
present, the inevitable conclusion is that
the received judgment of history, with a
hundred and forty years' presciptive au-
thority in its favour, must be reversed.
From The Cornhill Magazine.
A ROSE IN JUNE.
CHAPTER XVI.
When Rose found herself, after so
strange and exciting a journey, within the
tranquil shades of Miss Margetts' estab-
lishment for young ladies, it would be
difficult to tell the strange hush which
fell upon her. Almost before the door
had closed upon Wodehouse, while still
the rumble of the hansom in which he
had brought her to her destination, and
in which he now drove away, was in her
ears, the hush, the chill, the tranquillity
had begun to influence her. Miss Mar-
getts, of course, was not up at half-past
six on the summer morning, and it was
an early housemaid, curious but drowsy,
who admitted Rose, and took her, having
some suspicion of so unusually early a
visitor, with so little luggage, to the bare
and forbidding apartment in which Miss
Margetts generally received her " par-
ents." The window looked out upon the
little garden in frorrt of the house, and
the high wall which enclosed it ; and
there Rose seated herself to wait, all the
energy and passion which had sustained,
beginning to fail her, and dreary doubts
of what her old school-mistress would
say, and how she would receive her, fill-
ing her very soul. How strange is the
stillness of the morning within such a
populated house ! nothing stirring but
the faint far-off noises in the kitchen —
and she alone, with the big blank walls
about her, feeling, like a prisoner, as if
she had been shut in to undergo some
sentence. To be sure, in other circum-
stances this was just the moment which
Rose would have chosen to be alone,
and in which the recollection of the se«;ne
just ended, the words which she had
heard, the looks that had been bent upon
her, ought to have been enough to light
up the dreariest place, and make her un-
conscious of external pallor and vacancy.
But although the warmest sense of per-
sonal happiness which she had ever known
in her life had come i>pon the girl all una-
wares ere she came here, yet the circum-
stances were so strange, and the compli-
cation of feeling so great, that all the
light seemed to die out of the landscape
when Edward left her. This very joy
which had come to her so unexpectedly
gave a different aspect to all the rest of
her story. To fly from a marriage which
I was disagreeable to her, with no warmer
wish than that of simply escaping from it,
was one thing ; but to fly with the aid of
a lover who made the flight an occasion
of declaring himself was another and
very different matter. Her heart sank
while she thought of the story she had to
tell. Should she dare tell Miss Margetts
about Edward .'' About Mr. Incledon it
se«med now simple enough.
Miss Margetts was a kind woman, or
one of her "young ladies" would not
have thought of flying back to her for
shelter in trouble ; but she was always a
little rigid and "particular," and when
she heard Rose's story (with the careful
exclusion of Edward) her mind was very
much disturbed. She was sorry for the
girl, but felt sure that her mother must
be in the right, and trembled a little
in the midst of her decorum to consider
what the world would think if she was
found to receive girls who set themselves
in opposition to their lawful guardians.
"Was the gentleman not nice.'*" she
asked, doubtfully ; " was he very old ?
were his morals not what they ought to
be ? or has he any personal peculiarity
which made him unpleasant .-* Except in
the latter case, when indeed one must
judge for one's self, I think you might
have put full confidence in your excellent
mother's judgment."
" Oh, it was not that ; he is very good
and nice," said Rose, confused and
troubled. " It is not that I object to
him ; it is because I do not love him.
How could I marry him when I don't
care for him ? But he is not a man to
whom anybody could objoct."
" And he is rich, and fond of you, and
not too old ? I fear — I fear, my dear
child, you have been very inconsiderate.
You would soon have learned to love so
good a man."
"Oh, Miss Anne," said Rose (for there
were two sisters and this was the young-
est), " don't say so, please ! I never could
if I should live a hundred years."
" You will not 1-ive a hundred years ; but
you might have tried. Girls are pliable ;
or at least people think so ; perhaps my
particular position in respect to them
makes me less sure of this than most
59^
A ROSE IN JUNE.
people are. But still that is the common
idea. You would hare learned to be fond
of him if he were fond of you ; unless,
indeed "
" Unless what ? " cried Rose, intent
upon suggestion of excuse.
" Unless," said Miss Margetts, sol-
emnly fixing her with the penetrating
glance of an eye accustomed to com-
mand — " unless there is another gentle-
man in the case — unless you have al-
lowed another image to enter your
heart ? "
Rose was unprepared for such an ap-
peal. She answered it only by a scared
look, and hid her face in her hands.
" Perhaps it will be best to have some
breakfast," said Miss Margetts. " You
must have been up very early to be here
so soon ; and I daresay you did not take
anything before you started, not even a
cup of tea ?"
Rose had to avow this lack of common
prudence, and try to eat docilely to please
her protector ; but the attempt was not
very successful. A single night's watch-
ing is often enough to upset a youthful
frame not accustomed to anything of the
kind, and Rose was glad beyond descrip-
tion to be taken to one of the little white-
curtained chambers which were so fa-
miliar to her, and left there to rest. How
inconceivable it was that she should be
there again ! Her very familiarity with
everything made the wonder greater.
Had she never left that still well-ordered
place at all ? or what strange current had
drifted her back again ? She lay down on
the little white dimity bed, much too
deeply affected with her strange position,
she thought, to rest ; but ere long had
fallen fast asleep, poor child, with her
hands clasped across her breast, and
tears trembling upon her eyelashes. Miss
Margetts, being a kind soul, was deeply
touched when she looked into the room
and found her so, and immediately went
back to her private parlour and scored an
adjective or two out of the letter she had
written — a letter to Rose's mother tell-
ing how startled she had been to find
herself made unawares the confidant of
the runaway, and begging Mrs. Damerel
to believe that it was no fault of hers,
though she assured her in the same
breath that every attention should be
paid to Rose's health and comfort. Mrs.
Damerel would thus have been very soon
relieved from her suspense, even if she
had not received the despairing little
epistle sent to her by Rose. Of Rose's
note, however, her mother took no im-
mediate notice. She wrote to Miss Mar-
getts, thanking her, and assuring her
that she vras only too glad to think that
her child was in such good hands. But
she did not write to Rose. No one
wrote to Rose ; she was left for three
whole days vyithout a word, for even
Wodehouse did not venture to send the
glowing epistles which he wrote by the
score, having an idea that an establish-
ment for young ladies is a kind of Castle
Dangerous, in which such letters as his
would never be suffered to reach their
proper owner, and might prejudice her
with her jailers. These dreary days were
dreary enough for all of them — for the
mother, who was not so perfectly assured
of being right in her mode of treatment
as to be quite at ease on the subject ; for
the young lover, burning with impatience,
and feeling every day to be a year; and
for Rose herself, thus dropped into the
stillness away from all that had excited
and driven her desperate. To be de-
livered all at once out of even trouble
which is of an exciting and stimulating
character, and buried in absolute quiet,
is a doubtful advantage in any case, at
least to youth. Mr. Incledon bore the in-
terval, not knowing all that was involved
in it, with more calm than any of the
others. He was quite amenable to Mrs.
Damerel's advice not to disturb the girl
with letters. After all what was a week
to a man secure of Rose's company for
the rest of his life ? He smiled a little
at the refuge which her mother's care (he
thought) had chosen for her — her for-
mer school ! and wondered how his poor
little Rose liked it ; but otherwise was
perfectly tranquil on the subject. As for
poor young Wodehouse, he was to be
seen about the railway station, every
train that arrived from London, and
haunted the precincts of the White
House for news, and was as miserable
as a young man in love and terrible un-
certaintv — with only ten days in which
to satisfy himself about his future life
and happiness, could be. What wild
thoughts went through his mind, as he
answered " yes " and " no" to his moth-
er's talk, and dutifully took walks with
her, and called with her upon her friends,
hearing Rose's approaching marriage
everywhere talked of, and the "gooc
luck " of the Rector's family remarkec
upon ! His heart was tormented by al
these conversations, yet it was better to
hear them, than to be out of the way oi
hearing altogether. Gretna Green, i
Gretna Green should be feasible, was th
A ROSE IN JUNE.
597
only way he could think of, to get deliv-
ered from this terrible complication ; and
then it haunted him that Gretna Green
had been "done away with," though he
could not quite remember how. Ten
days ! and then the China seas for three
long years ; though Rose had not been
able to conceal from him that he it was
whom she loved, and not Mr. Incledon.
Poor fellow ! in his despair he thought of
deserting, of throwing up his appoint-
ment and losing all his chances in life ;
and all these wild thoughts swayed up-
wards to a climax in the three days. He
determined on the last of these that he
would bear it no longer. He put a pas-
sionate letter in the post, and resolved to
beard Mrs. Damerel in the mor-ning and
have it out.
More curious still, and scarcely less
bewildering, was the strange trance of
suspended existence in which Rose spent
these three days. It was but two years
since she had left Miss Margetts', and
some of her friends were there still. She
was glad to meet them, as rauch as she
could be glad of anything in her preoc-
cupied state, but felt the strangest dif-
ference— a difference which she was
totally incapable of putting into words,
between them and herself. Rose, with-
out knowing it, had made a huge stride
in life since she had left their bare school-
room. I daresay her education might
with mucli advantage have been carried
on a great deal longer than it was, and
that her power of thinking might have
increased, and her mind been much im-
proved, had she been sent to college af-
terwards as boys are, and as some peo-
ple think girls ought to be ; but though
she had not been to college, education of
a totally different kind had been going on
for Rose. She had made a step in life
which carried her*altogether beyond the
placid region in which the other girls
lived and worked. She was in the midst
of problems which Euclid cannot touch,
nor logic solve. She had to exercise
choice in a matter concerning other lives
as well as her own. She had to decide
unaided between a true and a false moral
duty, and to make up her mind which
was true and which was false. She had
to discriminate in what point Inclination
ought to be considered a rule of conduct,
and in what points it ought to be crushed
as mere self-seeking ; or whether it
should not always be crushed, which was
her mother's code ; or if it ought to have
supreme weight, which was her father's
practice. This is not the kind of train-
ing which youth can get from schools,
whether in Miss Margetts' establish-
ment for young ladies, or even in learned
Balliol. Rose, who had been subjected
to it, felt, but could not tell why, as if
she were years and worlds removed from
the school and its duties. She could
scarcely help smiling at the elder girls
with their "deep" studies and their
books, which were far more advanced in-
tellectually than Rose. Oh, how easy
the hardest grammar was, the difficulties
of Goethe, or of Dante (or even of Thucy-
dides or Perseus, but these she did not
know), in comparison with this difficulty
which tore her asunder ! Even the
moral and religious truths in which she
had been trained from her cradle scarce-
ly helped her. The question was one to
be decided for herself and by herself, and
by her for her alone.
And here is the question, dear reader,
as the girl had to decide it. Self-denial
is the rule of Christianity. It is the
highest and noblest of duties when ex-
ercised for a true end. " Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay
down his life for his friend." Thus it
has the highest sanction which any duty
can have, and it is the very life and
breath and essence of Christianity. This
being the rule, is there one special case
excepted in which you ought not to deny
yourself .-* and is this case the individual
one of Marriage.'' Allowing that in all
other matters it is right to sacrifice your
own wishes where bv doing so you bene-
fit others, is it right to sacrifice your
love and happiness in order to please
your friends, and make a man happy who
loves you, but whom you do not love ?
According to Mrs. Damerel this was so,
and the sacrifice of a girl who made a
loveless marriage for a good purpose,
was as noble as any other martyrdom for
the benefit of country, or family, or race.
Gentle reader, if you do not skip the
statement of the question altogether, you
will probably decide it summarily and
wonder at Rose's indecision. But hers
was no such easy way of dealing with the
problem, which I agree with her in think-
ing is much harder than anything in
Euclid. She was not by any means sure
that this amount of self-sacrifice was not
a duty. Her heart divined, her very
intellect felt, without penetrating, a
fallacy somewhere in the argument ; but
still the argument was very potent and
not to be got over. She was not sure
that to listen to Edward Wodehouse,
and to suffer even an unguarded reply to
593
A ROSE IN JUNE.
drop from her lips, was not a sin. She
was far from being sure that in any case
it is safe or right to do what you like ;
and to do what you like in contradiction
to your mother, to your engagement, to
your plighted word — what could that be
but a sin ? She employed all her simple
logic on the subject with little effect, for
in strict logic she was bound over to marry
Mr. Incledon, and now more than ever
her heart resolved against marrying Mr.
Incledon. This question worked in her
mind, presenting itself in every possible
phase — now one side, now the other.
And she dared not consult any one near,
and none of those who were interested
in its solution took any notice of her.
She was left alone in unbroken stillness
to judge for herself, to make her own
conclusion. The first day she was still
occupied with the novelty of her position
— the fatigue and excitement of leaving
home, and of all that had occurred since.
The second day she was still strangely
moved by the difference between herself
and her old friends, and the sense of
having passed beyond them into regions
unknown to their philosophy, and from
which she never could come back to the
unbroken tranquillity of a girl's life. But
on the third day the weight of her strange
position weighed her down utterly. She
watched the distribution of the letters
with eyes growing twice their natural
size, and a pang indescribable at her
heart. Did they mean to leave her alone
then ? to take no further trouble about
her ? to let her do as she liked, that mel-
ancholy privilege which is prized only by
those who do not possess it? Had Ed-
ward forgotten her though he had said
so much two days ago ? had her mother
cast her off, despising her, as a rebel ?
Even Mr. Incledon, was he going to let
her be lost to him without an effort ?
Rose had fled hoping (she believed) for
nothing so much as to lose herself and
be heard of no more ; but oh ! the heav-
iness which drooped over her very soul
when for three days she was let alone.
Wonder, consternation, indignation, arose
one after another in her heart. They
had all abandoned her. The lover whom
she loved, and the lover whom she did
not love, alike. What was love then ? a
mere fable, a thing which perished when
the object of it was out of sight ? When
she had time to think, indeed, she found
this theory untenable, for had not
Edward been faithful to her at the other
end of the world .'' and yet what did he
mean now?
On the third night Rose threw herself
on her bed in despair, and sobbed till
midnight. Then a mighty resolution
arose in her mind. She would relieve
herself of the burden. She would go to
the fountain head, to Mr. Incledon him-
self, and lay the whole long tale before
him. He was good, he was just, he had
always been kind to her ; she would
abide by what he said. If he insisted
that she should marry him, she must do
so ; better that than to be thrown off by
everybody, to be left for days or per-
haps for years alone in Miss Margetts'.
And if he were generous, and decided
othej-wise ! In that case neither Mrs.
Damerel nor any one else could have
anything to say — she would put it into
his hands.
She had her hat on when she came
down to breakfast next morning, and her
face, though pale, had a little resolution
in it, better than the despondency of the
first three days. " I am going home,"
she said, as the schoolmistress looked at
her surprised.
. " It is the very best thing you can do,
my dear," said Miss Margetts, giving her
a more cordial kiss than usual. " I did
not like to advise it; but it is the very
best thing you can do."
Rose took her breakfast meekly, not so
much comforted as Miss Margetts had
intended by this approval. Somehow
she felt as if it must be against'her own
inteuest since Miss Margetts approved of
it, and she was in twenty minds then not
to go. When the letters came in she
said to herself that there could be none
for her, and went and stood at the win-
dow, turning her back that she might not
see ; and it was while she was standing
thus, pretending to gaze out upon the
high wall covered with ivy, that, in the
usual contradiction oi human affairs,
Edward Wodehouse's impassioned letter
was put into her hands. There she read
how he too had made up his mind not to
bear it longer ; how he was going to her
mother to have an explanation with her.
Should she wait for the result of this ex-
planation, or should she carry out her
own determination and go ?
" Come, Rose, I will see you safely to i
the station ; there is a cab at the door,"
said Miss Margetts.
Rose turned round her eyes dewy and
moist with those tears of love anu conso-
lation which refresh and do not scorch as
they come. She looked up timidly to
see whether she might ask leave to stay ;
but the cab was waiting, and Miss Mar-
A ROSE IN JUNE.
599
getts was ready, and her own hat on and
intention declared : she was ashamed to
turn back when she had gone so far.
She said good-bye accordingly to the
elder sister, and meekly followed Miss
Anne into the cab. Had it been worth
while winding herself up to the resolution
of flight for so Tittle ? Was her first ex-
periment of resistance really over, and
the rebel going home, with arms grounded
and banners trailing ? It was ignomin-
ious beyond all expression — but what
was she to do ?
" My dear," said Miss Margetts, in the
cab, which jolted very much and now and
then took away her breath, " I hope you
are going with your mind in a better
frame, and disposed to pay attention to
what your good mother says. S/ie must
know best. Try and remember this,
whatever happens. You ought to say it
to yourself all the way down as a penance,
' My mother knows best.' "
" But how can she know best what I
am feeling?" said Rose. "It must be
myself who must judge of that."
" You may be sure she knows a great
deal more, and has given more thought
to it than you suppose," said the school-
mistress. *' Dear child, make me happy
by promising that you will follow he*" ad-
vice."
Rose made no promise, but her heart
sank as she thus set out upon her return
journey. It was less terrible when she
found herself alone in the railway carriage,
and yet it was more terrible as she realized
what desperation had driven her to. Slie
was going back as she went away with no
question decided, no resolution come to,
with only new complications to en-
counter, without the expedient of flight,
which could not be repeated. Ought she
not to have been more patient, to have
tried to put up with silence ? That could
not have lasted forever. But now she
was going to put herself back in the very
heart of the danger, with no ground
gained, but something lost. Well ! she
said to herself, at least it would be over.
She would know the worst, and there
would be no further appeal against it. If
happiness was over too, she would have
nothing to do in all the life before her —
nothing to do but to mourn over the loss
of it, and teach herself to do without it ;
and suspense would be over. She got
out of the carriage, pulling her veil over
her face, and took an unfrequented path
which led away across the fields to the road
near Whitton, quite out of reach of the
Green and all its inhabitants. It was a
long walk, but the air and the movement
did her good. She went on swiftly and
quietly, her whole mind bent upon the in-
terview she was going to seek. All be-
yond was a blank to her. This one thing,
evident and definite, seemed to fix and to
clear her dazzled eyesight. She met one or
two acquaintances, but they did not rec-
ognize her through her veil, though she
saw them, and recollected them ever
after, as having had something to do with
that climax and agony of her youth ; and
thus Rose reached Whitton, with its soft
abundant summer woods, and, her heart
beating louder and louder, hastened her
steps as she drew near her destination,
almost running across the park to Mr.
Incledon's door.
CHAPTER XVII.
" Rose ! is it possible ? " he cried.
She was standing in the midst of that
great, luxurious, beautiful drawing-room,
of which he hoped she was to be the
queen and mistress, her black dress
breaking harshly upon all the soft har-
mony of neutral tints around. Her face,
which he saw in the glass as he entered
the room, was framed in the large veil
which she had thrown back over her hat,
and which drooped down on her shoul-
ders on either side. She was quite pale
— her cheeks blanched out of all trace of
colour, with something of that chilled and
spiritual light which sometimes appears
in the colourless clearness of the sky
after a storm. Her eyes were larger than
usual, and had a dilated exhausted look.
Her face was full of a speechless, silent
eagerness — eagerness which could wait,
yet was almost beyond the common arti-
fices of concealment. Her hands were
softly clasped together, with a certain
eloquence in their close pressure, sup-
porting each other. All this Mr. Incle-
don saw in the glass before he could see
her ; and, though he went in with lively
and joyful animation, the sight startled
him a little. He came forward, however,
quite cheerfully, though his heart failed
him, and took the clasped hands into his,
" I did not look for such a bright inter-
ruption to a dull morning," he said ;
"but what a double pleasure it is to see
you here ! How good of you to come to
bring me the happy news of your re-
turn ! "
" Mr. Incledon," she said hastily, " ob !
do not be glad — ' don't say I am good. I
have come to you first without seeing
mamma. I have come to say a great deal
— a very great deal --to you j and to. ask
6oo
A ROSE IN JUNE.
— your advice ; — and if you will tell me
— what to do."
Her voice sank quite low before these
final words were said.
" My darling," he said, "you are very
serious and solemn. What can you want
advice about ? But whatever it is, you
have a right to the very best I can give
you. Let me hear what the difficulty is.
Here is a chair for you — one of your
own choice, the new ones. Tell me if
you think it comfortable ; and then tell
me what this terrible difficulty is."
" Oh, don't take it so lightly," said Rose,
" please don't. I am very, very unhappy,
and I have determined to tell you every-
thing and to let you judge for me. You
have the best right."
" Thanks for saying so," he said with a
smile, kissing her hand. He thought she
meant that as she was so surely his, it was
naturally his part to think for her and
help her in everything. What so nat-
ural ? And then he waited her dis-
closure, still smiling, expecting some
innocent dilemma, such as would be in
keeping with her innocent looks. He
could not understand her, nor the gravity
of the appeal to him which she had come
to make.
"Oh, Mr. Incledon ! " cried Rose, "if
you knew what I meant you would not
smile — you would not take it so easily. I
have come to tell you everything — how
I have lied to you and been a cheat and a
deceiver. Oh ! don't laugh ! you don't
know — you don't know how serious it
is!"
" Nay, dear child," he said, " do you
want to frighten me ? for if you do, you
must think of something more likely than
that you are a cheat and deceiver. Come
now, I will be serious — as serious as a
judge. Tell me what it is. Rose."
" It is about you and me," she said
suddenly, after a little pause.
"Ah!" — this startled him for the
first time. His grasp tightened upon her
hand ; but he used no more endearing
words. " Go on," he said, softly.
" May I begin at the beginning ? I
should like to tell you everything. When
you first spoke to me, Mr. Incledon, I
told you there was some one "
" Ah ! " cried Mr. Incledon again, still
more sharply, " he is here now. You
have seen him since he came back .-' "
" It is not that," said Rose. " Oh !
let me tell you from the beginning. I
said then that he had never said anything
to me. I could not tell you his name be-
'Cause I did not know what his feelings
were — only my own, of which I was
ashamed. Mr. Incledon, have patience
with me a little. Just before he went
away he came to the Rectory to say
good-bye. He sent up a message to ask
me to come down, but mamma went
down instead. Then his mother sent me
a little note, begging me to go to bid him
good-bye. It was while papa was ill; he
held my hand, and would not let me. I
begged him, only for a minute ; but he
held my hand, and would not let me go.
I had to sit there and listen, and hear the
door open and shut, and then steps in
the hall and on the gravel, and thea
mamma coming slowly back again, as if
nothing had happened, upstairs and along
the corridor. Oh ! I thought she was
walking on my heart ! "
Rose's eyes were so full that she did
not see how her listener looked. He
held her hand still, but with his disen-
gaged hand he partially covered his face.
" Then after that," she resumed, paus-
ing for breath, " all our trouble came. I
did not seem to care for anything. It is
dreadful to say it — and I never did say
it till now — but I don't think I felt so
unhappy as I ought about poor papa; I
was so unhappy before. It did not break
my heart as grief ought to do. I was
only dull — dull — miserable, and did not
care for anything ; but then everybody
was unhappy ; and there was good rea-
son for it, and no one thought of me. It
went on like that till you came."
Here he stirred a little and grasped her
hand more tightly. What she had said
hitherto had not been pleasant to him ;
but yet it was all before he had made his
appearance as her suitor — all innocent,
visionary — the very romance of youth-
ful liking. Such an early dream of the
dawning any man, even the most rigid,
might forgive to his bride.
"You came — oh! Mr. Incledon, do
not be angry — I want to tell you every-
thing. It it vexes you and hurts you,
will you mind ? You came ; and mamma
told me that same night. Oh, how
frightened I was and miserable ! Every-
thing seemed to turn round with me.
She said you loved me, and that you were
very good and very kind (but that I
knew), and would do so much for the
boys and be a comfort and help to her in
our great poverty." At these words he
stirred again and loosened, but did not
quite let go, his grasp of her hand. Rose
was, without knowing it, acting like a
skilful surgeon, cutting deep and sharp,
that the pain might be over the sooner.
A ROSE IN JUNE.
6oi
He leaned his head on his other hand,
turning it away from her, and from time
to time stirred unconsciously when the
sting was too much for him, but did not
speak. " And she said more than this.
Oh, Mr. Incledon ! I must tell you
everything, as if you were my own heart.
She told me that papa had not been —
considerate for us, as he should have
been ; that he liked his own way and his
own pleasure best ; and that I was fol-
lowing him — that I was doing the same
— ruining the boys' prospects and pro-
longing our great poverty, because I did
not want to marry you, though you had
promised to help them and set every-
thing right."
Mr. Incledon dropped Rose's hand ; he
turned half away from her, supporting
his head upon both of his hands, so that
she did not see his face. She did not
know how cruel she was, nor did she
mean to be cruel, but simply historical,
telling him everything, as if she had been
speaking to her own heart.
"Then I saw you," said Rose, "and
told you — or else I thought I told ycu
— and you did not mind, but would not,
though I begged you, give up. And
everything went on for a long, long time.
Sometimes I was very wretched; some-
times my heart felt quite dull, and 1 did
not seem to mind what happened. Some-
times I forgot for a little while — and oh !
Mr. Incledon, now and then, though I
tried very hard, I could not help thinking
of — him. I never did when I could help
it ; but sometimes when I saw the lights
on Ankermead, or remembered some-
thing he had said And all this time
mamma would talk to me of people
who prefer their own will to the happi-
ness of others ; of all the distress and
misery it brought when we indulged our-
selves and our whims and fancies ; of
how much better it was to do what was
right than what we liked. My head got
confused sometimes, and I felt as if she
was wrong, but I could not put it into
words ; for how could it be right to de-
ceive a good man like you — to let you
give your love for nothing, and marry you
without caring for you ? But I am not
clever enough to argue with mamma.
Once, I think, for a minute, I got the
better of her ; but when she told me that
I was preferring my own will to every-
body's happiness, it went to my heart,
and what could I say ? Do you remem-
ber ihe day when it was all settled at last
and made up ? "
This was more than the poor man
could bear. He put up one hand with a
wild gesture to stop her and uttered a
hoarse exclamation ; but Rose was too
much absorbed in her storv to stop.
" The night before I had gone down
into the Rectory garden, where he
and I used to talk, and there I said good-
bye to him in my heart, and made a kind
of grave over him, and gave him up for
ever and ever — oh ! don't you know
how .'' " said Rose, the tears dropping on
her black dress. "Then I was willing
that it should be settled how you pleased ;
and I never, never allowed myself to
think of him any more. When he came
into my head, I went to the schoolroom,
or I took a hard bit of music, or I talked
to mamma, or heard Patty her lessons. I
would not, because I thought it would be
wicked to you, and you so good to me,
Mr. Incledon. Oh ! if you had only
been my brother, or my — cousin (she had
almost said, father or uncle, but by good
luck forbore), how fond I should have
been of you ! — and I am fond of you,"
said Rose, softly proffering the hand
which he had put away, and laying it
gently upon his arm. He shook his
head, and made a little gesture as if to
put it off, but yet the touch and the words
went to his heart.
" Now comes the worst of all," said
Rose. " I know it will hurt you, and yet
I must tell you. After that there came
the news of Uncle Edward's death ; and
that he had left his money to us, and
that we were well off again — better than
we had ever been. Oh, forgive me ! for-
give me ! " she said, clasping his arm
with both her hands, "when I heard it, it
seemed to me all in a moment that I was
free. Mamma said that all the sacrinces
we had been making would be unneces-
sary henceforward ; what she meant was
the things we had been doing — dusting
the rooms, putting the table straight,
helping in the house — oh! as if these
could be called sacrifices ! but I thoui^ht
she meant me. You are angry — you are
angry 1 " said Rose. " I could not ex-
pect anything else. But it was not you,
Mr. Incledon ; it was that I hated to be
married. I could not — could not make up
my mind to it. I turned into a different
creature when I thought that I was free."
The simplicity of the story disarmed
the man, sharp and bitter as was the
sting and mortification of listening to this
too artless tale. " Poor child ! poor
child ! " he murmured, in a softer tone,
unclasping the delicate fingers from his
arm ; and then, with an eftort, " I am not
6o2
A ROSE IN JUNE.
angry. Go on ; let me hear it to the
end."
" When mamma saw how glad I was,
she stopped it all at once," said Rose,
controlling herself. "She said I was
just the same as ever — always self-indul-
gent, thinking of myself, not of others —
and that I was as much bound as ever
by honour. There was no longer any
question of the boys, or of help to the
family ; but she said honour was just as
much to be considered, and that I had
pledged my word "
"Rose," quietly said Mr. Incledon,
"spare me what you can of these discus-
sions — you had pledged your word ? "
She drew away half frightened, not ex-
pecting the harsher tone in his voice,
though she had expected him to "be
angry," as she said. " Forgive me," she
went on, subdued, " I was so disappointed
that it made me wild. I did not know
what to do. I could not see any reason
for it now — any good in it ; and, at last,
when I was almost crazy with thinking, I
— ran away."
"You ran away?" — Mr. Incledon
raised his head, indignant. " Your moth-
er has lied all round," he said, fiercely ;
then, bethinking himself, " I beg your
pardon. Mrs. Damerel no deubt had her
reasons for what she said."
" There was only one place that I could
go to," said Rose, timidly, " Miss Mar-
getts', where I was at school. I went up
to the station for the early train that no-
body might see me. I was very much
frightened. Some one was standing
there ; I did not know who he was — he
came by the train, I think ; but after I
had got into the carriage he came in after
me. Mr. Incledon ! it was not his fault,
neither his nor mine. I had not been
thinking of him. It was not for him, but
only not to be married — to be free "
" Of me," he said, with a bitter smile ;
"but, in short, you met, whether by in-
tention or not — and Mr. VVodehouse took
advantage of his opportunities .'* "
" He told me," said Rose, not looking
at Mr. Incledon, " what I had known ever
so long without being told ; but I said
nothing to him ; what could I say ? I
told him all that had happened. He took
me to Miss Margetts', and there we
parted," said Rose, with a momentary
pause and a deep sigh. " Since then I
have done nothing but think and think.
No one has come near me — no one has
written to me. I have been left alone to
go over and over it all in my own mind.
1 have done so till I was nearly mad, or,
at least, everything seemed going round
with me and everything confused, and I
could not tell what was right and what
was wrong. Oh ! " cried Rose, lifting her
head in natural eloquence, with eyes
which looked beyond him, and a certain
elevation and abstraction in her face, "I
don't think it is a thing in which only
right and wrong are to be considered.
When you love one and do not love an-
other, it must mean something; and to
marry unwillingly, that is nothing to con-
tent a man. It is a wrong to him ; it is
not doing right; it is treating him un-
kindly, cruelly ! It is as if he wanted
you, anyhow, like a cat or a dog ; not as
if he wanted you worthily, as his com-
panion." Rose's courage failed her after
this little outburst ; her high looks came
down, her voice sank and faltered, her
head drooped. She rose up, and clasping
her hands together, went on in low tones :
" Mr. Incledon, I am engaged to you ; I
belong to you. I trust your justice and
your kindness more than anything else.
If you say I am to marry you, I will do
it. Take it now into your own hands. If
I think of it any more I will go mad ; but
I will do whatever you say."
He was walking up and down the room,
with his face averted, and with pain and
anger aad humiliation in his heart. All
this time he had believed he was leading
Rose towards the reasonabU love for him
which was all he hoped for. He had sup-
posed himself in almost a lofty position,
offering to this young, fresh, simple crea-
ture more in every way than she could
ever have had but for him — a higher
lX)sition, a love more noble than any
foolish boy-and-girl attachment. To fina
out in a moment how very different the
real state of the case had been, and to
have conjured up before him the picture
of a martyr-girl, weeping and struggling,
and a mother " with a host of petty max-
ims preaching down her daughter's
heart, ' was intolerable to him. He had
never been so mortified, so humbled in
all his life. He walked up and down the
room in a ferment, with that sense of the
unbearable which is so bitter. Unbear-
able ! — yet to be borne somehow; a
something not to be ignored or cast off.
It said much for Rose's concluding ap-
peal that he heard it at all, and took in
the meaning of it in his agitation and hot
indignant rage ; but he did hear it and it
touched him. " If you say I am to marry
you, I will do it." He stopped short la
his impatient walk. Should he say it —
in mingled despite and love — and keep
A ROSE IN JUNE.
603
She had gone
her to her word ? He came up to her
and took her clasped hands within his,
half in anger half in tenderness, and
looked her in the face.
" If I saj you are to marry me, you
will do it ? You pledge yourself to that ?
You will marry me, if I please ? "
"Yes," said Rose, very pale, looking
up at him steadfastly. She neither
trembled nor hesitated,
beyond any superficial emotion
Then he stooped and kissed her with a
passion which was rough — almost bru-
tal. Rose's pale face flushed, and her
slight figure wavered like a reed ; but
she neither shrank nor complained. He
had a right to dictate to her — she had
put it into his hands. The look of those
large innocent eyes, from which all con-
flict had departed, which had grown ab-
stract in their wistfulness, holding fast at
least by one clear duty, went to his
heart. He kept looking at her, but she
did not quail. She had no thought but
her word, and to do what she had said.
" Rose," he said, " you are a cheat,
like all women. You come to me with
this face, and insult me and stab me, and
say then you will do what I tell you, and
stand there, looking at me with innocent
eyes like an angel. How could you find it
in your heart — if you have a heart — to
tell me all this ? How dare you put that
dainty little cruel foot of yours upon my
neck, and scorn and torture me — how
dare you, how dare you ! " There came a
glimmer into his eyes, as if it might have
been some moisture forced up by means
beyond his control, and he held her
hands with such force that it seemed to
Rose he shook her, whether willingly or
not. But she did not shrink. She
looked up at him, her eyes growing more
and more wistful, and though he hurt
her, did not complain.
" It was that you might know all the
truth," she said, almost under her breath.
" Now you know everything and can
judge — and I will do as you say."
He held her so for a minute longer,
which seemed eternity to Rose ; then he
let her hands drop and turned away.
" It is not you who are to blame," he
said, " not you, but your mother, who
would have sold you. Good God ! — do
all women traffic in their own flesh and
blood ?"
" Do not say so ! " cried Rose, with
sudden tears — " you shall not ! I will not
hear it ! She has been wrong ; but that
was not what she meant."
Mr. Incledon laughed — his mood
Beemed to have changed all in a moment.
" Come," he said, '' Rose. Perhaps it is
not quite decorous for you, a young lady,
to be here alone. Come ! I will take
you to your mother, and then you shall
hear what I have got to say."
She walked out of the great house by
his side as if she were in a dream. What
did he mean ? The suspense became
terrible to her ; for she could not guess
what he would say. Her poor little feet
twisted over each other and she stum-
bled and staggered with weakness as she
went along beside him — stumbled so
much that he made her take his arm, and
led her carefully along, with now and
then a kind but meaningless word. Be-
fore they entered the White House, Rose
was leaning almost her whole weight
upon his supporting arm. The world was
swimming and floating around, the trees
going in circles, now above, now below
her, she thought. She was but half con-
scious when she went in, stumbling
across the threshold, to the little hall, all
bright with Mr. Incledon's flowers. Was
she to be his, too, like one of them — a
flower to carry about wherever he went,
passive and helpless as one of the plants
— past resistance, almost past suffering ?
" I am afraid she is ill ; take care of her,
Agatha," said Mr. Incledon to her sister,
who came rushing open-mouthed and
open-eyed; and. leaving her there, he
strode unannounced into the drawing-
room to meet the real author of his dis-
comfiture, an antagonist more worthy of
his steel and against whom he could use
his weapons with less compunction than
against the submissive Rose.
Mrs. Damerel had been occupied all
the morning with Mr. Nolan, who had
obeyed her summons on the first day of
Rose's flight, but whom she had dis-
missed when she ascertained where her
daughter was, assuring him that to do
nothing was the best policy, as indeed it
had proved to be. The Curate had gone
home that evening obedient ; but moved
by that electrical impulse which seemed
to have set all minds interested in Rose
in motion on that special day, had come
back this morning to urge her mother to
go to her, or to allow him to go to her.
Mr. Nolan's presence had furnished an
excuse to Mrs. Damerel for declining to
receive poor young Wodehouse, who had
asked to see her immediately after break-
fast. She was discussing even then with
the Curate how to get rid of him, what to
say to him, and what it was best to do to
bring Rose back to her duty. " I can't
6o4
A ROSE IN JUNE.
see so clear as you that it's her duty, in
all the circumstances," the Curate had
said, doubtfully. " What have circum-
stances to do with a matter of right and
wrong — of truth and honour ? " cried
Mrs. Damerel. " She must keep her
word." It was at this precise moment of
the conversation that Mr. Incledon ap-
peared ; and I suppose she must have
seen something in his aspect and the ex-
pression of his face that showed some
strange event had happened. Mrs. Dam-
erel gave a low cry, and the muscles of
Mr. Incledon's mouth were moved by
one of those strange contortions which
in such cases are supposed to do duty
for a smile. He bowed low, with a mock
reverence to Mr. Nolan, but did not put
out his hand.
" I presume," he said, " that this gen-
tleman is in the secret of my humiliation,
as well as the rest of the family, and that
I need not hesitate to say what I have to
say before him. It is pleasant to think
that so large a circle of friends interest
themselves in my affairs."
" What do you mean ? " said Mrs.
Damerel. " Your humiliation ! Have
you sustained any humiliation ? I do
not know what you mean."
" Oh ! I can make it very clear," he
said, with the same smile. "Your daugh-
ter has been with me ; I have just
brought her home."
"What! Rose?" said Mrs. Damerel,
starting to her feet ; but he stopped her
before she could make a step.
" Do not go," he said ; " it is more im-
portant that you should stay here. What
have I done to you that you should have
thus humbled me to the dust ? Did I
ask you to sell her to me ? Did I want a
wife for hire ? Should I have author-
ized any one to persecute an innocent
girl, and drive her almost mad for me ?
Good heavens, for me ! Think of it if
you can. Am I the sort of man to be
forced on a girl — to be married as a
matter of duty? How dared you — how
dared any one insult me so ! "
Mrs. Damerel, who had risen to her
feet, sank into a chair, and covered her
face with her hands. I do not think she
had ever once taken into consideration
this side of the question.
"Mr. Incledon," she stammered, "you
have been misinformed ; you are mis-
taken. Indeed, indeed, it is not so."
" Misinformed ! " he cried ; " mistak-
en ! I have my information'from the very
fountainhead — from the poor child who
has been all but sacrificed to this sup-
posed commercial transaction between
you and me, which I disown altogether
for my part. I never made such a bar-
gain, nor thought of it. I never asked to
buy your Rose. I might have won her,
perhaps," he added, calming himself with
an effort, "if you had let us alone, or I
should have discovered at once that it
was labour lost. Look here. We have
been friends, and I never thought of you
till to-day but with respect and kindness.
How could you put such an affront on
me?"
" Gently, gently," said Mr. Nolan,
growing red; "you go too far, sir. If
Mrs. Damerel has done wrong, it was a
rnistake of the judgment, not of the
heart."
" The heart ! " he cried, contemptu-
ously ; "how much heart was there in
it ? On poor Rose's side, a broken one ;
on mine, a heart deceived and deluded.
Pah ! do not speak to me of hearts or
mistakes ; I am too deeply mortified —
too much wronged for that."
"Mr. Incledon," said Mrs. Damerel,
rising, pale yet self-possessed, " I may
have done wrong, as you say ; but what I
have done, I did for my child's advan-
tage and for yours. You were told she
did not love you, but you persevered ;
and I believed, and believe still, that
when she knew you better — when she
was your wife — she would love you. I
may have pressed her too far ; but it was
no more a commercial transaction — no
more a sale of my daughter — " she said,
with a burning flush coming over her
face — " no more than I tell you. You
do me as much wrong as you say I have
done you Rose ! Rose ! "
Rose came in, followed by Agatha,
with her hat off, which showed more
clearly the waste which emotion and fa-
tigue, weary anxiety, waiting, abstinence,
and mental suffering had worked upon
her face. She had her hands clasped
loosely yet firmly, in the attitude which
had become habitual to her, and a pale
smile like the wannest of winter sunshine
on her face. She came up very quietly,
and stood between the two, like a ghost,
Agatha said, who stood trembling be-
hind her.
" Mamma, do not be angry," she said,
softly ; " I have told him everything, and
I am quite ready to do whatever he de-
cides. In any case he ought to know
everything, for it is he who is most con-
cerned— he and me."
A ROSE IN JUNE.
605
CHAPTER XVIII.
Captain Wodehouse did not get ad-
mission to the White House that day
until the afternoon. He was not to be
discouraged, though the messages he got
were of a depressing nature enough.
"Mrs. Damerel was engaged, and could
not see him ; would he come later ? "
" Mrs. Damerel was still engaged — more
engaged than ever." And while Mary
Jane held the door ajar, Edward heard a
voice raised high, with an indignant tone,
speaking continuously, which was the
voice of Mr. Incledon, though he did not
identify it. Later still, Mrs. Damerel
was still engaged ; but, as he turned de-
spairing from the door, Agatha rushed
out, with excited looks, and with a mes-
sage that if he came back at three o'clock
her mother would see him. " Rose has
come home, and oh ! there has been such
a business ! " Agatha whispered into his
ear before she rushed back again. She
knew a lover, and especially a favoured
lover, by instinct, as some girls do ; but
Agatha had the advantage of always
knowing her own mind, and never would
be the centre of any imbroglio, like the
unfortunate Rose.
"Are you going back to the White
House again ? " said Mrs. Wodehouse.
" I wonder how you can be so servile,
Edward. I would not go, hat in hand, to
any girl, if I were you ; and when you
know that she is engaged to another man,
and he a great deal better off than you
are ! How can you show so little spirit ?
There are more Roses in the garden than
one, and sweeter Roses and richer,
would be glad to have you. If I had
thought you had so little proper pride, I
should never have wished you to come
here."
" I don't think I have any proper
pride," said Edward, trying to make a
feeble joke of it ; "I have to come home
now and Uien to know what it means."
" You were not always so poor-spirit-
ed," said his mother; "it is that silly
girl who has turned your head. And she
is not even there ; she has gone up to
town to get her trousseau and choose her
wedding silks, so they say ; and you may
be sure, if she is engaged like that, she
does not want to be reminded of you."
" I suppose not," said Edward, drear-
ily ; " but as I promised to go back, I
think I must. I ought at least to bid
them good-bye."
" Oh ! if that is all," said Mrs. Wode-
house, pacified, "go, my dear ; and mind
you put the very best face upon it. Don't
look as if it were anything to you ; con-
gratulate them, and say you are glad to
hear that any one so nice as Mr. Incledon
is to be the gentleman. Oh! if I were
in your place, I should know what to
say ! I should give Miss Rose some-
thing to remember. I should tell her I
hoped she would be happy in her grand
house, and was glad to hear that the set-
tlements were everything they ought to
be. She would feel that, you may be
sure ; for a girl that sets up for romance
and poetry and all that don't like to be
supposed mercenary. She should not
soon forget her parting with me."
" Do you think I wish to hurt and
wound her ? " said Edward. " Surely no.
If she is happy, I will wish her more hap-
piness. She has never harmed me — no,
mother. It cannot do a man any harm,
even if it makes him unhappy, to think of
a woman as I think of Rose."
" Oh ! you have no spirit," cried Mrs.
Wodehouse ; " I don't know how a son
of mine can take it so easily. Rose, in-
deed ! Her very name makes my blood
boil!"
But Edward's blood was very far from
boiling as he walked across the Green for
the third time that day. The current of
life ran cold and low in him. The fiery
determination of the morning to "have
it out" with Mrs. Damerel, and know his
fate and Rose's fate, had fallen into a
despairing resolution at least to see her
for the last time, to bid her forget every-
thing that had passed, and try himself to
forget. If her fate was sealed, and no
longer in her own power to alter, that was
all a generous man could do ; and he felt
sure, from the voices he had heard, and
from the air of agitation about the house,
and from Agatha's hasty communication,
that this day had been a crisis to more
than himself. He met Mr. Incledon as
he approached the house. His rival
looked at him gravely without a smile,
and passed him with an abrupt "good-
morning." Mr. Incledon had not the air
of a triumphant lover, and there was
something of impatience and partial of-
fence in his look as his eyes lingered for
a moment upon the young sailor ; so it
appeared to Edward, though I think it
was rather regret, and a certain wistful
envy that was in Mr. Incledon's eyes.
This young fellovv, not half so clever, or
so cultivated, or so important as himself,
had won the prize which he had tried for
and failed. The baffled man was still
disturbed by unusual emotion, but he was
6q6
A ROSE IN JUNE.
not ungenerous in bis sentiments ; but
then the other believed that he himself
was the failure, and that Mr. Incledon
had succeeded, and interpreted his looks,
as we all do, according to the commentary
in our own minds. Edward went on
more depressed than ever after this meet-
ing. Just outside the White House he
encountered Mr. Nolan, going out to
walk with the children. " Now that the
gale
is over, the little boats are going;
out for a row," said the Curate, looking
at him with a smile. It was not like Mr.
Nolan's usual good nature, poor Edward
thought. He was ushered in at once to
the drawing-room, where Mrs. Damerel
sat in a great chair, leaning back, with a
Ibok of weakness and exhaustion quite
out of keeping with h'er usual energy.
She held out her hand to him without
rising. Her eyes were red, as if she had
been shedding tears, and there was a
flush upon her face. Altogether, her ap-
pearance bewildered him ; no one in the
world had ever seen Mrs. Damerel look-
ing like this before.
" I am afraid you will think me impor-
tunate, coming back so often," he said,
"but I felt that I must see you. Not
that I come with much hope ; but still it
is better to know the very worst, if there
is no good to hear."
" It depends on what you think worst
or best," she said. " Mr. Wodehouse,
you told me you were promoted — you are
captain now, and you have a ship?"
" Commander : and alas ! under orders
for China, with ten days' more leave," he
said, with a faint smile ; "though perhaps,
on the whole, that may be best. Mrs.
Damerel, may I not ask — for Rose?
Pardon me for calling her so — I can't
think of her otherwise. If it is all settled
and made up, and my poor chance over,
may I not see her, only for a few min-
utes ? If you think what a dismal little
story mine has been — sent away without
seeing her a year ago, then raised into
sudden hope by our chance meeting the
other morning, and now, I suppose, sen-
tenced to banishment forever "
" Stay a little," she said ; " I have had
a very exciting day, and I am much worn
out. Must you go in t-en days ? "
" Alas ! " said Wodehouse, " and even
my poor fortnight got with suo^ii difficulty
— though perhaps on the whole it is bet-
ter, Mrs. Damerel."
"Yes," she said, "have patience a mo-
ment ; things have turned out very dif-
ferently from what I wished. I cannot
pretend to be pleased, scarcely resigned.
to what you have all done between you.
You have nothing to offer my daughter,
nothing ! and she has nothing to contrib-
ute on her side. It is all selfish inclina-
tion, what you liked, not what was best,
that has swayed you. You had not self-
denial enouo^h to keep silent ; she had
not self-denial enough to consider that
this is not a thing for a day but for life ;
and the consequences, I suppose, as
usual, will fall upon me. All my life I have
had nothing to do but toil to make up for
the misfortunes caused by self-indul-
gence. Others have had their will and
pleasure, and I have paid the penalty. I
thought for once it might have been dif-
ferent, but I have been mistaken, as you
see."
" You forget that I have no clue to
your meaning — that you are speaking
riddles," said Wodehouse, whose de-
pressed heart had begun to rise and flut-
ter and thump against his young breast.
" Ah ; that is true," said Mrs. Damerel,
rising with a sigh. " Well, I wash my
hands of it ; and for the rest you will
prefer to hear it from Rose rather than
from me."
He stood in the middle of the room
speechless when she closed the door be-
hind her, and heard her soft steps going
in regular measure through the still
house, as Rose had heard them once.
How still it was ! the leaves fluttering at
the open window, the birds singing, Mrs.
Damerel's footsteps sounding fainter, his
heart beating louder. But he had not
very long to wait.
Mr. Nolan and the children went out
on the river, and rowed up that long
lovely reach past Alfredsbury, skirting
the bank which was pink with branches
of the wild rose and sweet with the feath-
ery flowers of the queen of the meadows.
Dick flattered himself that he pulled an
e.xcellent bow, and the Curate, who loved
t*iie children's chatter, and themselves,
humoured the boy to the top of kis bent.
Agatha steered, and felt it an important
duty, and Patty, who had nothing else to
do, leaned her weight over the side of the
boat, and did her best to capsize it, clutch-
ing at the wild roses and the meadow
queen. They shipped their oars and
floated down with the stream wiien they
had gone as far as they cared to go, and
went up the hill again to the White House
in a perfect bower of wild flowers, though
the delicate rose blossoms began to droop
in the warm grasp of the children before
they got home. When they ruslied in,
flooding the house all through and through
A ROSE IN TUNE.
with their voices and their joyous breath
and their flowers, they found all the
rooms empty, the drawing-room silent, in
a green repose, and not a creature visible.
But while Agatha rushed upstairs, calling
upon her mother and Rose, Mr. Nolan
saw a sight from the window which set
his mind at rest. Two young figures to-
gether, one leaning on the other — two
heads bent close, talking too low for any
hearing but their own. The Curate
looked at them with a smile and a sigh.
They had attained the height of blessed-
ness. What better could the world give
them ? and yet the good Curate's sigh
was not all for the disappointed, nor his
smile for their happiness alone.
The lovers were happy ; but there are
drawbacks to everj mortal felicity. The
fact that Edward had but nine days left,
and that their fate must after that be left
in obscurity was, as may be supposed, a
very serious drawback to their happiness.
But their good fortune did not forsake
them ; or rather, to speak more truly, the
disappointed lover did not forsake the
girl who had appealed to him, who had
mortified and tortured him, and promised
with all the unconscious cruelty of can-
dour to marry him if he told her to do so.
Mr. Incledon went straight to town from
the White House, intent on finishing the
work he had begun. He had imposed on
Mrs. Damerel as a duty to him, as a rec-
ompense for all that he had suffered at
her hands, the task of receiving Wode-
house, and sanctioning the love which
her daughter had given ; and he went up
to town to the Admiralty, to his friend
whose unfortunate leniency had per-
mitted the young sailor to return home.
Mr. Incledon treated the matter lightly,
making a joke of it. " I told you he was
not to come home, but to be sent off as
far as possible," he said.
" Why, what harm coiild the poor j
young fellow do in a fortnight ? " said my
Lord. " I find I knew his father — a fine i
fellow and a good officer. The son shall |
be kept in mind, both for his sake and I
yours." j
" He has done all tSe harm that was
apprehended in his fortnight," said Mr.
Incledon, " and now you must give him |
an extension of leave — enough to be
married in. There's nothing else for it. j
You ought to do your best for him, for it ■
is your fault." I
Upon which my Lord, who was of a '
genial nature, laughed and inquired into
the story, which Mr. Incledon related to
him after a fashion in a wav which amused
607
him hugely. The consequence was that
Commander Wodehouse got his leave ex-
tended to three months, and was trans-
ferred from the China station to the
Mediterranean. Mr. Incledon never told
him who was the author of this benefit,
though I think they had little difificulty in
guessing. He sent Rose a pariire of
pearls and turquoises, simple enough for
her youth, and the position she had pre-
ferred to his, and sent the diamonds
which had been reset for her back to his
bankers ; and then he went abroad. He
did not go back to Whitton even for
necessary arrangements, but sent for all
he wanted ; and after that morning's work
in the White House, returned to Dingle-
field no more for years.
After this there was no possible reason
for delay, and Rose was married to her
sailor in the parish church by good Mr.
Nolan, and instead of any other wedding
tour went off to cruise with him in the
Mediterranean. She had regained her
bloom, and merited her old name again
before the day of the simple wedding.
Happiness brought back colour and fra-
grance to the Rose in June ; but traces
of the storm that had almost crushed her
never altogether disappeared, from her
heart at least, if they did from her face.
She cried over Mr. Incledon's letter the
day before she became Edward Wode-
house's wife. She kissed the turquoises
when she fastened them about her pretty
neck. Love is the best, no doubt ; but it
would be hard if to other sentiments less
intense even a bride might not spare a
tear.
As for the mothers on either side, they
were both indifferently satisfied. Mrs.
Wodehouse would not unbend so much
for months after as to say anything but
"Good morning" to Mrs. Damerel, who
had done her best to make her boy un-
happy ; and as for the marriage, now that
it was accomplished after so much fuss
and bother, it was after all nothing of a
match for Edward. Mrs. Damerel, on
her side, was a great deal too proud to
offer any explanations except such as
were absolutely necessary to those few
influential friends who must be taken
into every one's confidence who desires
to keep a place in society. She told those
confidants frankly enough that Edward
and Rose had met accidentally, and that
a youthful love, supposed to be over long
ago, had burst forth again so warmly, that
nothing could be done but to tell Mr. In-
cledon ; and that he had behaved like a
hero. The Green for a little while was
6o8
A ROSE IN JUNE.
very angry at Rose ; the ladies shook
their heads at her, and said how very,
very hard it was on poor Mr. Incledon.
But Mr. Incledon was gone, and Whitton
shut up, while Rose still remained with
all the excitement of a pretty wedding in
prospect, and "a perfect romance" in
the shape of a love-story. Gradually,
therefore, the girl was forgiven ; the
richer neighbours went up to town and
bought their presents, the poorer ones
looked over their stores to see what they
could give, and the girls made pieces of
lace for her, and pin-cushions, and anti-
macassars ; and thus her offence was
condoned by all the world. Though Mrs.
Damerel asked but a few people to the
breakfast, the church was crowded to see
the wedding, and all the gardens in the
parish cut their best roses for its decora-
tion ; for this event occurred in July,
the end of the rose season. Dinglefield
Church overflowed with roses, and the
bridesmaids' dresses were trimmed with
them, and every man in the place had
some sort of a rosebud in his coat. And
thus it was half smothered in roses that
the young people went away.
Mr. Incledon was not heard of for
years after ; but quite lately he came
back to Whitton married to a beautiful
Italian lady, for whose sake it was, origi-
nally, as Rumour whispered, that he had
remained unmarried so long. This lady
had married and forsaken him nearly
twenty years before, and had become a
widow about the time that he left Eng-
land. I hope, therefore, that though
Rose's sweet youth and freshness had
attracted him to her, and though he had
regarded her with deep tenderness, hop-
ing, perhaps, for a new, subdued, yet
happy life through her means, there had
been little passion in him to make his
wound bitter after the mortification of
the moment. The Contessa was a wo-
man of his own age, who had been beau-
tiful, and was magnificent, a regal kind
of creature, at home aniid all the luxuries
which his wealth provided, and filling a
very different position from anything
that could have been attainable by Rose.
They dazzle the people on the Green when
they are at Whitton, and the Contessa
is as gracious and more inaccessible than
any queen. She smiles at them all be-
nignly, and thinks them an odd sort of
gentle savages, talking over their heads
in a voice which is louder and rounder
th*an suits with English notions. And it
is reported generally that Mr. Incledon
and his foreign wife are " not happy." I
cannot say anything about this one way
I or another, but I am sure that the happi-
ness he shares with the Contessa must
be something of a very different charac-
ter from that which he would have had
with Rose ; higher, perhaps, as mere love
(you all say) is the highest ; but different
— and in some things, perhaps, scarcely
so homely-sweet.
When Rose heard of this, which she did
in the harbour of an Italian port, she was
moved by interest so true and lively that
her husband was almost jealous. She
read her mother's letter over and over,
and could not be done talking of it. Cap-
tain Wodehouse after awhile had to go
on shore, and his wife sat on the deck
while the blue waves grew bluer and
bluer with evening under the great ship,
and the Italian sky lost its bloom of sun-
set, and the stars came out in the magical
heavens. What a lovely scene it was,
the lights in the houses twinkling and
rising tier on tier, the little lamps quiver-
ing at the mastheads, the stars in the sky.
Rose shut her soft eyes, which were wet
— was it with dew ? and saw before her
not the superb Genoa and the charmed
Italian night, but the little Green with its
sunburnt grass and the houses standing
round, in each one of which friendly eyes
were shining. She saw the green old
drawing-room of the White House, and
the look he cast upon her as he turned
and went away. That was the day when
the great happiness of her life came upon
her ; and yet she had lost something, she
could not tell what, when Mr. Incledon
went away. And now he was married,
and to his old love, some one who had
gone before herself in his heart, and
came after her, and was its true owner.
Rose shed a few tears quite silently
in the soft night, which did not be-
tray her. Her heart contracted for a
moment with a strange pang — was she
jealous of this unknown woman ? " God
bless him ! " she said to herself, with a
little outburst of emotion. Did not she
owe him all she had in the world .? good
right had Rose to bid " God bless him ! "
but yet there was an undisclosed shade of
feeling which was not joy in his happi-
ness, lingering in her heart.
" Do you think we could find out who
this Contessa is ?" she said to her hus-
band, when he returned. " I hope she is
a good woman, and will make him happy."
"Yes," said Captain Wodehouse, '• he
is a good fellow, and deserves to be
happy ; and now you can be comfortable,
my dear, for you see he has consoled
himself," he added, with a laugh.
ST. THOMAS.
609
From The Cornhlll Magazine. | dren, very dirty, I make no doubt (for the
laws of ablution do not seem obligatory
on the juvenile faithful), play about the
entrance. Turkish slippers strew the
hall ; against the latticed windows of
what was once my sitting room, now
transformed — a most poetic, most pro-
ST. THOMAS.
From Trebizond, Asia Minor, Turkey,
to St. Thomas, Danish Antilles, West
Indies, is a distance of one hundred and
six geographical degrees of longitude
West, and of twenty-four degrees of lati-
tude South ; besides some odd minutes,
the exact number of which may be deter-
mined by reference, say, to Keith John-
ston's " Royal Atlas." Not a full third of
the circumference of the globe in one di-
rection, and little more than a ninth in the
other. But insignificant as these distan-
ces may appear on a map, especially one
of Mercator's delusive projection, they
are in reality immense. Their true meas-
urement is not by miles, but by centuries ;
not by geographical, but by cosmical
lines ; by those, in fact, that divide the
oldest of the Old World from the newest
of the New.
With Xenophon and Arrian for its
chroniclers, broken Roman sculptures
and crumbling Byzantine walls for its
memorials, Pontic tombs excavated in
its rocks, and the mosque, in which
Mahomet the Conqueror said his thanks-
giving prayer, the Te Deum of Islam,
crowning its heights, Trebizond is old
enough in all conscience ; nor do its wide-
trousered, cross-legged shop-keepers,
its veiled women, its mangy dogs, and
its dark patches of C3'press grove over
Turkish-lettered tombstones, each in-
scribed with "He is the Eternal," sug-
gest much idea of change. Indeed, its
extreme easterly, that is most out-of-the-
way, position in the most unprogressive
of all empires, that is Turkey, might
alone furnish sufficient warrant that tlie
refuge of the Ten Thousand is in no im-
minent danger of becoming modernized.
Nor is it ; my word for the fact.
Sunrise may be never so lovely, but
saic thought! — into a Turkish harem
apartment, moon-faced Turkish beauties
flatten their lovely noses, as they gaze, if
they care to do so, on the grey Byzantine
walls of the Comnenian fortress across
the opposite ravine. My negro groom,
the best gereed-player in the province,
has, I hear, settled down into the quiet
proprietor of a small coffee-house by the
beach ; my Turkoman attendants have
transferred the pistols and daggers with
which they loved to skewer their volumi-
nous waist-bands to the service of other
masters. Town, castle, market-place,
inhabitants, house, garden, friends, de-
pendants, all have retreated into the less-
ening proportions of remote perspective ;
new figures, new landscapes, thrust
them daily further and further off across
the gulf of life-long distance and separa-
tion. Yet they have each and all of them
an abiding place in not ungrateful recol-
lection, and a good wish for the long and
undisturbed continuance of their con-
tented stagnation ; from the Tartar-eyed,
wool-capped driver who lounges purpose-
less in the miry Meidan beside his
crouching camel, to the drowsy pasha
who languidly extends a be-ringed hand
for the scrap of dirty paper on which is
scrawled, for the fiftieth lime, the long- ,
unanswered petition. They all belong,
more than they themselves know, to the
world's great past ; and the past, be it
what it may, has in it a charm denied to
the present. " S ly not," vainly preaches
the old Chaldaeanized rabbi who has as-
sumed the name, but not, if scholars are
sunset moves us more ; and a farewell to right, the style and dialect of the Son of
the old calls up a deeper response in our David, "say not thou what is the cause
nature than a welcome to the young. I
have left it, amid the chill grey shades of
an April evenin ■^, the late almost wintry
April of those regions ; and I have no
wish to see again that still, mist-shrouded
line of mountain-cape and dark forest ;
no desire to climb again that rock-hewn
ascent, to tread those rough-paven streets,
and receive the obsequious salaams of
the wide-robed, bearded inhabitants, who
rise up Eastern fashion to greet the
official badge as it passes by.
The British lion and unicorn have dis-
that the former days were better than
these." Why not ? most venerable
Babylonian. Is it that the former days
were in reality no better than the pres-
ent, rather worse ? Tliat a six-pound fran-
chise is in very fact an improvement,
penny papers a gain, and steam-engines
a blessing .? Oris it that the old print-
ingless, steamless, Brigh: and Gladstone-
less times were really the best ? and the
cry of " God Save King Solomon ! " more
to the purpose than the triumphant shout
of a Beales and a Beales-led multitude
appeared from over the door of my little | over the demolished railings of Hyde
garden-surrounded house; Turkish chil- Park ? Truly I know not, nor perhaps
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 351
6io
ST. THOMAS.
did either the Hebrew Chaldaean moral-
izer. Let us take the world as we find
it ; speed, however regretfully, the part-
incr guest ; and get ready a cheerful
countenance, as best we may, to greet
the coming.
Farewell, then, the Old World, and
welcome the New ; nay, even the newest
of the new. West Indian St. Thomas.
No chroniclers need we consult here, for
there is next to nothing to chronicle ; no
voluminous historical records, where
there is hardly any history to record.
Scarce visited towards the close of his
career by Columbus, scornfully aban-
doned by Spain, that only just conde-
scended to bestow on them from a dis-
tance the title of "Virgin," equivalent in
this particular instance, I suppose, to
" Barren," Islands, these smallest, driest,
rockiest of the diminutive, rocky, arid,
lesser Antilles remained for a century
and a half after the mighty world-seeker
had turned away from them wholly un-
tenanted, or at best the chance resting-
place of buccaneering adventurers, un-
annexed by any nationality, unsheltered
by any flag. The very Caribs, the ques-
tionable authors of some undeciphered
scratchings on a sea-side cliff or two,
had left them ; and no European, no Af-
irican, had cared to enter on the aban-
doned heritage. So late as 1650 St.
Thomas lay as unclaimed by any of the
fiCspectabilities of the world as Oliver
Twist, or Ginx's Baby at the workhouse
door — better off, indeed, than those re-
markable infants, in that it was already
;possessed somehow of a name, the identi-
cal one that it yet bears ; though who con-
ferred on it that distinction has remained
an unanswered question in the cate-
chism of history.
At last — it was in a.d. 1657 — those
most sedentary, most erratic of mortals,
the Dutch, tentatively anchored their
broad-built ships in the best of West
Indian harbours, and took possession for
their own of the forty square miles of
rock in the centre of which that harbour
is set like a green-blue turquoise in a rusty
iron ring. Ten years Dutch bales lum-
bered the beach ; and Dutch merchant
sailors, under an embryo Dutch Govern-
ment, sat meditative beside. But after
much consumption of tobacco, scheedam,
and thought in the monotonous contem-
plation of dried-up bushes and brown
rock, the Hollanders came 'to the con-
clusion that Java, Ceylon, and the East-
ern Indies offered better investments for
their painstaking enterprise than the
Western ; and in 1667 the gallant Bata-
vian tubs sailed slowly but not reluctant-
ly away, just as the semi-piratical flag of
St. George and merry England speckled
the offing of St Thomas.
So the island changed masters, and the
"oath of British commerce" replaced
awhile the corresponding guttural exple-
tives of Dutch trade. But the quicker
workings of the English brain, the nat-
urally sluggish Teutonic fibre of which
is, as no less an authority than Mr. Mat-
thew Arnold assures us, abnormally stim-
ulated into incongruous activity by a
lucky aspersion of brisker Celtic blood,
required scarce five years to solve the
problem that the Batavian intellect had
with difficulty accomplished in ten. Like
their predecessors, however, the new-
comers solved it with a negative — a mis;
taken solution, as subsequent events have
proved — and in 1671 the British ensign
too fluttered off to larger and more fertile
isles.
" Tarde venientibus ossaj'^ is a hemistich
not less applicable to the great banquet
that Nature spreads before her children,
than to the monkish refectory of the
middle ages. Thus it was with the West
Indies, where the late-arriving Danes,
long after the more enterprising first-
comers, Spanish, English, and French,
had divided among themselves every
fleshy tit-bit, were fain to put up with the
scraggy virginal bones of the least among
the lesser Antilles for their share. Of
St. Croix, popularly known as Santa
Cruz, an island larger and of better prom-
ise than St. Thomas, to the south of
which it lies at a distance of about forty
miles, these Scandinavian Berserkers —
to borrow a flower of nomenclature from
popular rhetoric — had indeed already,
after a sharp struggle with Spanish and
French rivals, taken possession ; and
now, in 1672, seeing St. Thomas abso-
lutely vacant, and a first-rate harbour, if
nothing else, ready to hand, they appro-
priated the Dutch-and-English-deserted
island.
I do not envy the feelings of his Ex-
cellency the gallant Iversen when wel-
comed as the first Danish governor over
forty square miles of volcanic 'rock by
the only surviving inhabitants, the mel-
ancholy wood-pigeons and sinister land-
crabs, of St. Thomas. Nor do I envy the
negro slaves who first toiled at clearing
bush and levelling stony ground enough
to make space for the diminutive square
fort and incipient town of " Charlotte-
Amalia." Let us hope that Mark Tap-
ST. THOMAS.
6ii
ley's mantle descended by some fortunate
anachronism on Danes and Africans
alike, and enwrapped them in a double
fold of jollity as they took possession of
their new isle of Eden in its dark-purple
sphere of sea.
Sixty years have passed, and half
Danish half Dutch — for the persevering
Hollanders had returned to their first
love, but this time under the unassuming
guise of a trading Brandenburg company
— St. Thomas uneventfully carries on its
little trade with its wealthier neighbours,
besides affording a convenient shelter in
its harbour to storm-driven ships, and a
place of refit to the damaged victims of
the West Indian cyclones. This avowed-
ly : perhaps, too, not a little business
was done, though less openly, in the
wrecking, smuggling, privateering, and
buccaneering lines ; for besides the prin-
cipal harbour there is many a deep calm
creek and quiet cove in the island where
a cargo could be landed, a bargain struck,
or a sloop equipped without any need of
incurring the troublesome enquiries of
" whence and whither," where flags and
titles might pass unquestioned, and mu-
tual profit hoodwink the Argus eyes of
any over-prying official. And if French-
men, Spaniards, or even English, suffered
by these little transactions, were they
not at liberty to go and do likewise on
their own account ? It was the good old
West Indian usage, and international law
had not yet found a passage to the Carib-
bean archipelago. Such were the occu-
pations of merchants and traders ; mean-
while other colonists busied themselves
with less venturesome pursuits on land,
and the scanty soil of St. Thomas was
cajoled, by dint of care and hard labour,
into yielding a modicum of sugar, though
surpassed in this respect by its sister is-
land called of St. John. A narrow arm
of sea, so narrow that an Enfield rifle
would easily select and reach its victim
across the rippling strait, divides or
unites the fronting coasts. Each at this
time owned a dense slave-population, re-
garded by the comparatively small caste
of colonists and planters much as the Is-
raelites of old were by their Egyptian
taskmasters, and ruled over by a pen^tl
code of more than Pharaonic atrocity.
But in 1773 the sight of their own in-
creasing numbers quickened the long-
stifled exasperation of the Africans into
a hope of revenge, and a revolt was con-
certed between the bondsmen of either
island. Ineffective in St. Thomas, it
broke out with deadly result among the
wilder mountains of St. John; the little
Danish garrison, taken by surprise, was
soon cut to pieces, and the island lay at
the mercy of the negroes, who having
never experienced any themselves now
showed none. Every house was burnt,
every estate ravaged, every white man
fled or perished ; and through all the
bloodstained catalogue which enumerates
earth's wrong avenged by wrong, infa-
mous oppression, and mad retaliation,
few pages are redder than these. For
six months the insurgents held out
against the forces sent against them from
St. Thomas, till at last, after many vicis-
situdes of savage warfare, French assis-
tance, invoked from the neighbouring is-
lands by the panic-stricken Danes, turned
the scale in the favour of European skill ;
the Africans were reduced not to sub-
mission but to suicide, and four hundred
self-slain corpses were found by the vic-
torious whites on one spot alone. And
in truth those, happily the greater num-
ber, of the vanquished who thus opened
for themselves with their own hands that
only sure gate of freedom, death, did
wisely and well ; their less fortunate
prisoner-comrades did not pass that gate
till after tortures that few writers now
would dare so much as to describe.
Eastern Governments, Mahometan ca-
liphs and sultans, have been accused, and
not altogether unjustly, of frequent and
wanton cruelty ; but no Arab, Turk, or
even Persian but would have shrunk
back aghast from the cold-blooded, tor-
ment-devising atrocity of the triumphant
Dutch and Danish slaveowners. The
awful hurricane that a few weeks later
devastated the island of St. Thomas
could not with all its rain-torrents wash
out the red stains of those hideous ex-
ecutions.
Thirty years more passed unrecorded
for good or evil alike ; till in 1764 the
Royal Edict of Copenhagen that ren-
dered the harbour of St. Thomas a free
port inaugurated a new era — that of
commerce, merchandise, and prosperity.
Followed the struggle of the New
World, then awaking, province after
province, into self-consciousness and in-
dependent life ; and the Danish island,
neutral, central, and marked out by Na-
ture herself as the one haven of refuge
for the countless sails that speckle these
tornado-swept seas, reaped directly and
indirectly a full and ever-increasing share
of the golden harvest that was being
planted the while on other lands in the
blood 'f ♦^he labourers. The resort of
6l2
ST. THOMAS.
countless cruisers, half privateer, half
pirate ; the mart of men who, under col-
our of serving national interests, ad-
vanced their own ; the favourite exchange
for shoddy supply contracts ; the char-
tered meet for unscrupulous speculators
in dubious prizes and blockade-runnings,
St. Thomas soon acquired a new import-
ance ; and with it a character that, how-
ever disguised or moditied by more or-
derly times, and the necessity of cloak-
ing illegal gains under forms of law, has
never wholly left the place.
Soon after the American war, the revo-
lutionary shock that upset so many Euro-
pean thrones made itself felt through
their far-off dependencies in the Carib-
bean Sea; and St. Thomas came in
among the rest for a share in the vicissi-
tudes of which Denmark had so large
and so disastrous a part. For a short
time in 1801, and again in 1807, England
held with a careless grasp a post the com-
mercial value of which she might have
easily estimated from the flourishing con-
dition in which she found it ; but blind
in 1815, as on so many other occasions,
to her own best interests, she a third
time abandoned it, as she had first done
when it was a mere barren rock a hun-'
dred and fifty years before ; and the
white cross " Dannebrog " again floated
over fort and harbour.
From that date to the present, the an-
nals of St. Thomas are made up of ex-
port, import, commissions, smuggling,
bill-broking, discounting, pilfering, and
the ordinary vicissitudes of credit-com-
merce conducted on the unstable basis
of New-World speculation. Meanwhile,
the emancipation of slaves, tardily wrung
from, rather than conceded by, their Dan-
ish masters in 1848, gave the finishing
stroke to the already declining sugar cul-
tivation of the island ; for what human
being, however black, would, if his own
free choice were given him, remain to
toil at the lowest possible v/ages on the
estates of a planter, while a single day's
work among the shipping in the harbour
might bring him higher gains than a
whole week of spade and hoe ? Negroes
are not far-sighted, but have ordinarily a
remarkably acute vision for what lies im-
mediately before their ugly flat noses.
So the canes, which nothing but high-
pressure slave-labour could ever possibly
have made a paying crop of in this uncon-
genial soil, disappeared as if by enchant-
ment, to be replaced with as magical a
celerity — for the cycle of tropical vege-
tation 'is a swift one — by scrubby bush,
frangipane, alq^, cactus, and every thorny
and prickly thing " for which we may
thank Adam." And thus matters have,
in the main, gone their course up to the
present day.
Shall we add how, in 1867, the Ameri-
can eagle cast a longing eye on this sea-
girt morsel "i and how the majesty of
Denmark, not less eager for I forget how
many m llions of dollars, dangled the
tempting bait before the republican bird,
till it was thought to be a bargain be-
tween them ; only when it came to pay-
ment, the greenbacks were not forth-
coming, and one more repudiation of
agreement was noted in Jonathan's ac-
count book ? Or shall we chronicle the
hurricanes of 1819, 1833, 1867, and 1871 ;
or depict the terrors of the earthquake
plus sea-wave that, on the third of the
above-assigned dates, made such a mark
upon the imaginations of the inhabitants
of St. Thomas ? Enough ; the stars and
the stripes have not yet supplanted the
Dannebrog on the fort heights, and, ex-
cept a headless palm or two, few traces of
a cyclone outlast a twelvemonth ; at any
rate, none appear in view as we exchange
the glossy blackness of Heaven and the
Challenger best know how many thou-
sand fathoms of the pure Atlantic depths
outside for the muddy green of shallow
waters and an uncleanly harbour.
"• Charlotte-Amalia " is, so old Danish
maps inform us, the name of the town ;
and perhaps the gods still call it so ; only,
like the old knight's song in Alice's
" Wonderland," or " Lookin^-^lass " —
I am not sure which, neither of those au-
thentic narratives forming part of my
travelling library, the more's the pity —
it is called quite differently among mor-
tals, in whose vocabulary it has appro-
priated to itself the apostolic-sounding
designation of the entire island. But,
whatever its name, the town looks pretty
enough from the prow of the steamer as
we pass between the lighthouse on our
right and the two-gun fort on our left,
and make for our anchorage ; though an
officer of the Elbe — sociable and chatty,
as most of the R.M.S.P. Company's offi-
cers are — informs me as I gaze upon
if, that it shows still prettier when seen
from the stern of the boat. I can readily
believe him ; for the same glance that
tells me in the first half-minute whatever
there is to like in the town of St. Thomas,
tells me also what there is not.
Part on, part between three buttress-
like pyramidical spurs which run down
seaward almost to the water's edge from
ST. THOMAS.
a liigh knife-nd,s:e of reddish-brown
bush-sprinkled hills, there stand, crowd-
ed toijether, about fifteen hundred white-
walled, red-roofed, green-shuttered hous-
es, one rather bigger, another smaller,
than its neighbour ; but all without
more method or order in their juxtaposi-
tion than that observable in a chance
human crowd, each house having appar-
613
cathedral, even a Turkish residence in
Upper Egypt, each tells in its outline,
and yet more in its details, something
either of the architectural traditions pecu-
liar to the race that erected it, or of pru-
dent adaptation to a new climate ; or, it
may be, of both. Hence, in looking on
buildings like these, we at once perceive
that their architects, whether Portu^ruese,
ently jostled itself into the midst, and [ Turks, or English, had fully determined
occupied the first piece of ground on
which it could secure a footing, selfishly
regardless of any other consideration.
The next object of each appears to have
been which should display the greatest
number of windows. A Danish Pitt
might from the taxation of those aper-
tures alone clear off half the national
debt of Denmark, whatever its amount.
Every window presents instead of glass
— a substance rarely employed here in
the form of panes, and indeed superfluous
in so mild a climate — Venetian jalousies
of the conventional green, besides a pair
of stout wooden shutters, to be closed
and barred at the first threat of a hurri-
cane, not else. For of nightly thieves,
house-breakers, and villanous " centre-
bits " there is little fear, partly owing to
the efficiency of the Danish town-police,
partly to the character of the islanders
themselves, of whom more hereafter. As
to the houses themselves, a few — very
few — of them are solidly built; red
brick picked out with plaster, of which
last-named material, eked out with lath
and rubble, far the greater number wholly
consist ; some are even mere wooden
barracks, spacious, ugly, and insecure to
see. Wood or otherwise, almost all these
dwellings prove on a near inspection to
be trumpery run-up constructions, with
thin walls baking in the blazing sun,
shallow, unprotective roof-eaves, and the
majority without a verandah of any sort.
Only here and there some more preten-
tious mansion — the large, ungainly ed-
ifice recently erected as Government
House, for instance — has pushed out —
Heaven save the mark ! — a cast-iron bal-
cony, as ugly as any that ever figured at
Hammersmith or on the Brompton Road.
Worse yet are the churches ; the so-
called English, i.e. Colono-Episcopalian,
being of ante-Puginian Gothic, hideous
enough in any latitude, absolutely mon-
strous in this ; the Dutch Reformed, or
Presbj'terian, is the heaviest plaster
Doric ; the Moravian Chapel a large
shapeless barn ; and the Danish, or Lu-
theran Church, a simple nondescript.
An East Indian bungalow, a Brazilian
to make the country they came to govern
or to colonize their own home in the
fullest sense of the word ; nor yet, while
modifying, to renounce altogether the
hereditary and almost typical peculiarities
of their original nationality. St. Thomas,
on the contrary, is in its general charac-
ter neither Danish nor Dutch nor any-
thing else ; it is an aggregation of lodg-
ers and lodging-houses, nothing more;
English, Scotch, Spanish, French, Ital-
ian, American, architects, inhabitants —
the only object they have had, one and
all, in settling here, has been that of
making as much money as they could
from the business of the place, and then
being off as quick as possible. The stay
in the island is a mere temporary make-
shift, a commercial arrangement, and
their dwellings are naturally enough in
accordance with their scheme of life.
Pleasanter objects to look at are the
little cottage-houses where mulatto, or,
as they prefer being called, "coloured,"
families make their nests. Bright-
painted wooden boxes, green or blue, all
made up to outward appearance of doors,
windows, and galleries, but well sheltered
from the brooding heat by projecting
roofs, wide verandahs, and flowering
tropical trees, planted wherever the rocky
soil will allow a root to hold, they har-
monize well with the climate, and give
correct indication of a comparatively set-
tled population for their inhabitants.
These last are chiefly clerks, artisans,
skilled workmen, and the like, some born
in the island itself, others natives of Tor-
tola, Antigua, Barbadoes, Porto Rico,
and the like. Their number is more than
double that of the European-born colo-
nists. A gay, active, and improvident
set, they at least know how to live ; the
West Indian archipelago is their home ;
they have no other ; they are part and
parcel of the island ; to its conditions
they suit the circumstances of their ex-
istence, and make the best of climate and
everything else. Cross-breeds and the
Europeans together amount to a third or
so of the entire population of St. Thom.Tis ;
but the two castes do not socially coa-
6i4
ST. THOMAS.
lesce, and the aims and sentiments of the
one have little in common with those of
the other.
Scattered round the outskirts of the
town, and jotted, where one least expects
to find them, among the mango-trees and
guava-bushes of the open country, small
wattled or boarded cabins, each hardly
bigger than a sentry-box, but by no
means equally compact in its construc-
tion, give shelter to negro families. Free
men now, and ready enough to work, to
gain, and to squander too ; unwilling
only, partly owing to the hated and still
fresh reminiscences of slavery, partly
from their own natural instability of char-
acter, to enter into long engagements or
to pledge their labour beforehand, these
darkies constitute about two-thirds of the
inhabitants of the island. Their shirts
and trousers are more or less of Euro-
pean cut ; but, dress and language apart,
they differ in hardly any respect from
their free brethren in Syria or Turkey.
Mahometans there, they have here adapt-
ed Christianity, some one fashion, some
another, according to that patronized by
their former masters ; but, Christian or
Moslem, of dogma for itself they have
little care ; their creed is emotional only,
and perhaps not much the worse for
being so. Their huts, too, are the most
genuinely tropical objects of West In-
dian domestic architecture. I have seen
the exact likenesses of them in Nubia
and Yemen.
And the Danes ? Well ; if St. Thomas
be, so far as the European population is
concerned, a mere lodging-house, the
Danes here act the part of the lodging-
house keepers, neither more nor less.
Like the rest, they resign themselves to
live in hired dwellings ; they collect cus-
toms, and taxes, keep up a strict police
by land and harbour, levy fines on unli-
censed salesmen and market women, im-
prison drunkards and vagrants, and —
well, that is pretty nearly all. In the
commercial enterprise, the shipping in-
terests, the trade and traffic of the island
they govern, they have next to no share ;
in planting and in agriculture no skill ; in
the island and its tenants no interest ;
nor do they care to take any measure for
creating such among others on their ac-
count. Indeed, there is not throughout
the whole of St. Thomas a single Danish
school, nor in the solitary bookseller's
shop (which, by the way, is a Moravian,
not a Danish establishment) of the town
is a Danish grammar or dictionary to be
iound. The public offices themselves,
the law and police courts, and the rest,
are mere hired rooms, or slight construc-
tions of the usual makeshift character ;
they, too, are the work of the colonists
and settlers ; not a farthing has been
contributed by the Treasury of Copen-
hagen towards their construction. A
small, quaint, square fort, with battle-
ments and turrets, much like those out of
which the St. Barbara of art or the im-
prisoned princesses of fairy tales are
wont to gaze, and which in fact now
serves as town gaol, is the only edifice
contributed by Denmark herself to the
town and island. The walls of this toy-
castle are painted red, and the red Danish
flag flies from the small round keep ; it
looks hot enough in the sun, and sug-
gests the idea that the prisoners inside,
now its only occupants, must be uncom-
fortably hot too. But the prison, fort,
and flag excepted, no other symbol of
Danish rule meets the gazer's eye as it
take's in the panorama of the town from
the steamer anchorage about a quarter of
a mile off.
Nor when we land on the negro-
crowded wharf do we find much to mod-
ify our first impressions in this respect.
There is, indeed, a carved Danish in-
scription — the only one, so far as I have
been able to discover, in the entire
island — over the door of the staircase
that leads up to the Custom House
rooms ; and Danish names, to which no
one in common use pays the slightest
attention, are roughly painted up at the
corners of several streets. Also you may
occasionally meet a tall, light-complex-
ioned individual, whose stiff carriage and
ceremonious bearing proclaims him a
Danish official : or a blond, heavy-eyed,
slightly, or very, as the case may be, in-
toxicated, white-clothed soldier; there
are about sixty of them on the island.
Poor fellows ! they have but a dull time of
it in garrison ; and if they occasionally try
to render it a little less tedious by
"heavy-headed revel," Hamlet himself
would hardly have included them in the
severity of his comments on this na-
tional failing : they have excuse for it if
ever any one had. These things apart,
however, there is nothing visible to right
or left to indicate that the island belongs,
and has for two centuries belonged, to the
Danes, rather than to the Americans, the
Chinese, or the Khan of Crim Tartary.
The universal language of communica-
tion among the inhabitants, white, black,
or coloured, is English ; but such Eng-
lish ! a compound of negro grammar,
ST. THOMAS.
Yankee accent, and Creole drawl ; to
" arrange " is to " fix," '* Sir " is " Sa'ar,"
" boat " is " ba'awt," and so on. The
announcements of the shop fronts, the
placards on the walls, the debile little
newspapers (there are two published here,
and the ferocious antagonism of their re-
spective editors in print is, I trust, lim-
ited to that medium, and does not repre-
sent their private and personal feeling),
are English ; and, but for an occasional
Spanish sentence, English is the only
language you hear in market, street, or
shop. I beg pardon : there are no
" shops " in St. Thomas, only " stores ; "
just as every man here, dust-carters and
coal-heavers not excepted, is a " gentle-
man," and every woman, including the
aged black Hebe who distributes rum
and gin for two cents to her sailor custo-
mers, a "lady." The ^ihysical atmos-
phere you breathe may be that of the
tropics ; but the moral or non-moral,
public and private, is that of New York ;
as for the social, it has in it a corrective
dash of Spanish Creolism, in which lan-
guor supplies an opportune check on
vice, and nonchalance on dishonesty.
For the rest, as you walk down, that is
west (for the ever-blowing east trade wind
determines the "up" of the island),
along the main street on the narrow allu-
vial level between the hill slope and the
crescent harbour base, you might, but for
the blazing sun and dazzling azure over-
head, almost fancy yourself in a 'long-
shore quarter of Southampton or Wap-
ping. Ship chandleries, dry goods, rum
shops, slop shops, tobacco shops, sailors'
homes (such homes ! fleecing dens they
might more truly be called), coal wharves,
timber yards — objects that no climate
can beautify, no associations render other
than mean and vulgar. The latitude is
the latitude of the poet-sung tropics ; but
the scene is a scene of the coarsest Eu-
rope. In vain you call to mind the metri-
cal enchantments of Tennyson's " Locks-
ley Hall " or dreamy " Voyage," of
Byron's heated " Island," of Coleridge's
magical " Fragment : " everything around
dispels the conjured-up illusion. A
drunken seaman and a filthy old hag are
squabbling on one side of you : words
very English certainly, but not to be
found in Johnson's dictionary, issue from
the grog shop on the other : the vile fea-
tures of a Creole crimp, arm in arm with
a mottled-faced dull-eyed Halifax skipper,
meet you in front : sight, hearing, smell,
all are of that peculiar description which
charms the sailor, the British specimen
615
in particular, and those too, perhaps, who
make money out of or through him; but
which is, as Carlyle might say, " exhilarat-
ing in the long run to no other created
being " — to none, at least, who have not
received the special training of those use-
ful but unlovely classes.
Nor are the details of the town in other
respects such as to bear with advantage
a close examination. The streets, the
main one excepted, are mostly mere lanes,
narrow, and crooked ; while many of
them — those, namely, which run from
the harbour inland — consist of flights of
stony stairs, which had Byron seen he
would have blessed those of Malta by
comparison instead of cursing them. The
pavement, too, absolutely wanting in not
a few places, is rough and full of holes
in others ; and the drains — for sanitary
motives, say the townsmen! — are all
open ; what the result is after a fortnight
or so of hot, dry weather I leave to the
imagination of those highly respectable
members of Parliamentary Committees
who lay yearly reports on corresponding
odorous topics before our British noses.
Gaslights exist, it is true, in the principal
thoroughfares, but they are few and far
between ; while for the shiny nights of
half the month the wandering moon bears
alone the charge of public illumination ;
whence it follows that the clouds and the
municipality have too often to divide the
responsibility of outer darkness and its
consequences, physical or moral. I have
not myself had the good fortune of visit-
ing Copenhagen ; but I trust that the
Danes at home treat their capital better
than they do the principal town of their
West Indian possessions.
But the place, though it cannot be
called lovely, is lively eno\%h. Siestas,
strange to say, in spite of the relaxing
climate and the infectious proximity to
the Spanish colonies, are not the fashion
here, and from sunrise to sunset the main
street can show a medley of nationalities
to the full as varied as that which daily
throng the wooden bridge of Galata, but
with a much greater diversity of hue.
Black, indeed, predominates among the
complexions, and white among the gar-
ments ; but between these extremes of
colour every shade of skin and dress
alike may be observed. Broad-brimmed
Panama hats distinguish in general the
better class of citizens ; commoner straw
shelters poorer heads. Sallow, parboiled-
looking countenances with now and therx
an unhealthy flush, telling a tale of
brandy overmuch in the daily allowanca
6i6
ST. THOMAS.
of iced water, denote the North European,
Teuton, or Scandinavian, Briton, Ger-
man, Dane, Dutch, and Swede, with the
pale, over-worked-looking, sharp-featured
Yankee. A darke'r tinge of face and
hair, and a slenderer form, indicates the
Italian, French, or Spanish salesman ;
the white Creole, whatever his semi or
quarter nationality, may always be recog-
nized by his peculiarly weedy aspect and
lack-lustre eye. Two or three genera-
tions of West Indian birth and breeding,
unrenewed by fresh European or African
grafts, suffice to thin out the richest
European blood, and to dull into lethargy
the most active North European brain,
till the Englishman, Dane, Norwegian, or
Dutchman becomes a thing for the very
negroes to pity or despise. " Miscegena-
tion," to borrow an ungainly American
word, may have its drawbacks ; but ex-
clusiveness of alliance means for the
North European in these regions speedy
degeneration and disappearance.
Busy, restless, affable, at once cringing
and forward in manner, who does not
recognize the children of Israel, the gen-
uine descendants of clever, birthright-
purloining Jacob, whatever be the land of
their sojourn in their world-wide disper-
sion ? Here in St. Thomas we have
them of every sort, dark and fair, lean
and burly, but all ali.ke intent on gain ;
now prosperous, now bankrupt ; the very
climate that may occasionally somewhat
slacken their outward man has no relax-
ing effect on the irrepressible energy of
their will. It is curious to enter their
synagogue — a large, crowded, and evi-
dently thriving one — and to hear the un-
changed songs of old David and older
Moses in the oldest langnage of the Old
World, intoned here with as much fer-
vency of utterance and singleness of be-
lief as ever they had been in the Eastern
hemisphere under the palms of Jordan,
long before a Western world and the co-
coanut trees of its islands had been
heard or dreamt of. The first names
entered on the world's racecourse, they
bid fair to be among the first on its
books when the winners are told off at
the close. Meanwhile the antithesis
their activity affords to the lounging,
careless, take-it-easy movements of the
big negroes at every turn and corner,
does much to enliven the sun-heated
streets and thoroughfares of the town.
But it is at night, and especially when
the white rays of the full moon, the
Queen of the Tropics, delusively cover
roofs and pavement with what seems a
smooth layer of fresh-fallen snow, that
the main street of St. Thomas, the open
space in front of the Custom House
known as King's Wharf — the only stone
wharf, by the bye, in the whole harbour,
and constructed not indeed with Dinish
money, but under Danish superinten-
dence— and the acacia-planted square,
that serves as market-place bv day, all
show to the best advantage. Then the
negroes, who here, as in the cheerful
Levant, and even on the misty Euxine
coast, keep up unaltered their ancestral
African customs of nightly merry-mak-
ings— a custom which the Arabs alone,
of all races that it has been my fortune to
dwell amongst, share with them — come
out in their gayest dresses and gayest
mood, to shout, laugh, sing, romp, and
divert themselves like the overgrown
children that they are. Tall, black men
in white clothes and straw hats, tall,
black women too, handsome in form if
not in feature, their heads bound round
with many-coloured turbans, sweep
through the crowd with an easy freedom
of gait and bold step very different from
the shuffling, embarrassed style of the
nerveless Creole lady and her over-
dressed European sister ; while the light-
flowing gown of the negress and her
variegated head-gear give her, even in-
dependently of her dark complexion, a
semi-tropical look that suits the climate,
and harmonizes much better than stiff
crinolines and artificial flowers with the
surroundings of West Indian nature..
When will civilized women, or civilized
men either, learn that individual beauty,
to have its complete effect, must harmo-
nize with the general? that form and
colour, size and shape, however fair or
stately in themselves, acquire their ulti-
mate perfection from the place they oc-
cupy ? that what is well under one sky
may be ill under another ? what is justlj
admired in Europe be a failure in Asia?
and what looks lovely under a tropical
blaze be void of charm amid the mists of
northern gloom ? When the Egyptians
erected the colonnades of Luzor on the
shores of the great Nile, the Greeks the
Parthenon among the blue picture-like
hills of Attica, and mediaeval architects
the clustering pinnacles of Laon beside
the orchards and green hill-slopes of
Picardy, they accomplished in every in-
stance an abiding success, different the
one from the other, but each perfect in
its kind — an example, a lesson, and a
wonder to all ages. Why, then, have
their later successors, who in modern
ST. THOMAS. 617
times have attempted to reproduce these [growths of the day, with h'ttle root in the
very masterpieces of beauty in elaborate past, and hardly a promise of greater
copies, every measurement, every line, ! fixity in the future. And yet whatever
every detail the same, failed not less
completely than the others succeeded ?
Is it' not that they ignored, with the igno-
rance tiiat amounts to solidity, the effect
of altered conditions, of changed times,
of different climate, of dissimilar sur-
roundings, both of nature and art ? while
the former architects, Egyptian, Gaul, or
Greek, knew, with the knowledge that
amounts to instinct, not only the laws of
construction and the grace of individual
outline, but also those of collective har-
mony ; and built aptly besides building
well. Thus it is and always must be,
East or West alike, with architecture of
whatever kind, public or private ; thus,
too, in great measure with sculpture, with
painting, with ornament, with dress —
in a word, with art of every sort.
Meanwhile, as we walk and philoso-
phize in the tepid night air and pale
moonshine, from behind a hundred open
lighted windows comes the sound of
jingling pianos, where mulatto girls are
performing their endless Spanish waltzes ;
performances accompanied in many a lit-
tle house by the clamour of many voices
and the stamp of dancing feet. All is
frank, unrestrained merry-making, high
spirits, and fun ; the more cheerful be-
cause— to the credit of the blacks be it
said — it is seldom excited or accompa-
nied by drink, more seldom by drunken-
ness. West Indian negroes, in spite of
the contrary example set them more or
less by almost every class and descrip-
tion of whites in these islands, are gen-
erally free from this particular form of
vice ; and though the morality of domes-
tic life is not so much low as absolutely
wanting among them — indeed, that iion
est inventus m^'ight be the correct verdict
of a " virtue " court — the frailties of the
island-born African, or black Creole, are
rarely excused or aggravated by drink.
Among the mulattoes, on the contrary,
as among mixed races in general, the bad
qualities of either parentage seem to
come uppermost ; and the immorality of
the negro is with them often enhanced by
the drunkenness of the Briton and the
murderous treachery of the Spaniard.
*' God made white men, and God made
black men, but the devil made brown
ones," is a common proverb here, and it
often finds its justification in fact.
Town and inhabitants — the Israelite
colonv alone after its measure excepted
" Charlotte- Amalia," to give the place its
distinctive name, may prove to be when
you are fairly in it and of it — seen from
outside, and especially from the harbour
point of view, it has a curiously delusive
Levantine look ; so much so, that a voy-
ager, who, under some strange enchant-
ment of the "Sleeping Beauty" kind,
should have closed his eyes while just off
Smyrna or Latakia, and then first
awakened up when the fairy ship was in
the act of entering the port of St.
Thomas, might almost fancy that he had
never left the Syrian or ^gean coast.
He would, in fact, find before him much
the same picturesque sprinkling of pretty
toy-like houses that he had last seen
under the sun of Anatolia ; for instance,
the same green masses, or orchard-trees,
both running up the same abrupt rocky
slopes, practicable indeed for horses, but
evidently prohibitive of carriage use ;
the same high, bush-sprinkled, half-sav-
age ridge of hills behind the same un-
tidy wharves, makeshift landing-places,
and rubbish-strewn beach ; the same
superfluity of little boats, plying hither
and thither between the larger craft, or
swarming, as though with piratical in-
tent, round the sides of each new arrival ;
the same clear sharpness of light and
shade ; the same pure sea-water, brisk
air, and bright sky. No, not exactly the
same, any ©ne of these ; since a more
careful inspection would detect strange
foliage — cocoanut, for example, or papai
— among the trees, giving notice of a lat-
itude more southerly far than the Levant-
ine ; the water, too, is the inky Atlantic
black, not the ultra-marine Mediter-
ranean blue in its clearness ; and the
low, drifting fleeces of white cloud that
emerge, curl after curl, from behind the
easterly hill-range, and sweep swiftly
across the dazzling sky to the west, are
driven by no Asiatic land-breeze, but
obey the trade-winds of the ocean ex-
panse.
But, general outline and natural fea-
tures apart, there are some special ob-
jects in which St. Thomas may claim a
real, though superficial, resemblance with
the time-honoured Levant. Thus, at the
very entry of the harbour, near a diinin-
utive powder-shed, there stands a bat-
tery, which — but that the Danish, and
not the Turkish, flag overshadows it —
might, by a new-comer, be almost con-
— aUimpress you as mere mushroom I jectured to belong to the same class of
6i8
ST. THOMAS.
constructions that stand guard at the
entry of the Bosphorus or the quarantine
bay of Trebizond. Through the thin
embrasures of a decrepit parapet wall
two rusty cannons protrude their muz-
zles, the one pointing at an angle of 45°
to the heaven above, the other at a simi-
lar inclination to the voters beneath.
Quite Turkish, both for appearance and
efficacy. Nor do the five or six anti-
quated tubes of old iron that peer over
the edges of the queer, red-painted fort
walls of the harbour's base differ in any
essential respect from the artillery sup-
plied by the Topkhaneh of Constanti-
nople to the imperial provinces. Strange-
ly, too, like the ruins that on almost every
jutting rock of the Anatolian coast com-
memorate the days of semi-independent
Pashas and pugnacious Dereh-begs, are
the two round towers, massive and grey,
that crown, the one " Government Hill,"
the easternmost of the three already men-
tioned as included in the town itself ; the
other, an isolated rising ground near the
base of the harbour. Nor is this resem-
blance one of outward form only, but of
historical meaning ; for, unlike every-
thing else in the island, these towers are
dignified by having a tradition of their
own ; and in popular belief at least, if
not in fact, they supply the " missing
link " between the modern St. Thomas
of sharp Yankeefied traders, and the old
St. Thomas of bond fide pirates and buc-
caneers. One of these ruins bears the
name of Blue Beard's, the other of Black
Beard's Tower. This New World Blue
Beard, however, unlike, so far, to his
namesake of European or, as some say,
of Asiatic celebrity, has left behind him
no record by which he can be identified
— not so much as a fairy legend ; no Sis-
ter Anne climbed to the top of his tower
to proclaim to her hastening brothers the
dark mystery within its walls ; and we
are free to conjecture not seven, but
if we like, seventy decapitated wives, and
horrors compared with which those of
the famous blood-stained closet were gen-
tle matrimonial endearments.
More, or perhaps less, fortunate in this
respect, Black Beard has found authen-
tic chroniclers of his deeds, private as
well as public. A native of Bristol,
Captain Trench — to give him the name
by which he started in life — was one of
the many brave sea-ruling Britons who in
the seventeenth century developed by a
ready course of natural selection, and a
pre-Darwinian struggle for life, from pri-
vateers into pirates.
' Our hero's short but glorious career
was run between Jamaica and the Virgin-
ian coast. St. Thomas lies midway, and
the innumerable creeks, inlets, and bays
that indent its bush-lined shore may well
have afforded shelter and concealment to
Black Beard as well as to others of this
trade. And certainly when attired in his
favourite full-dress style, and with his
beard (which we are assured covered his
whole face, eyes and nose probably ex-
cepted) twisted into a hundred curls, each
curl dandily tied up in a bow of red rib-
bon, and illuminated by twenty burning
matches stuck, ten of a side, under the
brim of his hat, the Captain must have
produced quite a sensation among thq
inhabitants — Carib, negro, Dutch, or
Dane — of the little island. Indeed the
"flaming ministers " of his toilet seem to
have proved for West Indian fair ones
not less attractive than lighted tapers
commonly are for evening moths ; and
we read that fourteen wives — successive
or simultaneous, the story says not —
were drawn by their rays, and entangled
in the mazes of that ribboned beard. Un-
fortunately the human butterflies seem to
have paid not less dearly for their folly
than is ordinarily the case with their in-
sect prototypes, since Black Beard, unless
much maligned was a very Blue Beard in
domestic life.
" A cross between Puck and Moloch "
is the title given by the shrewd historical
estimate of Macaulay to one of the pet
monarch heroes of an eccentricity-loving
writer of our own day. What the father
of the Great Frederick was in his own ,
family and Court, that and more was Cap-
tain Trench among his crew — a hero
after Mr. Carlyle's own heart, and not
less worthy of a place in the Pantheon of
his worship than Friedrich Wilhelm or
Governor Eyre himself. Indeed the
choicest diversions of Potsdam or Mo-
rant Bay seem tame when compared with
Black Beard's practical fun. " Let us
make a little hell of our own, and try who
can bear it longest," said one day the gal-
lant Captain, as he forced some choice
spirits of his crew to descend with him
into the ship's hold. When all were be-
low. Black Beard carefully closed the
hatches on the company and himself;
and then proceeded to set on fire several
pots which he had previously arranged,
ready filled with shavings and sulphur.
His companions, almost suffocated, soon
cried out for mercy ; but Black Beard's
lungs, as well as his heart, were made of
sterner stuff, and he did not let them out
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
of his imitation hell till they had almost
exchanged the trial for the reality. Think-
ing them, however, it seems, sufficiently
prepared by this experiment for the latter,
he soon after took measures for sending
one or two of them there at short notice.
To this end he invited his comrades one
evening to a sociable merry-making m
his cabin ; and, while they sat drinking
there, he suddenly blew out the light,
crossed his hands, in each of which was
a loaded and a ready-cocked pistol, and
cheerfully fired across the table. Sad to
say, his praiseworthy intentions were
frustrated of their accomplishment ; only
wounds, and not death, following upon
this " merry jest." But to do the beard-
ed Captain justice, when not his own men,
but prisoners from another ship, were
before him, he seldom failed to take bet-
ter aim. How much the unhanged sur-
vivors of his crew, not to mention his
fourteen disconsolate widows, bewailed
his loss, when Lieutenant Maynard, R. N.,
sailed into the harbour of Virginia
with this worthy's head, beard, ribbons,
matches, and all, suspended from his
bowsprit, history has left unrecorded.
Whether Black Beard really built, and
while on shore — taking refuge from his
pursuers, or recruiting supplies for fresh
exploits at sea — actually dwelt in the
thick-walled round tower that now crowns
the highly respectable summit of Govern-
ment Hill, is, however, uncertain ; here,
as in the case of so many other heroic
memorials, it is merely tradition versus
want of evidence. Old ship-cannon have
•indeed been. dug out of the neighbouring
soil ; and a huge oblong mass of brick-
work, close by the tower itself, is said to
cover alike the remains — headless, I
suppose — and the ill-gotten riches of the
pirate. But from one or other motive —
chiefly, perhaps, from the listless indif-
erence that characterizes the white pop-
ulation of the West Indian settlements
in general — nobody has taken the
trouble to settle, by a few strokes of the
mattock, the truth, or, more probably
still, the falsehood of tije legend.
" Reqinescat in pace,''^ if peace there be
for such, along with the great Captains
Kidd, Avory, Low, and other kindred sea-
heroes', " all of them fallen, slain by the
sword, who caused their terror in the
land of the living." Hell-twins, piracy
and slavery — they have both, after cen-
turies of blood and crime, been well-nigh
exorcised from the New-World coasts,
or only linger under the appropriate flags
of Spain and Holy Church, the flags of
619
Alva and Pizarro, of Torquemada and the
Inquisition. It is "the glory, far above
all else on earth," of England to have
first pronounced their exorcism ; the
final consummation of that sentence on
the ill remnants of Cuba may, though de-
layed awhile, be yet executed by Eng-
land's eldest child, the great American
Republic. The work is a good work :
honour to those who complete it, of
whatever nationality they be !
W. G. Palgrave.
From Chambers' Journal.
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
CHAPTER VI.
Come on, Sir Knave ; have done your foolishness,
And tell me how thou hast disposed ^y charge.
The dog-cart containing Sailor and
Collop drove stealthily along in the
gloom and falling snow, and by-and-by
they reached Thornton Common. Here
the darkness was still more intense. It
was only possible to cross the common
by trusting to the instinct of the horse, a
strong, useful, hired hack, who had a tol-
erable notion of the direction of his sta-
ble. At the same time, in allowing him
to select his road, it was necessary to
permit him to choose his pace also, and
his favourite pace was a slow walk. It
became inexpressibly wearisome, this
snail-like plodding through the dark-
ness, vainly straining the eyes to make
out some leading mark or feature of the
landscape that might convey an assurance
of being in the right track.' Sailor bore
it all tranquilly ; his life had seasoned
him to such patient waiting ; but Collop
fidgeted and fretted, and could hardly re-
strain his impatience.
When, as it seemed, they had got into
the very middle of the common, the horse
suddenly came to a full stop, put his
nose to the ground, sniffed and snorted,
but refused to proceed any farther ; and
in answer to the application of the whip,
sidled, and began to back.
" Hold hard a bit, there, Master Col-
lop," quoth Sailor. " Perhaps there's
something in the road. I'll jump down
and see." He suited the action to the
word, and felt cautiously all round with
his feet. Presently he struck against
something soft and yielding — a snow-
drift, it seemed, that had a core of some
harder substance. A low smothered
groan came from out this heap of snow
620
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
as Sailor tried to kick it away. It was a
man, who was lying with his feet in the
ditch, and his body across the road.
"What cheer, my lad .? " cried Sailor,
diving into the middle of the drift, and
seizing the man by the waist. — "Here,
Mr. Collop, here's a craft as has grounded
here. Come and bear a hand to get him
off."
The man was carried to the dog-cart ;
and by the light of the lamp, Sailor
recognized his face — it was Tom Rap-
ley. He was in a sort of trance, and it
seemed at first as if it would be impossi-
ble to arouse him. Siilor began vigor-
ously to rub his hands and the back of
his ears ; and presently he opened his
eyes, and tried to move. When he had
revived a little, they hoisted him into the
back of the dog-cart, covered him as
warmly as they could with rugs and
greatcoats, and started for Biscopham.
It was a long, dreary drive : the way
seemed interminable ; but at last the first
faint gleam of a distant gas-lamp shewed
them that they had come through the
dangerous part of their journey. Tom
had recovered his senses a little on the
way ; and when the trap came to a stand-
still opposite Collop's shop, he was able
to dismount with a little assistance.
Emily was aroused, and Tom was put into
a warm bed, and hot drinks given him.
When he began to come to himself, he
was in a great state of mind about his
wife, who had been left alone all the
night, and on whom the excitement and
suspense might have the very worst
effect : however, there w is no help for
it. It would be impossible to cross the
common till daylight had come.
The morning after the snow-storm
broke fine and cheery. Tiie fields were
covered with a white sparkling garment.
The sun rose up from out a h ize of violet
and gold into a pure blue sky, pale and
cold, but cheery.
The early sun made quite a bright and
pleasant scene of Back Milford's. The
yard was sparkling with fliky, untrodden
snow ; and the sunbeams were refracted
into a myriad of rainbow jewels, in fes-
toons of glittering icicles. The privet
hedge gleamed with prismatic colours, i
and the old wood-house looked like a
fairy grotto in frosted silver.
These early sunbeams aroused Mrs.
Rapley to a full sense of her misery and
desolation. Till now, she had hoped
against her inward conviction, that Tom
had been detained by the storm, and had
stayed for the night with some friend in
the village, waiting for the morning's
lij^ht to find his way home in safety.
But now it was broad daylight, and he
had not come. She felt sadly ill and
worn ; the baby was crying desperately,
and would not be comforted. Surely she
was altogether abandoned and deserted.
By-and-by, she heard the soft sound of
wheels, that ceased at the gate ; and then
she sat up in bed, with fear and expecta-
tion. Yes, there it was, as she had in
her secret heart known it would be — the
sound of many feet ; they were carrying
a burden — it was Tom, whom they had
brought home dead I
There was Sailor's voice, and another,
gruffer, but not Tom's. No ; she would
never hear that voice agfain I
" Mrs. Rapley, Mrs. Rapley ! " cried
Sailor from below ; " how are you get-
ting on .f* "
They were going to break it to her
gently, but she would know all at once.
She sprang from the bed, and ran hastily
to the door: "O Sailor, what have you
done with him ? Oh, tell me quick, the
very worst ; what has happened to
Tom?"
The next moment, he held her in his
arms, and his rough rimy beard was
against her cheek. " What business
have you out of bed, old woman ? You
go back directly, and lie quite still, while
I talk to you, for I've got good news for
you."
But after the first burst of joy at see-
ing her husband safe home, there came a
revulsion of feeling. Why had she been
made to suffer so poignantly ; had she
not had enough to bear other ways ?
As she heard, however, of Tom's
doings the night before — of his extreme
peril and marvellous escape, she forgot
her own sufferinijs in the thousrht of
what might so easily have been ; and
when he told her of the appointment that
was vacant, and of the chance he had of
getting it, the news seemed to be a
very satisfactory equivalent for the mis-
eries of the preceding night.
" He s down-stairs now," said Tom —
•' Frevven, I mean ; that's low I con-
trived to get back so early. He has
driven us over. Sailor and me, in his
phaeton. A pair of horses and every-
thing grand. Oh, he's a regular gentle-
man, is Frevven I And he's come to look
over the house. He's bound to do that
once a year, by the will, and the year's
just up since Aunt Betsy died."
" I'm off now, Rapley," cried Frevven's
voice from below. " I shan't disturb
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
621
I suppose you haven't
through the wall up
I must go and
your good wife,
broken a hole
there ? "
" No, indeed, sir," said Tom, coming
down-stairs laughing. " Good-bye, sir,
and many thanks to you."
" Tom," said his wife, when he came
up again, "you misled Mr. Frewen just
now. Look there ! " she cried, and
pointed up at the hole in the wall.
"Good gracious ! " cried Tom, turning
pale. " Who did that ?
tell Frewen about it."
" Don't be silly, Tom ; but sit still and
listen, while I tell you how it happened."
Tom listened incredulously to his wife's
description of the noises of the night.
He attributed them to his wife's imagina-
tion and fears. But when she told him
of the thing that had jumped through the
wall, he couldn't refuse to believe in that,
for there was the patent fact of the hole
to confirm his wife's narrative.
Tom got on a chair, and examined the
break in the wall. Then he saw that
there had once been a doorway here,
with an open space over the door, which
once might have been glazed, but was
now only papered over. " It was the
cat," cried Tom in a voice of derision ;
"the old black cat, that was mousing
over her old hunting-grounds. She must
have seen the light shining through the
thin paper, and made a spring right
through it. But how did the cat get
into the house ; and what could have
frightened her ? "
The strangeness of these occurrences,
however, gradually faded from their
minds, under the influence of newer and
more powerful impressions. Sailor might
have thrown some light upon the matter ;
but Sailor didn't choose to say anything
about what he had witnessed that night
in the old barn. He was a cautious old
fellow ; and he didn't care to make an
enemy of his neighbour, Skim, who, he
knew, bore him a grudge already.
Tom Rapley was soon plunged in all
the excitement of a canvass and contest
for the collectorship. It was a long-
protracted affair, and there were many
candidates, but Frewen's influence car-
ried the day, and Tom was elected. It
was midsummer, however, before he got
his appointment, and Michaelmas before
he could get to work, so that he had his
hands full to get in the next rate by
Christmas. Tom, nevertheless, was full
of new-born zeal, and very pleased and
proud. He was somebody in the parish
now, and could take his part in the even-
ing discussions on parochial matters at
the Royal Oak, and speak with authority.
People left off calling him Lord Tom,
and saluted him respectfully as Mr. Rap-
ley. He wouldn't, however, give up the
rent-free house and the ten shillings a
week from Mr. Frewen, notwithstanding
that they were dreadfully cramped for
room. What with the baby and little
Bertie, and the cooking and the washing,
and the chatter and noise that were al-
ways going on, Tom found it desperate
hard work to get on with his accounts.
And there was the big house lying empty
and sealed up beside them.
Tom had got to make the new rate,
and fill up all his receipts, before he
could begin to collect ; and although he
tried hard and did the best he could, he
was very much afraid that he should be
behindhand with his work.
" Tell you what, Lizzie, I shall go clean
distracted, and out of my mind, if this
goes on," he cried one day, when the
noise and confusion were worse than
usual. " I'm making all kinds of mis-
takes, and I shall be all wrong with my
accounts ; and then, what will become of
us .? "
"Well, I don't see how I can manage
any belter, Tom," said Lizzie : " my
hands are full enough — you ought to
have a room to yourself, where you can
work quietly without any bother."
" Ought stands for nothing," said Tom
despairingly.
"Stop a bit!" cried Lizzie; "I've
thought of something. Now, don't you
bother me for a minute, Tom. Yes, I've
got it." Lizzie ran up-stairs ; and when
she came down, she told Tom that he
had better go for a walk till things were
quiet, and that, if he liked, he might call
at the Royal Oak, and talk to Aunt Booth.
In fact, she kept him out of the house all
day long, under one pretext or another ;
and when night came, and it was time to
go to bed, Lizzie took him up-stairs with
an air of pride and mystery, and shewed
him a door opening out of their bedroom
into the unused house.
" Now," said Lizzie, "you see what I
have been doing all day long. Walk into
your office, Mr. Overseer ! "
" O Lizzie, how could you do such a
thing I Why, Frewen will find it out,
and then he'll turn us out of the house,
and take away our allowance too."
" Why, Tom, I've only taken out some
nails, and pulled down some laths, and
knocked away some plaster, and sawn
away a stick or two — that's all ! "
62:
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
'•'You've only broken into Aunt Betsy's
house — that's all ! " muttered Tom.
" But come in and look," said Lizzie
eoaxingly, " how nicely I've managed
everything." She opened the door, and
revealed a neatly furnished room with a
carpet on the floor, and in the middle a
mal>ogany table, with Tom's books and
inkstand and blotting-paper, laid out in a
neat and orderly manner. " There's
light, too, from the skylight in the day-
time ; they never blocked that up at all."
" Yes, it's all very nice," said Tom —
" very nice indeed ; only, I'm afraid old
Frewen will not be pleased."
" Pooh ! " cried Lizzie. " As for Frew-
en, I should like to see him coming
prying into my bedroom — I'd send him
out in a hurry."
" But it's in the will, dear, that it's to
be done," said Tom solemnly.
"Then it's in my will that it shan't be
done, and surely one woman's will is as
good as another's."
On the whole, Tom didn't refuse, next
morning, to avail himself of his new of-
fice ; and he got on so well with his work,
that he began to be quite reconciled to
the arrangement, and owned to Lizzie
that he thought the risk of Frewen's find-
ing them out was very small.
Tom Rapley got on very well indeed
with his first collection ; very well, that
is, as far as getting the money went, for
people were inclined to grumble at him,
as being far more strict and exacting
than his predecessor Patch. " I'd never
a voted for you, Tom Rapley, if I'd
known you'd be as sharp as this upon
us," was the remark of more than one of
his former supporters. Some people,
too, were uncommonly spiteful. One old
lady, who lived in a cottage by herself,
and who had given Tom a deal of trouble
before she woifld pay at all, put the
money in coppers upon the window-sill,
and bade him take what he wanted. He
found, when he came to handle them,
that they were pretty nearly red-hot, and
he was obliged to drop them more quickly
than he took them up, However, he got
the money in one way or other ; but the
next matter that troubled him was, how
to dispose of it.
He had the money all in gold. He
wouldn't take cheques ; Frewen had ad-
vised him not to do it. He couldn't be
always running over to Biscopham to
present cheques ; and Frewen told him
that any delay ia presentation might
make him liable to the parish, if any
should not be duly paid. Tom was very
nervous ahout his responsibility ; but he
thought he wouldn't be wrong if he had
the money all in good golden sovereigns.
As the money grew in amount, however,
Tom became more and more uneasy.
He had over five hundred pounds in the
house. The premises were lightly built
and badly secured ; many people knew of
the money that was lodged at Tom's
house, and there were several men in the
village whose characters were none of the
best — among others. Skim; and, un-
luckily, Skim had looked in one day when
Tom was counting his money, and had
seen the sovereigns tumbling one over
another on the table ; whereat his face
had lighted up with a gleam that made
Tom shudder. Most people in Tom's
situation would have banked the money ;
but there was no bank nearer than Bis-
copham, and to take it there involved
losing a day, and the expense of hiring a
conveyance, unless he went in on market-
day and by a carrier's cart. Besides,
Tom was nervous about banks also —
they broke sometimes. Now, as long as
he had got the money in gold under his
hands, he was safe ; and yet, when he
looked at his bag of coin, it struck him
how easy it would be for anybody to
make off with it, and how useless to try
to trace the money, once gone. There
was this advantage about o:old, however
— he could hide it wherever he pleased,
and it would take no harm. He might put
it down the well, for instance, or bury it
in the garden. And yet, he would never
know a moment's peace if he left the
gold hidden outside the house : he would
be always imagining that somebody had
watched him, and was now possessing
himself of the treasure.
After much thought, Tom made up his
mind to hide the money, and hide it in
the empty house. That was guarded and
secured at every point, and was further
protected by the superstitious fears of
the villagers. The house, shut up and
abandoned, had acquired the reputation
of being haunted ; all sorts of tales were
told about the place — of lights seen, and
sounds heard in the dead of night ; and
few of the inhabitants of Milford would
willingly pass the place after dark.
The arrangements of the old house
were all familiar enough to Tom. Th<
room he occupied as an office was ovei
the large front-kitchen, which occupiec
the whole of the ground floor of thai
wing. The landing of the back staircas(
leading to the kitchen was just outsid<
Tom's office-door, and that door onc<
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
opened, he would have access to the
kitchen, and could hide his money under
one of the bricks in the floor easily
enough. There was no danger of any
one getting in there ; and if they did,
how should they suspect the existence of
the buried treasure ?
Tom went up to the blacksmith in the
village, and telling him that he had lost
the key of his cupboard, procured a
bunch of old keys and a file. The lock
of his office-door vras not a complicated
one, and with a little filing and adjust-
ment of a key, he soon contrived to open
it. Then he went back to his own
kitchen, procured a light,, locked the
outer door, and proceeded to explore his
way to the basement of Aunt Betsy's
house.
Mouldy and musty, smelt everything
about the old place. Dust was everywhere,
and cobwebs with great fat spiders, who
hurried off into crevices at Tom's ap-
proach, and lay there doubtfully, with
one cruel hairy talon stretched out, won-
dering, perhaps, if the end of everything
were come, or only a bigger fly than ordi-
nary, that might by-and-by be entangled,
and sprung upon, and devoured. In the
bricked passages below, a settlement of
ants had established themselves, and
raised a nest ; whilst the earthworms had
thrown their castings all along the
crevices. Tom made his way to the
kitchen, looking neither to the right nor
to the left, everything seemed so dismal
and woful. He had some little difficulty
with the kitchen-door, for the lock was
of a different pattern, and finally he was
obliged to use a screwdriver, and take
the lock right off.
The kitchen looked desolate indeed.
The black beetles had permanently
camped out on its floor, and covered it
with their odious battalions. At the
sight' of Tom and the lighted candle,
they retreated indeed, but did not take to
flight. " They were so unaccustomed to
man, their tameness was shocking to see."
Like Epic heroes among a crowd of or-
dinary warriors, huge cockchafers, with
extended feelers, ran hither and thither,
as if organizing their followers, and urg-
ing them on to battle ; whilst white ven-
erable insects — the Nestors of this
mirky host — formed the centres of
groups which might be councils of war.
Tom stepped gingerly among the black
beetles, and coming to the centre of the I
kitchen, looked curiously around. The
range and boiler, which he had known so }
bright and polished in Aunt Betsey's '
623
time, were now covere3 with rust, and a
kind of red, greasy perspiration. Be-
tween the stones of the hearth, straggling
bleached grasses had thrust themselves ;
and the soot that had fallen from the
chimney had formed the basis of a sort
of mould, on which there was a feeble
growth of vegetable life. The saucepans
still hung on their nails with their lids
beside them, once of a silvery brightness,
now rusted and discoloured. Plates and
dishes stood all of a row above the
kitchen dresser, covered with dust and
grime. The eight-day clock in the corner
was the only thing that kept its accus-
tomed aspect — its face still shone out
bright and clean, and the round moon and
the astronomical emblems upon it were
the only cheerful things visible.
Tom didn't stop long looking about
him, but presently remembered what had
brought him here, and he then began to
consider where he should dig his hole,
and hide his money. . It must be in a
place he should have no difficulty in find-
ing again himself, and with that view, he
couldn't do better than make the hiding-
place in the very centre of the kitchen.
Tom paced it out from corner to corner,
and where his footsteps crossed each
other, he prised up the bricks and dug a
hole. He had less difficulty in this than
he expected. The bricks came up easily
enough, and the ground below was quite
loose and friable. He didn't dig very
deep, for he was unused to the work, and
he ached so badly across the small of the
back, that he got quite weary and ex-
hausted.
" This will do very well," he said to
himself. " Nobody will dream of looking
here for it ; and people are too much
afraid of the house ever to think of get-
ting in." He put his bag of money into
the hole, replaced the earth, beating it
carefully down, levelled the bricks accu-
rately, and removed all traces of his work.
" There ! " he cried, flourishing the
spade over his head ; that's a good job
done, anyhow." In his flourish he struck
the low beam overhead, and hit some
brown paper-bags that hung from the
ceiling, scattering a lot of dust over him-
self.
" There go aunt's old dried herbs," he
said ; "all turned to dust, like herself."
He did not replace the lock on the
kitchen-door, and left all the other doors
unlocked that he might have easy access
to his hoard, and made his way back to
his own part of the house, feeling a good
deal easier in his mind. Somebody was
624
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
thumping against the outer door, and
Tom went down to see who it was, leav-
ing his tools up-stairs.
" I want to borrow a spade. Master
Rapley ! " said a rough husky voice. It
was Skim's.
" I haven't got one ! " said Tom, in a
little confusion. He didn't like to own
that his spade was in his bedroom.
Skim went off rather sulkily. Then
said Tom to himself: "If I hadn't hid-
den my money up so carefully, it would
have frightened me to see that fellow
about the place." Skim had hardly been
gone a minute, before Mr. Frewen came
in.
"Well, Tom," he said, seating himself
in a wooden chair in the kitchen, and
smiling in an absent kind of way, " I've
come to look round the place."
"Come to look round the place?"
cried Tom, with some dismay.
"Yes," said Frewen. "According to
the will, you know, Tom, I'm bound to in-
spect the premises every year, to see that
everything is safe and right. I'll go up-
stairs now."
" Oh ! that's a pity," said Tom.
" Lizzie's gone out, and she's locked up
the bedroom, and taken the key with
her."
Frewen tapped his foot impatiently on
the floor.
" What's that bunch of keys you've got
there ?" he cried, pointing to those Tom
had unwittingly kept in his hand.
" Oh ! those are some I got from the
blacksmith ; I lost the key of the wash-
house."
" Try 'em, and see if one will fit the
bedroom."
" Lizzie won't like that," said Tom.
" What ! Missus is master here, eh ! "
said Frewen. " Come, Til stand between
you and harm. I don't want to have to
come here again to look at the place ;
don't you see ? "
" Perhaps Lizzie will be back directly,"
said Tom, not knowing exactly what to
do, and going towards the door to look
out.
"Why, here I am, Tom," said his wife,
coming in at the half -opened door.
"What's the matter?"
" The key, Mrs. Tom, the key ! " said
Frewen impatiently.
" What key ? " said Mrs. Tom, an-
noyed.
" Yes, my dear, the key of the bed-
room . he wants to look over the place,"
cried Tom, looking at her significantly,
"you
place
"it's
" to see that all is kept in good order, you
know."
Lizzie realized the situation instantane-
ously, but for the moment she was at a
loss how to act. Not only would Frewen
discover the opening made into the old
house — not only would they lose their
dwelling and the ten shillings a week, but
they would also, probably, incur the law-
yer's ill-will, and jeopardize Tom's ap-
pointment. Mr. Frewen had been a good
friend in many ways. It was he who, in
conjunction with Aunt Booth, had stood
security for Tom's faithful performance
of his duties, and if he were offended,
and offered to withdraw, where could
they get another surety ?
" La ! Mr. Frewen," she said,
can't come into my bedroom. The
ain't fit to be seen.''
" Oh, nonsense ! " said Frewen
only a matter of business ; just open the
door and let me look in."
" Very well, sir," said Mrs. Tom : " I'm
ashamed to shew you the place, sir, it's so
untidy. Won't you wait till I've tidied it
up?"
" Pooh, pooh ! " said Frewen ; " I
haven't been married all these years not
to know what an untidy room is. Come ;
lead the way ! "
"Stop a moment!" said Lizzie. —
" Tom, you must fetch little Bertie away
I couldn t have Mr
for all the world ! "
" What does it matter ? " cried Frewen.
" I've got children of my own."
" But the scarlet fever "
" Scarlet fever ! " cried Frewen, jump-
ing off from the chair, and running out
into the garden. " Why didn't you tell
me that before ? Pretty noise my wife
will make if she gets to hear of it. I
shall be afraid to go home. Is the boy
very bad ? "
Lizzie looked dreadfully downcast, as
she told Frewen that she didn't know
how it would end.
Frewen stumped up and down the
gravelled path. The thought had fre-
quently suggested itself before ; but now
that he heard of the illness of the boy, it
struck him with tenfold force : What a
capital thing for my little lad if their
youngster should pop off.
Yes ; this contingent prospect which
was so little good to the Rapley's, would
be a useful thing for liim. That his boy
should have a comfortable landed prop-
erty waiting: for him when he came of
Frewen go near him
age, and all the accumulations of a
long
I
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
minority, would add very considerably
to the position and influence of the
Frewens.
He was not a man to waste any time in
profitless speculation on the future ; but
the news he had just heard put some-
thing into his head that he would not
otherwise have thought of. He remem-
bered those barren manorial rights which
were useless to the Rapleys, but might
be valuable to the Frewens. By-and-by,
if his son should succeed to this prop-
erty, it would render it more complete,
if the full title to the manor were ac-
quired.
" Tom ! " he cried, beckoning him out.
" There ; stand on the other side of that
potato-bed." Mr. Frewen carefully took
up a position so that the wind should
blow from him to Tom — on account of
the scarlet fever. " Now," he cried,
*' Tom, I daresay you wouldn't object to
a five-pound note ? "
"Certainly not, sir," cried Tom, with a
grin.
" Well, a friend of mine, who owns some
land about here, wants to buy a manor —
that he may give deputation to a game-
keeper ; do you understand ? Now, you
can give a title — it's worth nothing to
you — and if you like to take a five-pound
note, one of my clerks shall draw a con-
veyance and bring it to you to sign."
" Couldn't you make it ten, sir ?" cried
Tom.
" Certainly not. It's not worth five
shillings. But as I wanted to do you a
- Well, it doesn't matter."
good turn —
" Oh, you shall have it, sir," said Tom,
'^at your own price. Am I to have the
five now ? "
" No : when the conveyance is signed.
Well, good-day. Let me know how the
boy is. Ready for your audit, Tom ? got
the figures all right ? "
" Yes, and the cash too," said Tom
proudly. "' I've done better than any
collector of them all, sir."
" That's right, Tom — do your backers
credit," cried Frewen, turning to leave
the premises. " What nice order your
garden is in, Tom. I didn't give you
credit for being such a good gardener."
" Well, sir, it's thanks to a neighbour
of mine it looks so well ; he gave it such
a thorough digging over last year that
everything has flourished beautifully ;
and did it for nothing, too."
" He's a good neighbour to have," cried
Frewen. " Well, gcod-day, Tom."
"• What a nice, pleasant man he is,"
said Tom, going in-doors to his wife.
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 352
625
The unexpected prospect of an extra five-
pound note had quite warmed his heart.
" Pleasant he'd have looked," said
Lizzie, " if he'd gone up-stairs."
" Ah ! " replied Tom, wasn't that a
capital idea of mine about the key ? "
" Much good that would have been,"
rejoined Lizzie, "if it hadn't been for that
thought of mine about the scarlet fever."
" Humph ! " said Tom. " I hope Bertie
won't go and catch it after this : I should
think it was a judgment. Well, I'm off
to Farmer Brown's, to ask him to give
me a lift to Biscopham to-morrow,"
That night. Sailor was paying his placid
addresses to Mrs. Booth at the Royal
Oak, when presently Skim came in and
thrust himself into the room uninvited.
Neither of them cared for his company,
but neither ventured to tell him so.
" Come, Sailor, how dull we are 1 " cried
Skim. " Come, tell us a story about your
sailing round that there mountain."
" What ! about roun'ing Cape Horn ?"
said Sailor. " Well, I don't think I ever
finished telling you that story yet."
" Oh ! we haven't time for any stories
now," cried Aunt Booth snappishly. " I
shall story up the house, and go to bed.
Come, my lads."
It was barelv nine o'clock ; but when
Mrs. Booth made up her mind to go ta
bed, go she would. Skim and Sailor de-
parted rather unwillingly. Sailor didn't
like Skim as a companion ; but he could
hardly avoid walking with him, as. they
lived close together. As they went along,
Skim began to talk about the old house,,
and the supposed sounds and sights that
were heard and seen there.
" Did you ever see anything of the
kind ?" asked Skim significantly.
Sailor hesitated. " Well, mate," he
said, " I did see something there once."
" When was that .f* " cried Skim.
"Why, 'twas the very night she died.
I suppose you don't know that she came
to see me that very night ? "
" No," cried Skim ; " I never knew
that."
" But she did," said Sailor, shaking
his head ; " and give me the ofiice to go
and fetch Charley Frewen ; so that was
why I went, and not out of no disrespect
to you, Skim. Well, after the old lady
had left me, I sat up a good bit ; and just
as I was going to bed, I hears voices
outside, and lo and behold, there was
Jem Blake, and Bill Edwards, and one or
two more, as was going Christmasing ;
and they fetched me out, and we went
round the village, singing carols, and all
626
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
Mates,
Rennel
I goes
sorts of fun. And we'd had a glass or
two here and there ; and as we was com-
ing home, says I : Suppose we go and
sing to old Mother Rennel. And they
all shake their heads at this ; but I was
feeling full of spirits, and so I says :
I'll lay you a quart as Mother
gives me a Christmas-box if
along there. Well, these other
chaps wouldn't go on, and left me at the
corner of the lane ; and away I went,
perhaps not keeping my course as direct
as might be. I saw there was a light in
the best bedroom window — a twinkling
kind of light, as looked as if it would go
out every minute, and I was just agoing
to begin my song, when I see the light
move, and shine in another window, and
next I catched sight of it over the hall-
door, and then it shewed right in the
kitchen window. Well, I walks up the
path to the window, and looks in. What
do you think I see, mate ? "
" I don't know," cried Skim, who was
all of a tremble.
" I see Aunt Betsy, I tell you ! robed all
in white, with a candle in one hand, and
a spade in the other, looking ghastly
enough to freeze the very marrow in your
bones ! "
" go on ! "
knocking on the
bricks with her spade, and then she
moved off : and I moved off, too, as fast
as my legs could carry me ; I was so
skeared with her looks."
" Was that all ? Did you see nothing
else ? " cried Skim, feeling underneath
his jumper as if for some concealed
weapon.
" That was enough for me. I tell you
I cut and run fast enough."
" Where did you say you saw her
stand ? "
" Right under them bags of herbs as
hung in the kitchen — in the very middle
of it."
"Herbs did you say?" cried Skim,
springing up half a foot into the air.
" Why, what's the matter, mate ?
Where are you off to, my lad ? "
By this time they had reached the row
of cottages, and Sailor paused at his own
gate, astonished — for Skim, instead of
turning into his cottage, started off in a
sort of slinging trot on the way to Bis-
copham.
" What's his little game to-night ? "
mused Sailor, as he let himself in.
" However, it don't concern me, anyway."
" Well," cried Skim ;
" She stood for a bit
CHAPTER VII.
Sweet are the uses of adversity.
In the dark little counting-house at the
end of his gloomy cavern of a shop, Mr.
Collop held solitary converse with his
own thoughts late on one soft dripping
night in December. These thoughts
were not cheerful or enlivening. He had
kept himself afloat another year, but at
what a cost ! Last year, if he had failed,
he would have failed with the reputation
of an honest but unfortunate man. This
year, there would be another sort of tale
to tell. All this time Collop had worked
hard from morning till night, had lived
penuriously, and drawn nothing but his
bare expenses out of the concern. And
yet so ill had he managed matters, that
if he were obliged to suspend payment
to-morrow, the chances are that he would
have to submit to a criminal prosecution,
on a charge of obtaining goods on credit
for the purpose of pledging them to get
money. What was the hidden drain,
then, upon his resources ? In a word,
Frewen. The lawyer had cleared a little
fortune out of Collop — all in a perfectly
legitimate and honourable way, all in the
way of costs, which Collop had paid from
time to time, to avoid the extremity of an
execution. And in the end Collop had
not shrunk his debt one whit. He owed
Frewen more than ever, although he had
paid him hundreds and hundreds of
pounds. Frewen had fastened on him
like the octopus on his prey, enfolding
him with a net of legal tentacula, and
draining the life's-blood of him, whilst
leaving his outward shell intact. Nor
was there anything exceptionally harsh
in his treatment, if it should be admitted
that such an attorney must needs live.
How would it be possible for Frewen to
keep up his hospitable mansion and pro-
vide for his offspring in accordance with
their way of life, if he didn't squeeze a
man when he had a chance .'* Like the
honest fair-trading Greek who owns the
swift-sailing felucca — if you be well-
manned and armed he will deal with you
as if he were a brother ; but waterlogged,
helpless, and unmanageable, hoisting sig-
nals of distress — unfortunate merchant-
man that you are, better go to the bottom
at once than signal for help to our disin- Ml
terested Greek. "l
It was maddening to be the subject of
this treatment, to be obliged to forfeit mt
honest name and self-respect, to rob and H
deceive trading connections and creditors
for the sake of a hated enemy, and with-
i
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
627
out the slightest permanent effect. Col-
lop had been driven to it step by step,
and now he saw himself at the last ex-
tremity— his credit gone at last, threat-
ened on every side, writs showering down
upon him daily, Frewen waiting with
keen intelligent eyes to give a last
squeeze to him on his own account, be-
fore sweeping everything away in the
interests of the estate he represented.
Collop had paid him ten pounds — the
last ten pounds he had in the world — for
a day's delay, hoping — he hardly knew
what — perhaps, that the general ruin
and destruction that To-morrow Morning
was to bring might spare him from an
ignominious end.
" Shall I come and post up the ledger,
father .?" said Emily, putting her head in
at the counting-house door.
" No," said her father sullenly, " no. I
don't think it will ever want posting
again."
" Why, father, what's the matter ? Are
you going to give up business ? "
"I'm going to fail, Emily — to be a
bankrupt — to see everything I have
seized upon and sold — everything — do
you hear ? — except the clothes on our
backs ! "
"How are we to live, father?" cried
Emily in consternation.
" l' shall have to live in a prison ; you,
in the workhouse."
" Can nothing be done ? Can nothing
save us .'* "
"Only a miracle. — Hush, Emmy!
Who is that in the shop ? "
Collop shook all over as he did now at
any unaccustomed footstep.
Emily went out to see whom it could
be. She returned presently. " It is that
labouring man who has been to see you
so often lately."
" Tell him to come in, Emmy ; and you
go and get your supper. Don't wait for
me ; and eat as much as you can, for I
don't know where another meal is to come
from."
Emily, in deep sadness and distress,
but with that submissive meekness to
which a life of abnegation had accus-
tomed her, sat down to her solitary meal.
She heard the murmur of talk going on
in the counting-house, and thought it
never would cease. The conference
lasted a long while, and at the end of it,
Collop put in his head at the sitting-room
door to say that he was going out. He
had received a sudden funeral order, he
said, in reply to his daughter's inquiring
glance. " Don't sit up for me."
Emily sat up, however, in the cold dull
room, that was pervaded by the smell of
corduroys and fustians : the fire went
out, and the night grew colder and colder,
but still she sat wrapped up in her shawl,
shivering in her hard horse-hair-covered
chair. Twelve o'clock struck — one and
two, and still her father had not returned.
She grew seriously alarmed now, and
would have set out to search for him, but
she did not know in which direction to
go-
At three o'clock he came in, with a
strange light and excitement on his face.
" Where have you been, father ? " cried
Emily.
" Never mind where I have been, girl,"
he said, sitting down to the bread and
cheese that was on the table. " I have met
with a friend in need. Perhaps I spoke
too hastily just now. I may tide over
my difficulties yet. At all events, Emmy,
we won't starve. Here," he said, taking
out a canvas bag — " here is a hundred
pounds in gold. Keep it always about
your person. Sew some of it in your
stays, and some in your petticoat, and
some keep in your pocket ; do you hear ?
You must do it this very night, for we
(ion't know who may be here to-morrow
morning."
" O father, but is it right ? "
" That money doesn't come out of the
business, I tell you," said Collop, "but
from an old friend ; but you must keep it
about you, for if we have an execution in
to-morrow, the men may seize it."
CHAPTER VIII.
There an't shall please you ; a foolish, mild man :
An honest man, look you, and soon dashed.
It is a bright winter's morning. Mr.
Rapley is up betimes, and performing his
ablutions in a fresh-drawn bucket of
spring-water from the well beside his
door. His face is polished into a healthy
glow with friction and yellow soap.
He has got his best black trousers on,
and is just struggling into his shirt,
which is white as driven snow, with
wristbands and front stiffened so that
they could have stood alone. Mrs. Rap-
ley sat up till late the night before get-
ting up that faultless shirt, but the re-
sult was worthy of her pains. Tom is
off to Biscopham to-day to pay over the
rate-money. Farmer Brown is going to
drive him in his dog-cart, for it is mar-
ket day in the town, the market next
before Christmas, and Milford is muster-
ing in some force, meaning to go there.
628
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
Saunders the carrier is drawn up in front
of the Royal Oak, collecting his packages
and passengers for a start. Two or
three tax-carts have passed already, and
old Payden was ?.w^ay an hour ago with
his donkey and cart laden with geese
and poultry.
Tom is come to brushing his hair by
this time, with his back to the pathway,
and he starts on hearing a voice exclaim :
" Buy a nice 'air-brush this morning,
sir?"
"Hollo!" said Tom, turning round,
and seeing a pedler standing on the foot-
path, with a basket slung round his
shoulders by a broad leathern strap.
"What, pedler ! you think I want a new
one, eh ! Oh, this old thing will serve
my turn for a while ; it don't fetch the
hairs out, as a new one might, and I'm
getting so as I can't spare any."
" Buy a nice pair of vauses, then, for
the good lady ? "
" Hollo ! " cried Tom again ; "don't I
remember you. Didn't I buy a comb of
you this very Christmas five years — or
six, is it ? "
" P'raps you did ; I can't remember all
my customers. Well, will you give me a
turn, master ? "
"Not this morning, I think," replied
Tom ; whereupon the man moved rap-
idly off without further soliciting custom.
He had left only a few minutes, when the
helmet of a rural policeman appeared
over the garden hedge.
" Hollo, Bridger ! ' said Tom, " is that
you ? It's a fine morning, this."
" So it is, Mr. Rapley. I thought I'd
just look in to tell you that there was a
man sleeping in your old barn last night."
" Well, I'm glad the old place has been
some use to a fellow-creature."
"But he don't bear the best of char-
acters— a pedler sort of chap he be.
He ain't been out of jail long for passing
bad money."
" He must sleep somewhere, for all
that," said Tom. " If he don't do any-
thing worse than sleep, he won't harm."
" I've done my duty by telling you,
Mr. Rapley ; and I wonder you don't pull
the old place down. It's a regular har-
bour for tramps when they come this
way."
" You must speak to Lawyer Frewen
about that," said Tom : " it's all in his
hands now. It'll all come to my son one
of these days, and then we shall see the
difference."
Tom was fond of imparting this infor-
mation about his son. It gave him a
kind of reflected dignity to be the father
of a landed proprietor in embryo.
" Ah ! " said the policeman, to whom
the arrangements of Aunt Betsy's will
were known in the indefinite exaijorerated
form they had assumed in the talk of the
country-side, "you'll have the old place
opened up then, and gay doings, I ex-
pect."
"That we shall, you may depend ; but
then we may none of us be alive to see
it."
" Do you think site's there ? " said the
policeman, pointing mysteriously with his
thumb over his shoulder to the empty
house. " Do you think she'll be found
there when it's opened — the old woman,
I mean ? "
"What! my Aunt Betsy? What
makes you think that ? "
" That's what all the people say, sir, as
she is laid out on the best bed, with the
string of the 'larum-bell round her hand,
so as if she came to life again she could
make herself heard. I often thinks,
when I comes this way at night : Sup-
pose the old gal should wake up and ring
the bell, what'd I do?"
" La ! " said Tom, " is that what the
people say ! Why, nobody ever said so
to me."
" 'Taint likely they'd talk to you about
it ; but that's what's the story about here,
sir, with the country-folk ; and they say,
too, that Lawyer Frewen has a hundred a
year through the old lady's will as long
as she's above ground."
" Upon my word, Bridger," said Rap-
ley, " I'm sorry you've told me. I shan't
sleep so well at nights now, and shall
always be listening for that 'larum-bell."
" Well, Mr. Rapley," said the police-
man with an appreciative chuckle, " I'd
rather you had the job of taking care of
this old place than me. Morning, sir."
Tom went into the house, where his
wife was busy cleaning up, the young
heir clinging to his mother's apron, whilst
baby was amusing herself with a sauce-
pan lid on the dresser.
" I'll not tell her anything about what
they say, or she'll never let me go out of
an evening. It's about time I went to
get the money."
" Tom," said his wife, suspending her
cleaning operations for a moment — ■
" Tom, do you know that it's Christmas
next week ; and, Tom, don't you draw
your salary to-day ? "
" Why, of course I do," said Tom.
" You don't suppose I should forget that
remarkable fact, do you ! I say, old girl,
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
629
what are we going to have for dinner on
Christmas day ? "
" III speak to butcher about it to-day :
a bit of the loin of beef, about three
pounds and a half ; and a batter-pudding
with currants in it."
" What would you say to a goose, Liz-
zie, eh ? " said Tom, rubbing his hands,
'•nicely stuffed with plenty of sage and
onions, and apple-sauce, sweetly browned
with some rich gravy, eh ; and the pud-
ding baked underneath it ?"
Tom nudged his partner rapturously,
who contemplated the picture thus called
up before her mind's eye with a preoc-
cupied doubtful gaze.
" Where's the money to come from,
Tom ? " she said at last.
" Oh, you leave that to me," said Tom.
" Don't I draw my salary to-day ? "
" Just think, Tom, how long that money
has to last ! " cried Mrs. Rapley. " We
ought to have learned a lesson of self-
denial by this time."
Tom's countenance fell. But, then,
roast goose was so nice ; and it's a poor
heart that never rejoices. Tom snatched
up his spade, and hurried off.
Mrs. Rapley went to the gate, with the
baby in her arms, to watch for Farmer
Brown, and presently descried him com-
ing down the lane in his dog-cart, a young
horse in the shafts, who was shewing a
good deal of action, and was already in a
lather with heat and impatience.
"Tom will be here in a minute," she
called to the farmer, as he drew up at the
gate.
" Hurry him on, Mrs. Rapley," cried
Brown, a fresh-colored, hearty-looking
farmer ; " my mare's young, and full of
fidgets."
" Tom ! " she cried, running up the
garden-walk towards the house, " Look
alive — Mr. Brown's waiting."
Tom was kneeling in the doorway,
holding on to the door-posts, looking as
white as a sheet, and trembling all over.
" Gone ! " he gasped. " It's gone ! "
" What's gone ? O Tom, is it Bertie ? "
No ; Bertie was all right ; he was
clinging to his father's legs, trying to
mount on his back ; he thought this was
some little pantomime gone through for
his special amusement.
" The money ! the money ! it's gone !
O Lizzie, we're ruined ! "
" O Tom ! " cried Lizzie. " And I told
you not to hide it away."
Tom gasped as if choking with horror
and despair.
" Tom ! " cried Lizzie, " get up and
dog-cart ; " look
meet it like a man. Have you really
j been robbed ? Send after the thief ;
I rouse the country ; fetch the police ! "
; " Now then, Master Rapley," cried
; Brown's voice from his
alive there, can't you ? "
"O daddy!" cried the boy, "give
Bertie a ride in Missa Brown's cart."
Tom threw the boy off roughly. " Get
away, you brat ! You've robbed your
father of his birthright ; and now he's
ruined. Oh, let me die ! Lizzie, let me
die ! "
" Mr. Brown ! " cried Lizzie, running
to the gate ; " Tom's been robbed.
Drive off to the police-office ; please do ;
and tell them to stop the thief, wherever
he may be."
" Robbed ! " cried Brown — " robbed !
What's he been robbed of ? "
" All the rate-money ! Five hundred
pounds and more ! "
Brown whistled in dismay. What a
fool the man was to have all that money
in his house ! Brown was a friend, but
he was also a ratepayer ; and one of his
first thoughts was, shall I have to pay
over again ? " Let me see," he said ; " I
met Bridger coming over Gomersham
Bridge ; I wonder which way he went ?
I could overtake him, and bring him back,
if I knew. Or, shall I drive in to Biscop-
ham, and tell the superintendent there ? "
" Better go to Biscopham. Oh, do
make haste, Mr. Brown, please ! " cried
Lizzie, clasping her hands.
" But I must have some particulars,"
said Brown ; " it's no use going with half
a tale. Tom must give me a list of the
notes and the cheques, so that we may
stop 'em at the bank."
" The money was all in gold."
" Whew ! " whistled Brown, looking
glummer than ever. "All in gold! What
a fool ! And where did he put it ? "
" Tom, where did you put the money ? "
screamed his wife. He hadn't even told
her where he had hidden it.
" I buried it under the bricks," cried
Tom.
" What folly ! " cried the farmer. " But
look here, Rapley ; you jump in, and
come with me to Biscopham. I'd rather
you told the story than me.'
Brown had a lurking
might be better for the interests of the
parish that Mr. Rapley should himself
be under the supervision of the police.
Tom certainly looked as if he might
have been guilty of any crime he was so
haggard and downcast. All his strength
and spirit had deserted him. It was a
feeling that it
630
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH S SCOTCH JOURNAL.
wild, improbable tale he had to tell, and
he felt that he wouldn't have believed
it himself of any other man.
He drove away in Brown's dog-cart,
his shoulders rounded, and his chin rest-
ing on his chest.
Ill news flies apace, and in some man-
ner— it would be difficult to say how —
the whole village simultaneously came to
know that Tom Rapley had lost his rate-
money. The rumour overtook Bridger
the policeman in his rounds, and he
forthwith returned in haste to Milford's.
He questioned Mrs. Rapley narrowly
about the matter ; but her knowledge of
the circumstances were vague and con-
fused. Tom had been robbed, but she
couldn't say how, and the money was all
in gold.
" Did you see the pedler that he was
talking to this morning, ma'am, that slept
in the old barn last night ? He was no
very good character either."
Lizzie hadn't seen him. There was a
gleam of hope here. It was possible this
man was the robber, and might be traced
and stopped before he could get rid of
the money.
"I'll be after him, ma'am ! " cried the
policeman : " depend upon it, he's the
thief, ma'am ; unless," he added in a low
voice, '• it happens to be Tom Rapley
himself."
Hardly had Bridger gone, when Aunt
Booth came down, a shawl hastily thrown
over her head. " Is it true } " she cried
— " is it true what I hear ? Oh, he's
ruined us all ! "
'• What do you mean, aunt ? What
harm has he done to you ? "
" Why ! ain't I security for him — Mr.
Frewen and I — for five hundred pounds ;
the silly, unlucky fool ! O Liz, why did
you or I ever set eyes on his monkey
race ! If he isn't a rogue too "
'■ Get out of my house ! " cried Lizzie,
all ablaze with anger ; and then there was
a quarrel between the two women, by way
of mending matters. No one can sav
what would have been the issue of it, if
Sailor hadn't come up just then, and sep-
arated the aunt and niece. He carried
off Mrs. Booth to her own home, and then
came back to comfort Mrs. Rapley.
" Why, look here, ma'am," he said ; "it
stands to reason as there can't be any oc-
casion to take on. Either your master's
a honest man — and if he be, none of
them can't touch him — or else he's col-
lared the money, and there'll be the five
hundred pounds to fall back upon ! "
At this Sailor himself was driven from
the house, and the door bolted and locked,
whilst Mrs. Rapley abandoned herself to
bitter, unavailing grief.
DOROTHY
From The Spectator.
WORDSWORTH'S SCOTCH
JOURNAL.*
Everything fresh we learn of Words-
worth deepens the impression of that
hardy imaginative simplicity which is the
chief characteristic of his genius. This
is one great charm of his sister's diary -
of the Highland Tour of 1803. Miss
Wordsworth, who cherished every inci-
dent connected with the CH-igin of one of
his poems, puts down in this journal, not
for public perusal, but for the wife who
stays behind with her child, the modest
story of their adventures, and yet not a
word in it from beginning to end betrays
the conscious seeker after aesthetic feel-
ings, or suggests the attendant nymph
sharing something of the glow of a poet's
inspiration. There is a remarkable self-
restraint, not to say fortitude, in the man-
ner in which the constantly recurring bad
weather, and not unfrequently severe dis-
comforts of the journey are described, as
though nothing better were to be expected.
There is not a trace of the feeling that
there was any sort of merit in the ideal
objects of the travellers' search, or any
prerogative belonging to a poet which is
injuriously treated by the buffets to
which ordinary men are liable. The
journal is as simple and natural as if
there were no poetic reputation either to
gain or to keep up. When any touch of
poetry marks the journal, it is as plain
that it comes there through the natural
ardour of the writer's own — not even
her brother's — feelings, as it is that
when you might conventionally have ex-
pected it, it is often not to be found.
Miss Wordsworth writes generally with
extreme literalness of the incidents of
travel, though, of course, as one whose
expectations are on the stretch for the
beauties of which she has heard so much.
Her brother and Coleridge figure not in
the least as poets, but simply as fellow-
travellers who share her fatigues and
enjoyments, and who frequently help her
to discern what is most memorable. Any-
* Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland in 1803
by Dorothy IVords-worth. Edited by J. C. Shairp,
LL.D., Principal of the United College of St. Salvator
and St. Leonard, St. Andrews. Edinburgh: Edmon-
ston and Douglas.
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH S SCOTCH JOURNAL.
631
thing less like the style of a " sentimen-
tal journey," of a pilgrimage made in
order to experience exalted feelings, it is
impossible to imagine. Moreover, there
is no effort in Miss Wordsworth's diary
to look at things with her brother's eyes.
She keeps her own eager, lively eyes on
everything, and even when she gets hold
of a scene which profoundly strikes her,
she does not attempt to Wordsworthize
upon it, but just defines her own im-
pressions, and there leaves it. A being
of completer simplicity than Dorothy
Wordsworth we should think it not easy
to find again. Principal Shairp, in his
very interesting preface, gives us De
Ouincey's graphic account of her wild
bright eyes and abrupt reserve of man-
ner thus : —
" Her face was of Egyptian brown ; " rarely,
in a woman of English birth, had I seen a
more determinate gipsy tan. Her eyes were
not soft as Mrs. Wordsworth's, nor were they
fierce or bold ; but they were wild, and start-
ling, and hurried in their motion. Her man-
ner was warm, and even ardent ; her sensibility
seemed constitutionally deep ; and some subtle
fire of impassioned intellect apparently burned
within her, which — being alternately pushed
forward into a conspicuous expression by the
irresistible instincts of her temperament, and
then immediately checked in obedience to the
decorum of her sex and age and her maidenly
condition — gave to her whole demeanour,
and to her conversation, an air of embarrass-
ment, and even of self-conflict, that was almost
distressing to witness. Even her very utter-
ance and enunciation often suffered in point
of clearness and steadiness, from the agitation
of her excessive organic sensibility. At times
the self-counteraction and self -baffling of her
feelings caused her even to stammer. But the
greatest deductions from Miss Wordsworth's
attractions, and from the exceeding interest
which surrounded her, in right of her char-
acter, of her history, and of the relation which
she fulfilled towards her brother, were the
glancing quickness of her motions, and other
circumstances in her deportment (such as her
stooping attitude when walking), which gave
an ungraceful character to her appearance
when out of doors.
But though this bright, eager manner
penetrates many portions of her diary,
there is no trace in it of the embarrass-
ment or conflict of feeling of which De
Quincey speaks, and which may very
possibly have been more or less provoked
by his own critical glances. What one
notes in it is the delicacy of her apprecia-
tion of all the human interests of the
scenes visited, a considerable power of art-
less intensity in describing any scene,
whether grand or simple, which struck
her imagination, — and it was oftener
simple than grand, — and a certain ardent
nimbleness in her manner of looking at
things which reminds one very often of
the few sets of verses by her published
amongst her brother's poems. One is
especially often reminded in this journal
of that charming little child's poem by
Miss Wordsworth, beginning, —
What way does the wind come } Which way
does he go ? ^
He rides over the water, and over the snow,
Through wood and through vale, and o'er
rocky height,
Which the goat cannot scale, takes his sound-
ing flight.
The /«// brightness of that gay and
breezy little poem is to be found less
frequently than we could wish in the
diary of this rather gloomy-weathered
tour ; but one is very often struck with
the pleasure which Miss Wordsworth
feels in tracing, just as in that poem, the
effect of an influence of which she can-
not tell the whence ,or the whither, and
the extreme enjoyment with which she
takes not^ of anything like a god-send.
Take this, for instance : —
The woman of the house was very kind:
whenever we asked her for anything it seemed
a fresh pleasure to her that she had it for us ;
she always answered with a sort of softening-
down of the Scotch exclamation, '* Hoot ! "
" Ho ! yes, ye'll get that," and hied to her cup-
board in the spence. We were amused with
the phrase " Ye'll get that " in the Highlands,
which appeared to us as if it came from a per-
petual feeling of the difficulty with which most
things are procured. . . . We asked for sugar,
butter, barley-bread, and milk, and with a
smile and a stare more of kindness than won- ^
der, she replied, " Ye'll get that," bringing
each article separately. We caroused our
cups of coffee, laughing like children at the
strange atmosphere in which we were : the
smoke came in gusts, and spread along the
walls and above our heads in the chimney,
where the hens were roosting like light clouds
in the sky. We laughed and laughed again,
in spite of the smarting of our eyes, yet had a
quieter pleasure in observing the beauty of
the beams and rafters gleaming between the
clouds of smoke. They had been crusted
over and varnished by many winters, till,
where the firelight fell upon them, they were
as glossy as black rocks, on a sunny day cased
in ice. When we had eaten our supper we sat
about half an hour, and I think I had never
felt so deeply the blessing of a hospitable
welcome and a warm fire. . . . The walls of
the whole house were of stone unplastered.
It consisted of three apartments, — the cow-
house at one end, the kitchen or house in the
middle, and the spence at the other end. The
632
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH S SCOTCH JOURNAL.
rooms were divided, not up to the rigging, but
only to the beginning of the roof, so that there
was afiee passage for light and smoke from
one end of the house to the other. I went to
bed some time before the family. The door
was shut between us, and they had a bright
fire, which I could not see ; but the light it
sent up among the varnished rafters and
beams, which crossed each other in almost as
intricate and fantastic a manner as I have seen
the under-boughs of a large beech-tree with-
ered by the depth of the shade above, pro-
duced the most beautiful effect that can be
conceived. It was like what I should suppose
an underground cave or temple to be, with a
dripi)ing or moist roof, and the moonlight
entering in upon it by some means or other,
and yet the colours were more like melted
gems. I lay looking up till the light of the
fire faded away, and the man and his wife and
child had crept into their bed at the other end
of the room. I did not sleep much, but passed
a comfortable night, for my bed, though hard,
was warm and clean : the unusualness of my
situation prevented me from sleeping. I could
hear the waves beat against the shore of the
lake ; a little " syke " close to the door made
a much louder noise ; and when I sate up in
my bed I could see the lake through an open
window-place at the bed's head. Add to this,
it rained all night. I was less occupied by
remembrance of the Trossachs, beautiful as
they were, than the vision of the Highland
hut, which I could not get out of my head. I
thought of the Fairyland of Spenser, and
what I had read in romance at other times,
and then, what a feast would it be for a Lon-
don pantomime-maker, could he but transplant
it to Drury Lane, with all its beautiful colours !
Evidently the indications of poverty of
resource in the Hio;hland woman's larder,
the triumph with which she identified
anything asked for, as amongst the very
small category of things obtainable in
her house, made the little meal all the
more delightful to Miss Wordsworth,
who felt a poetry in the surprises of na-
ture and life, which she could not so
much feel in the habitual order thereof.
This seems to have been the secret also
of her delight in the flying shadows cross-
ing the rafters as she lay in bed in the
Highland hut, listening to the plash of
the waves of Loch Katrine, and yet think-
ing more of the novelty and picturesque-
ness of her own position, in one com-
partment of a hut shared with her by a
cow and the Highland ferryman and his
family. Indeed, as every one has noticed
who has hitherto criticised this diary,
Miss Wordsworth is always more alive to
the human touches in the midst of nat-
ural beauty, than even to the natural
'beauty itself. On Loch Lomond she
singles out a little bark-hut in a lonely
island as an object of special interest,
and they get the boatman to land at the
bark-hut, that they may enjoy its beauty
the more. Again, how a single desolate
figure makes the whole scene seem des-
olate to her, and how her words imme-
diately shiver, as it were, in sympathy
with the loneliness she feels ! —
Came to a bark-hut by the shores, and sate
for some time under the shelter of it. While
we were here a poor woman with a little child
by her side begged a penny of me, and asked
where she could "find quarters in the village."
She was a travelling beggar, a native of Scot-,
land, had often " heard of that water," but
was never there before. This woman's ap-
pearance, while the wind was rustling about
us, and the waves breaking at our feet, was
very melancholy ; the waters looked wide, the
hills many, and dark, and far off — no house
but at Luss. I thought what a dreary waste
must this lake be to such poor creatures,
struggling with fatigue and poverty and un-
known ways !
What a tone of sympathetic dreariness
there is in the words, " The waters looked
wide, the hills many and dark and far off,"
when they come in as the mere shadow
of the poor woman's desolation. Again,
observe her delight when the solitude of
Loch Awe is broken by the sudden ap-
pearance of a vessel on it : —
After we had wound for some time through
the valley, having met neither foot-traveller,
horse, nor cart, we started at the sight of a
single vessel, just as it turned round the point
of a hill, coming into the reach of the valley
where we were. She floated steadily through
the middle of the water, with one large sail
spread out full swollen by the breeze, that
blew her right towards us. I cannot express
what romantic images this vessel brought
along with her — how much more beautiful
the mountains appeared, the lake how much
more graceful. There was one man on board,
who sate at the helm, and he, having no com-
panion, made the boat look more silent than
if we could not have seen him. I had almost
said the ship, for on that narrow water it ap-
peared as large as the ships which I have
watched sailing out of a harbour of the sea.
Of course, the chief interest of this jour-
nal will be usually regarded as its ac-
count of the few incidents which were
the germs of some of Wordsworth's most
striking poems, — that, for instance,
which suggested the lines to a Highland
girl at Inversneyde, upon Loch Lomond,
and that which gave rise to the lines,
"What, you are stepping Westward?"
In both instances we see somethins:
more than the mere occasion, indeed, the
true germ of the poetic conception which
I
M. GAMBETTAS SPEECH.
makes the poem, in Miss Wordsworth's
own thought. In both cases we find it
easy to conceive that Wordsworth's fine
tribute to his sister, —
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares and delicate fears,
A heart the fountain of sweet tears.
And love and thought and joy,
was literally true ; for in both cases the
starting-point of the poem, its very mood
and tone of feeling, is supplied by the
sister, though all the brooding power of
the brother was needed to make so much
out of so little. Take the first case as an
example. This is Miss Wordsworth's
account of the Highland girl to whom
her brother's poem was, but not till after
many weeks, written : —
I think I never heard the English language
sound more sweetly than from the mouth of
the elder of these girls, while she stood at the
gate answering our inquiries, her face flushed
with the rain : her pronunciation was clear
and distinct : without difficulty, yet slow, like
that of a foreign speech. . . . She moved with
unusual activity, which was chastened very
delicately by a certain hesitation in her looks
when she spoke, being able to understand us
but imperfectly.
And here is the fine passage into which
Wordsworth expanded his sister's
thought : —
Thou wear'st upon thy forehead clear
The freedom of a mountaineer :
A face with gladness overspread !
Sweet smiles, by human-kindness bred !
And seemliness complete, that sways
Thy courtesies, about thee plays ;
With no restraint but such as springs
From quick and eager visitings
Of thoughts that lie beyond the reach
Of thy few words of English speech :
A bondage sweetly brook'd, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life !
So have I, not unmoved in mind.
Seen birds of tempest-loving kind.
Thus beating up against the wind.
Noble as the passage is, and especially
its concluding image, Miss Wordsworth's
description conveys a far more distinct
definition than this does of the real man-
ner portrayed, when she speaks of the
girl's want of knowledge of English as
" very delicately chastening " her activ-
ity by the hesitation of bearing and mod-
esty of speech it produced. Words-
worth's phrase,
A bondage sweetly brook'd, a strife
That gives thy gestures grace and life,
is more deeply charged with meditation ;
but the " delicately chastened " activity
^33
conveys better the exact idea of the fem-
inine modesty with which the Highland
lass deprecated her own power to choose
her words correctly, than the grander
range of the poet's language.
The part of the journal completed in
its present shape in 1804 is more vivid
than that finished in 1805, and more full
of delicate touches. It is obvious that
the last portion suffered from the diminu-
tion caused in Miss Wordsworth's own
enjoyment of her reminiscences by the
tragical death of her sailor brother early
in 1805. Principal Shairp's prefatory
account of Miss Wordsworth and of her
relation to her brother, is written with
fine taste and discrimination, and this
volume is one which adds a strong per-
sonal regard and affection for Miss
Wordsworth to the pleasure of the wide
range of associations which her brother's
great name excites in the mind of all
genuine lovers of his deep and buoyant
genius.
From The Pall Mall Gazette.
M. GAMBETTA'S SPEECH.
The moderation of the Extreme Left
in the French Assembly has hardly re-
ceived from Englishmen the notice that
it merits. They have admitted it as a
fact — so much they could not help doing
— but they have usually said ur implied
that it was unimportant because it was
interested. If the Left had really be-
come moderate, that, of course, would be
a significant change in French politics ;
but, as they are only shamming moder-
ation, it is not a matter worth attending
to. This view is wrong, both as regards
its conclusion and as regards its prem-
iss. Granting that the Left are mere-
ly shamming moderation, this is by no
means the trifling circumstance which it
is supposed to be. In morals the im-
portant thing is what a man is, but in
politics what a man wishes to pass for
may be quite as important. The moder-
ation of the Left shows at the very least
that 'the party has discovered the true
road to political success in France, and
that it has consented to practice self-
restraint in order to travel along this
road. In comparison with former Re-
publican action this is a striking sign
of progress. Hitherto a French Repub-
lican has rejected all thought of co-oper-
ation with those who only agree with him
in part. He has made no distinction
634
between essentials and non-essentials,
between the points on which he and his
allies think in common and the points on
which they have agreed to differ. In-
deed, the very notion of agreeing to
differ, of sharing a carriage with a man
who is going half the distance that he
wants to go, and leaving the question
how he is to go the rest of the way to be
decided later, has been repugnant to him.
He has always been bent upon narrow-
ing the bounds of his party, upon making
it comprehend as many dogmas and as
few dogma-holders as possible. Under
M. Gambetta's leadership all this has dis-
appeared, or if it has occasionally sur-
vived among the older members it has
been at once suppressed. A party which,
for the first time since it has been a
party, displays this kind of self-control
has evidently developed a new and valu-
able faculty. Granting that it is directed
to a particular purpose, the faculty must
be there before it can be so directed.
There have been other periods in French
history in which it would have been
equally for the interest of the Republi-
can party to have earned a character for
moderation, but they could not make the
necessary sacrifices. They could not im-
pose silence on themselves ; they could
not leave the guidance of the political
campaign to others ; they could not keep
in the background ; they could not re-
frain from saying things which had the
effect of frightening, and were probably
designed to frighten, timid allies. In all
these respects the Extreme Left have
changed, and whatever be the motive of
the change, the fact that it has taken
place is of itself exceedingly significant.
We question too whether those who
say that the Left are merely shamming
moderation have quite taken in how nar-
row in this case the line between pre-
tence and reality is. What is meant, we
suppose, is that the Left are merely
practising moderation with the view of
getting the supreme power into their own
hands ; and that as soon as they have
succeeded in this the mask will be
thrown off, and their native violence will
be again shown. This theory mistakes
the meaning of the change. The estab-
lishment of the Republic is not a single
act, it is a long series of acts ; and the
alliance which is to compass it must not
be a mere momentary coalition, it must
be the deliberate resolve of men who de-
termine to live together because they can
obtain in concert certain advantages
which they have failed to obtain apart.
M. GAMBETTAS SPEECH.
The enlightenment which has taught the
Republicans that they must make a show
of moderation is not likely to have
stopped there. The real conversion took
place when they realized that the Repub-
lic could only be set up by the aid of
moderate men ; and, having once under-
stood this, it would be more strange than
not if they should understand nothing
more. If the supreme power were a
thing to be won by an unexpected snatch,
it would be intelligible that the Left
should be merely trying to lull suspicion
to sleep. But the most obvious feature
of contemporary French politics is the
impossibility of setting up the Republic
in this way. Napoldon IV. might be
brought back by a surprise, Henri V.
might be brought back by a surprise, be-
cause Imperialists and Legitimists have
each some hold upon the physical basis
of power. They have friends in the
Executive and friends in the army. But
at present the Republicans have no hold
upon either, and they can only obtain
one by allying themselves with that mod-
erate party which is willing to accept
either a Constitutional Republic or a
Constitutional Monarchy, according as it
seems easier to set up one or the other.
To see and act upon this is not to sham
moderation, unless by shamming is meant
adopting a course of policy rather from a
sense of its necessity than from any ab-
stract love of it. In that sense, no doubt,
the extreme Republicans are shamming
moderation, but then it would be equally
true to say that Sir Robert Peel was
shamming zeal for free trade when he
repealed the corn laws. The most essen-
tial quality in a politician is to distinguish
what is attainable from what is unattain-
able. It is precisely this which has
usually been supposed to be the charac-
teristic merit of English Liberals, and it
is matter for satisfaction that this merit
seems at last to be becoming naturalized
in France.
From this point of view M. Gambetta's
speech last Friday is deserving of care-
ful study. Two years ago the Left al-
together denied the constituent powers
of the existing Assembly, and there were
four fanatical politicians who voted
against M. Casimir Perier's proposal the
other day on this same ground. There
was a great deal to be said in favour of
such a denial. The Assembly was not
elected to decide upon forms of govern-
ment, and it notoriously does not represent
the present opinions of the electors. But
it has been evident for some time past that
J
M. LEON GAMBETTA ON THE SITUATION.
the co-operation of the Left Centre in
founding the Republic is only to be had
on condition that the existing Assembly
shall be allowed to do the work if it is so
minded. There was a time when this
discovery would have made no impression
on the Left. They would have gone on
denying constituent powers to the Assem-
bly without regard to any loss they might
sustain by it. Last Friday M. Gambetta,
speaking in the name of the whole party,
except, we presume, the four irreconcil-
ables who voted against the establish-
ment of the Republic the other day,
said : " We formerly questioned your
constituent power ; we accept it to-day,
for it is a settled matter. . . . You have
assumed the direction of the country.
It is necessary, therefore, that you should
not abandon that direction by taking a
rest which you have not earned. . . .
Your own interest requires you to show
the country by not abandoning your duty
that you intend to perform it." This
language is utterly unlike any that has
been used by any French Republican of
a. former generation. A few years back
it would have seemed inconceivable that
the leader of the Extreme Left, who has
himself exercised most absolute power
in the name of the Republic, should call
upon a monarchical Assembly to provide
France with Republican institutions.
The whole Republican tradition was
against such a possibility. The Left had
always spoken and acted as though the
ark of the Republic must be touched by
no hands but theirs. Now we find M.
Gambetta speaking in the very same tone
as M. Thiers, and telling the Assembly
that it is bound not to leave the country
destitute of " that political and adminis-
trative security without which repose is
full of agitation." Political and adminis-
trative security is the very blessing that
former Republics have failed to confer
on France, and they have failed because
they have not understood that the first
condition of success is to value this se-
curity and to convince others that they
value it. The conservative element in
the French nation will accept no Govern-
ment which does not make this security
its first aim, and without the goodwill of
the conservative element no Government
can last in France. M. Gambetta's
speech reads like a hearty adoption of
the Left Centre policy, and this at a
moment when the Left Centre policy
is necessarily discredited. If he had
spoken just before the division on M.
Casimir Perier's motion, he might simply
6:35
have been trying to soothe the fears of
weak-kneed members of the Left Centie.
But he was speaking when the fate of M.
Casimir Perier's motion had been decided,
when the alliance with the Left Centre
had been proved to be for the present
barren, when the only value of modera-
tion lay in its effect, not upon the Assem-
bly, but upon the country. A Republi-
can who understands that, in order to be
permanent, a French Republic must
recommend itself to the great body of
moderate and conservative opinion
throughout the country, has proved that
he is able to learn much and to forget
much.
From The Spectator.
M. LEON GAMBETTA ON THE SITUATION.
The French Session has closed with
ominous symptoms and one great speech.
The Legitimists, despite the declarations
of General de Cissey, have openly avowed
an intention to strive with all their might
for a royalist Restoration, in the person of
the Comte de Chambord ; and the Bona-
partists, by means of an understanding
between the Left and Extreme Right,
have been absolutely excluded from the
Permanent Commission. In some sense,
the ostracism of M. Rouher's friends is
the only positive political product of a
Session devoted to negations ; the soli-
tary change in the situation since No-
vember, 1873, being this resolute exclu-
sion of the Prince Imperial's champions.
But the speech of M. Ldon Gambetta,
standing, as it does, almost alone in the
prorogation-debate, is none the less a
fact, the weight of which may be under-
estimated on this side the Channel, but
will not be contested on the other. It
was a moderate, politic, and statesman-
like balance-sheet of a situation brought
about by the determination of an elected
Assembly to place itself on one side and
France on the other, and regardless of
national wishes, to take counsel onlv
from its own discordant predilections'.
The fact was plain enough, visible even
to the Deputies themselves ; but its bold
and adequate statement in words, face to
face with the parties who are responsi-
ble, was at once a political necessity and
an authentic historical testimony.
No Member sitting on the Left, not
even M. Thiers himself, could have per-
formed a needed service with the elo-
quence, the force, the tact, and modera-
M. LEON GAMBETTA ON THE SITUATION.
636
tion of M. Gambetta. And he was lis-
tened to almost without a murmur, save
from exasperated Bonapartist despera-
does, who recognize in him their strong-
est foe, and writhe visibly under the sting
of his contemptuous scorn. No doubt
the Deputies are fascinated by his mas-
tery of language, his superb voice, and
the dignified forms in which he clothes
the wholesome truths they so keenly re-
sent ; but they listen also with respect,
bred of fear and admiration, to a man
who they know by experience is a polit-
ical force, not merely because he has a
following, but because he can think
strongly and act strongly, as well as
speak with an overmastering energy.
His colleagues in the Assembly know
also, what they will not always confess,
that M. Gambetta is a practical politician,
and not a revolutionary agitator. Only
the vulgar rank him as a mere dema-
gogue, and his position nearly resembles
that of Mr. Bright, before the Tories stole
several leaves out of his book. The
latest and in some aspects the best evi-
dence of M. Gambetta's political character
and of the place he has carved for him- 1
self on the public stage, is to be found in |
his speech on the prorogation. It not j
only contains those happy retorts and
that kind of logic which please French
ears, but it is characterized by a breadth
of view which distinguishes the states-
man from the partisan leader. Naturally,
the most is made of the fact that an As-
sembly smitten with impotence sought to
display in a refusal to dissolve a striking
proof of vigour ; that the repose declared
to be so needful had not been earned ;
and that a Chamber, arrogating to itself
the powers of a constituent body, has no
right, until the work is done, to suspend
its labours for months. These proposi-
tions are the common property of Re-
publican orators, and it is not in them
that the distinctive qualities exhibited
by their leader are to be found. He went
far beyond these well-trodden limits.
Not only did he admit that the Assembly
had successfully vindicated its claim to
be a constituent body, although it had
merely produced an artificial combina-
tion, without precedent, without force,
almost without a name, but he used this
remarkable language, — " You began," he
said, "by striking out the Empire ; next
you sought to restore the Monarchy,
C'dtait votre droit." " You always look
on me," he continued, "as one animated
by a violent passion against your opin-
ions and persons ; I seek, on the con-
trary, to employ the language of a states-
man desirous of arriving at a union with
the sons of France." In answer to some
murmurs, he added, " Yes, you are the
sons of France, you are to-day sover-
eigns; there are no others;" and then
he brought in his argument that sover-
eignty knows no rest, and that the inter-
ests of all demanded either a completion
of the work which the Assembly had
undertaken or a dissolution, and that
refuge in a political stratagem, devised
for the purpose of gaining time, far from
conferring security either on the country
or the Government, only doubled the pre-
vailing disquiet. Nor can the fact be
denied, since all parties have reserved
their claims to employ the Recess in agi-
tating each for its own ends. Here were
great admissions.
But the broadest and most powerful
section of M. Gambetta's speech was that
in which he showed how the majority had
failed to act as practical politicians.
Therein lies the superiority. What are
the facts ? For three years ineffectual
attempts have been made to found a Gov-
ernment which shall not be Republican.
During that time every proposal, every
concession offered by the Left, has been
repelled by the Royalists. But, said the
orator, addressing the majority, as states-
men you might surely preserve your ob-
jections to a Republic, yet accommodate
yourselves to realities, and assume your
place in a country where the democracy
has always the last word. Then, he said,
placing yourselves in harmony with facts,
with historic and social necessities, si-
lencing your affections and sentiments,
offering them up, indeed, as a sacrifice to
the common weal, you would learn that in
a free democratic government your part
would be conspicuous, a part secured to
you by social standing, precedent, ability,
and the possession of leisure. Then, in-
stead of repelling, you should welcome
the co-operation of those Republicans
who proffer a fruitful alliance, and not
commit a fault which may prove irrepar-
able. "I say," he exclaimed with em-
phasis, "that Conservatives, claiming the
title of statesmen, having played, and cer-
tain yet to play, a great part in the des-
tinies of France, after seeing their cher-
ished preferences fail, as a primary duty^
should have appealed to the country, and,
sought what it is that France desires."'
M. Gambetta, no doubt, declared that
France desired the Republic, but whether
she does or not, the force of his argu-:
ment is not less, nor the breadth of his
COUNT OF PARIS S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WAR. 637
view curtailed. At all events, after this
speech, which showed so just a spirit
towards his opponents, M. Gambetta can
no longer be taunted with the bigoted
narrowness which so many Republicans
in 1848 inherited from the Great Revolu-
tion. It is all very well to talk of the
Mountain and the Gironde ; universal
suffrage and peasant proprietorship are
ample safeguards ; and M. Raoul Duval
could not be contradicted, when he boldly
affirmed that in France universal suffrage
has always chosen a Conservative ma-
jority.
Taking this lofty stand, uttering these
telling warnings, M. Gambetta went on
to survey the state of freedom, or rather
restriction, in France, three years after a
disastrous war. What do we see .'* A
state of siege over one-half of France —
" the sole institution which is left you"
— an incomplete military organization,
wanting the regulations touching the Ca-
dres so essential to effective existence.
Although the invader has long departed,
the state of siege cannot be raised, for-
sooth ! because there is no Press Law.
How, he cried, are new repressive laws
needed ; are French codes so completely
ignored that an arsenal of repression,
which sufficed for three monarchies, is
no longer enough } " You reproach us —
and sometimes with reason — because in
unusual circumstances we applied excep-
tional arms ; but you are in a normal
condition ; order is not and cannot be
disturbed ; yet the liberty of writing
throughout three-fourths of France is at
the mercy of Generals of Division ! "
The picture was all the more effective,
because those who lead the majority were
the loudest to cry for liberty under the
Empire. It was, therefore, legitimate to
ask that France, by way of improvement,
should revert to the status quo ante
bellu7n, the legislation of 1868, — hard
enough, surely, to afford Conservative
protection ! Every party in turn has
been smitten by the law of the sword, but
no fewer than one hundred and twenty-
seven Republican journals have been
killed or wounded. It is impossible that
the most bigoted Legitimist could fail to
feel the keenness of the question, — Can
it be in the power of three or four hun-
dred Deputies to reverse the French Rev-
olution, to prepare for their descendants
a future outside the sphere of democ-
racy ? We say that an address so saga-
cious, so massive, so tolerant, an address
which will be sown broadcast over France,
cannot fail to work like yeast during the
vacation, and materially improve the po-
sition of the Republicans. Considering
how M. Casimir Perier and M. Ldon
de Malleville were deserted by the Or-
leanists when the crucial questions of the
Republic or a Dissolution were put, it is
all the more astonishing that M. Gam-
betta, instead of sowing dissension by
taunting the promised allies, refrained
from uttering a single reproach which
could offend even the Due d'Audiffret
Pasquier. While almost every other
leader in the Chamber will seek his re-
pose with a reputation more or less dam-
aged, the Radical chief has raised his
own, not only by his reticence, but by
his timely and manful out-speaking.
The Septennate may run its seven years,
but its heir and executor will be that
strong, comprehensive, and really na-
tional Republic which M. Gambetta
sketched, and which the rivalries and
faults of Kings and Emperors have made
inevitable.
From The Saturday Review.
THE COUNT OF PARIS'S HISTORY OF THE
AMERICAN WAR.*
It may seem at first sight to need
some excuse that the Count of Paris has
devoted the bulk of the first of his large
volumes to purely introductory matter,
and that chiefly of a military character.
But in fact the work thus done forms its
own sufficient apology. No writer of any
country had before attempted to present
in a complete form the facts thus gath-
ered together ; and yet, without a
thorough study of the peculiar conditions
under which this great war was to be car-
ried on, criticism of its events would be
almost thrown away. The saying com-
monly attributed to Count Moltke, that
to an educated soldier the operations of
1861-65 were only "the scramblings of
armed mobs," whether truly reported, or
invented for the great German strategist,
is a very just expression of the hopeless-
ness of attempting to apply exact rules
drawn from the practices and conduct of
the standing armies of Europe to those
of the improvised forces of free citizens
which for four years struggled for the
preservation or destruction of the Amer-
ican Union. Nor have any of those who
claim to be standard writers on the war
* Histoire de la ^iierre civile en A meriqtie. Par
M. le Comte de Pans, ancien aide-de-camp du gdn^ral
MacClellan. Tome i. Paris : Levy. 1874.
638
COUNT OF PARIS S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WAR.
helped us here. Those best known and
most read in America — Dr. Draper, for
instance — are diffuse enough indeed in
their introductory chapters. But they
give their strength entirely to tracing the
supposed political causes of the conflict
to their roots. Party spirit on the sub-
ject of the negro, we may observe, is still
so active in America, notwithstanding
his emancipation, that readers there
never seem to be tired of the productions
of those who undertake to prove or illus-
trate the direct connection of the war with
the Abolition movement. That in its is-
sue it became identical with Abolition
seems to be taken for irrefragable evi-
dence that in its beginning it was not
less so. And no American writer of
weight has as yetundertaken to go deeper
into the springs of this dreadful contest,
and to show how far the uncertain con-
dition in which the founders of the great
Republic, in order to make their own
task the smoother, left their prime dif-
ficulty of the bounds between Federal
and State rights is responsible for what
ensued. Nor has any one sought to dis-
cover whether the question of slavery or
no-slavery was really the essential cause
which brought about disunion, or merely
the immediate, occasion that produced a
collision which the elements of an ill-de-
fined Constitution had made certain to
occur at some time or other.
To anaylze the political bearings of the
conflict in an impartial spirit would not
be a popular work in America, so one-
sided is the view still taken there of the
great crisis in the Republic's history.
And yet the parallel case of Switzerland,
where a secession was put down by force
of arms but a few years earlier, should
shake the dogmatic belief of Union
writers that nothing but slavery could
possibly have been answerable for what
they now speak of as the greatest of
civil crimes. Such a historian as Ban-
croft or Motley may possibly hereafter
undertake the work in a more philosophic
spirit, and we may not unreasonably hope
for this service from one or other of those
eminent authors since both are now free
from diplomatic toils. But whoever is to
succeed in it must go much further back
in Am.erican history than has hitherto
been attempted, and must trace the con-
nection between the looseness of the ori-
ginal framework of the united colonies
and the rude shock which threatened their
disruption. Nay, he must seek in their
earlier condition as dependencies the
germs of those peculiarities which made
the Down-Easter a distinct type of man
from the Carolina planter, and the Ken-
tuckian different from either.
The service here indicated for the fu-
ture historian of American polity is done
for American armies by the Count of
Paris. In the introductory chapters he
not only describes the contending forces
with the power of a military critic who
adds practical knowledge of the subject
which he treats to a theorist's breadth of
view, but he also takes notice of their
descent from the colonial levies which
fought with varying success under the
British standard in our contest with the
French for trans-Atlantic supremacy ;
the modification of the American soldiery
under the wise and steadfast guidance of
Washington in the War of Independence ;
the local causes which stamped their re-
spective peculiarities on the armies of
the Union and Confederacy — all these
points are clearly traced out in the in-
troductory chapters in a way that has
never been done before. Nor does the
Count omit to examine with equal care
the peculiar conditions of the land, and
of the communications through it, which
so largely influenced the course of the
struggle. Here, however, other Euro-
pean writers may have been beforehand
with him ; but he has no rival to fear in
his review of the living masses who
sprang, as it were, ready armed from
the homesteads of the North and the
plantations of the South, and whose very
numbers so suddenly raised, so spontane-
ously recruited, have made them a mys-
tery to foreign critics. Some of the lighter-
minded of these have been content to
meet the problem which they could not
solve by declaring the whole story to be
surrounded by myths begotten of the
fertile Yankee invention. To hardly any
does it seem to have occurred that colo-
nists, though ordinarily wrapt in peaceful
pursuits, have a readiness for self-defence
born of the very nature of those pursuits,
and that the freedom and activity of mu-
nicipal institutions in America had in-
fused throughout the people of the States
of the Union an earnestness in political
matters that was sure to tell powerfully
in war, which is after all but the rudest
and most violent form of political contest.
Probably no one who had not at least
been in some new country peopled by
men of English blood, where life is more
active, property more rapidly accumulat-
ed, the race better supplied with all ma-
terial necessaries than with us, would be
qualified for writing critically on the
COUNT OF PARIS'S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WAR. 639
American War. Certainly no one whose
mind had not been carefully trained be-
forehand could have generalized from the
results of brief and partial observation,
such as was open to the Count during
his short service with MacClellan, with
the skill and power displayed in this vol-
ume.
To show that this praise is not too
high, we turn to the work itself, and pur-
posely take a passage at random from
the chapter headed Les Volontaires Fede-
ra7ix, which describes the various arms
of the Korthern forces, and their charac-
teristics. We fall at once upon an ac-
count of the cavalry, and read as fol-
lows : —
The mounted volunteers naturally took the
regular cavalry as their model, and imitated
their mode of fighting, which, as has been said
before, approached that of the old dragoon of
the seventeenth century, thus bringing about a
curious similarity between the old military
customs of Europe and those of modern Amer-
ica. But if these horsemen borrowed the car-
bine of the regulars, it was not because they
had to do \vith a foe as nimble as the Indians,
but rather because all inexperienced soldiers
when they have to choose between cold steel
and firearms, prefer the latter, as not compel-
ling them to close with the adversary. Be-
sides, to handle a lance or sabre, a rider must
know how to manage his horse properly, and
the horsemanship of these volunteers was
wretched at the beginning of the war. They
did not fire from the saddle like those of the
time of Louis XIV., but fell into a habit of
fighting on f(»ot, leaving every fourth man to
look after the horses. The broken and wooded
nature of the ground was favourable to this,
and indeed it would not have permitted the
grand and rapid movement of cavalry accus-
tomed to depend upon the fury of their charge,
had any such existed in America. For the
rest, at the beginning of the conflict, the
cavalry kept to the troublesome task of feeling
the way for the army, and skirmishing at the
advanced posts. Diflicult as this must be for
raw troops, the service was not entirely new
to these American cavaliers, accustomed as
they had been to an adventurous life, which
suited their spirit of individual enterprise. If
they had not always the true instinct for war,
nor that constant vigilance which is indispen-
sable when in the presence of the enemy, their
address and boldness atoned for these defects ;
and a thousand petty skirmishes which can
find no place in our narrative gave them occa-
sion to show that inventiveness of spirit wliich
is never lacking in the American when some
stratagem has to be devised or some bold
stroke accomplished. At a later period the
importance of cavalry developed itself, as to
them fell the new branch of war known as
"raids" or grand independent expeditions,
such as we shall have to speak of hereafter.
To which we ma)^ add, as a striking
proof of the growth of this arm and its
operations as the war waxed old, that the
last important body of troops organized
by the North was a complete army corps
of these mounted soldiers, which ad-
vanced into the heart of the hitherto un-
touched portion of the Seceded States
under Wilson, previously one of Sheri-
dan's division generals, and completed
the conquest of the district between At-
lanta and the Mississippi which Sherman
had passed by in his march on Savannah.
No one in Europe had imagined that
America could find horses, to say nothing
of riders, for such vast operations. We
only very recently learnt from the mouth
of one of the chief Union cavalry com-
manders that calculations were made
showing that the most liberal waste of
horseflesh that could be allowed for
would not have exhausted the resources
of the North in efficient animals for full
three years more.
The passage of the Count's work al-
ready quoted proves sufficiently the
keenness of his observation ; but the
strength of this volume, as before noted,
lies above all in his just appreciation of
the historic causes out of which grew
the peculiarities of the American armies.
It is difficult within our limits to do jus-
tice to his treatment of this hitherto vir-
gin subject ; but we will select one
special passage to show how skilfully the
distinguished author connects his own
country's fame with the origin of the
really high qualities which the soldiers of
the Civil War displayed.
It was against our own soldiers [he writes]
in the Seven Years' War that the American
volunteers, in those days the provincial militia
of a British colony, made their first essay in
arms. We may remark this, not only without
any bitterness, for the flag of the United
States since it first waved has never been found
arrayftd on the battle-field against that of
France, but even as a souvenir that makes one
bond the more between them and ourselves.
During the unequal contest which decided the
possession of the New World, these militia
received useful lessons in measuring their
strength with the handful of heroic men who
defended our Empire beyond the seas when
abandoned by their country. The soldiers of
the War of Independence were formed in this
school. Montcalm rather than Wolfe was the
instructor of these adversaries on whom so
soon fell the task of avenging him. It was in
seeking, by long and often disastrous expedi-
tions, to be beforehand with the French power
: on the banks of the Ohio, that the founder of
1 American nationality served an apprentice-
640 COUNT OF PARIS S HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WAR.
ship in that indefatigable energy wliich brought
him triumphant over every obstacle. It was
the example of the defenders of Fort Carillon,
checking an English army from behind their
wretched parapet, which in later years in-
spired those who fought at Bunker's Hill. It
was the surrender of Washington at Fort
Necessity, the disaster of Braddock before
Fort Duquesne, which taught the victors of
Saratoga how, in these uncultivated countries,
to embarrass an enemy's march, cut off his
supplies, nullify his apparent superiority, and
end by finally taking or destroying his force.
Thus, though they were at first despised by
the aristocratic ranks of the regular English
army, these Provincial Militia, as they then
were called, managed soon to win the esteem
as well as the respect of their foe. In this
war, so perfectly different from the wars of
Europe, in these actions fought in the midst
of a wooded and savage country, they already
developed all those qualities which have since
distinguished the American — address, energy,
courage, and individual intelligence.
Even those who may differ from the
Comte de Paris in his high estimate of
the effect produced on American soldiers
by the early contest with those of France,
will not deny the justice with which he
brings out the peculiar features of their
character as warriors, nor the skill with
which he connects these circumstances
with the iiistory of the early settlements
of his own countrymen in that continent
where Frenchmen have long since ceased
to hold a foot of ground. Could we fol-
low him further here, we should find his
sketch of the War of Independence, and
of the influence it exercised in moulding
the events of the Civil War, not a whit
less interesting. And, as the reader may
naturally expect, this part of American
history is not passed over without a refer-
ence to the services rendered to the raw
American troops by the experience of
Lafayette's French contingent. It is fair
to add that no excessive weight is at-
tached by the author to this alliance with
France, and that he gives the chief hon-
ours of the success where they properly
belong, to the indomitable energy of
Washington. We would willingly have
dwelt more on certain episodes of that
struggle, which is here touched on with
admirable clearness. One of them, the
mutiny of the Pennsylvania troops at the
close of their three years' service, on the
pretext of a grammatical construction of
the terms of their engagement contrary to
that assigned them by Congress, and the
too easy yielding of the latter to their
pretensions, is most justly commented on
as "giving a deep and lasting blow to
the discipline " of American volunteers.
It served in fact as an evil precedent for
the armies of McDowell and MacClellan.
And this is but one of many examples of
the research and knowledge of the author,
of whose introductory chapters we can
but repeat that, though intended in the
first place for French readers, they offer
such a contribution to the study of
American military history as soldiers of
every country, and Americans themselves
above all, have reason to be sincerely
grateful for. *.
A REPORT by Commander Cookson upon
the guano deposits on the Islands of Lobos de
Tierra, Lobos de Afuera, Macabi, and Gua-
nape (in continuation of reports to the Ad-
miralty relative to the deposits in Peru), has
just been printed. At the time of the visit of
H.M.S. Petrel to the first-named island there
were no inhabitants, except a few Indian fish-
ermen, from whom no information could be
gained. The island is six miles long and in
some parts three broad ; the beds of guano
there are a considerable distance apart, and
are estimated to amount to 600,000 tons. The
working of the guano there will shortly be
commenced by the Guano Shipping Company
at Macabi, and 100 Chinese labourers have
already been sent to make piers and erect the
necessary buildings. The same company has
undertaken the working of the beds on the
island of Lobos de Afuera, under a contract
with the Peruvian Government, by which the
company receives 85 cents per ton shipped,
arid defrays the expense of all the necessary
works, such as building piers, laying tram-
ways, making shoots, &c. The estiniated
quantity here is 500,000 tons. The labour
employed by the Shipping Company is all
Chinese.
That we are still somewhat backward in
our attempts to imitate the methods of Chinese
culture in our seats of learning, may be in-
ferred from an anecdote we have lately re-
ceived from an eminent philologist. Shortly
before leaving the Celestial Empire he came
across an old native gentleman of the mature
j age of 106, who was just almit to go in for his
\ last examination. When will our University
j authorities succeed in attaining a perfection of
I the examination statute which can be com-
I pared with this ?
LITTELL'S LIVIN"G AGE.
Fif-tii Series, } j^q, 1579. —September 12, 1874. J^Ti^n????^'
Volume VII. ) ^ ' (, Vol. CXXTI.
CONTENTS.
I. Motley's John of Barneveld and Six-
teenth-Century Diplomacy, . . . Quarterly Review^ . , . 643
II. Far from the Madding Crowd. By
Thomas Hardy, author of " Under the
Greenwood Tree," " A Pair of Blue Eyes,"
etc. Part IX., Cornhill Magazine, . * . . 659
III. Birds and Beasts in Captivity. By Ar-
chibald Banks, New Quarterly Review, . . 673
IV. Alice Lorraine. A Tale of the South
Downs. Part IX., Blackwood's Magazine, . , 686
V. Essays by Richard Congreve, . . . Blackwood' s Magazine, . . . 696
POETRY.
Song of the Flail, .... 642 1 As the Heart Hears, . . . 642
Miscellany, .••••> 704
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642
SONG OF THE FLAIL, ETC.
SONG OF THE FLAIL.
In the autumn, when the hollows
All are filled with flying leaves,
And the colonies of swallows
Quit the quaintly stuccoed eaves,
And a silver mantle glistens
Over all the misty vale,
Sits the little wife and listens
To the beating of the flail,
To the pounding of the flail —
By her cradle sits and listens
To the flapping of the flail.
The bright summer days are over
And her eye no longer sees
The red bloom upon the clover,
The deep green upon the trees ;
Hushed the songs of finch and robin,
With the whistle of the quail ;
But she hears the mellow throbbing
Of the thunder of the flail.
The low thunder of the flail —
Through the amber air the throbbing
And reverberating flail.
In the barn the stout young thresher
Stooping stands with rolled-up sleeves,
Beating out his golden treasure
From the ripped and rustling sheaves ;
Oh, was ever knight in armor —
Warrior all in shining mail —
Half so handsome as her farmer
As he plies the flying flail.
As he wields the flashing flail ? —
The bare-throated, brown young farmer,
As he swings the sounding flail >
All the hopes that saw the sowing,
All the sweet desire of gain,
All the joy that watched the growing
And the yellowing of the grain.
And the love that went to woo her,
And the faith that shall not fail —
All are speaking softly to her
In the pulses of the flail.
Of the palpitating flail —
Past and Future whisper to her
In the music of the flail.
In its crib their babe is sleeping,
And the sunshine from the door
All the afternoon is creeping
Slowly round upon the floor ;
And tlie shadows soon will darken.
And the daylight soon must pale.
When the wife no more shall hearken
To the tramping of the flail.
To the dancing of the flail —
When her heart no more shall hearken
To the footfall of the flail.
And the babe shall grow and strengthen.
Be a maiden, be a wife,
While the moving shadows lengthen
Round the dial of their life ;
Theirs the trust of friend and neighbor,
And an age serene and hale,
When machines shall do the labor
Of the strong arm and the flail,
Of the stout heart and the flail —
Great machines perform the labor
Of the good old-fashioned flail.
But when, blessed among women,
And when, honored among men.
They look round them, can the brinuning
Of their utmost wishes then
Give them happiness completer ?
And can ease and wealth avail
To make any music sweeter
Than the pounding of the flail?.
Oh, the sounding of the flail !
Never music can be sweeter
Than the beating of the flail !
T. Trowbridge in Harper's Magazine for September.
AS THE HEART HEARS.
I KNOV^r that I never can hear it, never on;
earth any more,
I know the music of my life with that silenced]
voice is o'er ; •;
Yet I tell you, that never across the fells, thej
wild west wind can moan.
But my sad heart hears, close, true, and clear,
the thrill of his earnest tone.
I know that I never can listen, with these mor-
tal ears of mine.
To the step' that meant joy and gladness, inj
the days of auld lang syne ; .,
Yet I tell you the long waves never break in'
the hollows of the cove, \
But they mimic in their rise and fall the tread;
I used to love.
I know the melody that you sing, with its deli-'
cate memoried words.
Is nothing but measured language, well set
unto inusic's chords ;
Yet I tell you, as you breathe it, my dead life '
wakes again,
I laugh to its passionate gladness, I weep to
its passionate pain.
I know the beck that tinkles, beside the forget-
me-nots there,
Is nothing but water rippling where the wil-
lows shimmer fair ;
Yet I tell you, for me it murmurs, the very
words he said,
When We, and the Year, and Love were fresh,
in the golden day that is dead.
Aye, Youth is proud, and gay, and bold ; still
this is left for us,
Who sit 'neath the yellowing tree leaves, and
listen to silence thus ;
It has life in its April glory, it has hope with
its smiles and tears,
We live alone with Nature and Time, an(
hear, as the hush'd heart hears.
AU The Year R01
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD.
643
Fiom The Quarterly Review.
MOTLEY'S JOHN OF BARNEVELD AND
■ SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.*
With the publication of these two vol-
umes Mr. Motley has brought to a close
a series of most meritorious intellectual
labours. " The Rise of the Dutch Re-
public," " The History of the United
Netherlands from 1584 to 1609," "The
Life and Death of John of Barneveld,"
form a fine and continuous story, of which
the writer and the nation celebrated by
him have equal reason to be proud ; a
narrative which will remain a prominent
ornament of American genius, while it
has permanently enriched English litera-
ture on this as well as on the other side
of the Atlantic. We congratulate warmly
the indefatigable man of letters from be-
yond the seas, who has ransacked the
archives of the Hague, Brussels, and
London, who has come to rank as the
greatest authority concerning one of the
chief episodes in the history of European
peoples, who has compiled from original
documents, and, as it may fairly be said
in view of the general public, for the first
time, an important and entertaining and
very instructive chapter in universal his-
tory.
A citizen of the United States and an
experienced diplomatist, Mr. Motley was
by sympathy and training alike fitted to
be the historian of " the United Prov-
inces." The zest and thoroughness
with which he identifies himself with the
spirit of the Netherlanders give a genu-
ine and solid value to his compositions ;
they are a constant stimulus to his in-
dustry and love of research ; they spur
him on, as he rummages among State-
papers or deciphers the unprinted letters,
"in handwriting perhaps the worst that
ever existed " (vol. i. p. ix), from which,
as he tells us, he had to win the materials
for his last book. Again, his own life
as a servant of the State has implanted
in him tastes which otherwise might not
have had encouragement from him. By
* The Life and DeatTt of fohn of Barneveld, Ad-
vocate of Holla7id; ivith a View of the Primary
Causes aiid Movements of the Thirty Yeari War.
By John LothrxDp Motley, D.C.L., LL.D., &c. Two
vols, London, 1874.
nature he is fondest of swift political and
military action. A statesman by profes-
sion, he has dared to dedicate nearly 800
pages to the last nine years of John of
Barneveld's life ; and neither for our-
selves as critics, nor on the part of his
larger audience, are we in the least, on
this account, disposed to grumble at him.
American historians turn generally with
a strong appetite to the history of Spain,
and next in order to those old Spanish
territories in the Low Countries where
they find so early the name of " the Re-
public." So Washington Irving, Pres-
cott, Ticknor, and quite recently, beside
Mr. Motley, Mr. Kirk, the historian of
the prelude to Mr. Motley's period, the
biographer of Charles the Bold. At the
opening of . the history of the New
Western World, the Burgundian-Habs-
burg dynasty occupied a place not very
unlike that occupied by the Roman
Caesars when the history of Western
Europe began. This has been felt by
American historians, as a rule ; it has
been felt, for instance, by both Mr.
Prescott and Mr. Motley. It has affected,
with characteristic difference, the ima-
gination of each of these two writers. It
gave a lofty and dignified charm to Mr.
Prescott's style and historical fancy.
Julius Caesar, Augustus, Diocletian, all
seemed to enter as indirect memories
into Mr. Prescott's view of Charles V.
Mr. Motley's clever sketch of Charles V.
is, on the other hand, a burlesque ; and
from his grotesque caricature of Philip
1 1, few of the combined vices of Tiberius,
Claudius, and Domitian are absent. He
at times flings about his pen as if it were
the brush of some angry Dutch painter
turning from studies of coarse village in-
teriors and herds of cattle, stung by his
country's wrongs to portray and to gibbet
the beast and savage under the purple
and the crown. For, with Mr. Motley,
every physical and mental trait, in almost
every one who has the unhappiness to
wield sovereign power, becomes mon-
strous and deformed. There never was
a dwarf Laurin or a sprite Riibezahl, an
elf-king or gnome-king, so despicable or
distorted as Philip of Spain in Mr. Mot-
ley's pages, or, for the matter of that, as
644
MOTLEY S JOHN OF BARNEVELD
James of England and Scotland. For an
out-and-out enthusiast for democratic in-
stitutions, at all times and in all places,
commend us to Mr. Motley. We would
venture, in a whisper, to remind him that
both the Hague and Brussels, not to
speak of London, are seats of monarchies,
and that notwithstanding, or rather be-
cause of, all their past, with a portion of
which he is so well acquainted, the
Dutch, Belgians, and English — poor, be-
nighted beings that they are — must be
said to be on the whole well contented to
have it so. A European reader would be
irritated, if he were not still more
amused, at the perpetual cry of " Democ-
racy forever." We cannot resist the
temptation which invites an Englishman,
a little restive under Mr. Motley's lash,
to extract a passage, which with very
slight alterations — not very warily Mr.
Motley himself inserts the allusion which
suggests them — might surely describe
not only the Europe of Rudolf IL and
Ferdinand IL
The Holy Empire, which so ingeniously
combined the worst characteristics of despot-
ism and republicanism, kept all Germany and
half Europe in the turmoil of a perpetual
presidential election. A theatre where trivial
personages and graceless actors performed a
tragi-comedy of mingled folly, intrigue, and
crime, and where earnestness and vigour were
destined to be constantly baffled, now offered
the principal stage for the entertainment and
excitement of Christendom. — Vol. i. p. ii.
With regard to English foreign policy
during the times of which he has written,
we give up argument with Mr. Motley,
for if we commenced upon this topic,
we know not when we should end.
Quite briefly : we do not agree with his
estimate of James the First and his pol-
icy, much less do we agree with his
estimate of Elizabeth ; we should be
prepared, were there any necessity, to
defend at length English policy toward
the Netherlands — that it was tardy,
cautious, now and then even foolish and
mistaken, we admit ; we also assert, that
it was generally and ultimately success-
ful and beneficent ; were there need of
proof, we should refer to the history of
Holland and England — always remem-
bering who were then the foes of both
countries — in, amongst others, the con-
cluding years of the seventeenth century.
Sometimes we have felt surprise and
mortification that America, possessing
such promising historical scholars, should
have turned her back so entirely on Eng-
lish history — we do not forget some
most admirable chapters on English his-
tory in Mr, Kirk's book — but \vith some
of Mr. Motley's observations in our
mind, we confess, for the moment, to
feeling every inclination to be gratefully
acquiescent in the decrees which have
ruled in this particular heretofore under
the merciful Fates.
To pass on. Mr. Motley's rough,
sturdy, but highly picturesque English is
remarkably adapted to his subject.
Here and there, indeed, one might quar-
rel with a faint " Batavian " phrase or
term. Such a word as " disreputation "
(i. p. 320, and ii. p. 241) grates rather on
the ear. The following is a more than
Batavian, is a Siamese sentence : —
The consummate soldier, the unrivalled
statesman, each superior in his sphere to any
contemporary rival, each supplementing the
other, and making up together, could they have
been harmonized, a double head such as no po-
litical oj'gajtism then existing could boast, were
now in hopeless antagonism to each other. —
Vol. ii. pp. 1 5 1-2.
We cannot make out whether Mr. Mot-
ley means us to see a superhuman or a
ludicrous exhibition of crime and poda-
gra, when, in one long sentence, he
writes of an arch-offender, " Epernon,
the true murderer of Henry," that he
" trainpled on courts of justice and coun-
cils of ministers," that he " smothered for-
ever the process of Ravaillac," " and that
he strode triumpha7itly over friends and
enemies throughout France, although so
crippled by the gout that he could scarcely
walk up stairs.^'' (Vol. i. p. 230.)
But ordinarily Mr. Motley's style, if not
free from blemishes, is very effective.
Indeed we could not easily mention
another historian who possesses so fully
the art of bringing the actors and local-
ities of the Past back into reality and
into the very presence of his readers.
And these last two volumes have all the
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
645
excellence in this respect of their prede-
cessors. The account, to cite one in-
stance, of Henry IV. of France is most
brilliant, and at the same time we think
neither unjust nor unsound. Mr. Mot-
ley shines particularly when he has to
deal with startling contradictions and
exaes:erations in character. We are not
sure that the mystery of Henry's death
is not daVkened beyond what history de-
mands by Mr. Motley, who strikes us as
too credulous of the wild reports that flew
about close to the event. But, as a j
whole, the picture is full of truth as of
colour. And with what illustrious his- 1
torians is Mr. Motley here competing !
In his elaborate likeness of Henry, he
has drawn that complex creature in every
mood and in all lights. How masterly
is, also, this little vignette, sketched in a
couple of strokes !
Strange combination of the hero, the war-
rior, the voluptuary, the sage, and the school-
l)oy — it would be difficult to find in the whole
range of history a more human, a more attrac-
tive, a more provoking, a less venerable char-
acter. — Vol. i. pp. 221-2.
The principal fault of Mr. Motley's
Dutch histories, with which we are im-
pressed more than ever now that the suc-
cession of them is finished, and we have
re-read them as a set of works extending
over the sixteenth century — it implies
more praise to him as a Dutch, than de-
traction from him as a European, histo-
rian — lies in the position which he gives
to the story he has chosen to relate.
He writes of the Low Couatries as
though in them was the centre of interest
of the sixteenth century, as if not only in
the history of military affairs, but every-
where, in Politics and Thought, the Low
Countries were right in the foreground,
starting and proclaiming the prospectus
of independence. We demur to this,
and will attempt to give the grounds of
our demurrer.
We propose to make use of the pres-
ent opportunity to review rapidly the
situation and the perils of Christendom
in the latter half of the sixteenth century.
We shall try to trace the main springs to
such lives as that of Barneveld. And we
hope that our sketch will be of some ser-
vice to readers of Mr. Motley's works,
even though purposely we shall only
rarely and incidentally touch upon the
history of the Netherlands. We hope
that we may enable them, to connect the
movement and the chiefs concerning
whom he writes, with wider movements
and heroes of even greater originality and
more splendid parts. In this sort of sur-
vey, not easily to be compressed at all
into the room at our disposal, the private
and separate fortunes of any single indi-
vidual can occupy our attention only in a
subordinate degree. We must send our
readers to Mr. Motley's last book for the
history of John of Barneveld, which de-
serves their affectionate and studious
perusal. A word or two we desire to de-
vote to him, and this the more, since, for
our objects, the epoch of his later life
will not require such ample notice as the
epoch to which the formation of the prin-
ciples by which he was actuated belongs.
John of Barneveld was one of the pupils,
not one of the teachers, of the age, and
yet the stubborn and rugged force of the
Advocate of Holland will leave its dis-
tinct mark on the tide of public and uni-
versal revolutions.
Seldom have a prominent politician's
life and character corresponded so nearly
with the extent and bias of an accurately
limited time and of a widely diffused sen-
timent. His chequered and protracted
career touches at their extremities the
limits of a momentous period. His birth
took place a few months after the death
of Martin Luther ; he was executed a
few months after the outbreak of the
Thirty Years' War. His biography ex-
pands naturally into a history of the
Netherlands for more than seventy years.
His activity as a lawyer and a publicist
accompanies through every stage the re-
bellion of the United Provinces, and
their transformation into free and pros-
perous states. It is scarcely too much to
say of his pen, that it summarized, that it
often directed and overruled the conduct
of diplomatic business throughout the
several leading kingdoms of Western
Europe, during days when glorious pages
in English and French, as well rvs in
Dutch, annals were -bei"^ filled in. Un-
646
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD
der the eye of princes like Elizabeth
Tudor, William the Silent, and Henri
Quatre, there were assigned to no man
such difficult negotiations and such dan-
gerous missions as to him : nor did any
man recommend himself for the fullest
confidences by such noble proofs of saga-
city and integrity. And there is no event
which points more impressively the grow-
ing frowardness of impure motives, the
lurking strength of jealousy and violence,
the half-unconscious, the none the less
wicked, usurpations of military and dy-
nastic ambition than the trial or, to use
the words employed long ago by Lord
Macaulay, " the judicial murder " of John
of Barneveld. That grey and venerable
head fell as a kind of signal of war. An
end was made of truce and prudence, and
to the contrivances and precautions of
cabinets.
The scaffold which was erected for the
13th of May, 1619, on the Binnenhof at
the Hague, claims to be commemorated
beyond many a bloody field where thou-
sands may • have perished in a paltry
cause. The words of a score of synods
and councils, in defence of whose prolix
decisions it would be vain to tempt phi-
losopher or patriot to risk reputation and
to sacrifice life, are outweighed by a few
broken utterances, in which the staunch
old steward of constitutional privilege, in
the sight of the people he had served,
and of the ministers of divine and human
law who had doomed him to the block,
summed up his account and bade farewell
to the republic : " Men, do not believe
that I am a traitor to the country. I
have ever acted uprightly and loyally . . .
Christ shall be my guide ... Be quick
about it. Be quick." The "quick " act
of the executioner declared how much, at
all events for a while, the laborious
achievements of statesmanship were de-
spised and discredited. With the work
of Barneveld, much of that of Sully and
of the Cecils might be held to have been
undone. Worse furies than those which
their wisdom had managed to quell, or at
least to restrain, were to be let loose.
What were the campaigns in the Low
Countries when compared with the devas-
tation about to overwhelm Germany and
the adjacent territories ! Was not the
fiery fame of Alva and his Spaniards to
grow almost pale beside that of Tilly and
Wallenstein, of Banner and Torstenson,
of the Swedes and the Croats, and the
whole huge mercenary rabble, without
name and nearly without number, which
for upwards of a quarter of a century re-
newed far and near in Central Europe the
miseries of the dark ages, and the aspect
of the great national migrations !
Charles V. ruled for thirty-six years.
The year 1556 may be taken as histori-
cally the central year of the century ;
chronologically it divides it into two fairly
equal halves. That is the date when —
one year after his mother's death, one
year after he had, with tears flowing down
his cheeks, his broken frame supported
on the shoulder of young William of
Orange, bidden farewell to the Nether-
lands, his favourite provinces, and then,
warned by a comet, had (" Me mea fata
vocant," he exclaimed) hurried from
Brussels — the last great Emperor en-
tered the monastery of Juste. The words
placed in his mouth in Count von Platen's
poem, suit well the occasion : —
Nacht ist's, and Stiirme sausen fiir und fUr,
Hispanische Monche, schliesst mir auf die
Thur !
Bereitet mir,*was euer Haus vermag,
Ein Ordenskleid und einen Sarkophag !
Nun bin ich vor dem Tod den Todten gleich,
Und fair in Triimmern, wie das alte Reich.*
He had been outwitted by Maurice of
Saxony ; he had been foiled by the
French before Metz ; he had been forced
to grant equal privileges with Catholic to
Lutheran Electors, Princes, Estates ; he
had been humbled in the centre of his
patrimonial and in the centre of his im-
perial power ; he had trembled at Inns-
bruck, he had yielded at Augsburg ; he
had sent his son Philip beyond the seas,
bridegroom to Aragonese Mary, now at
last the Catholic Queen. In England he
had hoped the days of Ferdinand and"
Isabella would renew themselves, his;
family-tree would strike root and flower]
again. " Philip and Mary," cried thej
herald at the wedding, " King and Queen]
of England, France, Naples, Jerusalem,!
and Ireland." But there was no blessing
on that " bloody " reign, there came no]
heir from the Spanish match. And if|
Charles looked to Rome, it was to see aj
new and vigorous Pope, as Cardinal Ca-
raffa, the bitterest and unreconciled enem]
of his house and policy : a new Pope, h<
* **'Tis night, and the storm rages more and more,
Ye Spanish monks, open to me the door.
And, as you may afford, for me provide
A coffin, and your order's garb beside.
So, gathered to the dead whiie I suspire,
I fall to ruins like the old Empire."
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
was elected May 23rd, 1555 : a vigorous
Pope, though in his eightieth year, who
remembered the free political atmos-
phere of Italy in the fifteenth century,
and longed to breathe it again. " Thou
shalt go upon the lion and adder," Paul
IV. used to mutter to himself over the
thick, black, brimstone-flavoured Neapol-
itan wine, of which he was fond, think-
ing of the Spaniards who had overrun
the country where he and his beverage
were native. Charles could carry the
burden of affairs no longer, he would try
no more to sustain the universal Church
and to pacify the universal State. It was
a toil beyond the strength of a man.
Later, just before his death, he was heard
to say, " In manus tuas tradidi ecclesiam
tuam." Physical weakness had told on
him, his personal sins oppressed him, he
was troubled how to make his own peace
with God. Care was taken that the view
from his rooms should be bounded by
the walls of the convent garden, and that
his sleeping-chambers should be placed
so that he might follow the chapel music
and the service of the mass. Yet heresy
tracked him into his last asylum. There
was no escape from it. And, as people
liked to relate whether the story was
quite true or not, the hopelessness of his
task among men had come home to his
mind most as he worked among mechan-
isms ; he had found it impossible only to
bring two clocks to tick in unison.
Charles V. might turn in despair from
the world, but the hopes which had ani-
mated Catholicism and Spain at the dawn
of the century were not extinguished.
And Catholicism and Spain — though not
always as represented by the House of
Habsburg and the Papacy, were at the
middle of the century far more closely
allied than at the beginning. The year
of Charles V.'s abdication is in the an-
nals of Catholicism not most memorable
on account of that event. The year 1556
is the year in which the greatest saint of
Spain — not excepting St. Dominic, the
most passionate and reverential worship-
per of the mystical Church ; not excepting
St. Francis — passed away from earth,
leaving a large field to his successors, and
confident of their joyful harvesting. It
is the year in which died Ignatius Loyola.
The Order he founded has always re-
tained something of the national charac-
ter of the Spaniard of the sixteenth cen-
tury. Loyola was born on a frontier, and
nourished in the literature and scenery
of battles. Then, when he began to be
about thirty years old, for his conflict
647
with the world and Satan is brought by
his panegyrists into awful proximity with
that of the Divine Being, whose name —
is there not here the pride of Spain ? — is
borne by the Society of Jesus, he was
disabled, fighting against the French at
the siege of Pamplona, from the further
profession of carnal warfare. On his
sick-bed, reading Amadis of Gaul and le-
gends of the mendicant foundations, he
imagined himself called according to the
laws of a celestial chivalry to be the
knight of the Blessed Virgin. The old
wars with the Moors, the contrast in the
familiar Spanish romances between Je-
rusalem and its king and his legions and
the Soldan of Babylon, coloured still all
his thought. In the spiritual Exercises
there is, to this day, commended to the
Order " the contemplation of the king-
dom of Christ Jesus under the similitude
of a terrestrial king calling out his sub-
jects to the strife." On the vigil of the
Festival of the Annunciation and before
the image of Mary he hung up his sword
and took his palmer's staff into his hand •,
he went then to pray, to confess, and to
scourge himself, to fast, a week at a time,
to Manresa, and, fitted at length for the
journey, he passed on to Jerusalem. He
was not allowed to stay there. He was
not permitted on his return to Spain to
preach without further acquaintance with
tjieology. He travelled humbly to Paris ;,
he was dull at grammar, but he had
visions which explained the mysteries o£
the sacraments and the creeds. To re-
turn to Jerusalem was still the idea that
governed his plans. From Paris he and
a few friends went to Venice ; a quaint
thread they twine into the life of those
capitals of luxury and pleasure. Insu-
perable difficulties came in the way of the
voyage to Syria. The little band fared
on to Rome, the object before it continu-
ing to be to preach to Saracens and In-
dians. The Pope at the time was Paul
III., who took no step of importance
and
astrologers. One would
like to know what said now the stars and
the soothsayers. He sanctioned the new
Order in the Bull, " Regimini Militantis
Ecclesiae ; " it was Spanish in its mili-
tary organization, in its regimental obedi-
ence ; the company of Jesus, with Igna-
tius for first General, restricted for a
short time to sixty souls, bound to do all
the Pope's bidding, to go anywhere, to
Turks, heathens, and heretics, at once,
unconditionally, without discussion, with-
out reward. What the Templars had
without observing the constellations
consulting his
648
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD
been — with such modifications as were
involved in the times — the Jesuits were
to be. The verses in Solomon's Song,
which the Temple had applied to it-
self, might be appropriated by the Com-
pany, would suit its distant wanderings,
its wealth, the persecutions it inflicted
and underwent, its watchfulness, its per-
petual peril. "Who is this that cometh
out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke,
perfumed with myrrh and frankincense,
with all powders of the merchant ? Be-
hold his bed, which is Solomon's ; three-
score valiant men are about it, of the
valiant of Israel. They all hold swords,
being expert in war : every man hath his
sword upon his thigh because of fear in
the night." The Jesuit was to bend his
head forward a little, to keep his eyes
downcast, to have on his face a pleasant
and calm look, and so forth. Should the
Church define that what appears to the
sight as white is black, he is to maintain
the definition. In his Superior, the Sol-
dier of Christ is to recognize and to wor-
ship the Presence, as it were, of Christ.
He is to have no will of his own, he is to
be as a log of wood, as a corpse, as a
stick, which the old man can turn how
and whither he likes. At first, a Jesuit
might not accept a bishopric ; we have
quite lately seen with what difficulty a
member of the Order was persuaded to
receive a cardinal's hat. But from its
foundation, the greatest names flocked
into the society. Francis Borgia-, who
when Ignatius died stood over the
seven Pyrenean provinces, who was after-
wards the third General, had been a
duke and a viceroy. When the next cen-
tury opens, the Jesuits are, in all four
continents, at the seats of political life.
The Fathers are in Akbar's palace at La-
hore, in the Imperial Chamber at Pekin,
at the court of the Emperor of Ethiopia.
One Jesuit founded 300 churches in
Japan. Among the Indians of Paraguay
the noblest and most enlightened philan-
thropy of the Order showed itself in the
so-called " Reductions," a new exper-
iment in the way of Christian republics.
In Europe the Catholic nobility and gen-
try were schooled in Jesuit seminaries,
and the confidential spiritual direction of
Catholic monarchs was, nearly universally
we may say, exercised by specially trained
Jesuit casuists. That Spanish power,
which had shot up so rapidly, what a real
strength it had put forth ! Out of that
series of marriages, from Ferdinand and
Isabella to Philip and Mary, what a net-
work of domestic and political and also
of hierarchical intrigue had spun itself!
How it encumbered Europe and the
known world ! Castilian priests, who at
the commencement of Isabella the Catho-
lic's reign would have been checked by
the Guadalquiver, might now roam from
the Parand to the Yantsekiang.
And, though the popes were unwilling
servants, they, from Clement VII.'s time
onward till long after the sixteenth cen-
tury had terminated, were at the mercy of
Spain and had to attend to her mandates.
The independence of Italy, for which
Juhus, Leo, Clement himseff had striven,
had come to an end. Southern Italy was
altogether Spanish, and the whole penin-
sula was held by Spanish arms and Span-
ish agents. The most curious and in-
structive study in Italian politics is pre-
sented in the Council of Trent. The
Pope first shrinks from it in terror of
Spain, then, reassured and reliant on
Spain and for Catholic and Spanish ob-
jects, carries it on and concludes it. The
Council was a diplomatic training ground
for all the nations which took part in it.
The rough sketch for the Council was dis-
cussed by Charles V. and a Venetian car-
dinal, who had lived amid the business of
the republic and had written a book on
the Venetian Constitution. The author
of a careful essa}' on French diplomacy
during the sixteenth century, M, Edou-
ard Frdmy, gives up, and in our opin-
ion very rightly, his first chapter to an
account of the behaviour of the French
ambassadors at the later sittings of the
Council. The narrative of the Council
of Trent was a fine subject for political
historians. It was written by a man who
cared to unmask its treacherous diplom-
acy, by a Venetian, Sarpi. It was writ-
ten again, as against Sarpi, by a Jesuit,
Pallavicino. In an appendix to the last
volume of his work on the Popes, Pro-
fessor von Ranke has criticised Sarpi and
his opponent. The German historian is,
by much, the best living authority on the
history of diplomacy : he calls Sarpi the
second of modern Italian historians ; the
first rank he awards to Macchiavelli.
General Councils had been numerous
in the preceding century, in which, in
fact, they had gone far to supply the
place of the papacy. The desire of
another Council had been strongly felt
under Leo ; had very possibly been fel^
by Adrian, in many respects so excel
tional a pope ; that desire was urgt
anew upon Clement. Popes hated Coui
cils. A Medicean pope was likely
have Councils in special hatred. Lc
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
had taken pains to have it recorded that
a pope was above a council. Clement
might dread that, were he arraigned be-
fore such an assembly, his use of his own
money at the time of his election, his use
of the funds of the Church since that
event, and especially the illegitimacy of
his birth, might cost him his chair.
At last in 1545 the Council came to-
gether. The leaders of the reforming
party among the cardinals were there.
But they were soon met by the disputants
of the new order, the Spaniards Lainez
and Salmeron, to whom the word of com-
mand had been given by Ignatius Loy-
ola to oppose every change, every nov-
elty. Thus the Jesuits entered into the
arena of Theology and European Politics.
From that moment to this they have pre-
vented or prejudged General Councils.
The persuasion of Loyola had already
helped to determine the Pope to listen to
Cardinals Caraffa and Burgos, to re-or-
ganize the Inquisition, and to establish
its head-quarters at Rome. We need not
further accompany the Council of Trent
through its scholastic windings, its ver-
bose controversies, its pilgrimages from
city to city ; it is .thenceforward in the
hands of Pope and Order.
The history of the sixteenth century is,
first and foremost, the history of state-
craft. This maxim will be our best
guide, while we pick our way through the
last fifty years of it. In some degree it
is a history of great diplomatists on the
Imperial and Papal thrones, and it is
from those heights that a storm threatens
which stirs panic and rouses energy.
But it is ultimately a history of politicians
with narrower and, as we might say, mod-
ern views, lovers of new institutions and
constitutions. It is a marked era in the
life of nations. Still more does its in-
terest lie in its grand biographies, in
which, as in representative statuary, are
modelled beforehand, naked and defiant,
the instincts and features of peoples.
Statesmen never had harder work before
them and never had such reason to mis-
trust themselves. A kind of authority,
claiming to be parental, had been long
disregarded, it might be, and disliked ;
but, to dislike and disregard an infirm
and inactive parent is quite a different
thing from altogether disowning and de-
nying him. For countries to develop
slowly, to become stage by stage the
homes of national dynasties and churches,
the contradiction never becoming very
perceptible between their traditions and
inclinations, the feeling always being that
649
a stimulus from within prompted each
step, was a very different process from
that into which countries were rapidly
torn of conflict with powerful, pressing,
foreign principles, which, moreover, often
seemed to set them at variance with
their own past and the piety of their
ancestors. How far were these boldly
aggressive movements, these revolts,
justifiable ? how far were they natural ?
How far was their universal spread stim-
ulated and artificial ? how far was it the
work of a few selfish and licentious
leaders ? Never were the imperfections
of human nature seen more plainly, felt
more keenly, than in that age. We al-
luded, a little while ago, to the influence
of the Society of Jesus at courts. And
that influence was in no small measure
due to the pains and skilldevoted, of set
purpose, by the Order to the manage-
ment of the confessional. In the com-
bats of interest and opinion, conscience,
where a man was honest, was constantly
baffled ; a person, from whom his posi-
tion demanded that he should lead others,
would be in continual want of a guide
himself. The same needs existed, where
the prescriptions of the Jesuits have
never been, on any large scale, applied,
where the hostility to Rome was strong-
est. Men in general were doubtful about
their acts and about their motives, which
they desired should be approved by God
as well as by government. The very
same causes, which in some countries
threw such power into the hands of the
Jesuits, in other countries producad a
multiplication of sects, until it looked
probable that Christianity would soon
have as many various subdivisions as
there were Christian congregations.
Wherever a man would undertake the
control and cure of souls, there was sure
to be no lack of souls anxious and wish-
ful to be cared for. Many explained
these symptoms in comm.unities to mean
the dissolution of the whole life of com-
munities. They refused to believe that
a Henry VIII. or a Gustavus Wasa could
be a saviour of society. The real ques-
tion to them, they said, was not at all a
question of ecclesiastical doctrine or of
royal supremacy. It involved the first
rules of morality. And, though popes
might sometimes be bad in morals, were
not monarchs usually so ? Would it do
not to hold reserved the highest place, in
the sight of all nations, for a potentate,
who had once embodied and who might
again embody Moral Greatness. What
was happening? Lassitude was sapping
650
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD
the vital force of the people, luxury that
of the courts. What prospect could be
more doleful? One saw cities swayed
by the filthiest and most blasphemous
ravings of demagogues, and, in the coun-
try, peasants were rallying on behalf of
the lowest of the older superstitions or
on the behalf of communistic heresies.
The lives which have been, in their
example and result, most beneficent to
humanity, have been at the last consumed
by a sense of loneliness and failure ; and
it may be, that always after intense effort,
whether on the part of a person or a
combination of persons, a corresponding
slackness of mental fibre is inevitable.
"Post tenebras lux" is the ancient
motto of the town of Geneva, on which
the dawn and the warmth of the sun |
break from behind the wall of the Alps j
and of eternal snow. In the heraldic (
bearings of the city meet the Eagle and
the Keys, the symbols of Caesar and of
St. Peter. On the very geography of
Geneva and on all her fortunes there is set
the seal of an international vocation.
Fable makes Geneva four centuries older
than Rome, and the eldest daughter of
Troy. History connects the site with
the opening event in Caesar's Western
campaigns. Here was the frontier of the
AUobroges, the allies of the Romans,
where Caesar met and turned aside the
unwieldy caravan of the Helvetians. In
our own time, Geneva stands in a way of
her own between the divergent interests
of nations, of labour and capital, of eccle-
siastical establishments ; she offers a
theatre for Alabama arbitrations, for
social congresses, for the preaching of
P^re Hyacinthe. Throughout the Mid-
dle Ages and at the rise of modern his-
tory she took a very prominent part in
the progress of commerce, and was the
home of much literary and military ac-
tivity. " Clef et Boulevard de la Suisse,"
the city has been styled. Geneva stood
on the confines of three languages, of
three political organisms, Italy, France,
and the Empire. She had a close con-
nection with the trade of Northern and
Western Europe through Cologne, with
that of the South and East through Flor-
ence and Venice ; she was in closer
neighbourhood and more intimate rela-
tions with, at about equal distances, Bern,
Lyons, and Turin. And the mountain,
the river, the lake — above all natural
objects most suggestive to the mind of
the traveller on the Continent in the
nineteenth century, inviting and familiar
as they have been to the typical philoso-
pher, and historian, and poet, dear even
to the satirist, of modern Europe — Mont
Blanc, the Rhone, Lake Leman, the de-
light of the large intellects of Rousseau,
Gibbon, Byron, and Voltaire, enliven and
define the landscape of Geneva.
In Carolingian times a count of Geneva
had governed on behalf of the Roman
Empire. In Swabian times, the Emperor
had made the bishop of Geneva count.
The bishop in his turn gave secular rule
under himself to the Count of Savoy, who
bore the title of " Vidomne." By degrees
this title of vidomne passed — the count
at Turin willing it so in order that his
relations with Geneva might lose as much
as possible the traces of their origin in a
delegated authority — from the Count of
Savoy to his local officer, the custodian
of the island-fortress in the Rhone. We
are led to remark how, in the early his-
tory of the House of Savoy, the design
to reach and enclose Geneva was as
warmly nursed and as persistently main-
tained as, in the later history of that
House, the design to reach and to en-
close Rome. Amadeus VIII. of Savoy,
in the variety and incongruity of the dis-
tinctions he accumulated, claims celeb-
rity as having surpassed all his succes-
sors. He became, one after the other.
Count and Duke of Savoy, Pope of Rome,
and Bishop of Geneva (a.d. 1444) ; at
intervals in his career he let his beard
grow and lived a hermit^ at Ripaille.
From the times of Amadeus VIII. the
bishops of Geneva were mostly members
of the ducal family. The ambitious
house was increased and extended ; at
last Geneva was on all sides encompassed
by the possessions of the Duke of Savoy.
The line which separated the rights of
the duke over Geneva from his rights over
the territories beyond the city-proper had
become the slightest imaginable. But
under the shadow of the Cathedral of St.
Peter at Geneva had sprung up — the
plant is a common one in mediseval epis-
copal purlieus — a further Power, a de-
termined democracy. So far back as
1387 a charter of liberties was granted,
which made an important landmark on
the road toward the full enjoyment by
Geneva of the forms of a republic. Thus
the city was one of most diverse popula-
tion and opinions. It had a most compli-
cated jurisdiction and police. Bishop,
Vidomne, and Syndicate were bound by
oath to uphold each other's privileges
and administration. Then there was the^
action of the Chapter, of the Vidomne's;
lieutenant, of the various civic com-j
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
mittees, from the General Council, the
Smaller Council, the Council of Sixty,
down to the numerous and restless clubs
and confraternities — abbayes et co?n-
pagfites — in which the youth of Geneva
enrolled itself for the discussion of affairs
and for drill and the practice of archery.
A street of Geneva was called after the
German, a market-hall after the French,
merchants. In one part of the city rose
a Franciscan, in another an unusually
spacious Dominican convent (" le Grand
Palais "). Pilgrims crowded to the shrine
of St. Victor. A band of the hungry
shaggy mountaineers from the Italian side
of the Alps, who formed the garrison,
might be seen to pass vociferating in
their vile Piedmontese jargon on one side
of the road, while on the other might
stand a group of high-born cathedral dig-
nitaries paying their respects to each
other in Ciceronian Latin. Processions,
manoeuvres, fairs, festivals, traffic kept the
town in an unintermittent bustle. There
were as many as fifty notaries-public.
The fondness of the Genevans for amuse-
ment and gaiety, in particular their pat-
ronage of allegorical and comic repre-
sentations, became proverbial. But the
joyous and prosperous city had its turbu-
lent and bitter moods, and these recurred
more and more often. It knew what it
was to be under interdict and under mar-
tial law. The first decades of the six-
teenth century were spent at Geneva in
internal dissensions, quarrels between
duke and bishop, bishop and citizens,
duke and citizens. Some of the leading
citizens had been admitted to the free-
dom of Freiburg and Bern. Three men
of the popular party are famous above
the rest : the versatile and eloquent
Frangois de Bonnivard, who has some-
times been styled the Erasmus of the
Genevan Reformation ; Philibert Berthe-
lier the favourite of the multitude, with a
humorous and a melancholy vein in him,
fond of music and' conviviality, but amid
the clatter of wine-cups imparting to the
friend next him his prevision of a violent
death, — : Berthelier has been called the
Egmont of the Genevan struggle for in-
dependence ; then Bezanson Hugues,
the coolest and, as it strikes us, the no-
blest of the trio, whom, continuing the
comparison between Geneva and the
Netherlands, we would take leave to
think of as a companion spirit to John of
Barneveld.
It w^as in connection with a section of
the inhabitants led by Berthelier, Be-
zanson Hugues, and Bonnivard, that a
651
famous nickname of faction came into
vogue at Geneva. The partisans of the
Freiburg and Bern " combourgeoisie "
were called Huguenots, the adherents of
Savoy Mamelukes. The word " Eygue-
not"may with most probability be de-
rived from the German " Eidgenoss," the
Swiss league being best known as the
" Eidgenossen," the '•' sworn comrades ; "
with less probability from the name of
the ablest Genevan leader, Bezanson
Hugues.*
Anyhow the term had a political be-
fore it had a religious meaning, and,
whether it be the same with the French
party-epithet or not, which is sometimes
still a subject of dispute, this description
of the term would still be true in both lo-
calities. Bezanson Hugues and Berthe-
lier were much more political than eccle-
siastical reformers ; Bezanson Hugues
remained in life and death a Catholic ;
even Bonnivard's revolt from the papal
and monastic system had its root in and
took its savour from literary rather than
moral tendencies in his generation. Of
the two implicated towns, Freiburg was
strongly Catholic and Bern was Protest-
ant. It was from Freiburg that, in the
first instance, the citizens of Geneva had
most support and sympathy ; later in-
deed, though not because Geneva freely
willed or wished it so, Bern supplanted
Freiburg. Geneva passed, without know-
ing well how and in what direction she
was being moved, out of one relation into
another. Very slowly and under the
sheer compulsion of the Duke of Savoy's
policy, with which fell in after countless
subterfuges and hesitations that of the
bishop, Peter de la Baume, a policy bent
on confounding and causing to be con-
founded the desire for local franchises
with the taint of those reviled heresies
which were known, like every other nov-
elty, to have made some way in the
place, — most slowly was Geneva as a
city pressed into pronounced antagonism
to Catholic doctrine and the system of
the Catholic Church. When the bishop
had excommunicated Geneva ; when the
Archbishop of Vienne, who was metro-
politan, and the Pope had confirmed
the excommunication ; when it was an-
* Kampschulte's " Calvin," p. 49. We have to ac-
knowledge great obligations to this book. Not only
the University of Bonn and the Old Catholic move-
ment, but historical literature generally, suffered a
great loss in the premature death of Professor Kamp-
schulte. Only one out of the three volumes he meant
to write on Calvin, had been published when he died.
This fragment is a very remarkable example of learn-
ing, a still more remarkable example of impartiality.
652
nounced that the Duke of Savoy and the
Bishop of Geneva in concert were levy-
ing troops and preparing to take the field
against Geneva, — then, and not till then,
did Genevan councillors begin to advise
with a foreign missionary at whom hith-
erto they had looked askance, a protege
of Bern, which had given him introduc-
tions that had hitherto been of small ser-
vice to him, "the Welsh Luther," the
particular bete noire of Erasmus, William
Farel ; — not until then did Farel become
a political personage at Geneva, though
thenceforward a forward enough station
was taken by him ; not until then did the
Protestant watchwords become those of
Genevan patriotism. By the act of her
enemies two courses only were at all open
to Geneva. She must make her choice
if she would have those enemies thrust
back, kept at bay, between two, the only
possible allies. Bern or France ! Alli-
ance with France could have but one re-
sult— union with France. As it was,
when, with the help of Bern, Geneva was
safe from her old tyrants, she found
Bernese statesmen — they had far and
wide the reputation — not much less
covetous than French, and she was put
to no little trouble to preserve her au-
tonomy. Had it not been for her pro-
fessedly sincere and thorough Protestant-
ism, for the thus assured guarantees of
religious affinity and fellowship, Bern
would have enforced, as she demanded,
the most substantial pledges ; she would
have annexed the town she had rescued.
At the conclusion of a contest of about
thirty years' duration, Geneva had shaken
off the yoke of her bishop and of the
Duke of Savoy. She had secured what
men called her liberty ; had she not sac-
rificed her character ? "A tottering re-
public, a wavering faith, a nascent
church," the sceptical and alarmist ob-
server would have been able to see, as
nowhere else, at Geneva, the picture
traced for him vaguely in the whole con-
dition of Europe, reproduced in a speak-
ing and highly-finished miniature. The
chiefs who had begun the movement had
nearly all passed away, and their right-
eous and moderate enthusiasm was gone
with them. In the place of old eccle-
siastical foundations, of old patrician and
civic authorities, what remained .'' In
numbers the leading Genevan families
had gone into exile with all the corporate
and ceremonial, all the time-worn and
time-honoured, furniture of the past.
They had left a blank. The very soul of
the city was extinct. How quickly did
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD
Geneva become the byword of Europe
for the wildest scenes of debauchery, for
as wild scenes of iconoclasm ! The fren-
zied passion for excitement, change, and
destruction Jiad but to overleap another
hedge or two, and it would have consum-
mated political suicide. What were the
materials for a future ? Here a poor
remnant of the old Genevan stock, the
cringing and unworthy children of noble
names, who had given up their old be-
liefs for the sake of having none, who
had broken with Catholicism and its dig-
nified official protectors, because they
wanted to break ^vith all religion and
order ; there an unreasoning, insurgent
mob collected together by refugee revo-
lutionary preachers, who, as soon as con-
troversy and church-storming were over,
lost all love for their untractable flocks,
and found, day by day, their posts more
untenable.
At this very darkest moment a work
was to commence at Geneva, beside
which every other previous and later en-
terprise originated within her walls sinks
into insignificance. In July 1536, a poor
French man of letters, travelling under
an assumed name, tired with his journey,
arrived, intending to rest for one night,
at Geneva. He met a former companion,
Louis du Tillet, who chanced to inform
Farel that the author of the "Institutes
of the Christian Religion" was in the
city. Farel had been for some time at
his wit's end ; he was through and
through conscious of his incompetence
as an organizer and legislator ; he was
full of fear lest, master of so many bat-
tle-fields, he should never succeed in
making any use of victory. Here, the
thought flashed on him at the instant,
was in Geneva the very man Geneva re-
quired, the writer of a book which, pub-
lished only a few months before, was on
the lips of the entire learned and inquis-
itive world, which had become already
the programme of Protestantism, or, as
the Romanist historian Florimund de
Raemund put it, " the Koran, the Tal-
mud of Heresy." The man who had set
forth the theory of Protestantism should
bring into action the practice of Protes-
tantism. From the bottom of his over-
tasked, perplexed, ardent, bold heart,
Farel determined that Calvin should not
leave the spot. He hastened to the
stranger's lodgings, and in a few impet-
uous words forced upon him his plan.
Calvin showed astonishment and annoy-
ance. He was, he stated, a young, shy^
student ; his tastes were for quiet, aca'"
I
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
demic pursuits ; he had found his place ;
and manifestly the first successes, the
successes of the sole kind appropriate to
his talent and mode of living," which had
fallen to him, forbade in him the thought
of renouncing his chosen career. But
the preacher, who had stood before the
stoniest congregations and felt his own
fires, who never turned from insult or
blow and had shed his blood for his
tenets, who had carried by assault church
after church, the " Conqueror of Geneva,"
was not to be daunted when he had at
last before him the person for whom he
was in his conscience convinced he had
through all his past actions been prepar-
ing the way. " Thou pratest of thy
studies : I tell thee in the name of Al-
mighty God that His curse is upon thee
shouldest thou dare to withdraw thyself
from this work of the Lord, and hearken
to the cry of thine own flesh before the
call of Christ." " And I was frightened
and shaken as if by God on high, and as
though His hand had stopped me on the
way," savs Calvin, recalling the inter-
terview and the marvellous power with
which Farel had delivered himself of his
message.
Though it is a very modern and, as
commonly applied, a somewhat inappli-
cable phrase, yet we think that one of his
recent French biographers has touched
exactly Calvin's own thought, when he
describes him as undertaking his labours
with the intention of making Geneva the
capital of an idea. To no one in those
days or in ours were the disorders of the
sixteenth century more abhorrent. *His
nicely poised and clear intelligence
chafed and struggled and must break
through and get to light, wherever the
clouds of barbarism and ignorance had
defiled the image and dulled the knowl-
edge of truth. Divine and Immaculate.
He hated, and with every instinct of a
creative and masterful genius he bent his
whole strength of character and intellect
to wrestle with, chaos. Never was Ge-
neva's motto truer of her than in Calvin's
time, " P6st tenebras lux ; " never was
its legend of the implacable, agonizing
hostility between good and evil, light and
darkness, the active Spirit of God and
the shapeless, lifeless waters of a lower
world, more finely illumined than in the
life of Calvin. Calvin is one of those
heroes of history who have lived by and
acted by the guidance of abstract princi-
ples. The common weaknesses of men,
such as beset even most great men, are
not discernible in him. He is too severe,
653
too cold ; one misses in him not many of
the more excellent, but many of the more
amiable qualities of the race. The whole
earth wore for him, one might say, the air
of a strange land. He was never at home,
in the domestic and tender sense which
the word has, at Geneva or anywhere.
How, it has been felt, if a Luther had
lived at Geneva instead of a Calvin,
would its scenery have been extolled and
recapitulated in his " Table Talk " ! At
Geneva a Luther would never have let
any other man but himself translate the
Psalms of David. From Geneva a Luther
would have preached sermons and sung
hymns hardly more inspired by Scripture
than by the sublimity of the mountain
and the ripple of the lake. Glacier and
avalanche, the silence and the sounds of
the high Alps, the difficult pass through
which he had come, the fragrant mead-
ows in which he had reposed, a Luther
would have celebrated in the ears of all
the countries of the Reformation. Luther
would have somewhere had a word to say,
not altogether disparagingly, of that artist
of the olden time whose altarpiece had
been turned to the wall, who had put St.
Peter, fisher of men, founder of the
Church, patron of Geneva, out upon those
particular waters to net his miraculous
draught : " On y reconnoit parfaitement
les deux Monts Sal^ve, le Mole et les
Voyrons." But to Calvin Geneva was al-
ways a foreign city. The records of the
city have caught the chill of his pres-
ence ; that foreigner, that Frenchman,
"iste Gallus," so run the first entries re-
specting him. Not the beautiful and
well-proportioned aspect, the ugly and
disorganized aspect in external life in
every province of it struck Calvin most.
He came in time to love Geneva to a cer-
tain degree, as a sort of city of refuge.
And at best Switzerland was to Calvin
what the wilderness of Sinai was to
Moses : not a promised land, though one
hallowed especially in the interference of
Providence. In sight of Mont Blanc
Calvin re-issued, as peremptorily and as
literally, the Divine Word as the Jewish
lawgiver had done, and he re-asserted the
doctrine of predestination and of a chosen
people.
Of himself Calvin, in his voluminous
writings, rarely speaks. It is at once an
aristocratic haughtiness and a literary
taste which restrain him, and also a feel-
ing of the nothingness of personal inci-
dents along the track of one in whom
self has been destroyed and whom God
speeds onward in a special mission. Nor
654
MOTLEY S JOHN OF BARNEVELD
need we dwell on his early youth. One
coincidence we may notice, the more as
it has escaped most of his biographers.
At the College de Montaigu at Paris he
studied dialectics under the same Span-
ish professor to whose instructions Igna-
tius Loyola was indebted for his intro-
duction to letters. Until he was about
eighteen, Calvin read grammar, philoso-
phy, and theology ; then, in accordance
with a change in his father's intentions
concerning him, law at Orleans and
Bourges. After his fathers death, while
he continued his studies in jurisprudence,
he gave special attention to the ancient
languages ; it was at this period of his
life that he made himself acquainted with
Greek. With his humanist training came
religious doubt. Some years of delibera-
tion followed, during which he thought
rather of embracing the literary than
either the ecclesiastical or the legal pro-
fession. A Reuchlin or an Erasmus was
his model. He was again for twelve
months at Paris, in the libraries and lec-
ture-rooms. He was there when he pub-
lished his first work, a commentary on
Seneca's treatise on " Clemency." In
this exercise, of which he took care to
send a copy to Erasmus, Calvin's interest
in philological inquiry and in the political
questions of his clay is the most marked
feature ; he is still keeping, in his occupa-
tions and in his own meditations, his
religious scruples as much as he can out of
sight and consideration. It is as a young
classical scholar that he makes liis debut.
But the effort to distract himself was too
much for him. Very shortly after the
publication of his book must have oc-
curred his " conversion," of which none
of the details can be said to be known.
We have him immediately the chief of
the Protestant learning in Paris. He
composed for a friend, who was Rector of
the University, a speech, which, delivered
on All Saints' Day, roused the indigna-
tion of the Sorbonne and made it neces-
sary both for orator and author to flee.
From that time, 1533, to the time of his
settlement at Geneva, he was wandering
from place to place : Angouleme, Noyon,
Nerac, Basle, writing now and then a
tract or a preface, preparing and at last
sending to press the first edition of the
literary exploit of his life, the " Institutio
Religionis Christianze." " In doctrine,"
says Beza of Calvin, " he was always the
same, from the beginning to his last
breath." It is so. His whole system of
theology was finished when he was six-
and-t\venty years old. And there is
the same smoothness, sureness, want of
flaw, in his style as in his mind. From
the beginning his writing was as correct
as his thought was accurate.
The appearance of the " Institutes of
the Christian Religion " is quite as much
an incident in the history of French lit-
erature as is that of Christianity or of
politics. It was probably first sketched
in French, though first printed in Latin ;
here, however, we touch and at once with-
draw from a most debatable and unset-
tled question. Of this there can be
no doubt : the French volume, whether
ready before or after the Latin, stamped
Calvin as a first-rate classical writer in his
mother tongue. And he was a French
classic from the first moment that he wrote
French. The prose of the earliest edi-
tions is as perfect as any of Calvin's
work. M. Nisard, himself an Academi-
cian and the author of the best known
modern history of French literature, de-
clares Calvin to have understood far bet-
ter than the other great contemporary
light of literary France, Rabelais, the
genius and capacity of the French lan-
guage, and, out of the magnificent roll of
French theologians, to have expressed
the truths of religion with a native
eloquence never surpassed and never
equalled unless by Bossuet. Calvin cre-
ated, M. Nisard goes on to say, a particu-
lar branch of modern, and conspicuously
of French, literary composition ; he cre-
ated a new language, that of polemics.
He had passed from one French univer-
sity to another just at the right moments
of the sparkling effervescence of the
French revival of letters ; he had been in
contact with the leading teachers in Ro-
man law and ancient scholarship as well
as in theology. The two former subjects
had exerted over him a strong attraction
and had moulded the forms of his mind ; a
legal and a literary acumen will sharpen
and clarify every page of his theology.
The political briskness of Francis I. had
kindled him ; he was on the scent of a
new diplomacy. By education a Human-
ist of Humanists, in intellect a French-
man of Frenchmen, in morals a Reformer
of Reformers, such was Calvin when he
took up his abode at Geneva. Now, as
so often, Genevan policy is set to gen-
eral policy. The foreign bishop, the for-
eign duke, have made way for "iste
Gallus," "maitre Calvin." "The Aris-
totle of the Reformation," as his friends
called him, had dedicated his book, in a
glowing piece of rhetoric, to the King
of France, " Christianae Religionis Insti-
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
tutio . . . Praefatio ad Christianissimum
Regem Francise."
Let us note, morever, even in this
hasty view of him, how his French in-
stincts were strengthened during his ex-
ile from Geneva in Germany, when the
Libertines had for a while got the upper
hand of him and driven him out. He
wrote letters which are replete with in-
formation about the condition of Ger-
many ; he had dived deep into the
muddle of German political and religious
disputations : in his exposition and criti-
cism some perspicuity and brevity can
be imparted to them. The heavy and
somnolent movements of German princes
and divines offended the polished and
sprightly Frenchman. The long and tedi-
ous digestive process, in which they men-
tally lounged and dozed, disgusted Cal-
vin. If he mentioned the pressing sub-
ject of the day, — that of discipline, of
self-government, — the answer from every
German was the same, a deep-drawn
sigh. He looked in vain for anything
like his ideal in Germany. His patience
was exhausted, his fine sense of manners
was wounded. " Novi Germanise mo-
rem," he wrote years after in good-
humoured sarcasm. He had stored his
memory with peccadilloes to be avoided,
in that country of conscientious foggi-
ness and organized procrastinations,
where, as he complained, at assemblies,
which were to be decisive, the authorita-
tive persons never arrived, nor was it ex-
pected of them ; where the mode of con-
cluding business was to adjourn it ;
where the object of coming together was
to heap document on document, all for-
mularies of concord and mediation be-
tween people who meant contentedly to
go on forever agreeing to differ.
In the first half of the sixteenth cen-
tury, the two political powers which over-
shadowed civilization were the Imperial
system, as administered by Charles V.,
and the Hierarchical system, as repre-
sented by such a ruler as Leo X. In the
second half of the sixteenth century.
Empire and Papacy, greatly modified as
they had been, were still most dangerous
engines of reaction, and Spain and Italy
placed exquisitely trained, and by no
means effete, forces at their disposal.
He who would understand the essence of
the opposition they then aroused, the na-
ture of the issues at stake, the reasons
why the sixteenth century draws to it
throughout Europe, and wheresoever
European thought and speech prevail,
such lively attention in the nineteenth,
65s
would, we take it, do well to examine and
analyze very minutely the principles and
policy of two societies, which, we should
further advise, should be approached first
in their literary character. We mean the
Republic of Geneva, but chiefly the Gene-
van Academy ; and the kingdom of Eng-
land, but chiefly the Court of Queen
Elizabeth. From English history we,
for the present, must resolutely turn.
English history proper is not the history
either of Genevan ideas or of those with
which Geneva was at war. But if not in
England proper, in Scotland, in Ireland,
in Wales, in almost all British colonies,
those ideas have had, and, in many in-
stances, continue to have, the mastery ;
and as under Mary Tudor there was a
Spanish, so under the whole line of
Stuart there was a Scotch period in the
history of the kernel of the Anglo-Saxon
race, in the history of England itself.
The Academy of Geneva, surrounded by
the life of the civic republic, from which
idleness, frivolity, and luxury had been
expelled, and not quite unhampered,
though far less hampered than one would
suppose, by a grim and scrutinizing
church discipline, remained in its first
youth down to 1605, the year of Theo-
dore Beza's death. He was its ear-
liest Rector, whom Calvin had recom-
mended for it, whom he had preferred
to himself. After Calvin's death, Beza
took up the whole work of Calvin. The
Academy got its original endowment
from the legacy of his entire estate for
its purposes by " the prisoner of Chillon,"
Bonnivard, the survivor of so many
changes at Geneva. It speedily became
a centre of culture, letters, and educa-
tion. Robert Stephens — Robert I.,
these printers rank in their calling as
kings — spent the last eight years of his
life at Geneva, printed there some of his
best specimens, and died there. His
son, Henry II., was a citizen of Geneva;
was as much established in that city as
in any other. His learning and his la-
bours were universal, and his activity
was ubiquitous. He was ever welcome
and safe at Geneva. The Stephenses
were the finest and most honoured
scholars of their day ; their fame is as
classic as Calvin's. Conrad Badius was
another great Genevan printer. Proud-
est of his press and above everything
anxious to produce editions free of errors,
he had also a high reputation as a pulpit-
divine and as a profound writer. M.
Michelet counts as many as thirty print-
ing establishments, working night and
656
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD
day, at Geneva, and supplying the col-
porteurs of Italy, France, England, and
the Netherlands. For the Genevan pub-
lic, the chronicles of the city were writ-
ten in French ; and works, full of lessons
of patriotism, such as Josephus and Livy,
were translated into that language. Ge-
neva had, Senebier tells us, sixty book-
sellers' shops. Isaac Casaubon lived for
many years at Geneva. The learned of
that age spent missionary lives ; jour-
neyed from place to place. Geneva was
their house of call and harbour of safety.
Joseph Justus Scaliger lectured for two
years at Geneva, at the same time Fran-
cis Hottoman was lecturing thereon law.
Bonnefoy, the Oriental jurist, of whom
Cujas said that he would be the only
man fit to supply his own place, had a
chair at Geneva. Scrimgeour, professor
of philosophy and law, was a Scotchman.
Chevalier, the first professer of Hebrew
at Geneva was born in Normandy ; sub-
sequently he taught Hebrew at Cam-
bridge. Similarly Daneau taught for
some time at Geneva, and then passed
on to a chair at Leyden, and to a place in
the political history of the Low Coun-
tries. To careful readers of Mr. Motley,
a brief notice of Charles Perrot will com-
mend itself, who was Rector of the
Academy in 1570 and again in 1588.
The qualities reported of him show a
kind of scholar and thinker, whom one
would not have suspected at Geneva.
Foremost among those qualities was his
deep veneration for the ancients. In the
album of a favourite pupil — a certaiti
Uytenbogaert — he inscribed the words,
" Blessed are the peacemakers : for they
shall be called the children of God." It
is also on record that a book by him was
suppressed after his death, entitled " De
Extremis in Ecclesia vitandis." Let us
turn to one man's library table and catch
a glimpse of the extent of the personal
associations into which the student of
Geneva, as he raised his eyes from his
page, as he scattered the products of his
brain abroad, entered. Beza dedicated
the folio second edition of his New Tes-
tament, in Greek and Latin, to Queen
Elizabeth of England, the octavo edition
to the Prince of Conde and the French
nobility ; he presented a famous manu-
script of the Gospels and Acts to the
University of Cambridge ; he left by will
a Greek manuscript of the New Testa-
ment to Sully ; when his hand began to
fail, in order to prevent — though the
effort turned out a vain one, for the vol-
umes cannot be traced — the dispersal of
a precious collection, he sold six hun-
dred louis d'ors' worth of books to a
house-pupil of his, a Moravian seigneur,
George Sigismund of Zastrizl. With
Mr. Motley's last pages in our minds, we
may not forget how Barneveld in his ex-
tremity turned to the shade of Beza, the
'• Pope of the Huguenots," the Genevan
psalmodist.
After an hour he called for his French
Psalm Book, and read in it for some time. —
Vol. ii., p. 374.
The clergymen then re-entered and asked if
he had been able to sleep. He answered,
'* No, but that he had been much consoled by
many noble things which he had been reading
in the French Psalm Booky — Vol. ii. p. 376.
" Will my lord please to prepare himself .'' "
*' Very well, very well," said the prisoner.
" Shall we go at once .'' "
But Walaeus suggested a prayer. Upon its
conclusion, Barneveld gave his hand to the
provost-marshal and to the two soldiers, bid-
ding them adieu, and walked downstairs, at-
tended by them, to the chamber of the judges.
As soon as he appeared at the door, he was
informed that there had been a misunderstand-
ing, and he was requested to wait a little. He
accordingly went upstairs again with perfect
calmness, sat down in his chamber again, and
read in his French Psalm Book. — Vol. ii. p.
381.
Let us also remember, how to this
Protestant Rome exiles and fugitives
gathered. There was an English church
with English services at Geneva as earlv
as 1555, an Italian church with Italian
services in 1551, a little later a Spanish
church with Spanish services. In the
year 1558, we read that in one morning
279 persons became permanent residents
at Geneva, namely, 50 Englishmen, 200
Frenchmen, 25 Italians, and 4 Spaniards.
But pre-eminently as a High School
for the youth of Europe does Geneva
claim attention and the lasting gratitude
of civilization. As the chief lights of
learning settled for a longer or shorter
stay at Geneva, so too did future soldiers
and statesmen from the leading aristo-
cratic families of the Continent, in a re-
markable degree from the more decen-
tralized countries of Europe — as Poland,
Bohemia, Moravia, the Netherlands,
North Britain — travel to Geneva as the
resort of classical culture and the cradle
of a fresh and hopeful political life.
Theodore Beza was at once the head of
Calvinistic Geneva and of the science and
literature of Protestant politics in Europe
until the century had closed. He was
the one Reformer who lived right through
the sixteenth into the seventeenth cen-
AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DIPLOMACY.
tury. In 1600 he preached, it was a pious
but not a prophetic discourse, from the
text, " Thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven." Beza, hke Calvin, was a
Frenchman. He took a personal part in
French politics. He was a man of high
descent and of majestic visage, a poet, a
courtier, a strict Calvinist about whom
there was no outside appearance of the
Puritan, a diplomatist at ease among
cardinals and fine ladies, an adept at
epigrams and complimentary verses.
Throughout the religious strife in Flor-
ence he was appealed to and he gave
counsel ; at the conference of Poissy he
and the Cardinal of Lorraine were
matched against one another. Henry IV.
after his apostasy still reverenced Beza ;
when he met him, embraced him, sought
to please him, addressed him as " Fa-
ther." Beza was the spiritual father and
political guide of the Colignis, the Ro-
hans, the" D'Aubignds, the SuUys, pure
and earnest Christian nobles, as virtuous
as they were valiant, rushing on the field
like a mountain torrent, over every ob-
stacle, and — for a space, so long as they
remembered Beza and the Fountain-head
of their prowess — among the polluted
and mirv currents of royal and aristo-
cratic French life, bright and unstained
like a mountain torrent.
The narrative of the Religious Wars in
France and of their connection with
Geneva has an exact counterpart in Scot-
land. For Katharine of Medici, there
are the two Maries : Mary of Guise and
"the Queen of Scots." For Admiral
Coligni, there is the Regent Murray.
For '^Calvin, there is — a sterner and, in
planting an undying seed, a more suc-
cessful Calvinist than Calvin — the most
congenial and fervid disciple of the mas-
ter, John Knox. For Beza, there is
Andrew Melville, who had been for ten
years of his life at Geneva and among
the Huguenots. For Beza's pupil, Henry
of Navarre, there is Melville's pupfil,
James of Scotland, on whom London
acted as Paris on Henri Quatre, leading
him away to Prelacy.
We observed above, that the Slavonian
countries sent their young nobility, in
considerable numbers, to Geneva. No
nationality took a larger place in Beza's
mind. Zastrizl bought, as we have seen,
that it might remain together and be
transplanted to his own country, the bulk
of Beza's library. Charles of Zierotin
excelled in his time among the younger
scholars of Geneva ; there he learnt to
love Plato and Plutarch, to admire Beza
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 354
657
as the greatest man of that age, to com-
prehend the world-wide significance of
the struggle his own Hussite forefathers
had begun. When he had finished his
studies at Geneva, Zierotin visited the
West. He saw England, where he became
a bosom friend of Robert, Earl of Salis-
bury. A few years later he came all the
way from his family castle to take part in
one of Henry IV.'s campaigns. His after-
career was devoted to the public service
of his country, he became its leading
statesman — Landeshauptmann of Mo-
ravia,— he remained an important per-
sonage in the politics of Eastern Europe
until the very eve of the Thirty Years'
War.
How much the Netherlands owed to
the political model and teaching of Ge-
neva our readers will have learnt, or can
easily learn, from Mr. Motley's present
work and from his previous writings.
More practical, and so more profitable,
than a study of Athens in her prime, of
Rome in the palmiest days of the Re-
public, was, in full sixteenth century, the
study of Geneva herself. Nowhere had
there been in State and Church such dis-
union, in moral character and in mental
sinew such decrepitude, as at Geneva,
when, as one might well deem, God's
hand and the voice of Farel arrested Cal-
vin. And on the very " Slough of De-
spond " Calvin had planted a good and
substantial city. All Europe took cour-
age. What Luther had done for the
individual, Calvin had done for the State.
After Calvin's work, there could no-
longer be any doubt about the stability,
the vitality, of the political movement
into which that work was linked ; there
could be no doubt that Christianity could
exist without the Roman Papacy, and
civilization without the Imperial system.
A mass of political superstitions was
exploded. And where were thews and
muscles, where were military authority
and rigour, where were religious zeal and
discipline, where was rational and logical
statesmanship to be found, if not among
the Calvinists of the seventeenth cen-
tury ?
Every one, we suppose, is conscious of
his proneness to think of periods of a
hundred years, of centuries, as if these
were something more than just conven-
tional arrangements for chronological
purposes, as if an integral change took
place in universal human character at
such an epoch as the year 1500 or 1600.
We speak continually, say of the nine-
teenth century, as if there were some
6s8
MOTLEYS JOHN OF BARNEVELD.
greater inherent distinction between the
years 1799 ^^^ i^^*^ ^'^^.n between the
years 1800 and 1801. However, it is a
subject for thankfulness that on such
a matter a little mental carelessness is
not very misleading. For it is evident
enough that, roughly stated, in a hundred
years, in the course of about three gen-
erations, the general fashion of things
does alter, the origin of leading maxims
falls out of record, necessary re-adjust-
ments have to be made, points of depar-
ture have to be recovered. Political mem-
ory is bounded much as domestic mem-
ory. Tradition has no real and healthy
life when it ceases to be oral, when it
reaches backward beyond the tales of a
grandfather. It loses its hold as an in-
stinct, as a nature, when it is not bred at
home and current from the nursery, when
it begins to depend upon the training
of the schools and calculations grounded
on the maturer experiences of him who
allows it to weigh with him. Tradi-
tion will not do instead of faith ; unless,
at least, it falls from the lips of one to
whom it is faith, not tradition. So it is
that, when a hundred years have passed
since Charles, Leo, Henry, Francis trod
the stage, the eye looks in vain for any-
thing that resembles them. What strides
diplomacy and national spirit have taken !
It needs an effort to find predecessors
for Gustavus Adolphus, Oxenstiern, Ri-
chelieu, Turenne, John Pym, Oliver Crom-
well. Not that there is a breach in the
history ; yet how independent is the cen-
tury, how different the age, how new the
field !
On the threshold of those other times
we pause, our limits are reached, and the
task we had set ourselves is — as we are
well aware, rather in the way of hint than
of exposition — most imperfectly accom-
plished. And for the present we must
part with Mr. Motley. He is a writer to
whom the public is much indebted, and
whom it will be always pleased to meet
again. We can well understand Mr.
Motley's eagerness at the turn to which
his studies have brought him, and with
his relish for heroic incident and exam-
ple, to leave " the narrow precincts of the
Netherlands."
In one of the most ancient and famous
libraries in this country hang in a con-
spicuous position two paintings rich in
historical, indeed in romantic, attractions.
Of the first picture one would guess, had
one no other index but the artist's labour,
that the man presented in it had been of
noble and interesting quality, apt to en-
tertain high hopes and rash designs,
though there has come a look into his
face as of amazement at some suddenly
unveiled prospect of power and renown ;
one would guess that he would be bold
and dashing in onset, and that at the
beginning of a fray others would readily
appeal to him, but that he might be
proved too pliable and irresolute as the
cavalier, in command through desperate
encounters, of a cause where brain and
heart should show as sure and firm as
stroke of sword or seat in saddle. The
other likeness, though not so well authen-
ticated, suits even more admirably the
individual it is reported to represent. A
lady stands holding a lance ; she wears a
soldier's slouched hat covered with heavy
yellow plumes which flap over her face
and mix with her hair ; a black and a red
feather, half hidden in the background,
join to make up the proud imperial col-
ours of the head-dress ; a closely-fitting
string of pearls is round her neck, her
black robe has sleeves of slashed yellow
silk, and a yellow scarf is pinned with a
jewel over the right shoulder. The male
figure is that of the fugitive from the
battle on the White Hill of Prague, the
female that of his wife. Granddaughter
of Mary, Queen of Scots, sister of Charles
I., aunt of Charles II., her manner and
physiognomy bear resemblance to each
of these among her illustrious kindred,
while they are eloquent besides of an ori-
ginality and of adventures quite her own.
It has by chance happened that the pre-
ceding pages were for the most part writ-
ten in the shadow of these portraits.
Thus we have been constantly reminded
of the act which was to follow next in
the drama of European history upon
those we have been contemplating — of
the conflict, some of the premonitory
symptoms of which along the western
borders of the Continent Mr. Motley, in
the work before us, has ably and careful-
ly described. Most cordially do we wish
the historian of the Dutch Republic good
speed to his narrative of the Thirty
Years' War. His practised and still ac-
tive hand will, we trust, give new life and
spirit to the scenes in which the beau-
tiful Elizabeth of Bohemia* assumes.
* We have tried to give an idea of a presumed
trait of her. She connects, we need scarcely rami
our readers, the houses of Stuart and Brunswick, Jar
I.'s daughter, George I's grandmother. Her menj
charms were celebrated by Sir Henry Wotton in
well-known lines, beginning,
*' You meaner beauties of the night.'
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
among princesses an engaging and un-
common attitude, and it will find its grasp
and cunning strained to their utmost ef-
fort, as it disentangles destinies not less
troubled, but of far deeper import and
more lasting influence than those of
Frederick, the Elector Palatine, " King
for a Winter " — as Carlyle expapds the
metaphor — " built of mere frost, a S7t0'w-
kins: altogether soluble asrain.."
From The Cornhill Magazine.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
HOME AGAIN : A JUGGLER.
That same evening at dusk Gabriel
was leaning over Coggan's garden-gate,
taking an up-and-down survey before re-
tiring to rest.
A vehicle of some kind was softly
creeping along the grassy margin of the
lane. From it spread the tones of two
women talking. The tones were natural
and not at all suppressed. Oak instantly
knew the voices to be those of Bathsheba
and Liddy.
The carriage came .opposite and passed
by. It was Miss Everdene's gig, and
Liddy and her mistress were the only oc-
cupants of the seat. Liddy was asking
questions about the city of Bath, and her
companion was answering them listlessly
and unconcernedly. Both Bathsheba
and the horse seemed weary.
The exquisite relief of finding that she
was here again, safe and sound, over-
powered all reflection, and Oak could
only luxuriate in the sense of it. All
grave reports were forgotten.
He lingered and lingered on, till there
was no difference between the eastern
and western expanses of sky, and the
timid hares began to limp courageously
round the dim hillocks. Gabriel might
have been there an additional half-hour
when a dark form walked slowly by.
" Good-night, Gabriel," the passer said.
It was lioldwood. " Good-night, sir,"
said Gabriel.
Boldwood likewise vanished up the
road, and Oak shortly afterwards turned
indoors to bed.
Farmer Boldwood went on towards
Miss Everdene's house. He reached the
front, and approaching the entrance, saw
a light in the parlour. The blind was
not drawn down, and inside the room
was Bathsheba, looking over some papers
659
or letters. Her back was towards Bold-
wood. He went to the door, knocked,
and waited with tense muscles and an
aching brow.
Boldwood had not been outside his
garden since his meeting with Bathsheba
in the road to Yalbury. Silent and alone,
he had remained in moody meditation on
woman's ways, deeming as essentials of
the whole sex the accidents of the single
one of their number he had ever closely
beheld. By degrees a more charitable
temper had pervaded him, and this was
the reason of his sally to-night. He had
come to apologize and beg forgiveness
of Bathsheba with something like a sense
of shame at his violence, having but just
now learnt that she had returned — only
from a visit to Liddy as he supposed,
the Bath escapade being quite unknown
to him.
He enquired for Miss Everdene.
Liddy's manner was odd, but he did not
notice it. She went in, leaving him
standing there, and in her absence the
blind of the room containing Bathsheba
was pulled down. Boldwood augured ill
from that sign. Liddy came out.
" My mistress cannot see you, sir," she
said.
The farmer instantly went out by the
gate. He was unforgiven — that was the
issue of it all. He had seen her who was
to him simultaneously a delight and a
torture, sitting in the room he had shared
with her as a peculiarly privileged guest
only a little earlier in the summer, and
she had denied him an entrance there
now.
Boldwood did not hurry homeward. It
was ten o'clock at least, when, walking
deliberately through the lower part of
Weatherbury, he heard the carrier's
spring-van entering the village. The
van ran to and from a town in a northern
direction, and it was owned and driven
by a Weatherbury man, at the door of
whose house it now pulled up. The
lamp fixed to the head of the hood illu-
minated a scarlet and gilded form, who
was the first to alight.
"Ah!" said Boldwood to himself,
" come to see her again."
Troy entered the carrier's house, which
had been the place of his lodging on his
last visit to his native place. Boldwood
was moved by a sudden determination.
He hastened home. In ten minutes he
was back again, and made as if he were
going to call upon Troy at the carrier's.
But as he approached, some one opened
the door and came out. He heard this
66o
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
person say " good-night " to the inmates,
and the voice was Troy's. This was
strange, coming so immediately after his
arrival. Boldwood, however, hastened
up to him. Troy had what appeared to
be a carpet-bag in his hand — the same
that he had brought with him. It seemed
as if he were going to leave again this
very night.
Troy turned up the hill and quickened
his pace. Boldwood stepped forward.
" Sergeant Troy ? "
" Yes — I'm Sergeant Troy."
"Just arrived from Meichester,
think.?"
"Just arrived from Bath."
" I am William Boldwood."
" Indeed."
The tone in which this word was
uttered was all that had been wanted to
bring Boldwood to the point.
" I wish to speak a word with you," he
said.
"What about?"
"About her who lives just ahead there
— and about a woman you have wronged."
" I wonder at your impertinence," said
Troy, moving on.
"Now look here," said Boldwood,
standing in front of him, "wonder or not,
you are going to hold a conversation with
me."
Troy heard the dull determination in
Boldwood's voice, looked at his stalwart
frame, then at the thick cudgel he carried
in his hand. He remembered it was past
ten o'clock. It seemed worth while to
be civil to Boldwood.
" Very well, I'll listen with pleasure,"
said Troy, placing his bag on the ground,
"only speak low, for somebody or other
may overhear us in the farmhouse there."
" Well then — I know a good deal con-
cerning your — Fanny Robin's attach-
ment to you. I may say, too, that I be-
lieve I am the only person in the village,
excepting Gabriel Oak, who does know it.
You ought to marry her."
" I suppose I ought. Indeed, I wish
to, but I cannot."
" Why ? "
Troy was about to utter something
hastily ; he then checked himself and
said, " I am too poor." His voice was
changed. Previously it had a devil-may-
care tone. It was the voice of a trickster
now.
Boldwood's present mood was not criti-
cal enough to notice tones. He con-
tinued, " I may as well speak plainly ; and
understand, I don't wish to enter into the
questions of right or wrong, woman's
honour and shame, or to express any
opinion on your conduct. I intend a
business transaction with you."
" I see," said Troy. " Suppose we sit
down here."
An old tree trunk lay under the hedge
immediately opposite, and they sat down.
" I was engaged to be married to Miss
Everdene," said Boldwood, "but you
came and "
" Not engaged," said Troy.
" As good as engaged."
" If I had not turned up she might have
I i become engaged to you."
" Hang might ! "
"Would, then."
" If you had not come I should cer-
tainly— yes, certamly — have been ac-
cepted by this time. If you had not
seen her you might have been married to
Fanny. Well, there's too much differ-
ence between Miss Everdene's station
and your own for this flirtation with her
ever to benefit you by ending in mar-
riage. So all I ask is, don't molest her
any more. Marry Fanny. I'll make it
worth your while."
" How will you .? "
" ril pay you well now, I'll settle a sum
of money upon her, and I'll see that you
don't suffer from poverty in the future.
I'll put it clearly. Bathsheba is only
playing with you : you are too poor for
her, as I said ; so give up wasting your
time about a great match you'll never
make for a moderate and> rightful match
you may make to-morrow ; take up your
carpet-bag, turn about, leave Weather-
bury now, this night, and you shall take
fifty pounds with you. Fanny shall have
fifty to enable her to prepare for the wed-
ding, when you have told me where she
IS iivmg, and she shall have five hundred
paid down on her wedding-day."
In making this statement Boldwood's
voice revealed only too clearly a con-
sciousness of the weakness of his posi-
tion, his aims, and his method. His
manner had lapsed quite from that of the
firm and dignified Boldwood of former
times ; and such a scheme as he had now
engaged in he would have condemned as
childishly imbecile only a few months
ago. We discern a grand force in the
lover which he lacks whilst a free man ;
but there is a breadth of vision in the
free man which in the lover we vainly
seek. Where there is much bias there
must be some narrowness, and love,
though added emotion, is subtracted ca-
pacity. Boldwood exemplified this to an
abnormal degree : he knew nothing of
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
661
marrying Fan.
Fanny Robin's circumstances or where-
abouts, he knew nothing of Troy's possi-
bilities, yet that was what he said.
•' I like Fanny best," said Troy ; " and
if, as you say, Miss Everdene is out of
my reach, why I have all to gain by ac-
cepting your money, and
But she's only a servant."
"Never mind — do you agree to my
arrangement ?"
" I do."
"Ah!" said Boldwood, in a more
elastic voice. " O Troy, if you like her
best, why then did you step in here and
injure my happiness ? "
" I love Fanny best now," said Troy.
"But Bathsh Miss Everdene in-
flamed me, and displaced Fanny for a
time. It is over now."
"Why should it be over so soon .-* And
why then did you come here again ? "
" There are weighty reasons. Fifty
pounds at once, you said ? "
" I did," said Boldwood, " and here
they are — fifty sovereigns." He handed
Troy a small packet.
" You have everything ready — it seems
that you calculated on my accepting
them," said the sergeant, taking the
packet.
" I thought you might accept them,"
said Boldwood.
" You've only my word that the pro-
gramme shall be adhered to, whilst I at
any rate have fifty pounds."
" I had thought of that, and I have
considered that if I can't appeal to your
honour I can trust to your — well, shrewd-
ness we'll call it — not to lose five hun-
dred pounds in prospect, and also make
a bitter enemy of a man who is willing to
be an extremely useful friend."
" Stop, listen ! " said Troy in a whis-
per.
A light pit-pat was audible upon the
road just above them.
" By George — 'tis she," he continued.
" I must go on and meet her."
" She — who ? "
" Bathsheba."
" Bathsheba — out alone at this time o'
night ! " said Boldwood in amazement,
and starting up. "Why must you meet
her ? "
" She was expecting me to-night — and
I must now speak to her, and wish her
good-bye, according to your wish."
" I don't see the necessity of speak-
ing."
" It can do no harm — and she'll be
wandering about looking for me if I don't.
You shall hear all I say to her. It will
help you in your love-making when I am
gone."
" Your tone is mocking."
" O no. And remember this, if she
does not know what has become of me,
she will think more about me than if I
tell her flatly I have come to give her up."
" Will you confine your words to that
one point? — shall I hear every word
you say ? "
" Every word. Now sit still there, and
hold my carpet-bag for me, and mark
what you hear."
The light footstep came closer, halting
occasionally, as if the walker listened for
a sound. Troy whistled a double note
in a soft fluty tone.
" Come to that, is it ! " murmured
Boldwood, uneasily.
"You promised silence," said Troy.
" I promise again."
Troy stepped forward.
" Frank, dearest, is that you ? " The
tones were Bathsheba's.
" O God ! " said Boldwood.
" Yes," said Troy to her.
" How late you are," she continued
tenderly. " Did you come by the car-
rier ? I listened and heard his wheels
entering the village, but it was some
time ago, and I had almost given you up,
Frank."
" I was sure to come," said Frank.
" You knew I should, did you not .'* "
" Well, I thought you would," she said,
playfully ; " and, Frank, it is so lucky !
There's not a soul in my house but me
to-night. I've packed them all off, so
nobody on earth will know of your visit
to your lady's bower. Liddy wanted to
go to her grandfather's to tell him about
her holiday, and I said she might stay
with them till to-morrow — when you'll
be gone again."
" Capital," said Troy. " But, dear me,
I had better go back for my bag : you
run home whilst I fetch it, and I'll prom-
ise to be in your parlour in ten minutes."
" Yes." She turned and tripped up
the hill aofain.
progress of this dialogue
Bold-
wood's tightly closed lips, and his face
became bathed in a clammy dew. He
now started forward towards Troy.
Troy turned to him and took up the bag.
" Shall I tell her I have come to give
her up and cannot marry her ?" said the
soldier mockingly.
" No, no ; wait a minute. I want to
say more to you — more to you," said
Boldwood, in a hoarse whisper.
During the
there was a nervous twitching of
662
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
" Now," said Troy, "you see my dilem-
ma. Perhaps I am a bad man — the vic-
tim of my impulses — led away to do
what I ought to leave undone. I can't,
however, marry them both. And I have
two reasons for choosing Fanny. First,
I like her best upon the whole, and sec-
ond, you make it worth my while."
At the same instant Boldwood sprang
upon him, and held him by the neck.
Troy felt Boldwood's grasp slowly tight-
ening. The move was absolutely unex-
pected.
" A moment," he gasped. " You are
injuring her you love."
" Well, what do you mean ? " said the
farmer.
" Give me breath," said Troy.
Boldwood loosened his hand, saying,
" By Heaven, I've a mind to kill you ! "
"And ruin her."
" Save her."
" Oh, how can she be saved now, un-
less I marry her ? "
Boldwood groaned. He reluctantly re-
leased the soldier, and flung him back
against the hedge. " Devil, you torture
me ! " said he.
Troy rebounded like a ball, and was
about to make a dash at the farmer ; but
he checked himself, saying lightly —
" It is not worth while to measure my
strength with you. Indeed it is a bar-
barous way of settling a quarrel. I shall
shortly leave the army because of the
same conviction. Now after that reve-
lation of how the land lies with Bathshe-
ba, 'twould be a mistake to kill me, would
it not?"
" 'Twould be a mistake to kill you," re-
peated Boldwood, mechanically, with a
bowed head.
" Better kill yourself."
" Far better."
" I'm glad you see it."
" Troy, make her your wife, and don't
act upon what I arranged just now. The
alternative is dreadful, but take Bath-
sheba ; I give her up. She must love
you indeed to sell soul and body to you
so utterly as she has done. Wretched
woman — deluded woman — you are,
Bathsheba ! "
" But about Fanny ? "
*' Bathsheba is a woman well to do,"
continued Boldwood, in nervous anxiety,
" and, Troy, she will make a good wife ;
and, indeed, she is worth your hastening
on your marriage with her ! "
" But she has a will — not to say a tem-
per, and I shall be a mere slave to her. I
could do anvthing with poor Fanny
Robin."
" Troy," said Boldwood, imploringly,
" I'll do anything for you, only don't
desert her ; pray, don't desert her, Troy."
"Which, poor Fanny ? "
" No ; Bathsheba Everdene. Love her
best ! Love her tenderly ! How shall I
get you to see how advantageous it will
be to you to secure her at once ? "
" I don't wish to secure her in any new
way."
Boldwood's arm moved spasmodically
towards Troy's person again. He re-
pressed the instinct, and his form drooped
as with pain.
Troy went on —
" I shall soon purchase my discharge,
and then "
" But I wish you to hasten on this mar-
riage. It will be better for you both.
You love each other, and you must let me
help you to do it."
"How?"
"Why, by settling the five hundred on
Bathsheba instead of Fanny to enable
you to marry at once. No, she wouldn't
have it of me ; I'll pay it down to you on
the wedding-day."
Troy paused in secret amazement at
Boldwood's wild and purblind infatuation.
He carelessly said, " And am I to have
anything now ? "
" Yes, if you wish to. But I have not
much additional money with me. I did
not expect this ; but all I have is yours."
Boldwood, more like a somnambulist
than a wakeful man, pulled out the large
canvas bag he carried by way of a purse,
and searched it. ^
" I have twenty-one pounds more with
me," he said. "Two notes and a sover-
eign. But before I leave you I must
have a paper signed "
" Pay me the money, and we'll go
straight to her parlour, and make any ar-
rangement you please to secure my com-
pliance with your wishes. But she must
know nothing of this cash business."
" Nothing, nothing," said Boldwood,
hastily. " Here is the sum, and if you'll
come to my house we'll write out the
agreement for the remainder, and the
terms also."
" First we'll call upon her."
" But why ? Come with me to-night,
and go with me to-morrow to the surro-
gate's."
" But she must be consulted ; at any
rate informed."
" Very well ; go on."
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
ee^
They went up the hill to Bathsheba's
house. When they stood at the entrance,
Troy said, " Wait here a moment."
Opening the door, he glided inside, leav-
ing the door ajar.
Boldwood waited. In two minutes a
light appeared in the passage. Boldwood
then saw that the chain had been fas-
tened across the door. Troy appeared
inside, carrying a bedroom candlestick.
'< What, did you think I should break
in .'' " said Boldwood, contemptuously.
" O no ; it is merely my humour to se-
cure things. Will you read this a mo-
ment ? I'll hold the light."
Troy handed a folded newspaper
through the slit between door and door-
post, and put the candle close. " That's
the paragraph," he said, placing his finger
on a line.
Boldwood looked and read —
" MARRIAGES.
"On the 17th inst., at St. Ambrose's
Church,- Bath, by the Rev. G. Mincing,
B.A., Francis Troy, only son of the late
Edward Troy, Esq., M.D., of Weather-
bury, and sergeant nth Dragoon Guards,
to Bathsheba, only surviving daughter of
the late Mr. John Everdene, of Caster-
bridge."
"This may be called Fort meeting
Feeble, hey, Boldwood 1 " said Troy. A
low gurgle of derisive laughter followed
the words.
The paper fell from Boldwood's hand.
Troy continued —
" Fifty pounds to marry Fanny. Good.
Twenty-one pounds not to marry Fanny,
but Bathsheba. Good. Finale : already
Bathsheba's husband. Now, Boldwood,
yours is the ridiculous fate which always
attends interference between a man and
his wife. And another word. Bad as I
am, I am not such a villain as to make the
marriage or misery of any woman a mat-
ter of huckster and sale. Fanny has
long ago left me. I don't know where
she is. I have searched everywhere.
Another word yet. You say you love
Bathsheba ; yet on the merest apparent
evidence you instantly believe in her dis-
honour. A fig for such love ! Now that
I've taught you a lesson, take your money
back again."
" I will not ; I will not ! " said Bold-
wood, in a hiss.
"Anyhow I won't have it," said Troy
contemptuously. He wrapped the packet
of gold in the notes, and threw the whole
into the road.
Boldwood shook his clenched fist at
him. " You juggler of Satan ! You
black hound ! But I'll punish you yet ;
mark me, I'll punish you yet ! "
Another peal of laughter. Troy then
closed the door, and locked himself in.
Throughout the whole of that night
Boldwood's dark form might have been
seen walking about the hills and downs
of Weatherbury like an unhappy Shade
in the Mournful Fields by Acheron.
CHAPTER XXXV.
AT AN UPPER WINDOW.
It was very early the next morning —
a time of sun and dew. The confused
beginnings of many birds' songs spread
into the healthy air, and the wan blue of
the heaven was here and there coated
with thin webs of incorporeal cloud which
were of no effect in obscuring day. All
the lights in the scene were yellow as to
colour, and all the shadows were atten-
uated as to form. The creeping plants
about the old manor-house were bowed
with rows of heavy water drops, which
had upon objects behind them the effect
of minute lenses of high magnifying
power.
Just before the clock struck five Ga-
briel Oak and Coggan passed the village
cross, and went on together to the fields.
They were yet barely in view of their
mistress's house, when Oak fancied he
saw the opening of a casement in one of
the upper windows. The two men were
at this moment partially screened by an
elder bush, now beginning to be enriched
with black bunches of fruit, and they
paused before emerging from its shade.
A handsome man leaned idly from the
lattice. He looked east and then west,
in the manner of one who makes a first
morning survey. The man was Sergeant
Troy. His red jacket was loosely thrown
on, but not buttoned, and he had alto-
gether the relaxed bearing of a soldier
taking his ease.
Coggan spoke first, looking quietly at
the window.
" She has married him ! " he said.
Gabriel had previously beheld the
sight, and he now stood with his back
turned, making no reply.
" I fancied we should know something
to-day," continued Coggan. " I heard
wheels pass my door just after dark —
you were out somewhere." He glanced
round upon Gabriel. " Good Heavens
above us. Oak, how white your face is.;
you look like a corpse J"
" Do 1 1 " said Oak, with a faint smile
664
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
" Lean on the gate : I'll wait a bit."
" All right, all right."
They stood by the gate awhile, Gabriel
listlessly staring at the ground. His
mind sped into the future, and saw there
enacted in years of leisure the scenes of
repentance that would ensue from this
work of haste. That they were married
he had instantly decided. Why had it
been so mysteriously managed ? It was
not at all Bathsheba's way of doing
things. With all her faults, she was can-
dour itself. Could she have been en-
trapped ? The union was not only an
unutterable grief to him : it amazed him,
notwithstanding that he had passed the
preceding week in a suspicion that such
might be the issue of Troy's meeting her
away from home. Her quiet return with
Liddy had to some extent dispersed the
dread. Just as that imperceptible mo-
tion which appears like stillness is infi-
nitely divided in its properties from still-
ness itself, so had struggling hopes
against the imagined deed differentiated
it entirely from the thing actually done.
In a few minutes they moved on again
towards the house. The Sergeant still
looked from the window.
" Morning, comrades ! " he shouted,
in a cheery voice, when they came up.
Coggan replied to the greeting. " Baint
ye going to answer the man ? " he then
said to Gabriel. " I'd say good-morning
— you needn't spend a hapeth of mean-
ing upon it, and yet keep the man civil."
Gabriel soon decided too that, since
the deed was done, to put the best face
upon the matter would be the greatest
kindness to her he loved.
" Good-morning, Sergeant Troy," he
returned, in a ghastly voice.
" A rapbling gloomy house this," said
Troy, smiling.
" Why — they may not be married ! "
suggested Coggan. " Perhaps she's not
there."
Gabriel shook his head. The soldier
turned a little towards the east, and the
sun kindled his scarlet coat to an orange
glow.
" But it is a nice old house," responded
Gabriel.
" Yes — I suppose so ; but I feel like
new wine in an old bottle here. My no-
tion is that sash-windows should be put
up throughout, and these old wainscoted
walls brightened up a bit ; or the oak
<:leared quite away, and the walls
papered."
" It would be a pity, I think."
*' Well, no. A philosopher once said
in my hearing that the old builders, who
worked when art was a living thing, had
no respect for the work of builders who
went before them, but pulled down and
altered as they thought fit ; and why
shouldn't we ? ' Creation and preserva-
tion don't do well together,' says he,
' and a million of antiquarians can't in-
vent a style.' My mind exactly. I am
for making this place more modern, that
we may be cheerful whilst we can."
The military man turned and surveyed
the interior of the room, to assist his
ideas of improvement in this direction.
Gabriel and Coggan began to move on.-
" Oh, Coggan," said Troy, as if inspired
by a recollection, '' do you know if insan-
ity has ever appeared in Mr. Boldwood's
family ? "
Jan reflected for a moment.
" I once heard that an uncle of his wasj
queer in his head, but I don't know the
rights o't," he said.
" It is of no importance," said Troyj
lightly. "Well, I shall be down in the^
fields with you some time this week ; but^
I have a few matters to attend to first.]
So good-day to you. We shall, of course,,
keep on just as friendly terms as usual.
I'm not a proud man : nobody is ever]
able to say that of Sergeant Troy. How-
ever, what is must be, and here's half-a-
crown to drink my health, men."
Troy threw the coin dexterously across
the front plot towards Gabriel, who
shunned it in its fall, his face turning tO|
an angry red. Coggan twirled his eye,',
edged forward, and caught the money in
its ricochet upon the grass.
"Very well — you keep it, Coggan,"]
said Gabriel with disdain, and almost |
fiercely. "As for me, I'll do without^
gifts from him."
" Don't show it too much," said Cog- 5
gan, musingly. " For if he's married to
her, mark my words, he'll buy his dis-|
charge and be our master here. " There-
fore 'tis well to say ' Friend ' outwardly,]
though you say ' Troublehouse ' within.
" Well — perhaps it is best to be silent ;1
but I can't go further than that. I can't]
flatter, and if my place here is only to bej
kept by smoothing him down, my placej
must be lost."
A horseman, whom they had for somel
time seen in the distance, now appeared]
close beside them.
" There's Mr. Boldwood," said Oak.]
" I wonder what Troy meant by his ques-
tion."
Coggan and Oak nodded respectfullj
to the farmer, just checked their paces tc
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
discover if they were wanted, and finding
they were not, stood back to let him pass
on.
The only signs of the terrible sorrow
Boldwood had been combating through
the night and was combating now were
the want of colour in his well-defined
face, the enlarged appearance of the veins
in his forehead and temples, and the
sharper lines about his mouth. The
horse bore him away, and the very step of
the animal seemed significant of dogged
despair. Gabriel, for a minute, rose
above his own grief in noticing Bold-
wood's. He saw the square figure sitting
erect upon the horse, the head turned to
neither side, the elbows steady by the
hips, the brim of the hat level and undis-
turbed in its onward glide, until the keen
edges of Boldwood's shape sank by de-
grees over the hill. To one who knew
the man and his story there was some-
thing more striking in this immobility
than in a collapse. The clash of discord
between mood and matter here was forced
painfully home to the heart ; and, as in
laughter there are more dreadful phases
than in tears, so was there in the steadi-
ness of this agonized man an expression
deeper than a cry.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
WEALTH IN JEOPARDY : THE REVEL.
One night, at the end of August, when
Bathsheba's experiences as a married
woman were still new, and when the
weather was yet dry and sultry, a man
stood motionless in the stackyard of
Weatherbury Upper Farm, looking at
the moon and sky.
The night had a sinister aspect. A
heated breeze from the south slowly
fanned the summits of lofty objects, and
in the sky dashes of buoyant cloud were
sailing in a course at right angles to that
of another stratum, neither of them in
the direction of the breeze below. The
moon, as seen through these films, had a
lurid metallic look. The fields were sal-
low with the impure light, and all were
tinged in' monochrome, as if beheld
through stained glass. The same evening
the sheep had trailed homeward head to
tail, the behaviour of the rooks had been
confused, and the horses had moved with
timidity and caution.
Thunder was imminent, and, taking
some secondary appearances into con- j
sideration, it was likely to be followed by
one of the lengthened rains which mark {
the close of dry weather for the season. |
665
Before twelve hours had passed a harvest
atmosphere would be a bygone thing.
Oak gazed with misgiving at eight
naked and unprotected ricks, massive
and heavy with the rich produce of one-
half the farm for that year. He went on
to the barn.
This was the night which had been
selected by Sergeant Troy — ruling now
in the room of his wife — forgiving the
harvest supper and dance. As Oak ap-
proached the building, the sound of vio-
lins and a tambourine, and the regular
jigging of many feet, grew more distinct.
He came close to the large doors, one of
which stood slightly ajar, and looked in.
The central space, together with the
recess at o'he end, was emptied of all en-
cumbrances, and this area, covering
about two-thirds of the whole, was ap-
propriated for the gathering, the remain-
ing end, which was piled to the ceiling
with oats, being screened off with sail-
cloth. Tufts and garlands of green foli-
age decorated the walls, beams, and ex-
temporized chandeliers, and immediately
opposite to Oak a rostrum had been
erected, bearing a table and chairs. Here
sat three fiddlers, and beside them stood
a frantic man with his hair on end, per-
spiration streaming down his cheeks,
and a tambourine quivering in his hand.
The dance ended, and on the black
oak floor in the midst a new row of
couples formed for another.
"Now, ma'am, and no offence I hope,
I ask what dance you would like next ? "
said the first violin.
" Really, it makes no difference," said
the clear voice of Bathsheba, who stood
at the inner end of the building, observ-
ing the scene from behind a table cov-
ered with cups and viands. Troy was
lolling beside her.
" Then," said the fiddler, " I'll venture
to name that the right and proper thing
is 'The Soldier's Joy' — there being a
gallant soldier married into the farm —
hey, my sonnies, and gentlemen all ? "
" It shall be ' The Soldier's Joy,' " ex-
claimed a chorus.
" Thanks for the compliment," said
the sergeant gaily, taking Bathsheba by
the hand and leading her to the tog of
the dance. " For though I have pur-
chased my discharge from Her Most
Gracious Majesty's regiment of cavalry,
the nth Dragooii Guards, to attend to the
new duties awaiting me here, I shall con-
tinue a soldier in spirit and feeling as
long as I live."
So the dance began. As to the merits
666
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
of " The Soldier's Joy," there cannot be,
and never were, two opinions. It iias
been observed in the musical circles of
Weatherbury and its vicinity that this
melody, at the end of three-quarters of an
hour of thunderous footing, still pos-
sesses more stimulative properties for the
heel and toe than the majority of other
dances at their first opening. " The
Soldier's Joy " has, too, an additional
charm, in being so admirably adapted to
the tambourine aforesaid — no mean in-
strument in the hands of a performer
who understands the proper convulsions,
spasms, St. Vitus's dances, and fearful
frenzies necessary when exhibiting its
tones in their highest perfectiQn.
The immortal tune ended, a fine DD
rolling forth from the bass-viol with the
sonorousness of a cannonade, and Ga-
briel delayed his entry no longer. He
avoided Bathsheba, and got as near as
possible to the platform, where Sergeant
Troy was now seated, drinking brandy-
and-water, though the others drank with-
out exception cider and ale. Gabriel
could not easily thrust himself within
speaking distance of the sergeant, and
he sent a message, asking him to come
down for a moment. The sergeant said
he could not attend.
" Will you tell him, then," said Gabriel,
" that I only stepped ath'art to say that a
heavy rain is sure to fall soon, and that
something should be done to protect the
ricks ? "
"Mr. Troy says it will not rain," re-
turned the messenger, "and he cannot
stop to talk to you about such fidgets."
In juxtaposition with Troy, Oak had a
melancholy tendency to look like a can-
dle beside gas, and ill at ease, he went
out again, thinking he would go home ;
for, under the circumstances, he had no
heart for the scene in the barn. At the
door he paused for a moment : Troy was
speaking.
"Friends, it is not only the Harvest
Home that we are celebrating to-night ;
but this is also a Wedding Feast. A short
time ago I had the happiness to lead to
the aitar this lady, your mistress, and not
until now have we been able to give any
public flourish to the event in Weather-
bury. That it may be thoroughly well
done, and that every man may go happy
to bed, I have ordered to be brought here
some jjottles of brandy and kettles of hot
water. A treble-strong goblet will be
handed round to each guest."
Bathsheba put her hand upon his arm,
and, with upturned pale face, said implor-
ingly, "No — don't give it to them —
pray don't, Frank. It will only do them
harm : they have had enough of every-
thing."
" Trew — we don't wish for no more,
thank ye," said one or two.
" Pooh ! " said the sergeant contemp-
tuously, and raised his voice as if lighted
up by a new idea. " Friends," he said,
" we'll send the women-folks home !
'Tis time they were in bed. Then we
cockbirds will have a jolly carouse to our-
selves. If any of the men show the white
feather, let them look elsewhere for a win-
ter's work."
Bathsheba indignantly left the barn,
followed by all the women and children.
The musicians, not looking upon them-
selves as " company," slipped quietb
away to their spring waggon and put ii
the horse. Thus Troy and the men oi
the farm were left sole occupants of the
place. Oak, not to appear unnecessarily
disagreeable, stayed a little while ; thei
he, too, arose and quietly took his de*
parture, followed by a friendly oath froi
the sergeant for not staying to a seconc
round of grog.
Gabriel proceeded towards his homei|
In approaching the door, his toe kickec
something which felt and sounded soft
leathery, and distended, like a boxing-j
glove. It was a large toad humbly trav-j
elling across the path. Oak took it upj|
thinking it might be better to kill th<
creature to save it from pain ; but findin|
it uninjured, he placed it again amon<^
the grass. He knew what this direct
message from the Great Mother meant
And soon came another.
When he struck a light indoors therfi
appeared upon the table a thin glistening
streak, as if a brush of varnish had beei
lightly dragged across it. Oak's eyes
followed the serpentine sheen to the othei
side, where it led up to a huge browi
garden-slug, which had come indoors to-
night for reasons of its own. It was Na<^
ture's second way of hinting to him that
he was to prepare for foul weather.
Oak sat down meditating for nearly ai
hour. During this time two blacl
spiders, of the kind common in thatchec
houses, promenaded the ceiling, ulti^
mately dropping to the floor. This re^
minded him that if there was one class
of manifestation on this matter that h<
thorougly understood, it was the instincts
of sheep. He left the room, ran across
two or three fields towards the flock, got
upon a hedge, and lobked over amon<
them.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
They were crowded close together on
the other side around some furze bushes,
and the first peculiarity observable was
that, on the sudden appearance of Oak's
head over the fence, they did not stir or
run away. They had now a terror of
something greater than their terror of
man. But this was not the most note-
worthy feature : they were all grouped in
such a way that their tails, without a sin-
gle exception, were towards that half of
the horizon from which the storm threat-
ened. There was an inner circle closely
huddled, and outside these they radiated
wider apart, the pattern formed by the
flock as a whole being not unlike a van-
dyked lace collar, to which the clump of
furze-bushes stood in the position of a
wearer's neck.
This was enough to re-establish him in
his original opinion. He knew now that
he was right, and that Troy was wrong.
Every voice in nature was unanimous in
bespeaking change. But two distinct
translations attached to these dumb ex-
pressions. Apparently there was to be a
thunder-storm, and afterwards a cold con-
tinuous rain. The creeping things seemed
to know all about the latter rain, but
little of the interpolated thunder-storm ;
whilst the sheep knew all about the
thunder-storm and nothing of the latter
rain.
This complication of weathers being
uncommon, was all the more to be feared.
Oak returned to the stack-yard. All was
silent here, and the conical tips of the
ricks jutted darkly into the sky. There
were five wheat-ricks in this yard, and
three stacks of barley. The wheat when
threshed would average about thirty
quarters to each stack ; the barley, at
least forty. Their value to Bathsheba,
and indeed to anybody. Oak mentally es-
timated by the following simple calcula-
tion : —
5x30 = 1 50 quarters = 500/.
3x40 = 120 quarters = 250/.
Total 750/.
Seven hundred and fifty pounds in the
divinest form that money can wear — that
of necessary food for man and beast :
should the risk be run of deteriorating
this bulk of corn to less than half its
value, because of the instability of a
woman ? " Never, if I can prevent it ! "
said Gabriel.
Such was the argument that Oak set
outwardly before him. But man, even
to himself, is a cryptographic page hav-
667
ing an ostensible writing, and another
between the lines. It is possible that
there was this golden legend under the
utilitarian one : " I will help, to my last
effort, the woman I have loved so dearly."
He went back to the barn to endeav-
our to obtain assistance for covering the
ricks that very night. All was silent
within, and he would have passed on in
the belief that the party had broken up,
had not a dim light, yellow as saffron by
contrast with the greenish whiteness out-
side, streamed through a knot-hole in the
folding doors.
Gabriel looked in. An offensive pic-
ture met his eye.
The candles suspended among the
evergreens had burnt down to their
sockets, and in some cases the leaves
tied about them were scorched. Many
of the lights had quite gone out, others
smoked and stank, grease dropping from
them upon the floor. Here, under the
table, and leaning against forms and chairs
in every conceivable attitude except the
perpendicular, were the wretched per-
sons of all the workfolk, the hair of their
heads at such low levels being suggestive
of mops and brooms. In the midst of
these shone red and distinct the figure of
Sergeant Troy, leaning back in a chair.
Coggan was on his back, with his mouth
open, buzzing forth snores, as were sev-
eral others ; the united breathings of the
horizontal assemblage forming a sub-
dued roar like London from a distance.
Joseph Poorgrass was curled round in
the fashion of a hedgehog, apparently in
attempts to present the least possible
portion of his surface to the air ; and be-
hind him was dimly visible an unimport-
ant remnant of William Smallbury. The
glasses and cups still stood upon the
table, a water-jug being overturned, from
which a small rill, after tracing its course
with marvellous precision down the cen-
tre of the long table, fell into the neck of
the unconscious Mark Clark, in a steady,
monotonous drip, like the dripping of a
stalactite in a cave.
Gabriel glanced hopelessly at the
group, which, with one or two exceptions,
composed all the able-bodied men upon
the farm. He saw at once that if the
ricks were to be saved that night, or
even
them with his own hands
A faint "ting-ting" resounded from
under Coggan's waistcoat. It was Cog-
gan's watch striking the hour of two.
Oak went to the recumbent form of
Matthew Moon, who usually undertook
the next morning, he must save
668
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
the rough thatching of the homestead,
and shook him. Tiie shaking was with-
out effect.
Gabriel shouted in his ear, *' Where's
your thatching-beetle and rick-stick and
spars .'' "
" Under the staddles," said Moon
mechanically, with the unconscious
promptness of a medium.
Gabriel let go his head, and it dropped
upon the floor like a bowl. He then went
to Susan Tali's husband.
" Where's the key of the granary ? "
No answer. The question was re-
peated, with the same result. To be
shouted to at night was evidently less a
novelty to Susan Tail's husband than to
Matthew Moon. Oak flung down Tail's
head into the corner again and turned
away.
To be just, the men were not greatly to
blame for this painful and demoralizing
termination to the evening's entertain-
ment. Sergeant Troy had so strenuous-
ly insisted, glass in hand, that drinking
should be the bond of their union, that
those who wished to refuse hardly liked
to be so unmannerly under the circum-
stances. Having from their youth up
been entirely unaccustomed to any liquor
stronger than cider or mild ale, it was no
wonder that they had succumbed, one
and all with extraordinary uniformity,
after the lapse of about an hour.
Gabriel was greatly depressed. This
debauch boded ill for that wilful and fas-
cinating mistress whom the faithful man
even now felt within him as the embodi-
ment of all that was sweet and bright
and hopeless.
He put out the expiring lights, that the
barn might not be endangered, closed
the door upon the men in their deep and
oblivious sleep, and went again into the
lone night. A hot breeze, as if breathed
from the parted lips of some dragon
about to swallow the globe, fanned him
from the south, while directly opposite
in the north rose a grim misshapen body
of cloud, in the very teeth of the wind.
So unnaturally did it rise that one could
fancy it to be lifted by machinery from
below. Meanwhile the faint cloudlets
had flown back into the south-east
corner of the sky, as if in terror of the
large cloud, like a young brood gazed in
upon by some monster.
Going on to the village. Oak flung a
small stone against the window of Laban
Tail's bedroom, expecting Susan to open
it ; but nobody stirred. He went round
to the back door, which had been left
unfastened for Laban's entry, and passedj
in to the foot of the staircase.
" Mrs. Tall, I've come for the key oi
the granary, to get at the rick-cloths,"
said Oak, in a stentorian voice.
" Is that you ? " said Mrs. Susan TallJ
half awake.
" Yes," said Gabriel.
" Come along to bed, do, you draw-
latching rogue — keeping a body awake
like this ! "
" It isn't Laban — 'tis Gabriel Oak.
want the key of the granary."
" Gabriel ! What in the name of for<^
tune did you pretend to be Laban for ?"
" I didn't. I thought you meant —
"Yes you did. What do you want
here ? "
" The key of the granary."
" Take it then. 'Tis on the nail. Peo-
ple coming disturbing women at this time|
of night ought "
Gaijriel took the key, without waiting
to hear the conclusion of the tirade. Tei
minutes later his lonely figure might have!
been seen dragging four large waterproof
coverings across the yard, and soon two of
these heaps of treasure in grain werel
covered snug — two cloths to each. Twc
hundred pounds were secured. Three
wheat-stacks remained open, and there
were no more cloths. Oak looked undei
the staddles and found a fork. He mount-
ed the third pile of wealth and begai
operating, adopting the plan of slopin<^
the upper sheaves one over the other ;i
and, in addition, filling the interstices
with the material of some untied sheaves^
So far all was well. By this hurriec
contrivance Bathsheba's property in wheat
was safe for at any rate a week or two,!
provided always that there was not muchj
wind.
Next came the barley. This it was
only possible to protect by systematic
thatching. Time went on, and the rnooi
vanished not to re-appear. It was the
farewell of the ambassador previous tc
war. The night had a haggard look, like
a sick thing; and there came finally ai
utter expiration of air from the whole
heaven in the form of a slow breezel
which might have been likened to a deatl
And now nothing was heard in the yar(
but the dull thuds of the beetle whicl
drove in the spars, and the rustle of thi
thatch in the intervals.
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
669
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE STORM : THE TWO TOGETHER.
A LIGHT flapped over the scene, as if
reflected from phosphorescent wings
crossing the sky, and a rumble filled the
air. It was the first arrow from the ap-
proaching storm, and it fell wide.
The second peal was noisy, with com-
paratively little visible lightning. Ga-
briel saw a candle shining in Bathsheba's
bedroom, and soon a shadow moved to
and fro upon the blind.
Then there came a third flash. Ma-
noeuvres of a most extraordinary kind
hollows
the other end of the chain to trail upon
the ground. The spike attached to it he
drove in. Under the shadow of this ex-
temporized lightning-conductor he felt
himself comparatively safe.
Before Oak had laid his hands upon
his tools again out leapt the fifth flash,
with the spring of a serpent and the
shout of a fiend. It was green as an
emerald, and the reverberation was stun-
ning. What was this the light revealed
to him ? In the open ground before him,
as he looked over the ridge of the rick,
was a dark and apparently female form.
Could it be that of the only venturesome
woman in the parish — Bathsheba ? The
were somg on m the vast firmamental
overhead. The lightning now; form moved on a step : then he could see
was the colour of silver, and gleamed in ! no more. .
the heavens like a mailed army. Rum
bles became rattles. Gabriel from his
elevated position could see over the land-
scape for at least half-a-dozen miles in
front. Every hedge, bush, and tree was
distinct as in a line engraving. In a pad-
dock in the same direction was a herd of
heifers, and the forms of these were vis-
ible at this moment in the act of gallop-
ma'am ? " said Gabriel,
said the voice of
" Is that you^
to the darkness.
"Who is there?"
Bathsheba.
" Gabriel. I am on the rick, thatch-
ing."
" Oh, Gabriel ! — and are you ? I have
come about them. The weather woke
me, and I thought of the corn. I am so
ing about in the wildest and maddest ,' distressed about it — can we save it any-
confusion, flinging their heels and tails
high into the air, their heads to earth. A
poplar in the immediate foreground was
like an ink stroke on burnished tin.
Then the picture vanished, leaving a
darkness so intense that Gabriel worked
entirely by feeling with his hands.
He had stuck his ricking-rod, groom,
or poignard, as it was indifferently called i
how ? I cannot find my husband. Is he
with you ? "
" He is not here."
" Do you know where he is ? "
" Asleep in the barn."
" He promised that the stacks should
be seen to, and now they are all neglect-
ed I Can I do anything to help ? Liddy
is afraid to come out. Fancy finding you
— a long iron lance, sharp at the extremity here at such an hour ! Surely I can do
and polished by handling — into the something .-^ "
stack to support the sheaves. A blue *' You can bring up some reed-sheaves
light appeared in the zenith, and in some ! to me, one by one, ma'am ; if you are not
indescribable manner flickered down near | afraid to come up the ladder in the dark,"
the top of the rod. It was the fourth of | said Gabriel. " Every moment is pre-
the larger flashes
A
moment later and
there was a smack — smart, clear and
short. Gabriel felt his position to be
anything but a safe one, and he resolved
to descend.
Not a drop of rain had fallen as yet. He
wiped his weary brow, and looked again
at the black forms of the unprotected
stacks. Was his life so valuable to him,
after all ? What were his prospects that
he should be so chary of running risks,
when important and urgent labour could
not be carried on without such risk ? He
resolved to stick to the stack. However,
he took a precaution. Under the staddles
was a long tethering chain, used to pre-
vent the escape of errant horses. This
he carried up the ladder, and sticking his
rod through the clog at one end, allowed and Bathsheba.
cious now, and that would save a good
deal of time. It is not very dark when
the lightning has been gone a bit."
" I'll do anything ! " she said, resolute-
ly. She instantly took a sheaf upon her
shoulder, clambered up close to his heels,
placed it behind the rod, and descended
for another. At her third ascent the rick
suddenly brightened with the brazen
glare of shining majolica — every knot in
every straw was visible. On the slope
in front of him appeared two human
shapes black as jet. The rick lost its
sheen — the shapes vanished. Gabriel
turned his head. It had been the sixth
flash which had come from the east be-
hind him, and the two dark forms on the
slope had been the shadows of himself
67b
Then came the peal. It hardly was
credible that such a heavenly light could
be the parent of such a diabolical sound.
" How terrible ! " she exclaimed, and
clutched him by the sleeve. Gabriel
turned, and steadied her on her aerial
perch by holding her arm. At the same
moment, while he was still reversed in
his attitude, there was more light, and he
saw as it were a copy of the tall poplar
tree on the hill drawn in black on the
wall of the barn. It was the shadow of
that tree, thrown across by a secondary
flash in the west.
The next flare came. Bathsheba was
on the ground now, shouldering another
sheaf, and she bore its dazzle without
flinching — thunder and all — and again
ascended with the load. There was then
a silence everywhere for four or five min-
utes, and the crunch of the spars, as Ga-
briel hastily drove them in, could again
be distinctly heard. He thought the
crisis of the storm had passed. But there
came a burst of light.
" Hold on ! " said Gabriel, taking the
sheaf from her shoulder, and grasping
her arm again.
Heaven opened then, indeed. The
flash was almost too novel for its inex-
pressibly dangerous nature to be at once
realized, and Gabriel could only compre-
hend the magnificence of its beauty. It
sprang from east, west, north, south. It
was a perfect dance of death. The forms
of skeletons appeared in the air, shaped
with blue fire for bones — dancing, leap-
ing, striding, racing around, and min-
gling altogether in unparalleled confusion.
With these were intertwined undulating
snakes of green. Behind these was a
broad mass of lesser light. Simultane-
ously came from every part of the tum-
bling sky what may be called a shout ;
since, though no shout ever came near it,
it was more of the nature of a shout than
of anything else earthly. In the mean-
time one of the grisly forms had alighted
upon the point of Gabriel's rod, to run in-
visibly down it, down the chain, and into
the earth. Gabriel was almost blinded,
and he could feel Bathsheba's warm arm {
tremble in his hand — a sensation novel!
and thrilling enough ; but love, life,
everything human, seemed small and tri-
fling in such close juxtaposition with an
infuriated universe.
Oak had hardly time to gather up these
impressions into a thought, and to see
how strangely the red feather of her hat
shone in this light, when the tall tree on
the hill before-mentioned seemed on fire
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
to a white heat, and a new one among
these terrible voices mingled with the
last crash of those preceding. It was a
stupefying blast, harsh and pitiless, and
it fell upon their ears in a dead, flat blow,
without that reverberation which lends
the tones of a drum to more distant thun-
der. By the lustre reflected from every
part of the earth and from the wide domi-
cal scoop above it, he saw that the tree
was sliced down the whole length of its
tall straight stem, a huge riband of bark
being apparently flung off. The other
portion remained erect, and revealed the
bared surface as a strip of white down
the front. The lightning had struck the
tree. A sulphurous smell filled the air :
then all was silent, and black as a cave in
Hinnom.
" We had a narrow escape ! " said Ga-
briel hurriedly. " You had better go
down."
Bathsheba said nothing ; but he could
distinctly hear her rhythmical pants, and
the recurrent rustle of the sheaf beside
her in response to her frightened pulsa-
tions. She descended the ladder, and,
on secqnd thoughts, he followed her.
The darkness was now impenetrable by
the sharpest vision. They both stood
still at the bottom side by side. Bath-
sheba appeared to think only of the
weather — Oak thought only of her just
then. At last he said,
" The storm seems to have passed now,
at any rate."
" I think so too," said Bathsheba.
" Though there are multitudes of gleams,
look ! "
The sky was now filled with an inces-
sant light, frequent repetition melting
into complete continuity, as an unbroken
sound results from the successive strokes
on a gong.
" Nothing serious," said he. " I can-
not understand no rain falling. But,
heaven be praised, it is all the better for
us. I am now going up again."
" Gabriel, you are kinder than I de-
serve ! I will stay and help you yet. O,
why are not some of the others here ! "
" They would have been here if they
could," said Oak, in a hesitating way.
"O, I know it all — all," she said, adding
slowly: "They are all asleep in the barn,
in a drunken sleep, and my husband
among them. That's it, is it not } Don't
think I am a timid woman, and can't en-
dure things."
" I am not certain," said Gabriel. " I
will go and see."
He crossed to the barn, leaving
her
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
there alone. He looked through the
chinks of the door. All was in total dark-
ness, as he had left it, and there still
arose, as at the former time, the steady
buzz of many snores.
He felt a zephyr curling about his
cheek, and turned. It was Bathsheba's
breath — she had followed him, and was
looking into the same chink.
He endeavoured to put off the immedi-
ate and painful subject of their thoughts
by remarking gently, " If you'll come
back again, miss — ma'am, and hand up
a few more ; it would save much time."
Then Oak went back again, ascended
to the top, stepped off the ladder for
greater expedition, and went on thatch-
ing. She followed, but without a sheaf.
" Gabriel," she said in a strange and
impressive voice.
Oak loooked up at her. She had not
spoken since he left the barn. The soft
and continual shimmer of the dying light-
ning showed a marble face high against
the black sky of the opposite quarter.
Bathsheba was sitting almost on the apex
of the stack, her feet gathered up beneath
her, and resting on the top round of the
ladder.
" Yes, mistress," he said.
" I suppose you thought that when I
galloped away to Bath that night it was
on purpose to be married ? "
"I did at last — not at first," he an-
swered, somewhat surprised at the ab-
ruptness with which this new subject
was broached.
"And others thought so, too ? "
" Yes."
" And you blamed me for it ? "
"Well — a little."
" I thought so. Now, I care a little
for your good opinion, and I want to ex-
plain something — I have longed to do it
ever since I returned, and you looked so
gravely at me. For if I were to die —
and I may die soon — it would be dread-
ful that you should always think mis-
takingly of me. Now, listen."
Gabriel ceased his rustling.
" I went to Bath that night in the full
intention of breaking off my engagement
to Mr. Troy. It was owing to circum-
stances which occurred after I got there
that — that we were married. Now, do
you see the matter in a new light ? "
" I do — somewhat."
" I must, I suppose, say more, now that
I^ hare begun. And perhaps it's no
harm, for you are certainly under no de-
lusion that I ever loved you, or that I
can have any object in speaking, more
671
I than that object I have mentioned.
Well, I was alone in a strange city, and
the horse was lame. And at last I didn't
know what to do. I saw, when it was
too late, that scandal might seize hold of
me for meeting him alone in that way.
But I was coming away, when he sud-
denly said he had that day seen a woman
more beautiful than I, and that his con-
stancy could not be counted on unless
I at once became his. . . . And I
was grieved and troubled. . . ." She
cleared her voice, and waited a moment,
as if to gather breath. "And then, be-
tween jealousy and distraction, I married
him!" she whispered, with desperate
impetuosity.
Gabriel made no reply.
" He was not to blame, for it was per-
fectly true about — about his seeing
somebody else," she quickly added.
" And now I don't wish for a single re-
mark from you upon the subject — in-
deed I forbid it. I only wanted you to
know that misunderstood bit of my his-
tory before a time comes when you could
never know it. — You want some ,more
sheaves ? "
She went down the ladder, and the
work proceeded. Gabriel soon perceived
a langour in the movements of his mis-
tress up and down, and he said to her
gently as a mother,
" I think you had better go indoors
now, you are tired. I can finish the rest
alone. If the wind does not change the
rain is likely to keep off."
" If I am useless I will go," said Bath-
sheba, in a flagging cadence. " But oh,
if your life should be lost ! "
" You are not useless ; but I would
rather not tire you longer. You have
done well."
" And you better ! " she said, grate-
fully. " Thank you for your devotion, a
thousand times, Gabriel ! Good-night —
I know you are doing your very best for
me."
She diminished in the gloom, and van-
ished, and he heard the latch of the gate
fall as she passed through. He worked
in a reverie now, musing upon her story,
and upon the contradictoriness of that
feminine heart which had caused her to
speak more warmly to him to-night than
she ever had done whilst unmarried and
free to speak as warmly as she chose.
He was disturbed in his meditation by
a grating noise from the coach-house. It
was the vane on the roof turning round,
and this change in the wind was a signal
for a disastrous rain.
672
FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
RAIN: ONE SOLITARY MEETS ANOTHER.
It was now five o'clock, and the dawn
was promising to break in hues of drab
and ash.
The air changed its temperature and
stirred itself more vigorously. Cool elas-
tic breezes coursed in transparent eddies
round Oak's face. The wind shifted yet
a point or two and blew stronger. In
ten minutes every wind of heaven seemed
to be roaming at large. Some of the
thatching on the wheat-stacks was now
whirled fantastically aloft, and had to be
replaced and weighted with some rails
that lay near at hand. This done. Oak
slaved away again at the barley. A huge
drop of rain smote his face, the wind
snarled round every corner, the trees
rocked to the bases of their trunks, and
the twigs clashed in strife. Driving in
spars at any point and on any system
inch by inch he covered more and more
safely from ruin this distracting imper-
sonation of seven hundred pounds. The
rain came on in earnest, and Oak soon
felt the water to be tracking cold and
clammy routes down his back. Ulti-
mately he was reduced well-nigh to a
homogeneous sop, and a decoction of his
person triclded down and stood in a pool
at the foot of the ladder. The rain
stretched obliquely through the dull at-
mosphere in liquid spines, unbroken in
continuity between their beginnings in
the clouds and their points in him.
Oak suddenly remembered that eight
months before this time he had been
fighting against fire in the same spot as
desperately as he was fighting against
water now — and for a futile love of the
same woman. As for her — — But
Oak was generous and true, and dis-
missed his reflections.
It was about seven o'clock in the dark
leaden morning when Gabriel came down
from the last stack, and thankfully
exclaimed, "It is done!" He was
drenched, weary, and sad ; and yet not
so sad as drenched and weary, for he was
cheered by a sense of success in a good
cause.
Faint sounds came from the barn, and
he looked that way. Figures came singly
and in pairs through the doors — all
walking awkwardly, and abashed, save
the foremost, who wore a red jacket, and
advanced with his hands in his pockets,
whistling. The others shambled after
with a conscience-stricken air : the whole
procession was not unlike Flaxman's
group of the suitors tottering on towards
the infernal regions under the conduct of
Mercury. The gnarled shapes passed
into the village, Troy their leader enter-
ing the farmhouse. Not a single one of
them had turned his face to the ricks, or
apparently bestowed one thought upon
their condition. Soon Oak too went
homeward, by a different route from
theirs. In front of him against the wet
glazed surface of the lane he saw a per-
son walking yet more slowly than himself
under an umbrella. The man turned and
apparently started : he was Boldwood.
" How are you this morning, sir ? " said
Oak.
"Yes, it is a wet day. — O I am well,
very well, I thank you : quite well."
" I am glad to hear it, sir."
Boldwood seemed to awake to the pres-
ent by degrees. "You look tired and
ill. Oak," he said then, desultorily re-
garding his companion.
" I am tired. You look strangely
altered, sir."
" I ? Not a bit of it : I am well enough.
What put that into your head ? "
" I thought you didn't look quite so
topping as you used to, that was all."
" Indeed, then you are mistaken," said
Boldwood, shortly. "Nothing hurts me.
My constitution is an iron one."
" I've been working hard to get our
ricks covered, and was barely in time.
Never had such a struggle in my life . . .
Yours of course are safe, sir."
" O yes." Boldwood added after an in-
terval of silence, " What did you ask,
Oak ? "
" Your ricks are all covered before this
time."
"No."
" At any rate, the large ones upon the
stone staddles ? "
" They are not."
" Those under the hedge ? "
" No. I forgot to tell the thatcher
to set about it."
" Nor the little one by the stile ? "
" Nor the little one by the stile. I
overlooked the ricks this year."
" Then not a tenth of your corn will
come to measure, sir."
" Possibly not."
" Overlooked them," repeated Gabriel
slowly to himself. It is difficult to de-
scribe the intensely dramatic effect that
announcement had upon Oak at such a
moment. All the night he had* been
feeling that the neglect he was labouring:
to repair was abnormal and isolated —
the only instance of the kind within the]
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
673
circuit of the country. Yet at this very
time, vviihia the same parish, a greater
waste had been going on, uncomplained
of and disregarded. A lew months ear-
lier Boidwood's forgetting his husbandry
would have been as preposterous an idea
as a sailor forgetting he was in a ship.
Oak was just t'.iinking that whatever he
himself might have suffered from Bath-
sheba's marriage, here was a man who
had suffered more, wlien Boldwood spoke
in a changed voice — that of one who
yearned to make a confidence and relieve
his heart by an outpouring.
" Oak, you know as well as I that
things have gone wrong with me lately.
I may as well own it. 1 was going to get
a little settled in life; but in someway
my plan has come to nothing."
" I thought my mistress would have
married you," said Gabriel, not knowing
enough of the full depths of ' Boidwood's
love to keep silence on the farmer's ac-
count, and determined not to evade dis-
cipline by doing so on his own. "How-
ever, it is so sometimes, and nothing
happens that we expect," he added, with
the repose of a man whom misfortune
had inured rather than subdued.
" I dare say I am a joke about the
parish," said Boldwood, as if the subject
came irresistibly to his tongue, and with
a miserable lightness meant to express
his indifference.
" O no — I don't think that."
" — But the real truth of the matter is
that there was not, as soma fancy, any
jilting on — her part. No engagement ever
existed between me and Miss Everdene.
People say so, but it is untrue : she never
promised me ! " Boldwood stood still
now and turned his wild face to Oak.
" O Gabriel," he continued, " I am weak
and foolish, and I don't know what, and
I can't fend off my miserable grief! . . .
I had some faint belief in the mercy of
God till I lost that woman. Yes, he pre-
pared a gourd to sliade me, and like the
prophet I thanked him and was glad.
But the next day he prepared a worm to
smite the gourd, and wither it; and I
feel it is better to die than to live."
A silence followed. Boldwood aroused
himself from the momentary mood of
confidence into which he had drifted, and
walked on again, resuming his usual re-
serve.
" No, Gabriel," he resumed with a care-
lessness which was like the smile on the
countenance of a skull ; " it was made
ally, but no woman ever had power over
me for any length of time. Well, good-
morning. I can trust you not to mention
to others what has passed between us
two here."
From The New Quarterly Review.
BIRDS AND BEASTS LN CAPTIVITY.
BY ARCHIBALD BANKS.
I AM going to make a somewhat humil-
iating confession. I am going to admit
that I — a middle-aged, somewhat robust
individual, a hard-working member of a
learned profession, not by any means
prone to the sentimentalities^ fond of out-
door sport, of shooting and of hunting, a
fair judge of a horse, and given in mod-
eration to tennis and billiards ; in short,
though a townsman, addicted to the va-
rious sports and pastimes of a country-
bred Englishman — I say that, being all
this, I have to admit the possession of
one taste, liking, or hobby, to which I
allude with some trifling hesitation. I
am fond of, and on all occasions collect —
not old pictures or prints, nor rare china,
nor curious books, nor silver plate, nor
French enamels, nor German ivories, nor
Italian faience — all of which are legiti*
mate subjects for the hobbies of grown-
up men and women ; nor do I seek after
sea-shells, or beetles, or butterflies, which:
may be collected in a pseudo-scientific,
or even an entirely non-scientific spirit,
without any great derogation of dignity.
My taste is not so defensible as any of
these. It is one shared by schoolboys
and by old maids, and by the uncultured
inhabitants of Whitechapel and the Seven
Dials. My hobby is the possession of
tame animals ; and let the critical reader
not allow himself to be hurried into the
opinion that such a taste results from
any effeminacy or undue relaxation of
moral fibre. / have always drawn the
line at canary birds ; I have never pos-
sessed one, nor cared to ; and I also hold
strongly to the opinion (which I shall
fully develop farther on) that parrots and
monkeys exercise a weakening and dis-
tinctly demoralizing effect upon their
owners' characters.
I am no scientific naturalist, but I flat-
ter myself I have had opportunities of
learnins: more about the habits and the
marvellously various characters of many
more of by other people than ever it was [birds and beasts than some naturalists
by us. I do feel a little regret occasion- by profession. As knowledge of this
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 355
674
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
sort is beginning to be considered of
extreme importance in its bearing upon
science, I make no further apology
for telling the story of my experiences.
I have found the objects of my likings
hope that the cushats, who were really
far tamer than any of the house pigeons
about the place, would mingle with the
flocks of these latter. This hope was dis-
appointed. The wicker cage was opened
in nearly the whole range of animated i in presence of the flock of pigeons, which
nature, and I feel some difficulty in know-
ing where to begin. With every desire
to efface my own personality, I find it
were at that moment feeding in the court-
yard ; but how great was my surprise to
see these two released prisoners dash out
best to begin from the beginning of my: of their cage, and fly rapidly and boldly
own personal experiences. straight away. The marvel was that
Boys are said to be universally given these birds, though thev had often left
to bird-nesting, and to the destruction of their cage, had only done so to walk
birds' nests. It is a form of vice, and ! about a room, and had never used their
not, in my wide experience of boys, a {wings till this moment, and yet they cut
very common one, for which I should , through the air with strong strokes of
prescribe a sound flogging. Nest-hunt- | their pinions, as fearlessly and as skil-
ing is another matter, and there is all the \ fully as if half their lives had been passed
difference in the world between looking' on the wing. I watched them till they
for birds' nests, in ord'jr to watch the old ; grew into specks in the distance, and
birds or to take and rear the young ones, finally were lost. I never saw them again,
and looking for them in order to throw I have since had occasion to observe
them to the ground and break the eggs, that the first flight of full-grown birds
If any one doubts my assertion of the i brought up from the nest is always per-
non-destructiveness of boys, let him con
sider the state of things in the neigh-
bourhood of Eton, where wild birds
abound, and yet seven hundred boys
have the most perfect liberty.
For my own part, I was, as a boy,
feet, so that we .may utterly reject the
fable of the old eagles teaching their
young ones how to fly, pushing tliem from
the pinnacles of the rocks, and so forth.
Domesiication is only tameness made
hereditary, and my experience is evidence
neither a bird-nester, nor much of a nest- enough of the difficulty of the process in
hunter. My first experience of the mat- the case of the cushat. It is to be re-
ter was the climbing up a tall larch-tree to 1 gretted that it was not the wood-pigeon
examine a wood-pigeon's nest, and find- that was the origin of our tame pigeon,
ing the two hideous callow nestlings with for the wild pigeon of the woods is not
gaping beaks and with their legs tied to-
gether ; it being a common practice of
only a bigger bird, but a much better
bird to eat, as every countryman knows,
countrymen when they find a cushat's I than either the tame pigeon or any Euro-
nest so to fetter the nestlings as to keep pean species likely to have been his
them long in the nest, and take them \ archetype.
There are in all Europe but three spe-
cies of pigeon — the rock pigeon, the
stock dove, and the ring dove, otherwise
when they are grown big and fat. I pro-
ceeded on this occasion to cut the strings
which bound them, and doing so awk-
wardly in my constrained position, both j known as the wood-pigeon or cushat,
birds escaped from my hands and flut- Our tame bird is possibly sprung from a
tared to the ground. I caught them cross between the stock and rock pigeon,
easily, for they could not fly, caged them, but most probably derived from the stock
and reared them. They became perfect- dove alone. Is our achievement in do-
ly tame — so tame that they allowed I mesticating this bird to be our final effort,
themselves to be stroked and handled, or is there not something to be done in
and showed no fear of, and even some j the way of increasing the size and savour-
liking for, human beings; but this tame- 1 iness of our domestic pigeons? We
ness in the wood-pigeon has its limits, | have, to be sure, accomplished a great
and I soon got a strong proof of that j deal in pigeon breeding and crossing,
wonderful inherent difference which ex- | We have rung the changes upon carriers,
ists in different races. j tumblers, runts, jacojias, owls, and tur-
The wood-pigeon is a perfect gipsy {bits — all of which varieties, except car-
among the pigeon tribe. The wild, irre- 1 rier pigeons, which are now almost supj
claimable nature is dormant, and cannot I seded by the post and the telegraph,
be overcome. One day, when the two absolutely useless to minkind.
young birds had got their perfect plumage, pains employed in preserving these far
the door of the cage was set open, in the breeds might surely better be spent]
BIRDS AND BEAStS IN CAPTIVITY.
67s
the endeavour to obtain a really valuable
cross.
It is surely a very purposeless and
foolish kind of painstaking, that involved
in pigeon fancying. A gentleman with
this fancy once showed me his pigeons
with great pride — a melancholy sight, I
thought. " My dear sir," I felt inclined
to say, "what an unsatisfactory hobby
you have been riding all these years !
You have, I make no doubt, fatigued your
."iends and pestered your relations, quar-
elled with your neighbours for enticing
Away your birds, filled your house with
ileas and evil smells — and all for what .''
To breed a blue runt with two white
feathers in its tail / Heavens ! what a
waste of a grand intellect ! "
It is certain that in the whole wide
world no species exist that, either by
crossing with other breeds, or by patient
selection in succeeding generations, could
be made either more prolific — for the
pigeon rears but two nestlings at a time
— or more valuable as food — for even
French cooks, who with skilfully com-
pounded sauces can triumph over such
non-sapid material as carp and rabbit,
can make but little of pigeons. There is
a breed of pigeons common in Northern
and Western Africa, with which, no
doubt, our soldiers on that melancholy
coast have made acquaintance — a plump,
well-shaped, heavy bird, about the size
and shape of our wood-pigeon, but darker
in colour, and whose flesh has nearly the
flavour and tenderness of a pheasant.
Then, again, there is the crown pigeon
of the Indian Archipelago, a noble bird,
three or four times the size of our house
pigeon, and said to be excellent for eat-
ing purposes. What a triumph of accli-
matization it would be if we could habit-
uate either of these birds, or a cross from
one of them, to our poultry-yards and
dove-cots ; and how much more sensible
and profitable such an attempt than the
before-mentioned objects held out to
themselves by our pigeon-fanciers !
To return to my experiences in animal
taming. It is commonlv said that the
wilder an animal is by nature, the easier
it is to tame. This is an entire mistake.
It is "rt: rule proved by the exceptions,''^
not, indeed, in the sense in which that
axiom is used in our modern literary
slang, but in its true sense ; it is a rule
which is proved, by the exceptions to it,
to be no rule at all. The least wild of
wild animals is certainly the rat, who so
little fears man that he lives and breeds
in his very dwelling, and will, if not dis-
turbed, feed in his presence ; and yet, of
all wild animals, I hardly know one so
hard to make familiar in captivity. He
is an enemy of the human race, in whom
is seemingly inherent and hereditary the
hatred and distrust born of long as^es of
warfare with it — of plundered larders on
one side, of traps and poison and ratting
terriers on the other. The human race
must to him be a race of Borgias, of Mu-
rats, and of Robespierres. A rat, even
though he be taken from the nest, will
never quite lose this hatred and distrust.
As a boy I tamed three out of one nest,
and so perfectly that thev would come for
food at my call from the dark box in
which they loved to hide themselves
during the daytime. They would take
food from my fingers, and even allow
themselves to be stroked, but if they
were held even for a moment in the
hand, or constrained in any way, they
would squeak and bite severely. As soon
as they were fed they would rim back
into their box, showing not the smallest
affection for their master.
The rat is, on the whole, not an agreea-
ble pet, and his ways and conduct gener-
ally very soon dis ibuse his keeper of his
ill-gotten reputation for cleverness. We
in Europe think him a cunning beast^
and in China he is reckoned the wisest of
dumb animals. If there were a Chinese
Minerva, the rat, and not the owl, would
be her emblem. At one of the ports in
China, a British official had impressed
the natives with his wisdom — they feared
him and they respected him, and he re-
ceived from them the name of the oid
grey rat. It was intended as a compli-
ment, but it would be no compliment to
any one who had really studied the ways
of rats. This little quadruped is cer-
tainly distinguished by his imbecility.
The faintest trace of good sense would
have taught him the folly of continuing
to live under a Reign of Terror. The
aristocrats became Emigres in 1793, but
the rats have let a foolish habit of locality
keep them in regions where the rat-trap,
their guillotine, is forever set. His seem-
ing caution in avoiding poison and traps
is due only to the keenness of his scent-
ing power. He smells the hand of his
enemy in the baited trap or the poisoned
cheese, and his wit gets the credit that is
due to his nose. Long vicinity with the
animal who, whatever may be alleged
against him by Mr. Darwin, is still the
wisest of created beings, has not taught,
wisdom to the rat. " One fool makes
many," is a proverb that might' have
676
originated behind the wainscot. It is
truer of rats than even of sheep or of hu-
man beings. If one rat finds his way into
a wire trap, a dozen will follow him. A
common way of catching them in Ger-
many is to place a bait in a deep tub,
with a few inches of water in the bottom,
and a stone set like a small island in the
water. If but a single rat finds his way
in, he will sit on the stone, and by his
cries call all his neighbours together, and
bring them into the same scrape. There
got, they will first squeak and squall, then
dispute for the best places, then set to
and fight for them tooth and nail, and
tear each other to pieces, till but one or
two are left alive, and these mauled and
maimed. In fact, they will behave just
as low, savage natures will always do
when they get together, and, mutatis 7nu-
tandis, just as, according to General
Cluseret, he and his fellow Communists
did in Paris on the occasion of their fa-
mous and disastrous scramble for place
and power.
A very different animal is the water
rat, which, by the by, is no rat at all,
but a vole, and, as naturalists tell us, an
animal more nearly allied in some re-
spects to the beaver than to rats and
mice. The water rat is no exception to
the before-mentioned formula of animals
wild by nature being the most tamable.
There is no more timid creature in ex-
istence. Every one knows, who has
walked by the side of such deep sedgy
brooks as the animal haunts, how it will
venture only a foot or two from the ele-
ment in which it finds its safety, and how.
at the approach of the lightest footstep,
it will drop into the water and dive rap-
idly to reach the subaqueous entrance of
its burrow ; and yet the little beast, if it
be taken unhurt, will lose its shyness in a
day, and in a week feed fearlessly from
the hand. He will make his little sharp
cry of pleasure at his master's approach,
and loves to be stroked and fondled.
His long, chisel-like teeth are never used
traitorously. He will dive and play
towards nightfall in a tub of water, and
seems to delight in being watched. I
once caught one in a net, and though
half-drowned and stupefied from his im-
mersion in the water, he quickly recov-
ered, and got exceedingly tame and
friendly.
The food of the water rat is exclusively
vegetable. Mine used to be fond of let-
tuces, of cabbages, and carrot-tops ;
bread he would rarely eat, but boiled
potatoes were his particular delight. In
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
his native haunts this charming lit
creature can do not'iing but good, for
will not touch, as he is fabled to do, fi
spawn, or even water insects, as I ha
proved more than once. He eats eve
kind of water weed, except those whi
have a rank smell, therefore lie must
invaluable, in such slugijish streams
he frequents, in keeping a free chani
for the water and preventing its colli
tion into pools, the formation of marsh
the ruin of fields, and the spread of fe\
and ague. To kill the water rat as a (
structive vermin, which ignorant peoj
often boist of doing, is consequent!)
foolish as well as barbirous act.
Then, again, as if to show how lit
trust can be put in popular sayings, the
is the whole weasel family. None shou
according to the above quoted mixim
shyness and tamability going togeth
be so untamable as stoats, weasels, a
ferrets. To " catch a weasel asleep "
an expression of the common belief
the native wildness and watchful limid
of this family of animals. It is a pof
lar delusion, however — weasels have ]
tie natural fear of man. St. John, t
author of the most delightful of ail boo
on Natural History next to Whit
" Selborne," mentions how a stoat s'
prised in covert will turn round to lo
at a man with apparently as much bo'
ness as a lion or tiger, hardly stirring
get out of the way. In the New Fon
the present writer had an opportunity
witnessing similar fearlessness in wease
About eight or ten of them, half-grov
with one of the old on^is, kept in my si(
as I stood under a tree for four or five m
utes together, either pi lying or hunti
in company within a yard or two of r
giving their curious little half dog-1
barks, and every now and then stoppi
to look up at me. Yet the we isel is eas
tamed, and well repays the trouble
taming him. Perhaps no small anima
so gentle and affectionate as a wea;
A young one, sold to me by a villas^e I
for a penny, and reared very easily
bread and milk, would go to sleep ins
my sleeve or pocket, evidently liking
warmth, and he would wake up wl
candle-light time came, galloping rot
and round the room, and over the cha
and sofas, with little inarticulate sour
of pleasure. Sometimes he would dis
pear for an hour or two in a rat-hole, s
after sundry rattling noises and sque.
behind the wainscot would reiopt
very dirty and dusty, licking his iips, :
with specks of blood on his face ; for
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN jCAPTIVITY.
677
a delight in the mere
-^pite of hifi graceful, gentle ways and nur-
ure upon an innocent bread and milk
.iet, he had a terrible thirst for blood in
lis heart. The tamest weasel, if he
;ould gain access to a poultry-house full
, )f sleeping cocks and hens, would creep
[ ip to the roostins: birds and murder every
)ne of them before morning, not to sat-
sfy his appetite for chicken, but for
olood — every animal of this race having
-ooted in him that '"'' gosto de inatar'"
.vhich the Spaniards are proud of ascrib
ng to themselves
ict of killing,
I will give one more illustration of the
atter fallibility of popular sayings. "As
wild as a hawk " is commonly and yet
quite erroneously said. No kind of hawk
whose habits I have studied is wild, in
the sportsman's sense of being difficult of
approach, or of avoiding the presence of
man. The peregrine falcon will hover
over the grouso-shooter and his dogs
upon the moors, swooping down upon tlie
wounded birds, and carrying them off
before his very face. A sparrowhawk in
hot chase of ayellowhammer once passed
within a yard of my head as I was riding
along a lane in Monmouthshire, struck
down his quarry in the field next the
lane, and stood over it for several min-
utes within twenty yards of me, while I
watched him through a gap in the hedge.
I have seen a large hen kestrel for an
hour together at dusk, hawking for cock-
chafers on a lawn near a house, and at
times passing so near the two or three
persons present that the rustle of her
wings was distinctly audible. Hawks
should accordingly be untamable, but
every boy who has reared a nestling
knows that they can be tamed with per-
fect ease.
The hawk tribe — I speak of those
kinds only which I have myself had in
captivity, kestrels, merlins, sparrowhawks,
and peregrines — although so essentially
animals of prey, have none of that delight
in slaughter for its own sake which, as
we have seen, marks the weasel family.
A hawk, his appetite sated — and a good
meal will suffice him for a day or two —
will look with perfect indifference at the
plumpest bird fluttering within a foot of
his perch.
Notwithstanding his absence of timidi-
ty when wild, the tamed hawk is the most
timid and nervous of birds. Not even
the more timorous of small caged birds,
finches, linnets, and the like, are so easi-
ly startled as the most courageous of fal-
cons. A sudden movement, a hand in-
cautiously approached to the bird's head,
is enough to ruin a hawk's nerves for-
ever. The old books on falconry are
full of advice on this point, the most im-
portant in the training of the falcon. In
the famous thirteenth century treatise on
hawking entitled " De arte venandi cum
avibus," and written by the Emperor
Frederick, the necessity of a soothing
and gentle manner on the part of the fal-
coner is particularly insisted upon. The
falconer who is training the newly taken
bird must, says the imperial instructor, be
careful never to stare at his pupil, he
may frighten him nearly into convulsions
by doing so : when he looks at him it
must be askant and with half-closed eyes ;
furthermore, should the falconer have oc-
casion to cough or sneeze, he must be
careful to turn away his face ; and the
manuscript is illustrated with delightfully
quaint representations of the falconer and
his bird in various attitudes, the falcon-
er deferentially averting his gaze, the fal-
coner contemplating his pupil with a very
mild expression of countenance, and so
forth.*
The hawk family were distinguished in
ancient days, as indeed they still are by
naturalists, into falcons, which were held
the nobler birds, and whose habit is to
mount to a height in the air and thence
to swoop down upon their prey — and
into short-winged hawks which have no
such command of the air and pursue
their game with a direct flight, — coursing
their quarry, as it were, through the air,
and overtaking it by superior speed.
The short-winged falcons were esteemed
less noble than the falcons ; nevertheless
they are by far the bolder birds of the
two, being less liable to fright. They
are, nevertheless, far less tractable than
the true falcons. The sparrow-hawk, for
instance, which is of the sliort-winged
kind, is a fiercer and bolder bird than the
kestrel ; though the kestrel is a true fal-
con, having not only the falcon's length
of wing and shape of beak, but as every
one may observe for himself, wherever
this bird has not been improved away by
over zealous game preservers, possessing
all the true falcon's method of keeping
* This curious treatise, perhaps the most popular
work of its century, was beyond all doubt written by
>'.ie Emperor himse.f, Frederick II., the grandson of
Barbarossa, and by far the ablest ruler and most pow-
erful and accomplished prince of the perioct The
great Emperoj^s work was the text-book of kings,
princes, and nobles, so long as falconry continued to
be the sport of the rich and the noble. Every other
later work, so far as the author is aware, is more or less
of a plagiarism from the " De arte venandi cum avi-
bus."
678
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
the upper air, whence he o:ets his local a large white barn-owl passed over my
name of "wind-hover." Notwithstand- head within a few yards; the terror of
ing his high lineage, however, the kes- the meriia was excessive; he fluttered
tral is something of an impostor, and his screaming to the ground, and had he not
quarry is by no means noble, and when been confined by the leaihery^j-j-^i- in my
he is thus anchored as it were over a | hand would have escaped altogether ; and
single spot, with shivering wings, he is, ! this terror of the owl would seem to be
nine times out of ten, watching for the \ hereditary ; for the bird though not a
reappearance of a dormouse or field vole ! nestling when he reached me was still
— pests of the farmer — and presently he ■ quite young, and could probably never
will be seen skimming and drooping have seen an owl in his life,
plumb down from the skies upon his prey, j There seems to be in hawks an in-
Every game preserver should know stinctive knowledge of tlie presence of an
that the kestrel is absolutely innocent of' owl in their neighbourhood. A falcon, it
game slaughter. Some of the smaller! is said in the old books, will not venture
field-keeping birds may at times fall vie- 1 to leave the falconer's hand if an owl be
tims, but rats and mice of all kinds, and I in the neighbourhood, however closely
even beetles and cockchafers, are his the bird of night may be concealed, and
legitimate quarry. Gamekeepers, as a
rule, know this well enough, but with
them the rule often seems to be, every-
thing is verinin that can be nailed on a
barn door, and if their masters see a
goodly array of hawks they are satisfied,
not caring to inquire how many kestrels
go to make up the tale.
The kestrel is, as I know by experi-
ence, almost useless for hawking pur-
poses, lacking the dash and courage of
other hawks. The merlin and the hobby,
both true falcons, which are neither of
them heavier birds, can be used in the
chase of partridges and pigeons, and a
merlin has been known to attack a rook
three or four times his own weight, while
the larger peregrine will assail a heron or
crane, many times as heavy and big a
bird as itself. But notwithstanding the
high reputation of the falcons for cour-
age, notwithstanding their audacity, their
marvellous swiftness and strength, and
the terrible weapons they possess in
their beaks and talons, all which advan-
tages might, it would be thought, consti-
tute them undisputed monarchs of the
air, the bravest and strongest falcon
makes no fight at all against so homely a
bird as the owl.
This superiority to the boldest hawk
in strength and courage is much insisted
upon by the old writers. Every one re-
members the fine image in Macbeth upon
Duncan's murder: —
A falcon towering -in her pride of place,
Was by a mousing owl hawked at and killed.
But it is not, I think, generally known
how true this is to nature. The most
courageous hawk I ever possessed, as a
boy, was a small male merlin. Passing
one day towards evening through the
ride of a wood with this bird on my wrist,
the same thing is alleged by the falconers
of India at the present day ; and the
hawk's terror of the owl is certainly well
grounded, as the following anecdote will
show. At about the same period of my
boyhood that I was the hippy possessor
of the three kestrels before mentioned,
there lived in the walled kitchen garden of
the house a brown wood-owl w!iicli, having
had his wing broken by a shot from the
keeper, had been turned by me into the
garden, with no more restraint upon his
liberty than the necessary amputation of
his pinion. He would still fly, but it was
a flight of but about five yards long, and
his sound wing doing him more service
than his broken one, his flight used at
first invariably to result in his alighting a
yard or two to one side of the point "he
had made for. But the owl is not the
emblem of wisdom for nothing, and ex-
perience taught h m in time to allow for
the involuntary parabola of his flight —
to correct his compasses as it were, and to
alight at the very spot lie aimed for ; bu'
he could not diminish the preoonderance
of his stronger wing, which was so great
that before the end of this curious
knighfs move flight, he had invariabl;
turned round with his face to the point
whence he had started. And what a
face ! -a round, stolid countenance, with
grave, unblinking eyes.
Nothing would move that bird to a
change of expression. I saw him once
deliberately stare a cat, which had ap-
proached him with no friendly intentions,
out of countenance, and cause it to re-
treat. A terrier once barked at hisn in-
cessantly for half-an-hour, with no more
effect upon the owl than a slight ruffling
out of his feathers, and once or twice, 2^—
the dog came too neir. an ominous sna!^H
ping of the beak. This owl was, as, frol^
A
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
679
my experience of him and of other species
in captivity, all owls are, an utterly irre-
claimable savage. Nothing would mol-
lify him but the offer of food when he
was hungry, and this obtained, he would
retreat to the darkest corner in the gar-
den and stare at the person who had just
fed him without the smallest expression
of gratitude or satisfaction.
On one occasion, forgetful or ignorant
of the prowess of owls, I brought a full-
grown young kestrel, and set him, on the
low branch of a fruit-tree, some twenty
or thirty yards from the spot usually oc-
cupied by the owl. I was retreating to
the other end of the garden to call the
hawk to me, when the owl caught sight
of him. In three or four of its short
flights it was upon him. The hawk be-
gan to scream, and was too much terri-
fied to make a serious attempt to escape ;
though his flight was already strong, he
fluttered along the ground with open
beak and failing wings. The owl pounced
upon him, a struggle and confused flutter
of feathers, and the keen claws of the owl
were driven into the kestrel's throat, who
was giving the last dying flap of his wings
before I could come to his rescue ; and I
could not even recover the dead bird
without using considerable strength to
draw it from the owl's grasp. 1 have
never, since this episode, doubted the
supremacy of the owls among the order
of raptores.
I see that a Shakespearian commentator
is inclined to consider the above quoted
passage in Macbeth to be founded upon
a popular falconer's fallacy, as to which I
will only remark that the allusions to fal-
conry in past English literature, particu-
larly of the Elizabethan age, are so nu-
merous, that a man should be positively
ashamed to sit down to edit the works of
Shakespeare and his contemporaries with-
out knowing more of the falconer's craft
than many a learned gentleman I could
name.
The owl is even yet the most inscruta-
ble of birds. I have kept the white or
barn-owl {Strix Jlainined), the brown
wood-owl, and the rare Strix passerina
(the little owl), which is not much bigger
than a blackbird, a beautiful bird, which
is, however, the fiercest and most in-
tractable of the whole family, throwing
himself on his back on the ground
when approached, and fighting furiously
with claw and beak. The barn-owl,
which is the largest of the three kinds,
is the most sleepy, quiet, and stupid,
that is if it can really be proved
that there is any element of stupidity
in owls, and if they are not quite as
wise as they look. For all the present
writer can prove to the contrary, their
wisdom is as profound as their expres-
sion is grave and knowing. The ancients
were clearly impressed by their looks into
the fullest belief in their sapience. Mod-
ern opinion is sceptical, and owl is not
alw-iys used as a compliment. I give no
adhesion to this cynicism: I never knew
my owls do a foolish thing.
The owl may be a fool, but he keeps
his folly to himself. No animal is so ret-
icent. The natural cry of the barn-owl is
a screech ; of the wood-owl, a hoot ; and
of the passerine owl, a sharp cry. No
one of my tamed birds ever screeched,
or hooted, or cried ; they were all equally
indifferent, impassive, and immovable.
They showed no interest in anything ex-
cept food, and with that their excitement
took the form of a savage eagerness to
get at it, instead of the amiable greedi-
ness and cupboard-love of more sympa-
thetic animals. Unlike the hawks, they
possess no nerves. My owls were the least
hysterical of winged creatures, and I be-
lieve that a gun might have been fired o£E
in their presence without causing them a
new emotion. They never seemed sleepy,
or impatient, or duller, or more restless
than usual. Owls are the most watchful,
and, for what one can tell, the least re-
ceptive of created beings, therefore I say
they are inscrutable. All other animals
have their own particular ways in cap-
tivity, their special habits which betray
their characters ; owls have no habits,
they sit still, still as death, and watch —
nothing more.
I have said that parrots and monkeys
exerciser a bad effect upon the characters
of their owners. So far as parrots are
concerned, the statement needs, I should
imagine, no proof. Everybody has the
misfortune to know some one possessor
of a parrot. Everybody has been deaf-
ened or bitten by the parrot of a neigh-
bour or acquaintance. Every one knows
that the proprietor of a parrot is always
the most disagreeable and unpopular
person in a street or village — a person
with imperfect human sympathies, deaf
to the complaints of an outraged neigh'
bourhood, and probably submitting to his
(generally her) favourite's shrieks from
motives of pure misanthropy.
That parrots have some wit, and a fair
sense of humour, I admit, but their ever-
lasting repetition of the same joke be-
comes at last intolerable, A macaw of
68o
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
my acquaintance would delight in steal-
ing up to an unsuspecting morning vis-
itor and suddenly make his powerful
beak-points meet in his ankle or arm,
then, as the victim would start and cry
out, the bird would retreat with a low,
croaking, hearty laugh. He never
laughed at other times. There is no dis-
puting the humour of this proceeding to
every one but the victim. No animal
excites so much fear and hatred as a
vicious parrot. This particular bird was
one day found strangled. We endeav-
oured to persuade its owner that it was a
natural death — a form of apoplexy not
uncommon among parrots.
Again, as to the humour of parrots.
One had been taught to say '•^good-hyo. ! "
with a particularly cordial emphasis upon
the first syllable, such as a hostess might
use in parting from an honoured guest,
and during a visit, whenever one of those
common and distressing pauses occurred,
the bird would put in his odious '"'' good-
bye ! " as if both he and his mistress had
had quite enough of their visitor. This,
though in abominable taste, was amusing
the first two or three times ; but a joke
that is repeated during ten years, is no
joke at all, it depresses one.
I once for a short time was the pos-
sessor of a monkey. It was through no
desire of my own that he became mine,
for I do not like these animals ; I am not
comfortable with them. This particular
monkey came to me as greatness is said
to come to some men — he was thrust
upon me. A friend, in kindly, but igno-
rant, sympathy with my love of animals,
sent me this creature from abroad. He
arrived one morning unannounced — by
parcels' delivery, or in some equally in-
scrutable manner. I guessed and re-
spected the sender, and kept him ; and
the letter which should have preceded
him came a month later, when I had al-
most persuaded myself that I had got
over my antipathy to the poor beast.
There are people who like monkeys.
They it is who must be the true link
between us and monkeys, just as mon-
keys make the link between them and
the lower animals. In my opinion one
must be, as it were, a semi-simian, to
endure the society or even the sight of
monkeys. I have, as I have said, no
sympathy whatever with them ; my dig-
nity will not admit of it. 1 feel as a staid
Castiiian might feel in company with a
low comedian from the Palais Royal.
Their grimaces make me uncomfortable,
their half humanity shocks me, their hid-
eous community of feature with some of
my dearest friends, is horrible to me. A
party of my fellow-creatures staring, with
faces expressive of various stages of
idiotic delight, at the antics of the caged
monkeys in the Zoological Gardens is, to
me, a pitiful and a painful spectacle ; it is
enough to persuade a man of the truth of
Darwinism. Mr. Glidstone, who, not
long ago, deplored the f.ict that his spe-
cial duties gave iiim no leisure to read
Darwin and Wallace, and to make up
his mind upon the doctrine of evolution,
might perhaps, now find time to spend an
hour in front of the monkey-house in the
Zoological Gardens. He would, I am
sure, come away a strong believer in this
fashionable doctrine.
Yet monkeys have many pleasing qual-
ities ; some of the species are very gen-
tle, and capable of consider ible affection
towards human beings. There is how-
ever that about monkeys, in this country
at least, which should effectually stand
in the way of their becoming pets. They
have almost always, every one of them,
the seeds of a fatal consumption, their
lives are nearly always to be measured
by a few months, and their antics are
none the fewer that they are racked every
now and then by a dry hectic cough.
Their ill health depresses them, but
nothing can deprive them of their love of
mischief, and this contrast of buffoonery
and depression is one reason why a tame
monkey makes one of the most melan-
choly of pets. They are ghastly humor-
ists, they are drolls in season and out,
their gaiety is like that ascribed to the
Chinese, who laugh to see the execution-
er flog or behead a criminal. A monkey's
humour is of a kind that I could never
enter into. It is founded on the doing
of mischief. Let the man who does not
believe me watch a monkey j)laying with
puppies or kittens, and compare their in-
nocent playfulness with the cruel tricks
the monkey will put upon them.
My own monkey pined away, and in
two months after he came to me, do what
I would, was in the last stage of consump-
tion. It was cold, shivery, winter weath-
er. He crouched near the fire, feeble
and exhausted, looking at me, as sick an-
imals will do, with reproachful eyes, as if
I was responsible for his sufferings ; but
almost to the last he would do mischief,
pulling a burning coal on to the hearth-
rug, or upsetting a cup of tea if it stood
within reach of him. Notwithstanding
I
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
68i
his wickedness he was affectionate, and I
was getting reconciled to him when he
died.
We have perhaps had nearly enough of
these simian eihics, and I will only add
that I suspect that there are, deep down
in the simian nature, spurks of something
not altogether ignoble, and I will tell a
story to support my beh'ef.
In a Paris restaurant I once acted au-
dience to a narration by a French officer,
which though it moves me to a strong
feeling of indignation to recall, I will re-
peat for the honour of the race I have
been aspersing. The scene of the story
was, if 1 recollect, one of the French set-
tlements on the West Coast of Africa,
and the actors in it the narrator himself,
and a coinrade. These "officers and
gentlemen," finding lime hang heavily on
their hands, amused themselves one day
by pursuing a tame monkey through the
corridors oi" the barracks and cutting the
unfortunate little animal to pieces with
their swords. The joke of tlie whole
thing (which I am glad to say fell exceed-
ingly flat upon the Frenchmen present)
was, according to the gallant fellow who
told the story, the brave manner in which
the monkey iTiet his death — not uttering
a cry or trying to run away when he saw
his fate was inevitable, but dying, as the
officer said, " like a little hero." If this
story be true (I tried at the time to hope
that the teller of it was only a liar), there
would seem really to be behind the levity
and unendurable tricksomeness of mon-
keys some latent heroic qualities ; just as
very tiresome or prosaic people some-
times come out unexpectedly well and
nobly in emergencies.
I hardly think that the editor of so
thoughtful a periodical as the New Quar-
terly Magazine will allow me to go on
spinning out the story of my experiences
with tame animals, unless I can show
that there is some sort of purpose in
what I have to say ; and indeed there is
some moraLto be got out of me, and I
think not a useless one.
In these days of ultra-scientific natural
history there seems to be no little peril of
a neglect of the study of the habits and
character of animals in favour of those
anatomical and structural characteristics
which of course are the basis of all real
advance in scientific natural history. To
be sure, there is no likelihood of any such
neglect on the part of the really great nat-
uralists ; but tnen the army of science is
not made up of generals — we are not all
Darwins and Owens and Huxleys — and
the danger is that the steady plodders
and useful Dryasdusts will see tlieir
duty in the disregard of what may seem
to them the less tangible modes of knowl-
edge.
It is of course not an easy thing to dis-
sect an Ascidian, and count its cilia and
branc/ucz, and class it accordingly, nor to
put a crystal under the microscope and
examine its structure to any purpose;-
but there are things which take a
keener sight to perceive even than these,
more patience to observe, and more tact
to seize — and these are the evanescent
characteristics of mind, of temper, and of
emotion. A man gets little help from
science here ; his magnifying glasses and
reagents and dissecting implements are
of no use at all, and there is nothing but
his mother wit to serve him. Read Mr.
Darwin's notes of the shades of differ-
ence in the ways and habits of different
animals, notice what judgment and what
discrimination he uses, and what impor-
tance he attaches to these matters.
After all, how little we know of the
inner life of animals. How few our facts
are, and how little certain we are of them.
What a huge book, and what an intensely
interesting one, is waiting to be written
on this subject by some great genius of
the future. Surely it tells not a little for
the incuriosity, and perhaps for the con-
ceit of us humans, that we have been
taken up so entirely with our little selves
for these many thousand years past, and
have been honouring historians and poets,
and philosophers and novelists, and trav-
ellers and essayists, simply because they
told or imagined, or guessed or reported,
the ways and the manners, and the con-
versations and thoughts, and ideas and
faculties, of our fellow human creatures ;
and all the time we have been acting as if
we were alone in the world — as if it were
not inhabited by crowds of beings with
ways towards us and towards each other
which, seeing how rnuch we depend upon
these same animals, it behoves us most
strongly to understand.
It is really ludicrous how ignorant we
are. Not of the characters of the wilder
animals only, but even of those we have
lived with all our lives. Aii orvlinirily
intelligent man would be ashamed if he
could not make some sort of a compari-
son between t'.ie individuals of two na-
tions, say between a German and a Hin-
doo, a Frenchman and a Negro — how
one is this and the other that — but let
the same person be asked to assess the
differences between any two kinds of
682
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
animals, let us say, to take a very easy
case, between a horse and an ox, and the
chances are he would break down com-
pletely. He would think it easy and ob-
vious till he came to try, then he would
probably say it was not worth doing, the
differences were so slight. In fact, it is
not easy to observe these differences,
though for the matter of that, they are
important enough, and it is particularly
difficult to put them into words. As to
the thing not being worth doing, it is an
argument which should logically lead us
to close our schools, burn our books, and
hang our professors. I do not care even
to argue that such knowledsfe is invalu-
able as a step in the great advancement
of learning and attainment of truth ; I
say it is important from the most utilita-
rian point of view. Even the inability to
make such an apparently unimportant
comparison as I have suggested between
horses and oxen may lead to most un-
profitable consequences in human econ-
omy.
In a southern country with which the
writer is acquainted, the people have for
many centuries been accustomed to the
use of oxen for draught purposes; only
within the last twenty or thirty years have
horses to some extent taken the place of
oxen in carts and carriages, and mark the
consequence : the drivers and carters
were used to and had mastered the ways
of oxen — their slow, phlegmatic tem-
peraments, their patience, their endur-
ance, their mild obstinacy, and their
latent docility — but they have not had
the wit to learn that the horse has a tem-
perament the reverse of all this ; that he
is nervous, quick, timid, and excitable, ;
and yet, rightly understood, the far more {
tractable beast of the two, and capable of ,
better service. The result of this ig- !
norance is very poor service rendered to
man, and very bad treatment indeed of
the horse. It is another evidence of the
truth of the old adage that knowledge is
power ; an adage to which may safely be
added the corollary that brutality — a
7nods of ignorance — is loss of power.
T\vi races of man who are wanting in
intellectual training and development,
and rich in brutality and cruelty, have
never succeeded in training to their ser-
vice the three most highly-organized and
most valuibie among beists of burden.
No pure Negro race, in its savasje state,
has ever trained the horse. The ele-
phant has never been enslaved but by
races who, whatever their moral culture
may be, have reached a high and keen in-
tellectual standard. Why have no native
African races ever made this huge and
docile beast their servant .'* Simply be-
cause they have lacked the requisite intel-
ligence. It is not that the African species
of elephant is less tractable than the In-
dian species, as has been sugirested ; for
no sooner was a civilized people of Euro-
pean origin established at Carthage than
they began to domesticate the native ele-
phant of Africa. The more patient ox
and the hardy ass are the beasts of burden
of races little advanced in intellectual
culture all the world over, and neither
horse nor camel was ever brought to per-
fection by any people without some con-
siderable degree of civilization. The
nations who have done most for tlie horse
are nations with whom kindness to ani-
mals is a virtue — the Persians, the
Arabs, and ourselves. With the Orien-
tals, humanity to animals is a rel-gious
duty, and no one who has been much
abroad would venture to say that we our-
selves were anything but a humane peo-
ple, in spite of our cab-horses and coster-
mongers' donkeys.
To resume the interrupted thread of
my personal experiences. A severe clas-
sical education at Eton was diversified in
my case by the occasional study of the
habits of wild animals. There used to
live — perhaps still lives — a person who
kept a shop in the High Street of Eton.
His house stood on the same side of the
street as, and a door or two beyond, that of
Mr. Knox, well known to all old Etonians,
and over his door was written the attrac-
tive word "Naturalist." This man, a
small, thin, shabby, and not over clean,
sallow-faced individual — a type of per-
son with whom I have since made larger
acquaintance among the natural histori-
ans of Seven Dials and the Ritcliff High-
way— was in his way a keen observer of
nature, and had the out-door natural his-
tory of the neigiibourhood at his fingers*
end. He could tell a boy how to catch
cray-fish below Eton Bridge, where the big
trout were lying, and he h id, for his more
intimate acquaintances, immoral histories
of poaching forays into the roy il pre-
serves of Windsor. He was likewise a
man of quick, sharp speech, as a man
had need to be who makes hi's living
among Eton boys, where "chaff" is a
coin more current than any other.
Mr. White's shop — I think this was the
man's name — wis a perfect museum:
stuffed birds and live birds, and animals of
every kind, many of them rare and curious,
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
683
hawks and canary birds, tame snakes and
piping bullfinches, gold fish and guinea
pigs, bull terriers and lop-eared rabbits,
parrots and macaws, were confined in a
narrow space, and the concert of barking,
screaming, piping, singing, reinforced by
the noisiness, as bad as any other, of
schoolboys, was dominated by the shrill
voice of the proprietor of the establish-
ment.
I never knew a man with such a ge-
nius for the management of animals.
This sharp-voiced, dirty, ugly little man
seemed to exercise some occult fascina-
tion upon bird and beast. A very fierce
macaw, that would make his beak meet
in any one else's arm, would lower his
head and ruffle out his feathers as White
passed near. He would stroke the wild-
est hawk without causing any alarm to
the bird, and I saw him once when a
countryman had brought a wild fox in a
sack, open the mouth of it, insert his
arm, and draw the beast out with his
hand on the back of its neck, as easily as
he would take up a terrier.
Plunging his hands one day into a
green baize bag, he extracted and' held
up to our boyish admiration three or four
large snakes — adders, as we then be-
lieved, and I am afraid he encouraged us
to think. Like the Indian snake-charm-
ers in pictures, he let them coil round
his wrists and his neck, and wind up on to
his head, darting out their forked tongues,
and glaring weirdly with, their beady
eyes, and hissing from among his hair,
making him look like a ridiculous cock-
ney Medusa. Then and there was first
implanted in me the liking I have always
had for snakes and serpents. They ex-
ercise an inexplicable fascination over me
which I should call singular had I not
read that the late Mr. Charles Buxton
was possessed of a sympathy with these
tortuous reptiles as strong as my own.
As a pet, there is little to be said for
any snake or serpent whatever. They
Te a stupid race, quite maligned in being
called cunning, apathetia when they have
fed, and familiar without being friendly
when they are hungry ; but there is
something marvellously impressive in
many of their ways ; and I am singularly
fascinated by their silent, gliding, sinu-
ous mode of progression, by the inexora-
ble manner in which they approach their
prey or their food, even if it be but a
sauceriul of bread and milk. I can un-
derstand how serpent-worsliip could take
root in the beliefs of simple men and
religion ; for I myself possess germs of
what might have developed into this mys-
terious ciiltus. I therefore make no
doubt but that I am, in proprid persona^
an interesting subject for study, and Dr.
Fergusson should certainly have made
my acquaintance before writing his
learned work.
I pass over the many species of tame
animals to whose habits I obtained an
introduction through Mr. White at Eton ;
rabbits, guinea-pigs, tortoises, and the
before-mentioned snakes, formed my me-
nagerie at school, where silence Is for ob-
vious reasons a necessity in a boy's pets.
At the University, other pursuits and
distractions interfered with my tastes ;
and I can recall nothing but a specimen of
the rather rare black scoter duck, found
benumbed with cold during a severe frost,
and presented to me by my scout. The
bird lived for two months in a spare
sponging-bath in my dressing-room, and
got tame. Never shall I forget the as-
tonishment of a breakfast party of under-
graduates when the sooty-winged bird
flew one day noisily into the room,
flapped his way a dozen times round the
walls darting finally through a pane of
glass into space, and never being seen
again. An apparition enough to have
persuaded a party of spiritualists of the
'visible presence of the evil one himself I
Some wild animals, as I have shown,
very quickly lose their shyness : all the
species of wild duck that I have had in
captivity got tame quickly and without
trouble ; so do the little grebes (dab-
chicks) which get familiar in a day, and
will live contentedly, swimming, diving
and playing in a basin of water; but ex-
cept in so far as their potentiality for do-
mestication goes, the captivity of these
animals is of no sort of importance to
mankind. The dab-chick is a small
member of the family of divers, from
among which we may perhaps some day
make a useful servant. I never pos-
sessed a cormorant, but it is well known
to be tamable, and is utilized by the
Chinese to catch fish. To domesticate
the cormorant would be the greatest
achievement over the animal kingdom
made in historical times. Is it proved to
be impossible "i
Having once been presented with a
half-grown heron, I began his education
with a view of making use of his well-
known talents as an angler, but the heron
is an intractable bird. Mine was a wild-
looking creature, standing over three
grow up in anti-sceptical ages into a real ' feet high, and holding himself in fine,
684
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
statuesque, and most dignified attitudes ;
a rather wicked and treacherous bird,
however, who would make sudden stabs
with his great bayonet of a beak, and
once so nearly succeeded in scooping
out one of my eyes, tliat I approached
him ever after very guirderlly. I over-
celebrity, as much as eighteen months to
teach a horse so simple a thing as the
De77ii-volte or the Capriole.
But neither horses nor dogs, tempting
subjects indeed, come into the limits of
this paper on tame animals. Horses I
have already written upon, and the Edi-
came the difficulties of primary educa- ' tor kindly promises me an opportunity of
tion ; I got him time, and I got him to
follow me out of doors, stalkin": after me
(when a little hungry) with .expanded
wings. His patience was a marvel.
When placed in a shallow pond, he would
stand far longer than I cared to watch
him ; I never, indeed, knew him to catch
anything, nor would he probably have
consented to surrender his prey to his
master if he h:id. This was to have been
an advanced part of his education — his
degree — which he never took, for one
morning, going into the hut in which he
lived, I found him lying upon his back
stone dead, cold and stiff, his head thrown
straight back, his wings closed, his legs
decen ly outstretched and one crossed
over the other, looking like a carved effig}'
of a crusader on a mediceval monument.
It need hardly be said that the faculty
possessed by the late Mr. White of
Eton, the present writer, and other gifted
persons, resides to some extent in the
' I
developing my views upon '' Dogs and
their Masters " in a future Number.
It is on the above-mentio led principle
that all raptorial birds are trained, and it
underlies tlie teaching and the tamability
of all carnivorous beasts ; but the fasting
should not be over-prolonced ; ii is cruel
and also a mistake, for excessive hunger
makes the animal too eager and irritable
to learn. It was by following this system
that I made the heron tame, and the
Chinese, no doubt, use it in the training
of fishing cormorants. By combining
this method with gentleness, constant
handling, and some amount of tact, there
are very few animals, even the wildest
and most fierce, that may not in time be
made tame, tractable, familiar, and often
friendly and affectionate.
With small birds a compulsory fast is
hardly possible. To remove the seed
from a bird's cage for an hour is quite as
much as is prudent. But the smiUer
knowledge and practice of certain maxims | cage birds — I cannot speak from much
and rules whicli are not uni vers illy known. | experience of them — are by nature more
To acquire any influence over wild ani- j tamable, though also more timid, than
mals, their appetite must be appealed to, i the larger species. As in all races of
and this is why the la*"ger cirnivorous } animals, individuals of the same species
birds are more tamable tnan the seed-eat- 1 vary greatly in their capacity of tame-
ing: and insect-eating birds. Birds of
prev, in weather when they cannot hunt,
or at times when their game is scarce,
must needs fast. Eagles and vultures,
hawks and owls, cannot even be kept in
health without an occasional fast. After
long fasting tliey eat ravenously and im-
mensely, and this re:^iine of alternate
fasts and feasts is in captivity an essen-
tial part of their treatment.
ness, as every one who has posi^e-sed
canaries well knows. Among seed-eaters,
goldfinches are the most teachable, and
bullfinches the most friendly. The keep;
ing of these little creatures in health and
happiness during their captivity, is of
course guided by the same principles as
rule the management of the larger and
statelier birds and beasts. All passible
conformity to the modes of life they have
With quadrupeds of prey something of j been accustomed to in nature is the first
the same sort holds good ; they get their j point, so that the closest observer of
food by fits and starts, and when they get I these modes of life shall be the most sue-
any they often get much. Every one ' cessful rearer an(>keeper of wild animals,
knows that a healthy dog is in the better! This is perhaps why, as a rule, only
health for being fed only once a day, but | those birds are made cage birds, and only
a cow, a sheep, or a horse would die in a \ those species kept domesticated as poul-
week if it could not pass as many hours
as a dog spends minutes over its meals.
A horse might be tauglit as many tricks
as a dog if he could be made as hungry,
for he is quite as docile ; but wdiereas a
dog c:in be taught to beg or to retrieve in
a week, it often takes, according to the
try, whose food can be reduced entirely to
a seed diet. In England, no cage birds
but the various linnets, finches, and larks
can be said to be at all com non, and seed
and water is nearly all they w.int to keep
them in health. In the poultry-yard,
turkeys, geese, ducks, fowls, and guinea
Duke of Newcastle, of horse-training fowls, though they are the better for a
BIRDS AND BEASTS IN CAPTIVITY.
685
mixed diet, will yet thnve on corn and
water. Not so the pheasant, or the par-
tridge, or the grouse, and the first of the
three at least might by this time be a
poultry-yard bird, had he been content
with the food of cocks and hens, or had
we had the wit to hit upon a diet suitable
to him.
Tiie somevvhat routinier ideas of Eng-
lish bird-fanciers condemn them to neg-
lect t!ie cage birds which are incompar-
ably the finest songsters of any. Though
the nighting Ue is so common a wild bird,
a tame one, full grown and in good song,
costs from one to five guineas, entirely
from difficulty — a fancied difficulty for
the most part — in rearing. He must be
fed, our English fanciers think, on meal-
worms and on a so-called " paste " of
complicated composition ; and so treated
is generally a draggle-tailed, silent, and
melancholy-looking bird. The difficul-
ties of .keeping a still commoner bird of
the same family, the blackcap warbler,
are supposed to be even greater, and this
bird, too, is very rare in captivity in Eng-
land, but there are things not dreamt of
in the philosophy of the cockney bird-
fanciers. In some parts of Southern
Europe the blackcap is one of the com-
monest of cage birds, and is usually seen
in fine plum.ige. The secret is a judi-
cious, varied diet, imitated from the bird's
natural food. When wild, the blackcap
feeds on insects and on fruit of all kinds :
in captivity he is fed on a mass made of
dried figs minced fine, moistened with a
drop or two of wine, and sometimes with
a red c ipsicum or two chopped up in it —
an odd addition. This spiced fig pudding
seems to serve as \\\^ pilce de j-esistance
of the bl ickcap's dinner. He will re-
quire, from time to time, bread and milk,
chopped meat, hard-boiled q^^'Z, chopped,
and a dessert of whatever fruit may be in
season, fro n an orange to a strawberry,
to vary his food. To be sure, most
people would consider all this trouble
thrown' away upon so insignificant a little
bird, but then the blackcap is a very
lively, interesting, and amusing cage bird,
and,' if well cared for, will reward his
keeper, for nine months of the year, with
a song which in sweetness and mellow-
ness is hardly inferior to that of the
nisfhtinijale itself.
I began this paper with a somewhat
deprecatory allusion to my interest in the
keeping and taming of wild animals. I
am liot sure that I shall not end it by
taking credit for the possession of such
an interest. I say boldlv for myself,
^^ aiii?nalis nihil a me aliemiin piito;'''' I
thoroughly sympathize with the brute
creation. After all, is not the art of rear-
ing, breeding, and taming wild animals
an imperi \ art, well worthy the attention
of a dominant nation, and peculiarly
worthy the attention of us, the people of
these islands.? It is not a boast, but a
fact, that we, in spite of our climate, have
surpassed every nation that ever lived in
these same arts. What sort of a country
would this be, how much poorer a one,
our fields how much less fertile, our
larders how much less full, and our purses
how much emptier, if we had not success-
fully set our wits to breed stronger and
swifter horses, fitter sheep and oxen,
cows that yield more milk, and even
cocks and hens, geese and turkeys, better
and 1 irger and heavier than those of our
neighbours ?
We have done much in this direction,
but it would be a very finite world indeed,
if we had already got to the end of our
tether. It cin hardly be doubted that
more work still rem.iins to be done, but I
am inclined to think that it is for the
most part work that will have to be done
co-operatively, by societies rather than
by individuals ; and I think t!ie direction
of these future achievements will lie in
experiments connected with the domes-
tication of new species, rather than in the
improvement of the races we have al-
ready domesticated.
Some years ago, there existed in Lon-
don an Acclimatiz.ition Society, of which
the present writer was an unworthy mem-
ber, a pnying member, but not — for his
avocations would not permit it, — a work-
ing or a consultative member. T!ie lead-
ing idea of the society was, as its name
implied, the accustoming to our English
climate of new aniinils ; but does not the
very word, acclim.itization, invoLe some
sort of a fallacy .'' Is it quite certain that
any inuring to a different climate is
necessary, with at least the majority of
importations from one country to an-
other? The acclimatization theory is
always accepted and assumed without
question, but I think it is by no means
so certainly established as to give its
name to a society whose objects should
have been more general. Some very
clever men were fellows of our English
Acclimatization Society, but they were
far too much occupied to bestow much of
their time or talent upon the proceed-
ings of the society.
The Acclimatization Society has long
686
ALICE LORRAINE.
ceased to exist. There was an unfortu-
nate air of absurdity thrown over every- !
thing connected with it, from the first. |
We, the fellows, were told that the ob-
ject of our existence as a society was the i
discovery of a new domestic animal which i
was to be midway in size between a rab- 1
bit and a pig, and to have, of course, all |
the good qualities of both ; though a very '
slight knowledge of natural history would |
have taught us that nothing resembling!
such a beast existed in the known world, j
Then, our zeal for the cause led us to |
give a grand dinner at which strange j
birds, beasts, and fishes figured in the
bill of fare, and the speech of the even-
ing was made by a Member of Parlia-
ment, whose strong point is the breadth
rather than the delicacy of his humour. {
He had been well primed with data and
acclimatization statistics of every kind, j
and he very naturally used them after his j
kind, by making not wholly unjustifiable i
fun of the wholj thing ; some idea of the |
character of which may be gathered from
the fact of his gravely insisting that his
hosts of the evening were a party of hip-
pophagists in disguise, if nothing worse,
and that we had induced our guests to
eat, unawares, of the meat we loved.
There w.^.s really a great deal of comic
force about the speech, and personally I
have seldom laughed more ; but the
cause of acclimatizition was thenceforth
a ruined cause. Wlien I next inquired
after the society, a year or two later, it
had been broken up. In England the
soundest cau-e will not survive being
laughed at, and we had allowed our zeal
to carry us a little beyond our discretion.
The beefsteaks of eland cow, the entrees
of sea-cucumber, the soup with birds'
nests in it, an 1, above all, the compro-
mise between the pig and the rabbit, were
the death of the Acclimiiizition Society.
This piper has already reached to
nearly its full limits, and it would take as
much space as I have already occupied
to show how a society, which should es-
chew sensational dinners, and comic
Members of Parliament, and the search
after the beast unknown to Cuvier, might
yet find plenty of useful work for itself.
There are plenty of desiderata. We want
new and more savoury fish for our ponds
and rivers, like the black bass of America,
or the great pike-perch of t'ne Austrian
rivers ; we want a larger and better bird
in our pigeon-cots ; a rodent as hardy as
the rabbit and better to eat ; We want to
ascertain whether, among the innumer-
able varieties of deer in various parts of
the world, a sort could not be found with
venison as good as the fallow deer, and
which should not require the breadth and
wildness of a deer-park to keep him in
health ; we want some bird for our game
coverts more hardy than the pheasant,
and perhaps better to eat. Then we may,
perhaps, in time people the shallow seas
round our coasts and the estuaries of our
rivers with the delicious oysters and
clams of the North American seas, and
our rivers with the terrapins which the
Americans prize so highly.
An English society to promote these
objects should, of course, be a rich one.
It should be a Royal society, in the sense
of having the prestige of connection with
Government, but without a Government
contribution (there is small danger of
that) or any control by Government. It
should, I think, stimulate research by
the grant of a gold medal for the most
successful achievements of the year. All
our ambassadors, ministers, and consuls
abroad, all governors of colonies, all cap-
tains in the Royal Navy on foreign ser-
vice, should be ex officiis honorary and
corresponding members. The society
should not itself institute experiments,
but should aci as agent, in London and
other large seaports, for the furtherance
of the schemes of its members. Re-
searches and experiments should be un-
dertaken by the individual members, but
the society should assist these labours,
when they were likely to promise success,
by grants in aid.
A society so constituted, and working
quietly and steadily, could not fail to
produce valuable results. Its annual
"proceedings" would at any rate make
delightful reading, and this is more — a
great deal more — than I would venture
to say of many societies now in existence.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.
A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
One man there is, or was, who ought
to have been brought forward long ago.
I Everybody said the same thing of him
I — he wanted nothing more than the pow-
i er of insisting upon his reputation, and
j of checking his own bashfulness, to make
I him one of the foremost men anywhere
■ in or near Steyning. His name was Bot-
' tier, as everybody knew ; and through
ALICE LORRAINE.
687
some hereditary veins of thought, they
always added "the pigman " — as if he
were a porcine hybrid !
He was nothing of the sort. He was
only a man who stuck pigs, when they
wanted sticking ; and if at such times
he showed humanity, how could that
identify him with the animal between his
knees ? He was sensitive upon this
point at times, and had been known to
say, " I am no pigman ; what I am is a
master pork-butcher."
However, he could not get over his
name, any more than anybody else can.
And if such a trifle hurt his feelings, he
scarcely insisted upon them, until he was
getting quite into his fifth quart of ale,
and discovering his true value.
A writer of the first eminence, who
used to be called " Tully," but now is
euphoniously cited as " Kikero," has
taught us that to neglect the world's
opinion of one's self is a proof not only
of an arrogant, but even of a dissolute
mind. Bottler could prove himself not
of an arrogant, and still less of a disso-
lute mind ; he respected the opinion of
the world ; and he showed his respect in
the most convincing and flattering man-
ner, by his style of dress. He never
wore slops, or an apron even, unless it
were at the decease or during the obse-
quies of a porker. He made it a point of
honour to maintain an unbroken suc-
cession of leo:itimate white stockings — a
problem of deep and insatiable anxiety to
every woman in Steyning town. In the
first place, why did he wear them? It
took several years to determine this
point; but at last it was known, amid
universal applause, that he wore them in
memory of his first love. But then there
arose a far more difficult and excruciating
question — how did he doit.-* Had he
fifty pairs ? Did he wash them himself,
or did he make his wife ? How could he
kill pigs and keep his stockings per-
petually unsullied .'* Emphatically and
despairingly, — why had they never got a
hole in them ?
He, however, with an even mind, trod
the checkered path of life with fustian
breeches and white stockings. His coat
was of West of England broadcloth, and
of a rich imperial blue, except where the
colour had yielded to time ; and all his
buttons were of burnished brass. His
honest countenance was embellished with
a fine candid smile, whenever he spoke of
the price of pigs or pork ; and no one had
ever known him to tell a lie — or at any
rate he said so.
This good and remarkable man was
open to public inspection every morning
in his shop from eight to twelve o'clock.
He then retired to his dinner, and custo-
mers might thump and thump with a key
or knife, or even his own steel, on the
counter, but neither Mr. nor Mrs. Bottler
would condescend to turn round for
them. Nothing less than the chink of a
guinea would stir them at this sacred
time. But if any one had a guinea to
rattle on the board and did it cleverly, the
blind across the glass-door was drawn
back on its tape, an ! out peeped Bottler.
When dinner and subsequent facts had
been dealt with, this eminent pigman
horsed his cart, hoisted his favorite child
in over the foot-board, and set forth in
quest of pigs, or as he put it more ele-
gantly, "hanimals german to his profes-
sion." That favourite child, his daughter
Polly, being of breadth and length almost
equal, and gifted with "bow-legs " (as
the public had ample means of ascertain-
ing), was now about four years old, and
possessed of remarkable gravity even for
that age. She would stand by th^ hour be-
tween her father's knees, while he guided
the shambling horse, and gaze most in-
tently at nothing at all ; as if it were the
first time she ever had enjoyed the priv-
ilege of inspecting it.
Rags and bones (being typical of the
beginning and end of humanity) have an
inner meaning of their own, and stimu-
late all who deal in them. At least it
often seems to be so, though one must
not be too sure of it. Years of observa-
tion lead us to begin to ask how to ob-
serve a little.
Bonny had not waited for this perver-
sity of certainty. He had long been
taking observations of Polly Bottler — as
he could get them — and the more he
saw her, the more his finest feelings were
drawn forth by her, and the way she stood
between her father's legs. Some boys
have been known to keep one virtue so
enlarged and fattened up, like the liver
of a Strasburg goose, that the flavour of
it has been enough to abide — if they
died before dissolution — in the rue of
pious memory.
Exactly so it was with that Bonny.
He never feigned to be an honest boy,
because it would have been too bad of
him ; besides that, he did not know how
to do it, and had his own reasons for
waiting a bit ; yet nothing short of down-
right starvation could have driven him at
any time to steal so much as one pig's
trotter from his patron's cart, or shop, or
688
ALICE LORRAINE.
yard. Now this deserves mention, be-
cause it proves tint there does, or at any
rate did, exist a discoverable specimen of
a virtue so rare, that its existence escaped
all suspicion till after the classic period
of the Latin ton,:2:ue.
A irrateful soul, or a grateful spirit —
we have no word to express " animus,"
thou'j^h we often express it towards one
anotiier — such was the Roman form for
this virtue, as a concrete rarity. And a
couple of thousand years have made it
ever so much r:\rer.
In one little bre:ist it still abode, purely
original and native, and growing under-
neath the soil, shy of light and hard to
find, like the truffle of the South Downs.
Bonny was called, in one breath every
day, a s!r.imeful and a shameless boy ;
and he miy have deserved but a middling
estimate from a lofty point of view. It
must be admitted' that he slipped some-
times over the border of right and wrong,
when a duck or a rabbit, or a green goose
haply, hopped or waddled on the other
side ol it, in the tempting twilight. But
even that he avoided doing, until half-
pence were scarce and the weather hun-
gry-
Now being, as has been said before, of
distinguished countenance and costume,
he already had made a tender impression
upon the heart of Polly Bottler ; and
when she had been very good and con-
quered the alphabet up to P the pig — at
which point professional feelings always
overcame the whole family — the reward
of merit selected by herself would some-
times be a little visit to Bonny, as the
cart came back from Findon. There is
room for suspicion, however, that true
love may not have been the only motive
power, or at least that poor Bonny had a
very formidable rival in Jack the donkey;
inasmuch as the young lady always de-
manded as the first-fruit of hospitality a
prolonged caracole on that quadruped,
which she always performed in cavalier
fashion, whereto the formation of her
lower members afforded especial facility.
Now one afternoon towards All-hallows
day, when the air was brisk and the crisp
leaves rustled, some underfoot and some
overhead, Mr. Bottler, upon his return
from Storrin^ton, with four pretty pork-
ers in under his net, received from his
taciturn daughter that push on his right
knee, whose import he well understood.
It meant — " We are going to see Bonny
to-day. You must turn on this side and
go over the fields."
"All right, little un," the pigman an-
swered, with his never-failing smile.
" Daddy knows as well as you do a'most ;
though you can't expect him to come up
to you."
Polly gave a nod, which was as much
as any one ever expected of her all the
time she was out of doors. At home she
could talk any number to the dozen, when
the mood was on her ; but directly she
got into the open air, the size of the
world was too much for her. All she
conld do was to stand, and wonder, and
have the whole of it going through her,
without her feeling anything.
After much jolting, and rattling, and
squeaking of pigs at the roughness of sod
or fallow, they won to the entrance of
Coombe Lorraine, and the hermitage of
Bonny. That exemplary boy had been
all day pursuing his calling with his
usual diligence, and was very busy now,
blowing up his fire to have some hot
savoury stew to warm him. All his beg-
gings and his buyings, &c., were cast in
together ; and none but the cook and
consumer coulJ tell how marvellously
they always managed to agree among
themselves, and with him. A sharp little
turn of air had set in, and mide every
rover of the land sharp set ; and the lid
of the pot was beginning to lift charily
and preciously, when the stub'^le and
bramble crackled much. Banny es-
conced in his kitchen corner, on the
right hand outside his main entrance,
kept stirring the fire, and warming his
hands, and indulging in a preliminary
smell. Bearing ever in his mind the
stern duty of promoting liberal senti-
ments, he had felt whde passin ,^ an old
woman's garden, how tlioroujjiily wel-
come he ouj^ht to be to a few sprigs of
basil, a handful of onions, and a pinch of
lemon-thyme ; and how mach m )re po-
lite it was to dispense with the frigid
ceremony of asking.
As the cart rattled up in the teeth of
the wind. Poly Bottler begin to expand
her frank ■ inj:enuous nostrils; inhaled
the breeze, and thus spake with her
mouth —
" Dad, Fse yerry hungry."
" No wonder," replied the paternal
voice; "what a boy, to be sure, that is
to cook! At his tisne of lite, just to
taste his stoos ! H^Ve .g^ta born knowl-
edge what to put in — ay, an.l whit to
keep out ; and how long to do it. He
deserveth that pot as I gived him out of
the bilin' house ; now dothn't he .'' If
moother worn't looking for u-; to home,
with chittlings and fried taties, Id as lief
ALICE LORRAINE.
sit down and sup with him. He maketh
me in the humour, that he doth."
As soon as he beheld his visitors,
Bonny advanced in a graceful manner, as
if his supper was of no account. He had
long been aware from the comments
of boys at Steyning (who were hostile
to him) that his chimney-pot hat was not
altogether in strict accord with his char-
acter. This had mortified him as deeply
as his lightsome heart could feel ; be-
cause he had trusted to that hat to
achieve his restoration into the bosom of
society. The words of the incumbent of
his parish (ere ever the latter began to
thrash him) had sunk into his inner and
deeper consciousness and conscience ;
and therein had stirred up a nascent
longing to have something to say to
somebody whose fore-legs were not em-
ployed for locomotion any longer.
Alas, that ghost of a definition has no
leg to stand upon ! No two great author-
ities (perfect as they are, and complete in
their own system) can agree with one
another concerning the order of a horse's
feet in walking, ambling, or trotting, or
2ven standing on all fours in stable.
The walk of a true-born Briton is surely
almost as important a question. Which
irm does he swing to keep time with
-.vhich leg ; and bends he his elbows in
:ime with his knees ; and do all four
occupy the air, or the ground, or himself,
n a regulated sequence ; and if so, what
iberration must ensue from the use of
I walking-stick ? GEdipus, who knew all
ibout feet (from the tenderness of his
)wn soles), could scarcely be sure of all
his, before the time of the close of the
narket.
This is far too important a question to
)e treated hastily. Only, while one is
bout it, let Bonny's hat be settled for.
Vherever he thought to have made an
mpression with this really guinea-hat,
idicule and execration followed on his
aked heels ; till he sold it at last for ten-
ence-halfpenny, and came back to his
aked head. Society is not to be carried
y storm even with a picked-up hat.
Jack, the donkey, was always delighted
) have Polly Bottler upon his back,
lot perhaps from any vaticination of his
iture mistress, but because she was
::re to reward him with a cake, or an
)ple, or something good ; so that when
e felt her sturdy little legs, both hands
1 his mane, and the heels begin to drum,
2 would prick his long ears, and toss his
le white nose, and would even have
ched his neck, if nature had not strict-
LIVING AGE. vol.. VII. 356
689
ly forbidden him. On the present occa-
casion, however, Polly did not very long
witch the world with noble donkeyman-
ship ; although Mr. Bottler sat patiently
in his cart, smiling as if he could never
kill a pig, and with paternal pride
stamped on every wrinkle of his nose ;
while the brief-lived porkers poked their
snouts through the net, and watched
with little sharp hairy eyes the very last
drama perhaps in which they would be
spectators only. The lively creatures
did not suspect that Bonny's fire, the
night after next, would be cooking some
of their vital parts, with a truly fine smell
of sausages.
Sausages were too dear for Bonny ; as
even the pigs at a glance were aware ;
but he earned three quarters of a pound
for nothing, by noble hospitality. To
wit, his angel of a Polly had not made
more than three or four parades, while
he (with his head scarcely reaching up to
the mark at the back of the donkey's
ears, where the perspiration powdered)
shouted, and holloaed, and made-believe
to be very big — as boys must do, for
practice towards their manhood — when
by some concurrent goodwill of air, and
fire, and finer elements, the pot-lid arose,
to let out a bubble of goodness returning-
to its native heaven ; and the volatile
virtue gently hovered to leave a fair
memory behind.
The merest corner of this fragrance
flipped into Polly Bottler's nose, as a
weaker emanation had done, even before
she began her ride. And this time her
mouth and her voice expressed cessation
of hesitation.
" 'Et me down, 'et me down," she cried,
stretching her fat short arms to Bonny ;
" I 'ants some ; I'se so hungry."
" Stop a bit, miss," said Bonny, as
being the pink of politeness to all the
fair: "there, your purty little toes is on
the blessed ground again. Stop a bit,
miss, while 1 runs into my house, for to
get the spoon."
For up to this time he had stirred his
soup with a forked stick made of dog-
wood, which helps to flavour everything ;
but now as a host, he was bound to show
his more refined resources. Polly, how-
ever, was so rapt out of her usual immo-
bility that she actually toddled into Bon-
ny's house to make him be quick about
the spoon. He, in amazement, turned
round and stared, to be sure of his eyes
that such a thing could ever have hap-
pened to him. The jealousy of the col-
lector strove with the hospitality of the.
690
householder and the chivalry of the rover.
But the finer feelings conquered, and he
showed her round the corner. Mr. Bot-
tler, who could not get in, cracked his
whip and whistled at them.
Polly, with great eyes of wonder and
fright at her own daring, longed with one
breath to go on, and with the next to run
back again. But the boy caught hold of
her hand, and she stuck to him through
the ins and outs of light, until there was
something well worth seeing.
What is the sweetest thing in life ?
Hope, love, gold, fame, pride, revenge,
danger — or anything else, according to
the nature of the liver. But with those
who own very little, and have " come
across " all that little, with risk and
much uncertainty, the sweetest, thing in
life is likely to be the sense of owner-
ship. The mightiest hoarder of gold and
silver, Croesus, Rhampsinitus, or Solo-
mon, never thought half so much of his
stores, or at any rate, never enjoyed
them as much as this rag-and-bone col-
lector his. When he came to his room
he held his breath, and watched with the
greatest anxiety for corresponding emo-
tion of Polly.
The room was perhaps about twelve
feet long, and eight feet wide at its ut-
most, scooped from the chalk without
any sharp corners, but with a grand con-
tempt of shape. The floor went up and
down, and so did the roof, according to
circumstances ; the floor appearing in-
clined to rise, and the roof to come down
:if called upon. Much excellent rubbish
■was here to be found ; but the window
•was the first thing to seize and hold any
stranger's attention. It must have been
built either by or for the old hermit who
once had dwelt there ; at any rate no one
could have designed it without a quaint
ingenuity. It was cut through a three-
foot wall of chalk, the embrasure being
about five feet in span, and three feet
deep at the crown of the arch. In the
middle, a narrow pier of chalk was left to
keep the arch up, and the lights on either
side were made of horn, stained glass,
and pig's bladder. The last were of
Bonny's handiwork, to keep out the wind
when it blew too cold among the flaws of
ages. And now as the evening light
fetched round the foot of the hills, and
gathered strongly into this western
aspect, the richness of colours was such
that even Polly's steadfast eyes were
dazed.
Without vouchsafing so much as a
glance at Bonny's hoarded glories, the
ALICE LORRAINE.
child ran across the narrow cham-
ber, and spread out her hands and
opened her mouth wider even than her
eyes, at the tints now streaming in on
her. The glass had been brought per-
haps from some ruined chapel of the hill-
side, and glowed with a depth of colour
infused by centuries of sunset ; not one
pane of regular shape was to be found
among them ; but all, like veins of mar-
ble, ran with sweetest harmony of hue,
to meet the horn and the pig's bladder.
From the outside it looked like a dusty
slate traversed with bits of a crusted bot-
tle ; it required to be seen from the in-
side, like an ancient master's painting.
Polly, like the rest of those few chil-
dren who do not overtalk themselves,
spent much of her time in observation,
storing the entries inwardly. And young
as she was, there might be perhaps a
doubt entertained by those who knew
her whether she were not of a deeper and
more solid cast of mind than Bonny. Her
father at any rate declared, and her
mother was of the same opinion, that by
the time she was ten years old she would
buy and sell all Steyning. However,
they may have thought this because all
their other children were so stupid.
Now, be they right or be they wrong —
as may be shown hereafter — Polly pos-
sessed at least the first and most essen-
tial of all the many endowments needful
to approach success. Polly Bottler
stuck to her point. And now, even with
those fine old colours, like a century of
rainbows, puzzling her, Polly remem-
bered the stew in the pot, and pointed
with her finger to the window-ledge
where something shone in a rich blue
light.
" Here's a 'poon. Bonny ! " she ex-
claimed ; " here's a 'poon ! 'Et me have
it, Bonny."
" No, that's not a spoon, miss ; and I
can't make out for the life of me what-
ever it can be. I've a seed a many queer
things, but I never seed the likes of that
afore. Ah, take care, miss, or you'll cut
your fingers ! "
For Polly, with a most resolute air,
had scrambled to the top of an old brown
jar (the salvage from some shipwreck)
which stood beneath the window-sill, and
thence with a gallant sprawl she reached
and clutched the shining implement which
she wanted to eat her stew with. The
boy was surprised to see her lift it^ w^l
her fat brown fingers, and hold it tighj||
without being cut or stung as he expec^
ed. For he had a wholesome fear of t
I
ALICE LORRAINE.
thing, and had set it up as a kind of fetish,
his mind (like every other) requiring
something to bow down to. For the
manner of his finding it first, and then
its presentment in the mouth of Jack,
added to the interest which its unknown
meaning won for it.
With a laugh of triumph the bow-legged
maiden descended from her dangerous
height, and paying no heed to all Bonny's
treasures, waddled away with her new
toy, either to show it to her father, or to
plunge it into the stewpot perhaps. But
her careful host, with an iron spoon and
a saucer in his hands, ran after her, and
gently guided her to the crock, whither
also Mr. Bottler sped. This was as it
should be ; and they found it so. For
when the boy Bonny, with a hospitable
sweep, lifted the cover of his cookery, a
sense of that void which all nature pro-
tests against rose in the forefront of all
three, and forbade them to seek any fur-
ther. -Bottler himself, in the stress of
the moment, let the distant vision fade —
of fried potatoes and combed chittlings —
and lapsed into that lowest treason to
Lares and Penates — a supper abroad,
when the supper at home is salted, and
peppered, and browning.
But though Polly opened her itiouth so
wide, and smacked her lips, and made
every other gratifying demonstration, not
for one moment would she cede possession
of the treasure she had found in Bonny's
window. Even while most absorbed in
absorbing, she nursed it jealously on her
lap ; and even when her father had lit
his pipe from Bonny's bonfire, and was
ready to hoist her in again over the foot-
board, the child stuck fast to her new
delight, and set up a sturdy yell when
the owner came to reclaim it from her.
" Now don't 'ee, don't 'ee, that's a
dear," began the gentle pork-butcher, as
the pigs in the cart caught up the strain,
and echo had enough to do ; for Polly of
course redoubled her wailings, as all lit-
tle dears must, when coaxed to stop :
'"here, Bonny, here, lad, Fll gie thee six-
pence for un, though her ain't worth a
penny, I doubt. And thou mayst call to-
morrow, and the Misses '11 gie thee a clot
of sassages."
Bonny looked longingly at his fetish ;
but gratitude and true love got the better
of veneration. Polly, moreover, might
well be trusted to preserve this idol, until
in the daywhen he made her his own, it
should return into his bosom. And so it
came to pass that this Palladium of the
hermitage was set up at the head of Polly
691
Bottler's little crib, and installed in the
post of her favourite doll.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Though Coombe Lorraine was so old
a mansion, and so full of old customs,
the Christmas of the "comet year" was
as dull as a Sunday in a warehouse.
Hilary (who had always been the life of
the place) was far away, fed upon hard-
ships and short rations. Alice, though
full sometimes* of spirits, at other times
would run away, and fret, and blame her-
self, as if the whole of the fault was on
her side. This was of course an absurd
idea ; but sensitive girls, in moods of de-
jection, are not good judges of absurdity ;
and Alice at such times fully believed
that if she had not intercepted so much
of her father's affection from her brother,
things would have been very different.
It might have been so ; but the answer
was, that she never had wittingly stood
between them ; but on the contrary had
laid herself out, even at the risk of of-
fending both, to bring their widely dif-
ferent natures into kinder unity.
Sir Roland also was becoming more
and more reserved and meditative. He
would sit for hours in his book-room, im-
mersed in his favourite studies, or rather
absorbed in his misty abstractions. And
Lady Valeria did not add to the cheer of
the household, although perhaps she did
increase its comfort, by suddenly ceasing
to interfere with Mrs. Pipkins and every-
body else, and sending for the parson of
the next parish, because she had no faith
in Mr. Hales. That worthy's unprofes-
sional visits, and those of his wife and
daughters, were now almost the only
pleasant incidents of the day or week.
P^or the country was more and more de-
pressed by the gloomy burden of endless
war, the scarcity of the fruits of the earth,
and the slaughter of good brave people.
So that as the time went on, what with
miserable expeditions, pestilence, long
campaigns, hard sieges, furious battles,
and starvation — there was scarcely any
decent family that was not gone into
mourning.
Even the Rector, as lucky a man as
ever lived, had lost a nephew, or at least
a nephew of his dear wife, — which, he
said, was almost worse to him — slain in
battle, fighting hard for his country and
constitution. Mr. Hales preached a'beau-
tiful sermon, as good as a book, about it ;
so that the parish wept, and three young
men enlisted.
The sheep were down in the lowlands
692
now, standing up to their knees in litter,
and chewing very slowly ; or sidling up
against one another in the joy of woolli-
ness ; or lying down with their bare
grave noses stretched for contemplation's
sake, winking with their gentle eyes, and
thanking God for the roof above them,
and the troughs in front of them. They
never regarded themselves as mutton, nor
their fleeces as worsted yarn: it was
really sad to behold them, and think that
the future could not make them misera-
ble.
No snow had fallen ; but all the downs
were spread with that sombre brown
which is the breath or the blast of the
wind-frost. But Alice Lorraine took her
daily walk, for her father forbade her to
ride on the hill-tops in the bleak and
bitter wind. Her thoughts were con-
tinually of her brother ; and as the cold
breeze rattled her cloak, or sprayed her
soft 'hands through her gloves, many a
time she said to herself: "I suppose
there is no frost in Spain ; or not like
this, at any rate. How could the poor
fellow sleep in a tent in such dreadful
weather as this is ? "
How little she dreamed that he had to
sleep (whenever he got such a blissful
chance), not in a tent, but an open trench,
with a keener wind and a blacker frost
preying on his shivering bones, while
cannon-balls and fiery shells in a pitiless
storm rushed over him ! It was no
feather-bed fight that was fought in
front of Ciudad Rodrigo. About the mid-
dle of January, A.D. 181 2, desperate work
was going on.
For now there was no time to think of
life. Within a certain number of days
the fort must be taken, or the army lost.
The defences were strong and the garri-
son brave, and supplied with artillery far
superior to that of the besiegers ; the
season also, and the bitter weather, fought
against the British ; and so did the indo-
lence of their allies ; and so did British
roguery. The sappers could only work
in the dark (because of the grape from
the ramparts) ; and working thus, the
tools either bent beneath their feet or
snapped off short. The contractor had
sent out false-grained stuff, instead of
good English steel and iron ; and if in
this world he earned his fortune, he as-
sured his fate in the other.
At length, by stubborn perseverance,
most of these troubles were overcome,
and the English batteries opened. Roar
answered roar, and bullet bullet, and the
ALICE LORRAINE.
I black air was moved with fire and smoke ;
and men began to study the faces of the
men that shot at them, until, after some
days of hard pounding, it was determined
1 to rush in. All who care to read of val-
I our know what a desperate rush it was, —
I how strong men struggled, and leaped,
j and clomb, hung, and swung, on the crest
! of the breach, like stormy surges tower-
iing, and then leaped down upon splutter-
'ing shells, drawn swords, and sparkling
bayonets.
Before the signal to storm was given,
and while men were talking of it, Hilary
Lorraine felt most uncomfortably nerv-
ous. He did not possess that stolid
phlegm which is found more often in
square-built people ; neither had he any
share of fatalism, cold or hot. He was
nothing more than a spirited young Eng-
lishman, very fond of life, hating cruelty,
and fearing to have any hand in it. Al-
though he had been in the trenches, and
exposed to frequent dangers, he had not
been in hand-to-hand conflict yet ; and
he knew not how he might behave. He
knew that he was an officer now in the
bravest and hardiest army known on
earth since the time of the Samnites —
although perhaps not the very best be-
haved, as they proved that self-same
night. And not only that, but an officer
of the famous Light Division, and the
fiercest regiment of that division — every-
where known as the '• Fighters ; " and he
was not sure that he could figrht a frog.
He was sure that he never could kill any-
body, at least in his natural state of
mind ; and worse than that, he was not
at all sure that he could endure to be
killed himself.
However, he made preparation for it.
He brought out the Testament Mabel iiad
given him as a parting keepsake, in the
moment of true love's piety ; and he
opened it at a passage marked with a
woven tress of her long rich hair —
" Soldiers, do that is commanded of
you ; " and he wondered whether he
could manage it. And while he was
trembling, not with fear of the enemy,
but of his own young heart, the Colonel
of that regiment came, and laid his one
hand on Hilary's shoulder, and looked
into his bright blue eyes. In all the
army there was no braver, nobler, or
kinder-hearted man, than Colonel C-
of that regiment.
Hilary looked at this true veteran witi
all the reverence, and even awe, which
young subaltern (if fit for anything) feel
ALICE LORRAINE.
for commanding experience. Never a
word he spoke, however, but waited to be
spoken to. |
" You will do, lad. You will do," said
the Colonel, who had little time to spare, j
" I would rather see you like that than ,
uproarious, or even as cool as a cucum- ,
ber, I was just like that before my first |
action. Lorraine, you will not disgrace ]
your family, your country, or your regi- i
ment." j
The Colonel had lost two sons in battle, }
younger men than Hilary, otherwise he
might not have stopped to enter into an
ensign's mind. But every word he spoke
struck fire in the heart of this gentle
youth. True gratitude chokes common
answers; and Hilary made none to him.
An hour afterwards he made it, by saving
the life of the Colonel.
The Light Division (kept close and
low from the sight of the sharp French
gunners) were wailing in a hollow curve
of the inner parallel, where the ground
gave way a little, under San Francisco.
There had been no time to do anything
more than breach the stone of the ram-
parts ; all the outer defences were almost
as sound as ever. The Light Division
had orders to carry the lesser breach —
cost what it might — and then sweep the
ramparts as far as the main breach, where
the strong assault was. And so well did
they do their work, that they turned the
auxiliary into the main attack, and bodily
carried the fortress.
For, sooth to say, they expected, but
could not manage to wait for, the signal
to storm. No sooner did they hear the
firing on the right than they began to
stamp and swear ; for the hay-bags they
were to throw into the ditch were not at
hand, and not to be seen. " Are we
horses to wait for the hay ? " cried an
Irishman of the Fifty-second ; and with
that they all set off, as fast as ever their
legs could carry them. Hilary laughed
— for his sense of humour was never
very far to seek — at the way in which
these men set off, as if it were a game of
football ; and at the wonderful mixture
of fun and fury in their faces. Also, at
this sudden burlesque of the tragedy he
expected — with heroes out at heels and
elbows, and small-clothes streaming upon
the breeze. For the British Government,
as usual, left coats, shoes, and breeches
to last forever.
'' Run, lad, run," said Major Napier, in
his quiet Scottish way ; " you are bound
to be up with them, as one might say ;
and your legs are unco long. I shall na
693
hoory mysell, but take the short cut over
the open."
" May I come with you ? " asked Hil-
ary, panting.
" If you have na mither nor wife," said
the Major ; " na wife, of course, by the
look of you."
Lorraine had no sense what he was
about ; for the grape-shot whistled
through the air like hornets, and cut off
one of his loose fair locks, as he crossed
the open with Major Napier, to head their
hot men at the crest of the glacis.
Now how things happened after that,
or even what things happened at all, that
headlong young officer never could tell.
As he said in his letter to Gregory Love-
joy — for he was not allowed to write to
Mabel, and would not describe such a
scene to Alice — "The chief thing I re-
member is a lot of rushing and stum-
bling, and swearing and cheering, and
staggering and tumbling backward. And
I got a tremendous crack on the head
from a cannon laid across the top of the
breach, but luckily not a loaded one ; and
I believe there were none of our fellows
in front of me, but I cannot be certain
because of the smoke, and the row, and
the rush, and confusion ; and I saw a
Crapaud with a dead level at Colonel
C . I suppose I was too small game
for him, — and I was just in time to slash
his trigger-hand off (which I felt justified
in doing), and his musket went up in the
air and went off, and I just jumped aside
from a fine bearded fellow who rushed at
me with a bayonet ; and before he could
have at me again, he fell dead, shot by
his own friends from behind, who were
shooting at me — more shame to them —
when our men charged with empty mus-
kets. And when the breach was our
own, we were formed on the top of the •
rampart, and went off at double-quick, to
help at the main breach, and so we did ;
and that is about all I know of it."
But the more experienced warriors
knew a great deal more of Hilary's
doings, especially Colonel C of his
regiment, and Major Napier, and Colonel
M'Leod. All of these said that " they
never saw any young fellow behave so
well, for the first time of being under
deadly fire ; that he might have been 'off
his head ' for the moment, but that would
very soon wear off — or if it. did not, all
the'better, so long as he always did the
right thing thus ; and (unless he got shot)
he would be an honour to the country,
the army, and the regiment 1 "
694
ALICE LORRAINE.
CHAPTER XXXV.
Having no love of bloodshed, and hav-
ing the luck to know nothing about it,
some of us might be glad to turn into the
white gate across the lane leading into
Old Applewood farm — if only the frank-
lin would unlock it for anybody in this
war-time. But now he has been getting
sharper and sharper month after month ;
and hearing so much about sieges and
battles, he never can be certain when the
county of Kent will be invaded. For the
last ten years he has expected something
of the sort at least, and being of a pru-
dent mind keeps a duck-gun heavily
loaded.
Moreover, Mabel is back again from
exile with Uncle Clitherow ; and though
the Grower only says that " she is well
enough, for aught he knows," when com-
pliments are paid him about her good
looks by the neighbourhood, he knows
well enough that she is more than that ;
and he believes all the county to be after
her. It is utterly useless to deny —
though hot indignation would expand his
horticultural breast at the thought — that
he may have been jusfa little set up, by
that trifling affair about Hilary. " It
•never were the cherries," he says to him-
self, as the author of a great discovery ;
" aha, I seed it all along ! Wife never
guessed of it, but I did " — shame upon
thee. Grower, for telling thyself such a
dreadful " caulker ! " — " and now we can
see, as plain as a pikestaff, the very thing
I seed, when it was that big ! " ' Upon
this he shows himself his thumb-nail,
and feels that he has earned a glass of
his ale.
Mabel, on the other hand, is dreadfully
worried by foreign affairs. She wants to
• know why they must be always fighting ;
and as nobody can give any other reason,
except that they " suppose it is nateral,"
she only can shake her head very sadly,
and ask, " How would you like to have to
doit?"
They turn up the udders of the cows,
to think out this great question, and the
spurting into the pail stops short, and
the cow looks round with great bountiful
eyes, and a flat broad nose, and a spotted
tongue, desiring to know what they are
at with her. Is her miilk not worth the
milking, praj .''
This leads to no satisfaction whatever,
upon behalf of any one ; and Mabel, after
a shiver or two, runs back to the broad
old fireplace, to sit in the light and the
smell of the wood, to spread her pointed
fingers forth, and see how clear they are,
and think. For Mabel's hands are quite
as pretty as if they were of true Norman
blood, instead of the elder Danish cast ;
and she is very particular now not to
have any line visible under her nails.
And now in the month of February
1812, before the witching festival of St.
Valentine was prepared for, with cudgel-
ling of brains, and violent rhymes, and
criminal assaults upon grammar, this
"flower of Kent" — as the gallant hop-
growers in toasting moments entitled her
— was sitting, or standing, or drooping
her head, or whatever suits best to their
metaphor, at or near the fireplace in the
warm old simple hall. Love, however
warm and faithful, is all the better for a
good clear fire, ere ever the snowdrops,
begin to spring. Also it loves to watch
the dancing of the flames, and the flick-
ering light, and even in the smoke dis-
covers something to itself akin. Mabel
was full of these beautiful dreams, be-
cause she was left altogether to herself ;
and because she remembered so well
what had happened along every inch of
the dining-table ; and, above all, because
she was sleepy. Long anxiety, and great
worry, and the sense of having no one fit
to understand a girl — but everybody
taking low, and mercenary, and fickle
views, and even the most trusty people
giving base advice to one, in those odious
proverbial forms, — "A bird in the hand
is worth two in the bush," " Fast find fast
bind," " There is better fish in the sea,"
&c. ; Mabel thought there never had been
such a selfish world to deal with.
Has not every kind of fame, however
pure it may be and exalted, its own spe-
cial disadvantage, lest poor mortals grow
too proud ? At any rate Mabel now re-
flected, rather with sorrow than with tri-
umph, upon her fame for pancakes — be-
cause it was Shrove-Tuesday now, and
all her tender thrills and deep anxieties
must be discarded for, or at any rate dis-
tracted by, the composition of batter.
Her father's sense of propriety was s
strong, and that of excellence so kee
that pancakes he would have on Shrov
Tuesday, and pancakes only from Mabel's
hand. ' She had pleaded, however, for
leave to make them here in the dining-
hall, instead of frying them at the kitchen
fireplace, because she knew what Salli
the cook and Susan the maid would be
with her. Those two girls would nev
leave her the smallest chance of retiri
into her deeper nature, and meditatin
Although they could understand nothi
>
ALICE LORRAINE.
695
at all, they would take advantage of her
good temper, to enjoy themselves with
the most worn-out jokes. Such trumpery
was below Mabel now ; and some day or
other she would let them know it.
Without thinking twice of such low
matters, the maiden was now in great
trouble of the heart, by reason of sundry
rumours. Paddy from Cork had brought
home word from Maidstone only yester-
day, that a desperate fight had been
fought in Spain, and almost everybody
had been blown up. Both armies had
made up their minds to die so, that with
the drums beating and the colours flying,
they marched into a powder magazine,
and tossed up a pin which should be the
one to fire it, and blow up the others.
And the English had lost the toss, and
no one survived to tell the story.
Mabel doubted most of this, though
Paddy vowed that he had known the like,
"when wars was wars, and the boys had
spirit ; " still she felt sure that there had
been something, and she longed most
sadly to know all about it. Her brother
Gregory was in London, keeping his
Hilary term, and slaving at his wretched
law-books ; and she had begged him, if
he loved her, to send down all the latest
news by John Shorne every market-day
— for the post would not carry news-
papers. And now, having mixed her
batter, she waited, sleepy after sleepless
nights, unable to leave her post and go
to meet the van, as she longed to do, the
while the fire was clearing.
Pensively sitting thus, and longing for
somebody to look at her, she glanced at
the face of the clock, which was the only
face regarding her. And she won from
it but the stern frown of time — she must
set to at her pancakes. Batter is all the
better for standing ready-made for an
hour or so, the weaker particles expire,
while the good stuff grows the more fit
to be fried, and to turn over in the pan
properly, , With a gentle sigh, the
*• flower of Kent" put her frying-pan on,
just to warm the bottom. No lard for
her, but the best fresh butter — at any
rate for the first half-dozen, to be set
aside for her father and mother ; after
that she would be more frugal perhaps.
But just as the butter began to ooze on
the bottom of the pan she heard, or thought
that she heard, a sweet distant tinkle
coming through the frosty air, and run-
ning to the window she caught beyond
doubt the sound of the bells at the cor-
ner of the lane, the bells that the horses
always wore when the nights were dark
war.
through
and long ; and a throb of eager hope and
fear went to her heart at every tinkle.
" I cannot wait ; how can I wait ? "
she cried, with flushing cheeks and eyes
twice-laden between smiles and tears ;
"father's pancakes can wait much better.
There, go back," she spoke to the fry-
ing-pan, as with the prudent care of a
fine voung housewife she lifted it off and
laid it on the hob for fear of the butter
burning ; and then with quick steps out
she went, not even stopping to find a hat,
in her hurry to meet the van, and know
the best or the worst of the news of the
For " crusty John," who would go
fire and water to please Miss
Mabel, had orders not to come home
without the very latest tidings. There
was nothing to go to market now ; but
the van had been up with a load of straw
to some mews where the Grower had
taken a contract ; and, of course, it came
loaded back with litter.
While Mabel was all impatience and
fright, John Shorne, in the most deliber-
ate manner, descended from the driving-
box, and purposely shunning her eager
glance, began to unfasten the leader's
traces, and pass them through his horny
hands, and coil them into elegant spirals,
like horns of Jupiter Ammon. Mabel's
fear grew worse and worse, because he
would not look at her.
" Oh John, you never could have the
heart to keep me waiting like this, un-
less "
" What ! you there, Missie ? Lor'
now, what can have brought 'ee out this
weather ?"
" As if you did not see me, John !
Why, you must have seen me all along."
" This here be such a dreadful horse to
smoke," said John, who always shunned
downright fibs, " that railly I never
knows what I do see when I be longside
of un. Ever since us come out of Sen-
noaks, he have a been confusing of me.
Not that I blames un for what a can't
help. Now there, now ! The watter be
frozen in trough. Go to the bucket,
jackanapes ! "
" Oh John, you never do seem to think
— because you have got so many chil-
dren only fit to go to school, you seem to
think "
"Why, you said as I couldn't think
now, Missie, in the last breath of your
pretty mouth. Well, what is it as I
ought to think? Whoa there! Stand
still, wull 'ee ?"
"John, you really are too bad. I have
been all the morning making pancakes,
696
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
and you shan't have one, John Shorne,
you shan't, if you keep me waiting one
more second."
" Is it consarning they fighting fellows
you gets into such a hurry, Miss ? Well,
they have had a rare fight, sure enough !
Fourscore officers gone to glory, besides
all the others as was not worth count-
ing ! "
"Oh John, you give me such a dread-
ful pain here ! Let me know the worst,
I do implore you."
" He aint one of 'em. Now, rs that
enough.^" John Shorne made so little
of true love now, and forgot his early sit-
uation so, in the bosom of a hungry fam-
ily, that he looked upon Mabel's " coort-
ing " as an agreeable playground for lit-
tle jokes. But now he was surprised
and frightened at her way of taking
them.
" There, don't 'ee cry now, that's a
dear," he said, as she leaned on the
shaft of the wagon, and sobbed so that
the near wheeler began in pure sympathy
to sniff at her.
" Lord bless 'ee, there be nothing to
cry about. He've a been and dooed
wonders, that a hath."
" Of course he has, John ; he could
not help it. He was sure to do wonders,
don't you see, if only — if only they did
not stop him."
" He hathn't killed Bonyparty yet,"
said John, recovering his vein of humour,
as Mabel began to smile through her
tears ; " but I b'lieve he wool, if he
gooeth on only half so well as he have
begun. For my part, I'd soonder kill dree
of un than sell out in a bad market, I
know. But here, you can take it, and
read all about un. Lor' bless me, wher-
ever have I put the papper ? "
"Now do be quick, John, for once in
your life. Dear John, do try to be quick,
now."
" Strornary gallantry of a young hof-
ficer ! Could have sworn that it were in
my breeches-pocket. I always thought
'gallantry' meant something bad. A
running after strange women, and that."
" Oh no, John — oh no, John ; it never
does. How can you think of such dread-
ful things ? But how long are you going
to be, John?"
" Well, it did when I wor a boy, that's
certain. But now they changes every-
thing so — even the words we was born
to. It have come to mean killing of
strange men, hath it ? Wherever now
can I have put that papper ? I must
'have dropped un on the road, after all."
! How
times
"You never can have done such a stu-
pid thing ! — such a wicked, cruel thing,
John Shorne ! If you have, I will never
forgive you. Very likely you put it in
the crown of your hat."
" Sure enough, and so I did. You
must be a witch, Miss Mabel. And
here's the very corner I turned down
when I read it to the folk at the ' Pig
and Whistle.' ' Glorious British victory
— capture of Shoedad Rodleygo — eighty
British officers killed, and forty great
guns taken ! ' There, there, bless your
bright eyes ! now will you be content
with it 1 "
" Oh, give it me, give it me
can I tell until I have read it ten
over .? "
Crusty John blessed all the girls of the
period (becoming more and more too
many for him) as his master's daughter
ran away to devour that greasy journal.
And by the time he had pulled his coat
off, and shouted for Paddy and another
man, and stuck his own pitchfork into the
litter, as soon as they had backed the
wheelers, Mabel was up in her own little
room, and down on her knees to thank
the Lord for the abstract herself had
made of it. Somehow or other, the nat-
ural impulse of all good girls, at that time,
was to believe that they had a Creator
and Father whom to thank for all mer-
cies. But that idea has been improved
since then.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
There are few things easier to the
philosopher and critic than to attack ex-
isting religion. The mere fact that it is
existing connects the most divine faith
with the human imperfections of its be-
lievers, and throws the mist of many a
futile interpretation and stupid comment
upon the purest and most celestial verity ;
not to speak of the still more evident
practical difficulty of reconciling the blun-
ders, faults, or even crimes of those who
profess to follow it, with its teachings
— a visible discrepancy which always
gives room for the blaspheming of the
adversary. This is easy enough ; anc'
there has come at periodical intervals
through all the Christian era, a time whef
it has become a sort of fashion to inj
dulge in railings to this effect ; nay, evei
to go farther, and denounce Christianity
itself as a thins: ended and over — as
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE. 697
religion which has had its day — as ajcanto redeem the foolishness, and van-
spiritual system effete, and falling use- j ity, and emptiness of the system of which
less, unadapted to the requirements of the ! Mr. Congreve is a priest, we could
time. The present moment is one of j scarcely venture to insist upon such a
those frequently recurring periods; and portrait of a living man ; but the lines are
we are all tolerably well accustomed to
hear words said, which to our fathers
would have seemed blasphemy, without
wincing. Many a witling is to be heard
complacently declaring that the old faith
is not " up " to the requirements of the
day ; and that Christianity has become
blear-eyed and paralyzed and old, as John
Bunyan, no witling, but deceived as all
men so easily are, once described his
Giant Pope. Christianity survives the
clatter of ill tongues, as Giant Pope
survived the inspired dreamer's igno-
rant certainty ; and so long as the
men who thus execute their will upon
religion live securely under her shadow,
they are safe, and no particular harm is
done. So long as no rebuilding is re-
quired, the work of destruction is always
entertaining to the human spirit. From
the baby to the philosopher, we all rejoice
in the dust and the clamcmr of demoli-
tion, even when it is but imaginary. But
when the iconoclast leaves the facile
sphere in which he has it all his own way,
and can knock down every man of straw
he pleases to set up, and takes in hand a
painful attempt to set something new in
the place of the old, then difficulties arise
and multiply round. Few people venture
to undertake so difficult a task ; and this
makes it all the more wonderful when we
suddenly light, amid all the tumults of
ordinary existence, upon an individual
who has actually ventured to throw him-
self into the forlorn hope, and become an
apostle of a bran-new creed, with new
principles, new worship, and new hopes.
We are not, for our own part, deeply
interested in M. Comte any more than we
are in Joe Smith or the Prophet Mormon ;
but such a revelation as that which is
given to us by M. Comte's chief disciple *
in England is full of interest to the curious
spectator. Mr. Congreve's book contains
his opinions on a great many subjects,
political, social, and as he chooses to use
the word, religious ; but these opinions
are not nearly so interesting, so strange,
so novel, or so amusing as the spectacle
of himself which he here sets up before
us. Were it not that this odd and start-
ling exhibition of simplicity, devotion,
and faith, does all that such fine qualities
* Essays, Political-, Social, and Religious. By
Richard Congreve. Longmans, 1874. .,
drawn by his own hand and not by ours ;
an exhibition more pathetic or more hu-
morous has seldom been given to the
world. The artist, however, is entirely
unconscious at once of the pathos and
the humour ; and the quaint mixture of
philosophical atheism and materialism,
with the form and essence of a home mis-
sionary report, or Methodist class teach-
er's account of his " work " and all its
helps and hindrances — is made in the
most perfect good faith, and with the pro-
foundest seriousness, with all the self-
belief of an apostle. Such qualities are
rare in the world ; and of all places in
which to look for them, it is like enough
that the Church of Humanity would have
been the last which we should have tried.
Neither is it we or any profane spectator
who has brought to light the private
meetings of the Positivist community,
and the discourses of the gentle, narrow,
expansive, and excitable enthusiast, who
thus mixes up the smallest of parochial
details with the widest of doctrinal ab-
stractions, and announces the vast claims
of a Priesthood destined to hold in its
hands the education of all the world, in
the same breath with which he utters a
plaintive doubt whether the body to
which this Priesthood belongs will ever
be able to acquire for itself a room in
which to hold its worship ! most whim-
sical blending of the possible and impos-
sible. Mr. Congreve was, we believe, in
other times, a man of distinction in the
world which he has quitted ; but we have
nothing to do with his career before he
reached the mental cloister in which he
worships the Founder of his new faith.
No son of Benedict or of Francis ever
more entirely separated himself from the
world. The hair-shirt and the coarse
gown were as nothing in comparison with
the new, strange panoply of motive and
thought in which this priest of a new re-
ligion has clothed himself. The picture
of himself and his strange brotherhood
which he sets before us is often, as we
have already said, as touching as it is
odd — and, what is more strange still, as
commonplace as it is quaint and out of
the way.
It must be allowed that to start a bran-
new religion, so low down here in the
nineteenth century, is such a task as the
strongest might quail before. None of
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
698
those accessories which were of such in-
finite service to the old primeval fathers
of human belief, so much as exist nowa-
days. Those stories which the wise call
myths, but which the unlearned always 1
take for gospel, can no longer do the
philosophical framer of a new creed any {
service. He cannot, alas ! call to his aid
those impersonations upon which all old
beliefs are founded — those gods who
still hold a lingering poetical sway in the
classic soul of here and there a dainty
Grecian, in academic Oxford or else-
where. Neither Apollo nor Brahma can
aid him. Neither can he get the help of
the strong hand as Mohammed did, and
add temporal ascendancy, power, and
greatness to celestial rewards as induce-
ments to believe. The last new religion
of all (except M. Comte's) has seized per-
haps the only weapon remaining of a
fleshly kind, and supports its ethical sys-
tem (if it has one) by such social overturn
as brings it within a vulgar level of popu-
lar effectiveness ; but even if this instru-
ment had not been appropriated, we
doubt whether that vulgar instrumen-
tality which does well enough for the
Salt Lake City, would have answered in
Paris, where there are less means of
actual expansion, and where the houses
are not adapted for patriarchal institu-
tions. That which M. Comte and his
followers call the Religion of Humanity,
is thus deprived of all extraneous aid.
M. Auguste Comte himself, and Madame
Clotilde'de Vaux, are the sole objects of
its mythology ; and sufficient time has
scarcely elapsed since these great
sonages left the world, to permit
gentle illusion of the imagination,
softening mist of antiquity to fall
per-
any
any
upon
the sharp outlines of the real. And this
creed, which has no personal foundation
except the life of a Frenchman of the
nineteenth century, no doctrines but ab-
stract ones, no rewards, no punishments,
no hopes, no terrors — nothing tangible
enough, indeed, to come within the men-
tal range of ordinary mortals — is the
religion which Mr. Congreve is person-
ally propagating at 19 Chapel Street,
Bedford Row, in rooms which the com-
munity has at last procured, and adorned
with busts, &c., to make them fit for the
lofty purpose of regenerating the world
— and of which he sets up the ensign
and symbol in this book, so that circles
out of the reach of Chapel Street may
hear and know and seek that shrine, to
be instructed in the religion of the later
days. A bolder enterprise was surely
never undertaken by any sane (or for
that matter, insane) man.
We have said that Mr. Congreve is
much more interesting to us than the
founder whom he worships. Of M.
Comte we have nothing to say. He had
at least all the elan and the satisfaction
of an inventor launching forth a new
thing into the world, and doubtless found
in it enough of personal gratification and
elevation to make up for any trouble in
arranging the canons of his faith. His
disciple is infinitely more disinterested.
To him, we presume, the Religion of
Humanity has brought much loss — it
can have brought no gain. Neither hon-
our nor applause, nor even respect, can
have come to him from his devotion to a
set of principles which affect the general
world with wonder or with ridicule only
— not even with that vague admiration
for something beautiful, that moral appro-
bation of something good, mixed up with
error, which every genuine Belief has
secured from its candid critics. The
tenets which good sense rejects are often
lovely to the imagination, and those
which are condemned by the heart, lay,
in some cases, a bond of logical truth
upon the understanding from which it
cannot escape even if it would. But we
find it impossible to conceive that either
the general heart, mind, or imagination,
could find anything in the Gospel which
Mr. Congreve believes so fervently to
justify the childlike devotion which he
gives it, or to vindicate the wonderful
faith and self-abnegation which are ap-
parent in these essays. We say to vin-
dicate his self-abnegation ; for every sac-
rifice, to gain respect, must be capable of
vindication on some reasonable ground ;
and this vindication has scarcely ever
been wanting even to fanatics. Putting
aside Christianity — which we are not
prepared to discuss on the same level
with any other belief prevalent among
men, but which we believe to be as much
nobler and loftier in its earthly point of
view as it is diviner in every sanction
and authority of heaven — there is no
one of what are commonly called the
1 false religions of the world, for which a
I man's sacrifice of himself might not be
I justified by the judgment of his fel-
I lows, on condition of his personal faith
i in it. We can understand and respect
\ the Mohammedan, the Hindoo, even the
'gentleman whom, under the name of _a
j Fetishist, Mr. Congreve admits into his
fullest fellowship, and whose adoration of
his grim symbol of Godhead, refers, we
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
do not doubt, dimly to some spiritual be-
ing. The old gods of Greece are so
vague and far off that it is hard to realize
the time when there was any general faith
in Jupiter or Apollo. Yet even for Apollo
and Jupiter it is possible to understand
that a man might have lived and died,
feeling in those high-seated shadows of
Olympus some glory above himself, some
greatness, soiled by fleshly symbol and
imperfect revelation, but still more glori-
ous than anything of earth — something
which could understand the worshipper,
and comprehend his littleness in its great-
ness, and overshadow him with sublime
wings of spiritual reality, according to
the vision of the inspired Hebrew. With
all these worshippers we have a certain
sympathy. Such as their gods were, they
were still beyond, above themselves ; dei-
fications, if you choose, of their own ideal,
but yet proving that divine birthright
of human nature, the necessity for an
ideal — the yearning of mankind for some
stay and refuge above itself. Wherever
a man believes that he has found this,
however erroneous his conclusions may
be, or ill-founded his confidence, he has
yet a right to the sympathy of his fellows,
and to their respect, for whatever sacri-
fice he may make.
But what shall we think of the man
who sacrifices himself, his reason and
learning, and all his advantages, at the
shrine of an abstraction which it requires
a very great effort to apprehend at all,
and which, being apprehended, is nought,
and never can be. but nought ; too un-
substantial even to be called a vision, too
vague to be realized ? The Positivist
Philosophy is one thing, the Religion of
Humanity another : and it is one of the
most curious revenges of Nature, that the
most materialistic of all philosophical
systems — that which binds earth and
heaven within iron bands of immovable,
irresistible, physical law, rejecting all
mind, all thought, all soul in the govern-
ment of the universe — should be thus
linked to the most vague, abstract, and
fantastic faith that ever entered into
the imagination of man. Or perhaps, in-
deed, it would be better to say that this
fanciful foolish faith is but a piteous ef-
fort of the mind to compensate itself
somehow for a thraldom more than the
spirit of man can bear ; setting up a dim
image of itself — poor soul ! — not much
knowing what it means, upon the ravaged
altar, to get a little cold comfort out of
that in the absence of any God or shadow
of a God. The fruitless prayers, the faint
699
hymns that rise before this darkling
shrine, what can there be on earth more
pathetic? — last effort of humanity,
which must cry out in its trouble, and
babble in its joy, to something — to the
air, to the desert, to the waste sands
and seas, if to nothing that can hear,
and feel, and respond.
We will, however, permit Mr. Congreve
himself to describe the object, or rather
objects, of worship to which he has de-
voted himself. He explains to us, first,
how M. Comte became enlightened as
to the central point in his creed ; how he
"stood revealed to himself, and his work
also stood in a new light before him."
"The unity of the human race, over
whose progress he had pondered, had
long been a conviction with him ; with
the conception, too, of humanity as a
higher organism, he had familiarized
himself, and by the light of that concep-
tion had interpreted its past and meditat-
ed on its future." But when, in the
course of events, M. Comte met Madame
de Vaux and felt himself stimulated and
enlightened by " the genuine human love
of a noble woman," his previous conclu-
sions all at once took force and form.
" The conviction became faith ; the or-
ganism in which he believed claimed and
received his veneration and his love — in
other words, his worship." In such a
delicate argument it is necessary to be
perfectly clear and definite in expression :
the conviction which became faith was
that of the " unity of the human race ; "
the organism which received his worship
was Humanity. Mr. Congreve adds his
own profession of faith.
We who share that faith, that veneration,
that love ; we who would worship as he wor-
shipped ; we who would preach by our lives,
and, when possible, by our spoken or written
words, that great Being whose existence is
now revealed — that Being of whom all the
earlier divinities which man has created as the
guardians of his childhood and early youth
are but anticipations, — we can appreciate the
greatness of the change which his labour has
effected. We can see, and each in his several
measure can proclaim to others, that what was
but a dim instinct has become a truth, in the
power of which we can meet all difficulties ;
that where there was inquiry there is now
knowledge ; where there was anxious search-
ing there is now possession ; that uncertainty
has now given way to confidence, despondency
to courage. We see families forming into
tribes, and tribes into cities or states, and
states into yet larger unions. . . . We feel
that the ascending series is not complete ; that
as the family in the earliest state is at war
with other families — the tribe at war with
700
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
other tribes, so the nations and races are at
variance with each other ; and that as the
remedy in each previous case has been the
fusion of the smaller into the larger organism,
so it must be still the same if the process is to
be completed, and that no more than the
single family or the isolated tribe can the
greatest nation or the most powerful race
stand wholesomely alone. All must bend, all
must acknowledge a common superior, a higher
organism, detached from which they lose
themselves and their true nature, become sel-
fish and degraded. Still higher organisms
there may be ; we know not. If there be, we
know that we cannot neglect the one we know,
nor refuse to avail ourselves of the aid which
it can give us when once acknowledged and
accepted.
We accept it then, and believe in it. We
see the benefits Humanity has reaped for us
by her toilsome and suffering past; we feel
that we are her children, that we owe her all ;
and seeing and feeling this, we love, adore,
and serve. For we see in her no mere idea of
the intellect, but a living organism within the
range of our knowledge. The family has ever
been allowed to be real ; the state has ever
been allowed to be real ; St. Paul felt, and
since him, in all ages. Christians have felt,
that the Church was real. We claim no less
for Humanity ; we feel no less that Humanity
is real, requiring the same love, the same ser-
vice, the same devotion. ... In the exercise '
of her power she proceeds to complete herself
by two great creations. I
As we contemplate man's action and ex- j
istence, we are led to think of the sphere in '
v/hich they take place, and of the invariable
laws under which they are developed. We
rest not then in any narrow or exclusive spirit |
in Humanity, but we pass to the Earth, our \
common mother, as the general language of i
nlan, the correct index to the universal feel- ;
ing, has ever delighted to call her, and from '
the earth we rise to the system of which she is ■
a part. We look back on the distant ages, '
when the earth was preparing herself for the
habitation of man, and with gratitude and
love we acknowledge her past and present
services. . . . The invariable laws under which ■
Humanity is placed have received various ;
names at different periods. Destiny, Fate, \
Necessity, Heaven, Providence, all are many |
names of one and the same conception — the
laws that man feels himself under, and that
without the power of escaping from them. !
We claim no exception from the common lot.
We only wish to draw out into consciousness
the instinctive acceptance of the race, and to
modify the spirit in which we regard them.
We accept, so have all men : we obey, so have
all men. We venerate, so have some in past
ages or in other countries. We add but one
other term, we love. We would perfect our
submission, and so reap the full benefits of
submission in the improvement of our hearts
and tempers. We take in conception the sura
of the conditions of existence, and we give
them an ideal being and a definite home in
Space — the second great creation which com-
pletes the central one of Humanity. In the
bosom of Space we place the World — and
we conceive of the World, and this our mother
earth, as gladly welcomed to that bosom with
the simplest and purest love, and we give our
love in return.
Thou art folded, thou art lying.
In the light that is undying.
_ Thus we complete the Trinity of our Reli-
gion — Humanity, the World, and Space. So
completed, we recognize its power to give
unity and definiteness to our thoughts, purity
and warmth to our affections, scope and vigour
to our activity. We recognize its power to
regulate our whole being ; to give us that
which it has so long been the aim of all reli-
gion to give — internal union. . . .It har-
monizes us within ourselves by the strong
power of love, and it binds us to our fellow-
men by the same power. It awakens and
quickens our sympathy with the past, uniting
us with the generations that are gone by
firmer ties than have ever been imagined
hitherto. It teaches us to live in the interest
and for the good of the generations that are to
follow in the long succession of years. It
teaches us that for our action in our own
generation, we must live in dutiful submission
to the lessons of the past, to the voice of the
dead, and at the same time we must evoke the
future by the power of imagination, and en-
deavour so to shape our action that it may
conduce to the advantage of that future.
This full exposition of the Religion of
Humanity will, we fear, make many a
reader lose himself in sheer confusion
and bewilderment ; for if his attention
has faltered for a moment, it is not so
easy to take up the thread or identify the
" being " whose existence Mr. Congreve
tells us " is now revealed," or those still
more shadowy abstractions which com-
plete, as he says, "the Trinity of our
religion." For ourselves we are bound
to say, though not willing altogether to
own ourselves deficient in that attribute,
our imagination sinks back appalled at
the tremendous strain thus made upon
it. The divine Trinity of the Christian
Faith has tried many a devout soul into
which doubt or unbelief never entered ;
but the Trinity of the 'Humanitarian goes
a long way beyond the Athanasian Creed.
How are we to lift our minds to the su-
preme regions in which Humanity means
not a vast multitude of faulty men and
women, "but a great Being" — where
the Earth prepares herself for the habita-
tion of man, and Space welcomes the
Earth into her bosom "with the simplest
and purest love " ? The words alone
make the brain reel. We can but gasp
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
701
and gaze at the speaker who deals famil-
iarly with such unknown quantities, and
professes even to " love " the Space which
is one of his divinities. How does a man
feel, we wonder, when he loves Space ?
Is the emotion stupendous as its object ?
In the nature of things it must be, we
should suppose, a chilly sort of passion,
not making a very great demand upon the
feelings.
We are half inclined to laugh, but
rather more than half inclined to a very
different exercise when we turn from the
belief thus propounded to the person who
sets it forth, with all that gentle reitera-
tion which belongs to the preacher, and
an apparent warmth of pious sentiment
such as must be peculiar to the man.
Many wonderful phenomena has the con-
junction of atheism and faith produced in
the world ; for indeed an unbelieving head
and a credulous heart are often enough
conjoined, and the marriage has produced
abortions of strange delusion enough to
astonish the most experienced observer :
but very seldom, we think, has any one
ventured to stand up before a world, still
in its senses, and propound so extraor-
dinary a faith, so piously, so fervently, so
simply, as Mr. Congreve has done. He
has the first qualification of a preacher —
the art of believing what he himself says,
and believing it with earnest force and
conviction. These words sound much
too real when we think what are the ob-
jects of his faith ; and yet, so far as he is
concerned, they are evidently true. No
lukewarm zeal shines through the dis-
course, but a real warmth, which increases
still more the amazement with which we
gaze at the man. However woful and
wonderful his creed may be, he believes
it by some extraordinary witchcraft. He
talks to us of Humanity and Space as a
man might talk of God and Christ, with
moisture in his eyes and a certain expan-
sion and glow of being, as if the words
inspired him. Strange fact ! — but true.
Almost we wish, for Mr. Congreve's sake,
that we could respect his belief more, and
feel his abnegation of all reasonableness
»more justifiable. If he were a Moham-
medan, or a Buddhist, or a born Brah-
min, it is with a kind of reverence that
we should contemplate the believer so
profoundly certain of his faith and eager
to extend its sway. But after we have
heard him hold forth for pages together
about Humanity and Space, about the
Founder and his memory, about the
duties of the new-born tiny sect, and their
fellowship of the saints with the congre-
gation in Paris and that in America —
when the tension of our wondering gaze
relaxes, what utterance is possible to the
beholder but that tremulous laugh which
is the only alternative of weeping, over
the prelections of this gentle enthusiast,
this amiable fanatic ? A laugh is a sorry
performance as commentary in such a mat-
ter ; but there is only one other alterna-
tive which could express the puzzled be-
wilderment and painful wonder which rise
in our minds ; and indeed even tears do
not render so well the pity and amuse-
ment, the sympathy and impatience, the
admiration we feel for the loyal disciple,
the sense of provoked vexation and an-
noyance with which we look upon the
wasted man.
We cannot venture in our limited space
to quote much more largely from the
curious book, which, however is but little
likely, we should suppose, to meet with
many readers. The mixture of home
mission details with the grandeur of this
philosophical religion, is still more odd
here than it generally is when mixed up
with genuine feeling and serious thought.
Some of these contrasts, indeed, are too
comical to be passed without notice. In
one of these discourses, for instance, we
are taught what is the office of the Priest-
hood (when formed) in the Religion of
Humanity, how wide are their claims, and
how lofty is the position they aspire to.
Such claims Mr. Congreve tells us — and
with truth — no Christian priest would
venture to put forth ; and wisely — for if
he did, no community would ever allow
them. But the Priesthood of Humanity
will take higher ground than is possible
to that of Christendom. Here is the
statement of their claims : —
I begin by restating what I have often
stated before — my conviction that for the full
meeting of the difficulties, for the satisfactory
accomplishment of the work of education in
all its complexity, there is no other power but
religion to which we can profitably appeal ;
that for the instruction of this and other
nations, we must rely on a religious or-
ganization, — on the organization, that is, of
a body of men animated by the same re-
ligious convictions, undertaking the task
in the same spirit as a religious duty, and
making its performance the ground of their
whole existence and action — the justifica-
tion of their being an organization. In
other words, none but a Priesthood can be
qualified to instruct — none but a Priesthood
can duly guide society to the right conception
of education, to the right conception of its
more peculiar organ — the family, and of its
own action in subordination to that organ.
702
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
Then arises the question, Is there such a body ?
There exist Priesthoods around us of more or
less power and cohesion. But there is not
which would claim to answer to the descrip-
tion given. . . . The new Priesthood of Hu-
manity now in the slow process of formation
enters then on ground not previously occupied,
when it claims for itself the province of higher
instruction as its peculiar work, its raison
detre — the great primary object of its ex-
istence and action, that on which all its other
functions are seen to rest. It is as yet, as I
said, but in the process of formation ; it needs
long and vigorous efforts from all the servants
of Humanity to aid it in its constitution ; but
whilst recognizing these facts, we who, by the
force of circumstances and the exigencies of
our position, are, however iihperfectly, mem-
bers of this nascent organization, must not
shrink from claiming for it that which is to be
its appropriate province. It, and it alone, if
worthy of its place, can instruct the children
of Humanity with the complete instruction
which they need for the purposes of their
being. It is enough that others serve another
power, and cannot therefore be consequent
servants of Humanity. They might, and they
will, to a great extent, and most usefully, give
the same knowledge, but they cannot give it
with the same logical consistency as we do.
They may help us, but we finally supersede
them.
The reader will perceive that no pope,
no mediaeval priest, ever made a vaster
claim, or set up a more infallible right.
When what is technically called an " Ap-
peal " is made for the Home Mission, for
the favourite parochial scheme of evan-
gelization, or for the missionary to the
heathen, conventionally so called, it is of
ordinary usage to give a wide and vague
description of the blessings to be secured
by the special " work " for which the sym-
pathies of a Christian people are appealed
to ; but few, even of the most fervent, ven-
ture to say " this agency, and this alone,
can instruct" the ignorant. We, and we
alone, are the men who can save our race.
This, however, Mr. Congreve says with-
out hesitation ; to him it is tout simple.
Of all the complicated subjects in the
world, this one of education is the most
difficult ; but he is provided with the ma-
chinery which can solve all difficulties,
the organization which has the final
power in its hands. What is the appeal
he makes after this grand introduction ?
Has he a Priesthood ready to enter upon
its work ; has he a band of eager disci-
ples ready, if only the means are fur-
nished, to set the new world in the right
way at once ; has he an Apostolate at
least, wanting only that "penny siller"
which is nowadays the indispensable con-
dition of all benevolent enterprises ? We
turn the page, and we find stated in all
simplicity the modest boundary of the
new Religion's hopes.
Those who recognize the insufficiency of
other educational schemes, the incompetence
of other clergies, ... to all such I appeal for
aid in forwarding the formation of the new
Priesthood. I cannot say how urgent I think
this qiiestion, how important is a steady unin-
termittent effort to base on a solid foundation
the fund for the Priesthood of the human
faith. . . . Immediately this only concerns
one, but that one is of the highest importance.
To form a fund sufficient, both in amount and
certainty, to dispense with the great pressure
upon our director's energies, that is the most
immediate object we can set before us. I may
do what he would not do, urge this on all
Positivists, and, indeed, on all who sympathize
with us from outside.
Alas for the world and its chance of
renovation ! alas for the children of Hu-
manity whom only the Priesthood of Hu-
manity can fully instruct ! There is but
one priest in question, one man whom
all Positivists are entreated to unite in
making a provision for, so that he may
devote all his energies to the new-born
Church. From the sublime to the ridicu-
lous is but a step. Surely the members
of the young community, were they half
as much in earnest as Mr. Congreve,
would soon find means of liberating M.
Lafitte,' the spiritual director of their
sect, the head of their religion, so to
speak, from the temporal work which di-
vides his thoughts with the care of his
flock. If it is true, according to the vul-
gar idea, that liberality in offerings is the
best sign of warm partisanship and
strong conviction, then we fear Positiv-
ism, after all, must have a weaker claim
upon its votaries than is to be desired.
In the same discourse, a page further on,
the preacher makes another most modest
suggestion, too gentle to be called an ap-
peal, which still further exposes the un-
fortunate contrast between the splendid
pretensions of the new sect, and the
means it possesses of carrying them out.
Secondly, I think we should keep before us
the question of acquiring some room or
rooms where lectures might be given, where
even more elementary teaching might be given
if wanted — a Positive school or institute, as
it might be called. This is a point which
already has struck some of our body. I can
only beg of them not to lose sight of it, but to
see how far and where it is realizable. ... It
remains essential for us in any case to see
whether we can provide ourselves with a local
habitation — a seat of Positivism.
ESSAYS BY RICHARD CONGREVE.
703
Was there ever a more modest, more
touching suggestion of a want ? What !
one room only, one poor room ! to make
a home for a great philosophy, a univer-
sal religion ? We do not know how the
reader may feel, but we confess that our
first impulse was to reply promptly —
Yes, certainly, you amiable soul ! you
shall have a room, and that at ortce.
Poor though we are, (and where is the
critic who is not poor ?) we can yet man-
age to make this little sacrifice, nay, even
to buy a plaster bust or two to adorn the
same and make you happy. We put on
record the instinctive response of our
heart, in which we have no doubt the
reader will sympathize, for our own satis-
faction, and because perhaps it may
please Mr. Congreve to hear of it.. But
we have great pleasure in informing the
public that the sacrifice which we were
so genially disposed to make has not been
necessary, but that the Positivist body
itself has proved equal to the task im-
posed upon it, and that the Room has
been attained. Here is our mild Apostle's
own account of so gratifying a fact : —
In England, during the past year, we have
made a great advance. When, on the last
anniversary of this festival, I mentioned cer-
tain objects as desirable, I had little expecta-
tion that we should, by the next anniversary,
have got so far towards their attainment. We
have been now for nine months in possession
of this room, and the gain to our cause has
been, and will be, undoubtedly great. It gives
us a centre of action, a place to which those
who wish to hear more of our teaching may
come, as well as a rallying-point for ourselves ;
and it gives us, moreover, what is on all
grounds so valuable to us, a sense of perma-
nence. It gives us the unity of place in
exchange for the unpleasant but necessary
changes to which we were previously driven.
It enables our associations to fix themselves,
and to gain the strength which fixity gives.
It is in the highest degree calculated to pro-
mote our sense of order. There is good
reason, I think, to hope that it will give a
very strong impulse to our progress. Nor is
it the mere room we have, but in the collec-
tion of the busts of the calendar which orna-
ment our walls, together with the pictures
which, as the room becomes drier, may be
added in increasing numbers, we see not
merely with gratitude the liberality of our
members, but the evidence of that worship of
the dead which is characteristic of Positivism,
and the beginnings of that artistic develop-
ment which it sets before it as one of its great
ends. None can enter the room and give the
most passing attention to that series of busts
without being struck with the historical char-
acter which attaches to our religion. They
should be, and will be, a valuable impression *
for all, and the Positivist cause is much in-
debted to those who have placed them there.
We cannot conclude more fitly than
with this gratifying announcement. The
Room (it is surely worth a capital) is sit-
uated in Chapel Street, Bedford Row,
No. 19. There Mr. Congreve preaches
on Sunday mornings, taking "the practi-
cal and religious side of the subjects,"
and Mr. Beesly on Sunday evenings tak-
ing " the historical side." There all men
who will may be informed by the collec-
tion of busts and the pictures, which no
doubt has been added to by this time ;
there we may learn how to say a litany to
Humanity, and pray to that great Be-
ing, and contemplate, in and through
Humanity, the august figure of M. Comte.
There, too, we may be taught how to
love Space, and to understand the re-
sponsive passion of that highly compre-
hensible entity. Furthermore, if you
wish it, dear reader, you may there be
initiated into the dates and names of the
new religion, and date your letter Moses
19th, instead of January 19th, Aristotle
instead of March, Dante instead of July,
Gutemberg instead of September ; and
so forth. The first day of Moses in the
86th year of the blessed French Revolu-
tion, for instance, would be the date in
the Calendar at No. 19 Chapel Street,
Bedford Row, for what we called the ist of
January 1874 in profane parlance. Think
of that, all who aspire to superiority and
singularity ! To be sure, in the present
rudimentary state of the community, this
system of dates is troublesome, since the
old-world, effete Christian date must still
be added to insure comprehension ; but
in the natural course of events the old
must displace the new, and this unsatis-
factory state of affairs will no doubt come
to an end.
* We feel too much attached to Mr. Congreve to
criticise his grammar or his mode of expressing him-
self ; but it troubles our limited intelligence to know
how a series of busts can be "a valuable impression."
We admit, however, that after our effort to comprehend
the love of Space and the worship of Humanity, we
may have got a little confused as to what words mean.
704
MISCELLANY.
A GOOD deal of attention has lately been
paid to the daughters of Louis XV. Attempts
have been made by some to prove that one of
the six was a saint, by others to prove that
three at least were stained with abominable
crimes. Both are alike unsuccessful. Mdme.
Louise appears, from an article by M. Jules
Soury in the Revue des Deux Mondes, to have
survive her, and died in great obscurity
February i8, 1800. All who are interested in
the domestic history of the period which pre-
ceded the great Revolution should turn to this
article. M. Soury has consulted the chief
works recently published and a number of in-
edited documents, and he has invested with
wonderful life and reality the biography of
"""•"il
It is stated that in 1849 ^ brother of King
Coffee, named Aquasi Boachi, and then of
about twenty years of age, lived at Vienna for
several months. He was taken from Coomas-
sie by some Dutchmen at the age of nine,
brought up at Amsterdam; and afterwards sent
to the -School of Mines at Freiberg. He
spoke three or four European languages, and
showed much intelligence and love of study.
Not wishing to return to his country, he en-
tered the service of the Dutch colony at
Batavia, where he was found by the Novara
of director
^ expedition, holding the office of director of
The affection which they ) mines, and enjoying the respect
whom he was brought in contact.
of all with
Academy.
been diseased in mind and body, a mixture of j these last daughters of the House of France
wounded vanity, ambition, casuistry, and in-
trigue. The others had, in greater or less de-
gree, the merits and defects of the house of
Bourbon. Voluptuous and full-blooded, de-
voted to the pleasures of the table and the
chase, with constitutions prone to hereditary
disease, and good natural abilities debased by
the wretched education of the convent and the
Court, and soured by the disappointments of a
useless life, they were but ill-fitted to bolster
up a falling dynasty, to foster the feeling of
loyalty in an exasperated people, to recom-
mend the precepts of Ultramontanism to a
nation of sceptics and Encyclopedists. Their
influence over their unhappy niece, Marie An-
toinette, was for evil, as she herself at last
recognized. Their language was too free for
the by no means fastidious courtiers of the
eighteenth century.
bore their father, one of the redeeming traits
in their character, deep and self-sacrificing as
it was, was too effusive to escape scandal. The
little traits which distinguished the sisters,
except the scheming devotee Louise, and per-
haps the timid Sophie, are well brought out
by M. Soury, who is a careful student and
able exponent of character. Their disposi-
tions were mainly Bourbon, intermingled with
some Polish traits inherited from their mother,
Maria Leczinkska, whose joyless destiny irre-
sistibly reminds us of Catharine of Braganza,
as the records of the Louis Quinze period so
often recall the vivid pages of Pepys and the
England of his day. The record of their lives j fully accomplished. The line nas smce
is in itself no great contribution to history. • thoroughly tried, and is now in working order,
The eldest, Elizabeth, became the wife of the - • . . - .
third son of Philip V. of Spain, afterwards
Duke of Parma, a dissolute, w^eak-minded
prince, who was always out at elbows. She
was known as the poor Duchess, and was saved
from utter misery by her love for her children,
a feature which she shared in common with
her father, Louis XV. The others were never
married. Mdme. Louise, the youngest, retired
in 1770 to the Carmelite monastery of St.
Denis, her " angel " being Julienne de Mac-
Mahon, and became the mainspring of Jesuit
intrigues and Ultramontane intolerance, and a
passionate collector of all sorts of relics, es-
pecially the entire bodies of saints. Only two,
Adelaide and Victoire, were living when the
Revolution — which their father had but too
surely foreseen, and had done his best to
With the object of improving the means of
communication between Russia and Turkey, an
agreement was entered into last year between
the two governments to grant to a Dane of the
name of Tityen a concession to lay down and
work a submarine cable between Odessa and
Constantinople. By virtue of this concession,
Tityen formed a company, and on May ii
last the task of laying the cable was success-
fully accomplished. The line has since been
thoroughly tried, ai
the charge being fixed at 14 francs for an or-
dinary message from any inland town of Russia
to one in Turkey, and 12 francs from Odessa
to Constantinople. Academy.
According to the most recent and careful
calculations, the population of Japan amounts
to 33,000,000. The country is divided into
717 districts, 12,000 towns, and 76,000 vil-
lages, containing an aggregate of about 7,000,-
000 houses, and no less than 98,000 Buddhist
temples. Among the population are in-
cluded 29 princes and princesses, 1,300 nobles,
1,000,000 peasants (about half of whom are
hired labourers), and about 800,000 merchants
render inevitable — burst upon France. They : and shopkeepers. The number of cripples is
fled to Rome, and, on the approach of the
revolutionary armies, to Trieste, where Vic-
toire died in May, 1799. Her sister, the im-
petuous and masculine Adelaide, did not long
estimated at about 100,000, and there are
6,464 prisoners in confinement throughout the
country. Academy.
LITTELL'S LIVIN'G AGE.
Fifth Series, I j^q, 1580. -September 19, 1874. J^T^^egmnrng,
Volume VII. ; ■^ ' _ C Vol. GXXIIi
CONTENTS.
I. English Vers de Societe, .... Quarterly Review^ . . . 707
II. Three Feathers. By William Black, au-
thor of '* The Strange Adventures of a
Phaeton," ** The Princess of Thule," etc., . Comhill Magazine^ . . . 720
III. Homer's Place in History. By Hon. W.
E. Gladstone, Contemporary Review^ . . . 74^
IV. Alice Lorraine. A Tale of the South
Downs. By the author of " The Maid of
Sker," etc. Part X., BlackwoocTs Magazine^ . '755
V. Mary Lamb's Letters, .... Spectator, 761
VI. Professor Tyndall's Address, . . . Spectator^ ..... 765
POETRY.
A Message — An Answer, . . . 706 1 The Fisher, 768
Sonnet, 706 I
Miscellany, 767, 768
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7o6
A MESSAGE — AN ANSWER, ETC.
A MESSAGE — AN ANSWER.
I HEARD that life was failing thee ; and sent
A rose, the Chalice of Love's Sacrament,
Thinking that the sweet heart of her should
show
How one remembers thee, that long ago
Had steeped the rose in tears, long dried, long
spent.
Not that my messenger should stir thy breast,
Or passion move thee, that for only guest
Should have the Lord of Life, thy soul to
guide
Through the Death-valley to the other
side —
Thy only love be now the First and Best —
But that before the awful shadows creep
Across thee, and thou fall indeed asleep,
Thy whitening fingers once might wander in
The petal's depths ; and thou, remembering,
Mightst send some token to a friend to keep.
A friend, — O sacred word of depth divine !
Passion may fade as fadeth pale moonshine.
And glories fail from off the earth and sea.
But what shall hinder us, if unto me
Thou say, — "I am thy friend, and thou art
mine .'' "
Love halteth trembling at the Gates of Life,
Afraid to enter, since her heat is strife.
And she transfused is with earth's unrest ;
But for us, friend, it hath long since been
best, —
Love past a long while since, when Love was
rife.
O friend ! — they say that thou art drifting
past —
Let but a whisper from thy lips be cast,
And I will thither come with eager feet.
And search about thee, dead, for that one
sweet, —
And know that it is mine, and hold it fast !
Trouble thee would I not, that know, dear
friend ;
Only before the silence of the end
Speak ! since forevermore mine ear must be
Racked with the silence of Eternity !
And I, — I have but this pale rose to send !
II.
At night, as I lay still upon my bed,
Weary of thinking of a friend long dead,
And of a message that I sent to him, —
Of the no-answer that he, passing, sent
Of the all -darkness of the way he went.
Tears, spent for friendship, made mine eyes
grow dim. —
When on my window-sill I heard the moa
Of a meek dove, that in sad undertone
Complained most piteously. " O dove ! "
said,
" Torment me not, for friends have been
true.
And Love in dying slayeth friendship too,]
And faith of mine is buried with my dead.
But then it seemed God touched my stubboi
ear,
And all my soul awoke, and I could hear
Divinest answer coming in the moan.
" O friend ! " the answer said, " thou false
true !
Thou stirrest ever my repose anew."
(And then there came a thrilling in the tone,) ■
*' What tidings wouldst thou have ? From
to thee
Never can message come o'er land or sea.
Living I found no speech to frame my soul,
And all my soul is thine ! And entere
here,
I find it even so. In this pure sphere
Love rangeth ever, knowing no control.
1
I
"But that which thou didst know of old on
earth MM
Is born again ; and from the second birth m%
Stands measureless of stature, grown divine ! '
If on the earth and in my dying hour
Words none had I, nor yet could find a
flower
To take a message to one friend of mine.
" How shall it be that this unfathomed Love
Should find its token in the heaven above, MM
Or in the earth beneath me, or the sea ? H
We lived long years of silence there below, —
O be content ! and for thy healing know
Silence alone hath voice to answer thee I "
Spectator. C. C. FrASER-TytLErJ
SONNET.
I FELT a spirit of love begin to stir
Within my heart, long time unfelt till then ;
And saw Love coming towards me, fair and
fain
(That I scarce knew him for his joyful cheer),
Saying, " Be now indeed my worshipper ! "
And in his speech he laugh'd and laugh'd
again.
Then, while it was his pleasure to remain,
I chanced to look the way he had drawn near,
And saw the Ladies Joan and Beatrice
Approach me, this the other following, ■■
One and a second marvel instantly. II
And even as now my memory speaketh this,
Love spake it then : " The first is christenei.
Spring ;
The second Love, she is so like to me."|
f. Dante, Translated by Rosset
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
707
From The Quarterly Review.
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.*
The writer of vers de sociite (for which
we have no corresponding term in the
English language) stands in the same
relation to the audience of the salon and
the club as the ballad-writer to that of
the alehouse and the street. The one
circle is more cultivated than the other,
but the poet must equally reflect its tone,
think its thoughts, and speak its language.
Not a few of the brightest specimens of
;his poetry are of anonymous authorship.
Many of its best writers whose names
lave been recorded were not professed
3oets, but courtiers, statesmen, divines,
>oldiers, wits, or " men about town," who
:ombined with their intimate knowledge
md quick observation of the world a suf-
icient facility in the production of easy
sparkling verse to win the ear of their
:ircle. Whenever, as has often been the
case in our literary history, a poet of high
genius or graceful accomplishment has
:ultivated this branch of the art, he has
lot failed to enrich it with his own pecu-
iar charm. But, as Isaac D'Israeli has
Dointed out in his essay on the subject,
he possession of genius is " not always
sufficient to impart that grace of amen-
ty" which is essentially characteristic
)f verse " consecrated to the amusement
Df society. Compositions of this kind,
ifEusions of the heart and pictures of the
magination, produced in the convivial,
;he amatory, and the pensive hour," de-
iiand, as he goes on to show, rather the
ikill of a man of the world than a man of
etters. " The poet must be alike pol-
shed by an intercourse with the world as
'Vith the studies of taste, one to whom
abour is negligence, refinement a science,
md art a nature." f
Mr. Locker, in his admirable preface to
* I. Lyra Elegant iarutn ; a Collection 0/ some of
he best Specime7is of Vers de Sociiti, S^c. Edited by
riderick Locker. London, 1867.
2. Ballads. By W. M. Thackeray. London, 1856.
3. London Lyrics. By Frederick Locker. Sixth
E-dition. London, 1873.
4- Verses and Translations. By C. S. C. Second
Edition. Cambridge, 1862.
5. Fly-leaves. By C. S. C. Cambridge, 1872.
6. Vignettes in Rhyme and Vers de Societi. By
\ustin Dobson. London, 1873.
t " Literary Miscellanies" (Edition of 1863), p. 308.
the volume that heads our list, has ex-
panded a similar view with copious illus-
tration. He is careful to remark that
while in this species of verse " a bou-
doir decorum is or ought always to be
preserved, where sentiment never surges
into passion, and where humour never
overflows into boisterous merriment," it
" need by no means be confined to topics
of artificial life, but subjects of the most ex-
alted and of the most trivial character may
be treated with equal success," provided
the conditions of the art be duly observed.
What those conditions are he proceeds
to show. His definition of them is
straiter than Isaac D'Israeli's, and some-
what too exacting, for it would be easy to
prove that many of the poems admitted
into his collection do not unreservedly
comply with them. A certain " conver-
sational " tone, as he notes, generally per-
tains to the best vers de societi. The
qualities essential to the successful con-
duct of conversation will accordingly be
observed in them, — savoir-faire., spright-
liness, brevity, or neatness of expression.
Humour, the salt of well-bred conversa-
tion, is one of their commonest character-
istics ; and egotism, a soitpqon of which
is never grudged to an agreeable talker,
frequently lends them flavour and pi-
quancy. But these are not indispensable
ingredients. Such verse is as often
purely sentimental, and may at times be
tinged, although not too strongly, with
the emotion of which sentiment is but the
mental simulacnim. No precise defini-
tion, indeed, is possible of a poetry so
volatile, a wind-sown seed of fancy, for
which circumstance serves as soil and
opportunity as sun, and that varies with
the nature of its subject, the disposition
of its writer, and still more the temper of
its age.
This brings us to what we deem the
special feature that distinguishes it from
other branches of the art, its representa-
tive value as a reflection of history. To
this aspect of the subject, upon which we
doubt if sufficient stress has yet been
laid, the following observations must
mainly be devoted. The remark already
made respecting the living interest of the
poetry of society applies with equal force
7o8
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
to its historical interest. Since the days
of Horace and Martial it has owed this
less to the genius and culture of its au-
thors, great as they have often been, than
to the abstract merit of its faithfulness
as a contemporary mirror and chrono-
graph of manners. We use the word
manners here in its largest sense, as the
external index of the moral and intellec-
tual, religious and political standards ac-
cepted at a given epoch. How strongly
imprinted upon the face of a literature
are the characteristics of the national life
whence it has sprung ; how closely inter-
woven with its fabric are the beliefs and
habits, the aspirations and tendencies,
which have acquired for the people that
produced it their particular place in his-
tory, has been demonstrated by such
critics as M. Taine from abundant re-
sources upon an extensive scale. The
same thesis, however, may admit of illus-
tration within the limits of a province so
restricted as that of vers de societe j and
in the volume which we have selected as
a text-book, the materials have been so
skilfully brought together, that the task
of assortment for this purpose is com-
paratively easy. The development of our
national character during the last three
centuries, the changes which the canons
of literary taste, the standards of social
morality, the relations of the sexes, and
the equilibrium of political forces, have
severally undergone in the interval, may
here be traced with the least possible fa-
tigue by the light of the most fascinating
of studies.
If the lines of Skelton (" Merry Mar-
garet "), with which the " Lyra Elegan-
tiarum " fitly opens, quaint with insular
mannerism and racy of Chaucer's Eng-
lish, mark the stagnant condition of our
literature since the impulse imparted to
that master's genius by the dawning
of the Renaissance in Italy, the accom-
panying lines of Surrey ("The means to
attain happy Life ") and of Wyatt (" The
one he would love ") owe their thoughtful
calm and grave sweetness to the influ-
ence of that revival at its noontide, and
a closer study of those Italian models
which were still the criterion of literary
art in Europe. The luxuriant verdure
into which our poetry burgeoned under
its radiance, in an atmosphere purified bv
the Reformation of religion, is favour-
ably illustrated in the specimen-lyrics
here given of the Elizabethan era. Of
the manifold elements which then con-
tributed to the abounding wealth of na-
tional life, not a few are thus represented.
The courtesy and constancy of which
Sidney was the foremost type are as man-
ifest in his love-songs (" The Serenade"
and "A Ditty") as in the career which
closed so gallantly at Zutphen. Raleigh's
philosophical " Description of Love," and
" Nymph's reply to the passionate Shep-
herd," reminds us that the brilliant cour-
tier and adventurous voyager was at the
same time the historian of the world
The verses attributed to Shakespeare, t(
which the latter poem is a reply, " M\
flocks feed not," and Breton's charming
madrigal, " In the merry month of May,'
introduce us into the fictitious Arcadi;"
created by Spenser and Sidney, which
however graceful in its origin as an idylli -
reflection of the chivalric revival, subse
quently degenerated into so poor a share
There is a truer ring, an unaffectei^
smack of the soil, in such poems as Ro'
ert Greene's " Happy as a Shephen.
and " Content," wherein the healthy idr
of a countrv life, for which Englishmt
have ever cherished an avowed or a s«
cret yearning, is depicted in admired cot
trast with the delights of a palace. The-
is scarcely a period in our literature wh^
the lips of courtiers and statesmen, wi
and worldlings, have not, in some for
or other, echoed the sentiment of the
lines : —
The homely house that harbours quiet rest,
The cottage that affords no pride nor cart
The mean that 'grees with country music be
The sweet consort of mirth and music's far
Obscured life sets down a type of bliss.
A mind content both crown and kingdom is
The rough strength and unspoilt gra
which were so kindly tempered in B
Jonson by the addition of classical ci
ture, make themselves felt in such lyri
as " To Celia " and " Chads," more th
one counterpart to which the Edi
might have extracted from " The Fores
and " Underwoods." The conceits
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
709
c Care w, on the other hand (" Ask me no
[ Tiore," &c.), seem to betray his infection
\ mih the false taste which the " Euphues "
Df Lyly has the discredit of introducing
nto Elizabethan English. The contem-
porary poems of Sir Robert Ayton are ad-
mirable examples of that purer style
.vhich had arisen with Surrey and was to
:ulminate with Milton. Their burden
)f woman's inconstancy and man's self-
•especting dignity (" I loved thee once,"
md "1 do confess thou'rt smooth and
air") is a favourite theme with the poets
)f this period, and marks a reaction
igainst the exaggerated ideal of woman-
lood, which, among other incidents of
he Neo-chivalry, Spenser, Sidney, and
heir fellows had loyally striven to re-
store. George Wither's "Shall I, wast-
ng in despair," which breathes of the
i'mter's ante-Puritan days, is the best-
cnown embodiment of this reactionary
;pirit. It is but a mild prelude to the
one of jovial recklessness and de haut eii
ms gallantry running through the lyrics
)f Sir John Suckling. No more charac-
eristic vers de soci^td than his " Careless
Lover," " Why so pale ? " " Out upon it,
[ have loved," " The Siege," and " Love
md Debt," are to be found in the lan-
guage. The opening verse of the latter,
.vith its pious aspiration —
That I were fairly out of debt
As I am out of love,
ichoes the living voice of the roistering
:avalier, as light-hearted in the day of
prosperity as he was free-handed. The
oyal devotion of which that type was ca-
pable in the crisis of adversity imparts
;he glow of inspiration to the exquisite
3oems of Lovelace. His " Tell me not,
Sweet, I am unkind," and "To Althaea
;rom prison," familiar as a household
.vord in every line, are instinct with that
:harm of emotional nobleness of which
;he thousandth repetition never makes us
A'eary.
More completely representative of the
Cavalier poets is Herrick, of whose de-
licious lyrics this volume affords many
examples. Alike in his chivalrous loyalty
avowed the most openly when Fortune
was the least favourable to his cause, his
outbursts of devotional feeling, his lapses
into the grossest sensualism, his robust
English instincts, his refined classic cul-
ture, his absorption in the pursuit of in-
dividual pleasure and blindness to the
signs of national distress, he aptly ex-
emplifies a party whose aspect of moral
and intellectual paradox is its distinguish-
ing note in history. Of the disastrous
defeat which, owing to this instability,
his party suffered at the hands of the
earnest, strait-laced Puritans, " men of
one idea," Herrick bore his full share.
Had his political sympathies been less
pronounced than they were, such an
amorous bacchanalian priest would never
have been allowed to hold the cure of
souls at Dean Prior while a " painful
preacher of the Word " could be found
to take his place. To the pressure of
poverty consequent upon his superses-
sion and exile in London, we owe the
publication of his " Noble Numbers," a
collection exclusively sacred,, in 1647, and
his " Hesperides," a collection miscella-
neously profane, in 1648. It is signifi-
cant of the writer's character that the
former opens with his prayer for the Di-
vine forgiveness of the very
unbaptized rhymes
Writ in my wild unhallowed times,
which in the following year he permitted
himself to include within the latter.
" Unbaptized," in the strictest sense of
the word, many of these verses assuredly
are. The poet in his distress seems to
have raked together every scrap that he
had written, and mingled the freshest
tokens of his inspiration with the sickli-
est and the foulest records of his bad
taste, without any attempt at assortment.
Whatever drawback be allowed for the
inconsistency of the poet and the ine-
quality of his verse, the " Hesperides "
will still be cherished among our most
precious lyrical treasures. Herrick is
eminent among those poets of society
whose art has a special charm irrespec-
tive of its representative or historical in-
terest. That quality which is universally
recognized as grace, undefinable but un-
mistakable as an aroma, seldom deserts
him even when his theme is the coarsest.
In choice simplicity of language and or-
derly freedom of versification few of our
710
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
highest poets have equalled him. These
merits are most observable in the poems
that approach nearest to classic models ;
as, for example, the idyll of " Corinna's
going a-maying," and the elegiac verses
"To Perilla;"* but his least studied
effusions bear marks of the same train-
ing. Take, for instance, these lines "To
Dianeme : " —
Sweet, be not proud of those two eyes
Which, star-like, sparkle in their skies ;
Nor be you proud, that you can see
All hearts your captives, — yours yet free :
Be you not proud of that rich hair.
Which wantons with the love-sick air ;
Whenas that ruby which you wear.
Sunk from the tip of your soft ear,
Will last to be a precious stone
When all your world of beauty's gone.
In his erotics, which form nine-tenths
of the " Hesperides," tender feeling and
delicate fancy are too often tainted with
an impurity that it is difficult to eliminate,
but there are a few like the following,
which contain not a word that could be
wished away : —
The Bracelet.
Why I tie about thy wrist,
Julia, this my silken twist,
For what other reason is't.
But to show thee how, in part,
Thou my pretty captive art ?. —
But thy bond-slave is my heart.
'Tis but silk that bindeth thee, —
Snap the thread, and thou art free ;
But 'tis otherwise with me :
I am bound, and fast bound, so
That from thee I cannot go :
If I could, I would not so !
Although as a painter of manners Her-
rick has left no single sketch so com-
plete as Suckling's famous " Ballad on a
Wedding," his profuse allusions to con-
temporary customs, games, articles of
dress, furniture, and viands, afford ample
materials from which a picture of his
times may be constructed. The lewdness
that had been fatal to him under the
Commonwealth was no doubt the ground
of his popularity under the Restoration ;
a popularity to which no consideration of
the obligations involved in his calling
can be supposed to have offered any
hindrance. His poetry thus acquires an
1
would
* The description of raornlng-dew in the former,
" Take no care
For jewels for your gown or hair . . .
The childhood of the day hath kept
Against you come some orient pearls unwept ; "
and the phrase applied to death in the latter,
** The cool and silent shades of sleep,'
nay serve as illustrations of his exquisite diction.
historical significance greater than
otherwise belong to it.
The excess of the carnal over the
spiritual element in the prevalent concep-
tion of love, may explain the degenera-
tion of feeling into sentiment, and of
fancy into ornament, that characterizes
the erotic poetry of the Restoration.
Sedley, Rochester, and Etherege scarcely
pretend to passion, and are content to
display their skill in concealing its ab
sence under the glitter of verbal smar;
ness. One unique example. Wallers
charming poem on a girdle, redeems the
cycle of contemporary love-verse from a
wholesale charge of insincerity : —
That which her slender waist confined
Shall now my joyful temples bind ;
No monarch but would give his crown|
His arms might do what this has done
It was my heaven's extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely dear.
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love
Did all within this circle move !
A narrow compass ! and yet there
Dwelt all that's good, and all that's fair •
Give me but what this riband bound,
Take all the rest the sun goes round. HI
Lord Dorset's " Phillis, for shame ! "
has also an echo of truth in its tone of
grave remonstrance with a half-hearted
mistress, while his spirited lyric, " To all
you Ladies now on Land," written on the
eve of a naval engagement with the
Dutch, affords a rare glimpse of the
healthy English temper which not all the
corruption of Court-life and the deca-
dence of statesmanly honour under the
later Stuarts had been able to vitiate.
Of the greatest poets of the age we find .
but scanty record in the "Lyra." Milton
is wholly absent. Dryden is only repre-
sented by two frigid pieces of sentimen
and one fine fragment, " Fortune,"
which scarcely belongs to the category of
vers desociete. Cowley, however, appears
to better advantage in his graceful poem.
" A Wish," wherein the ideal of rum
contentment, so dear to the national im
agination, reappears under conditions a
little favourable as possible to its birtl
and culture.
The influence that has left most trac^
upon the social poetry of the next ge
eration is that of the sovereignty whi
France imposed upon\our morals a
taste at the very time when we had de
throned her from the empire of land a
sea. The prevalence of a cynical, selfi
view of life, of a practical cont
11
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
711
veiled under a theoretical reverence for
virtue, the superiority of wit to truth,
of manner to matter, are salient features
in the lighter literature of the time. The
frivolity and caprice of fashion which
Addison and Steele unweariedly com-
memorated in easy and graceful prose,
as if the scope of human activity con-
tained no other theme of equal interest,
were immortalized by Prior and Pope in
airy and sparkling verse. Foreign words
and phrases, appropriate to their subject,
then openly intruded into the language
of Chaucer and Shakespeare, and have
left an impression of affectation and sick-
liness upon a literature otherwise manly
and sound. We shall be understood as
referring only to its intellectual charac-
teristics ; sound, in a moral sense, being
the last epithet that could justly be ap-
plied to such a writer as Prior. He rep-
resents but too faithfully the standard of
contemporary society. The duplicity of
eminent statesmen and officials, the tol-
erance extended in the highest circles to
the grosser vices, and the lewdness ac-
cepted as indispensable to the attractions
of fiction and the drama, form a dark
background to the glories which science
and philosophy, strategy and policy, have
shed upon our " Augustan " age. The
shadow falls upon the career and is re-
flected in the verse of Prior. Shifty and
brilliant in public, licentious and urbane
in private life, he wrote as he lived. Wit
and worldly wisdom, the Epicurean's
creed and the sensualist's experience,
are embodied in lyrics worthy of Horace,
and epigrams only excelled by Pope.
" Dear Chloe," " The Merchant to secure
his treasure," and " The Secretary," are
of course included in the " Lyra ; " but
we wonder at the omission of a poem so
characteristic of the writer's elegant in-
sincerity as the lines addressed to a lady
who broke off an argument which she
had commenced with him. The follow-
ing are amongst its best verses : —
In the dispute whate'er I said,
My heart was by my tongue belied ;
And in my looks you might have read
How much I argued on your side.
You, far from danger as from fear,
Might have sustain'd an open tight :
For seldom your opinions err ;
Your eyes are always in the right.
Alas ! not hoping to subdue,
I only to the fight aspir'd ;
To keep the beauteous foe in view
Was all the glory 1 desir'd.
Deeper to wound, she shuns the fight :
She drops her arms, to gain the field ;
Secures her conquest by her flight :
And triumphs, when she seems to yield.
The admirable burlesque of Boileau's
"Ode on the taking of Namur " might
well have been added to the political
poems in Mr. Locker's collection, and
the select epigrams which illustrate the
philosophy of " Carpe diem " include
none happier than this paraphrase of the
kindred axiom, " Quid sit futurum eras
fuge quasrere : " —
For what to-morrow shall disclose
May spoil what you to-night propose ;
England may change or Chloe stray :
Love and life are for to-day.
Prior's miscellaneous poems, the out-
come of a rapid and shrewd observation
incessantly at work during a vicissitous ca-
reer as man of letters, diplomatist, place-
man, and pensioner, contain many a life-
like sketch of the phenomena and char-
acters of his time ; of the vices in which
passion ran riot, and the follies in which
enmii sought distraction ; of the empty
braggarts who set up for wits, and the
painted hags who posed as beauties. If
his satires upon the aristocratic world
portray its worst side and excite our dis-
gust, his familiar epistles incidentally
disclose another side which deserves our
admiration. The relation between men
of rank and men of genius, heretofore one
of ostentatious protection on the part of
the patron and obsequious dependence
on that of the client, could scarcely have
been in a healthier condition than when
Prior, Pope, and Swift associated with
Oxford and Bolingbroke, Addison and
Steele with Halifax and Somers ; when
mental equality effaced social inequality,
and an honourable interchange was ef-
fected between intelligent sympathy and
well-judging generosity on the one side,
and self-respectful friendship and uncov-
etous gratitude on the other.
The miscellaneous poems of Pope are
so familiarly known that there is no need
to dwell upon their abundant illustrations
of contemporary manners. Though prop-
erly excluded from the " Lyra " by their
length and elaboration, the " Rape of the
Lock " and some of the satires are vers
de societe oi the highest order. The im-
pression which they leave differs little
from that conveyed by the poems of Prior
as to the moral unsoundness underlying
the intellectual brilliance of the age : a
condition to which the idiosyncrasy of
712
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
the poet, after the lis^ht recently thrown
upon it by Mr. Elwin, must be admitted
to afford a parallel. In the verse of Pope,
however, as in that of Prior and the less
polished but not less vigorous verse of
Swift, there are distinct signs of health-
ier influences being at work. The stand-
ard of mental and moral culture which
men demanded of women, and women
were willing to attain, must have risen
considerably above that of the previous
generation,* before a writer so conver-
sant with the world as Pope would have
expected a female audience for his sec-
ond " Essay," or a wit like Swift have
dreamed of addressing his mistress in the
strain of the birthday-lines " To Stella."
Gross on the one hand and fulsome on
the other as the tone of " Augustan "
literature often is when its theme is
womanhood, the height to which some of
its best writers show themselves capable
of rising marks a sensible approach
towards that ideal of sexual relations —
Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
Distinct in individualities —
which it has been the proud 'boast of our
own day to recognize more approximately.
Indications of the effect produced by
the great constitutional crisis through
which the nation had recently passed, of
a diffusion of sympathy due to the una-
nimity with which liberty had been wel-
comed, and the need of maintaining it
against a common foe, of the relaxation
of the barriers between social grades, are
perceptible in such poems as Swift's
" Hamilton's Bawn " and " Mrs. Harris's
Petition." His representation of the foot-
ing upon which masters stood with their
servants, Prior's portraiture in " Down
Hall " of the good fellowship subsist-
ing between townsmen and rustics, and
Addison's sketch in " Sir Roger de Cov-
erley"of the squire's relations with his
tenants, point, each in a different direc-
tion, to the prevalence of a national
good-humour. How " slow to move," on
the other hand, the English temperament
has always been in obliterating class-
distinctions and removing admitted anom-
alies, the two poems just named illustrate
with equal clearness. The social status
of the clergy, as Macaulay from ample
materials describes it to have been in the
reign of Charles II. ,t cannot have sensi-
bly improved at a time when Swift repre-
sents a chaplain in a noble family as des-
* Compare Macaula/s " History of England" (New
Edition), i. pp. 192-3.
t " Hist. Eng." (New Edition), i. p. 160.
inff-
tined for marriage with the housemal
captain of cavalry as taking precedence
of a Dean at dinner and setting the table
in a roar by ridicule of his cloth.
As the eighteenth century advance
the fervour of political feeling becar
prominent in its vers de societe. Lady
Mary Wortley Montagu's defence of ^Hj
Robert Walpole (" Such were the livefll
Eyes "), and Garrick's " Advice to the
Marquis of Rockingham," may pair v/ith
Sir C. Hanbury Williams' bitter diatribes
upon Pulteney, as average specimens of
their class, the fault of both the praise
and the blame being that they are too
obviously personal to be historically trust-
worthy. The blind violence of party-
spirit in this age, and the difficulty that a
statesman had to meet in obtaining a fair
trial or a candid estimate of his policy,
are excellently portrayed in the following
stanzas from the pen of a neutral by-
stander whose name has not been handed
down to us : —
Know, minister ! whate'er you plan, —
What'er your politics, great man,
You must expect detraction ;
Though of clean hand and honest heart
Your greatness must expect to smart
Beneath the rod of faction.
Like blockheads eager in dispute,
The mob, that many-headed brute,
All bark and bawl together ;
For continental measures some,
And some cry, keep your troops at hor
And some are pleased with neither.
Lo, a militia guards the land !
Thousands applaud your saving hand,
And hail you their protector ;
While thousands censure and defame,
And brand you with the hideous name|
Of state-quack and projector. . .
Corruption's influence you despise ; — \
These lift your glory to the skies,
Those pluck your glory down :
So strangely different is the note
Of scoundrels that have right to vote,
And scoundrels that have none.
The prevalence of drinking-song^
among Georgian lyrics has an obviousl}
political connection. With a Pretender
Charles Stuart over the water, and a Pa-
triot Jack Wilkes at home, no sturd}
Constitutionalist wanted an excuse orlos;
an opportunity of celebrating " Church,
and King" in toast and chorus. Thei
is an echo of their hearty English voice
in such a rough carol as the following : -
Then him let's commend
That is true to his friend
And the Church and the Senate would settle
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
713
Who delights not in blood,
But draws when he should,
And bravely stands brunt to the battle.
Who rails not at Kings,
Nor at politick things,
Nor treason will speak when he's mellow,
But takes a full glass
To his country's success, —
This, this is an honest brave fellow.
The national prejudice against the
Scotch, which was inflamed by the Jac-
obite rebellions and envenomed by the ad-
ministration of Lord Bute, lends a spice
of malice to Goldsmith's kindly satire in
" The Retaliation " and "The Haunch of
Venison," and even ruffles the urbane
temper of Lord Chesterfield in " Lord Ls-
lay's Garden." Its manifestation among
less restrained writers, such as the author
of the lines on the construction of the
Adelphi Terrace, is all but malignant : —
Four Scotchmen, by the name of Adams,
Who kept their coaches for their madams,
Quoth John, in sulky mood, to Thomas,
Have stole the very river from us.
O Scotland ! long it has been said
Thy teeth are sharp for English bread ;
What ! seize our bread and water too.
And use us worse than jailers do !
'Tis true 'tis hard ! 'tis hard 'tis true !
Ye friends of George and friends of James,
Envy us not our river Thames :
The Princess, fond of raw-boned faces.
May give you all our posts and places ;
Take all — to gratify your pride.
But dip your oatmeal in the Clyde.
That heartiness in love as well as hate,
the frank, homely simplicity which are
among the pleasantest traits of the
eighteenth-century John Bull, as we rec-
ognize him in the novels of Fielding and
Smollett, find genial expression in the
verse of — Collins. It is strange enough
that the author of such capital verse as
"The Golden Farmer," "Good old
Things," and " To-morrow," should, after
the lapse of a century, be so little known
that one can only distinguish him from
his greater contemporary by leaving a
blank for his Christian name.* Here
again the rural ideal shows itself, and in
the most natural form, affording the
strongest contrast to the unreality of arti-
fice and sentiment to which Shenstone
and his fellows had reduced " Arcadian"
poetry. In skilful hands, however, this
verse, insipid as it is when its theme is
* A contemporary namesake, Mr. Mortimer Collins,
has identified him with John Collins, a Birmingham
bookseller, journalist, and actor.
love, and maudlin when devoted to ele-
giacs upon furred and feathered pets,
does not want certain compensating
graces of style and rhythm. An example
offers in Gray's lines " On the Death of a
favourite Cat," the elegant humour of
which Horace Walpole closely approaches
in his " Entail," a fable of a butterfly.
Sentiment passes into the region of feel-
ing with Cowper, upon whose tender
heart, and keen though clouded intelli-
gence, the contemporary revival of re-
ligion was efficacious alike for good and
evil.
If the atmospheric clearance effected
by the great revolutionary storm wherein
the eighteenth century closed had less
marked an influence upon vers de societe
than any other province of poetry, it was
doubtless because the class which com-
prehended their principal writers was the
first to resist the political and social
changes thus inaugurated. But the
process of resistance itself evoked an
outburst of energy which has left its pre-
cipitate in the most spirited satire per-
haps ever written in English. The droll-
ery of invention, the deftness of wit,
which Frere and Canning infused into
"The Anti-Jacobin," must have gone far,
one would think, to assuage the smart of
the wounds inflicted by their shafts.
"The needy Knife-grinder," ''The Stu-
dent of Gottingen," and " The Loves of
the Triangles," have, for three-quarters of
a century at all events, been the common
property of lovers of laughter to whatever
party belonging. The two first-named
and other specimens of Canning's vein of
comedy fine a worthy place in Mr, Lock-
er's miscellany, but are too well known
to justify extraction. Though wit and
humour were the literary weapons which
the Tory champions found fittest for po-
litical warfare, the conflict both to them
and their opponents was none the less
one of grim earnest. The inevitable ef-
fect of this earnestness on both parties
was a relinquishment of conventionality
and affectation, a return to nature and
simplicity. The poets who drew their
original inspiration from Liberal ideas —
Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Southey,
and Landor — were the first to indicate
the healthy change ; but once manifested,
its spread was contagious, nor in those
who experienced it did any reactionary
current ever induce a relapse. The Tory
Scott is as clearly under its influence as
the Republican Shelley, and its sway over
a poet so unspiritual as Moore is potent
enough to colour his sentiment with an
714
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
fused with tender feeling
so charged with
emotional tinge. The sham Arcadia has
vanished, and men and women, no longer
masking as nymphs and swains, are
clothed and in their right mind. The
literary properties which had endured so
long a tenure of favour are utterly dis-
credited, and, except in the province of
burlesque, it might be difficult to find a
poem of the present century that con-
tains an invocation to the Muse or a ref-
erence to Cupid's dart. The languid,
frigid tones of the eighteenth-century
lover are exchanged for accents so suf-
_ as Landor's or
fervid passion as those
of Byron. Compare any love-poem of
the three preceding generations with the
following of Landor's, and the difference
in kind is at once apparent : —
lanthe ! you are called to cross the sea !
A path forbidden me !
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other's, and how faint and short
And sliding the support !
What will succeed it now ? Mine is unblest,
lanthe ! nor will rest
But in the very thought that swells with pain.
O bid me hope again !
O give me back what Earth, what (without
you)
Not Heaven itself can do ;
One of the golden days that we have past ;
And let it be my last !
Or else the gift would be, however sweet,
Fragile and incomplete.
Proud word you never spake, but you will
speak
Four not exempt from pride some future
day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek
Over my open volume, you will say,
" This man loved me ! " — then rise and trip
away.
Perhaps no poet of the revolutionized
regime displays its characteristics more
clearly than Landor. He brought, in-
deed, the courtly manners and graceful
scholarship of the previous generation to
clothe the thousfhts and feelinors of his
own ; but his fine perception enabled him
to discard all that was out of keeping,
and his thorough saturation with the
modern spirit is always apparent, how-
ever antique may be the form adopted.
The chief poets of the century were
usually occupied with enterprises of
greater pith than the composition of vers
de sociite, and their names rarely figure in
Mr. Locker's catalogue ; but the impulse
I
that first animated them has extended to
their lightest efforts,, and Coleridge's
" Something childish " and Wordsworth's
" Dear Child of Nature " bear the date of
their production on their face as mani-
festly as " The Ancient Mariner " or
" Tintern Abbey." The vers desocieti of
their minor contemporaries are stamped
with the same impression. Charles
Lamb's quaint tenderness is well repre-
sented by his " Hester," and Leigh Hunt's
playful archness by his rondo, "Jenny
kissed me." Peacock's " Love and Age,"
which we regret not having space to ex-
tract, is another exquisite example of the
modern infusion of feeling into a theme
on which a writer of the previous century
would have been merely rhapsodical.
What traces of the old school of senti-
ment are still left appear in the smooth
grace of Rogers and the faded prettiness
of William Spencer, while the unrefined
humour which accompanied it finds its
last representative in Captain Morris, in
whose lyrics the " man about town " of
the Regency lounges and swaggers to the
life.
In that brighter vein of humour which
is little affected by social changes, and
sparkles freely under all conditions in im-
promptu and epigram, few professional
jesters have attained more distinction
than one of the gravest of functionaries,
Lord Chancellor Erskine. Among the
best of his recorded verses is that com-
posed while listening to the tedious argu-
ment of a counsel which detained him on
the woolsack until past the hour when he
was engaged to a turtle dinner in the
City. Being observed busily writing, he
was supposed to be taking a note of the
cause, but Lord Holland, who caught
sight of his note-book, found that it con-
tained the following : —
Oh that thy cursed balderdash
Were swiftly changed to callipash !
Thy bands so stiff and snug toupee
Corrected were to callipee ;
That since I can nor dine nor sup,
I might arise and eat thee up ! *
The energy of the poetic reformation
sensibly abated with the growth of the
century, and a period of conventionality
ensued, which was marked by a cojDious
increase of " boudoir " literature, as flimsy
in texture as it was showy in pattern. In
the hands of one gifted writer, however,
whose capacity for higher effort was per-
haps thwarted in its development by a
* Lord Campbell's " Lives of the Lord Chancellors,"
vol. vi. p. 659.
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
715
premature death, this tawdry literature
attained a temporary lustre. The senten-
tiousness of Crabbe, the romanticism of
Scott, and the sentiment of Byron, seem
to have been Praed's literary nurture ; but
he brought wit, observation, scholarship,
and experience to assimilate and modify
them. His early sketches remind us of
the first, his legends of the second, his
lyrics of the third ; but in each there are
features which do not belong to the origi-
nal, and distinguish the artist from the
imitator. In the style which he sub-
sequently perfected, antithetical in con-
struction and pointed in phrasing, pun-
gent in satire or playful in railler}^, al-
ways clear and exquisitely versified, he
has probably never had a superior. No
observer of the outer side of life has
painted more finished pictures than his of
a London drawing-room — the manners
and customs of well-bred English men
and women between 1825 and 1835. Of
a society which had outlived its appetite
for vice without acquiring a healthy taste,
which still maintained the institutions of
the duel and the gaming-house, which
had worshipped Bruramell and was ready
to worship D'Orsay, which had originated
the exclusiveness and still upheld the
tyranny of Almack's, in which such a
creation as " Pelham " could be set up as
a typical gentleman, in which the medi-
gevalism of Scott was more admired than
his characterization, and the introspec-
tion of Byron than his passion — of such
a society Praed was a fitly representative
poet. The licentious tone which had pre-
vailed during the Regency having died
out of its own excess, left behind it a
prevailing taint of unearnestness which
found expression in mere frivolity. In-
fected with /the fashionable taste, yet
half-ashamed of it, Praed laughs gently in
his sleeve at the follies which he gravely
affects to chronicle. His " Good-night to
the Season ■' (which, to our surprise, Mr.
Locker does not extract) and " Our Ball "
are master-pieces in this mock-serious
vein. " A Letter of Advice " from a
young lady to her friend on the choice of
a husband, is less veiled in its satire.
How humorously the sham-romantic
ideals of friendship and love, destined to
extinction in a niariage de cotivenance,
are ridiculed in these verses : —
O think of our favourite cottage,
And think of our dear " Lalla Rookh " !
How we shared with the milkmaids their pot-
tage,
And drank of the stream from the brook ;
How fondly our loving lips falter'd
" What further can grandeur bestow ? "
My heart is the same ; — is yours alter'd ?
My 9wn Araminta, say "No ! " . . .
We parted ! but sympathy's fetters
Reach far over valley and hill ;
I muse o'er your exquisite letters,
And feel that your heart is mine still ;
And he who would share it with me, love, —
The richest of treasures below, —
If he's not what Orlando should be, love,
My own Araminta, say " No ! "
If he wears a top-boot in his wooing,
If he comes to you riding a cob,
If he talks of his baking or brewing,
If he puts up his feet on th e hob,
If he ever drinks port after dinner,
If his brow or his breeding is low,
If he calls himself " Thompson "or " Skinner,"
My dear Araminta, say " No ! "
Praed's skill in pasquinade found
ample scope for its exercise in the arena
of politics. His sympathies, after his
twenty-ninth year, were avowedly en-
listed on the side of the Tories in their
resistance to the march of innovation,
and his winged arrows of wit were gal-
lantly, if unavailingly, employed in their
service. The only specimen of his polit-
ical verse given in the " Lyra " is the
piece addressed to the Speaker on see-
ing him asleep in the (Reformed) House
of Commons. The two last stanzas are
the best : —
Sleep, Mr. Speaker ! Harvey will soon
Move to abolish the sun and the moon :
Hume will no doubt be taking the sense
Of the House on a question of sixteenpence.
Statesmen will howl, and patriots bray —
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may !
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, and dream of the time
When loyalty was not quite a crime,
When Grant was a pupil in Canning's school,
And Palmerston fancied Wood a fool.
Lord ! how principles pass away —
Sleep, Mr. Speaker, sleep while you may !
The conflict of parties to which these
verses refer inspired the worthiest am-
bitions and absorbed the best energies
that society was then putting forth. Wit
and humour know no political monopoly,
and Praed was doubtless the first to ad-
mire the spirited sallies of satire that
issued from the Liberal camp, during the
agitations which preceded the enact-
ments of Catholic Emancipation and Re-
form. Moore's " King Crack and his
Idols," Macaulay's " Cambridge Elec-
tion Ballad," and Peacock's " Fate of a
Broom," have an ingenuity in their cari-
7i6
cature and an absence of malice about
their hearty invective that bespeak the
writers' training in the school of the
" Anti-Jacobin's " swordsmen.
The bourgeois tone inevitably attending
the influx of a democratic wave makes
its presence felt in the vers de societi of
James Smith, Barham, and Hood, where
puns and slang are too often substituted
for wit. To Hood's poetic gifts, how-
ever, the extracts given in the "Lyra"
do scanty justice. He had a true grace
and fancy, of which they afford no indi-
cation. The extracts given from Barham
do him more than justice, since they con-
vey no idea of the coarseness which was
a decided drawback to his fun. A trace
of this mars one's enjoyment of some of
Thackeray's genuinely humorous pieces.
Its worst example is " The White Squall,"
which describes a passage across the
Channel in language as unrefined as it is
graphic, but the touch of tenderness in
the closing verse redeems it : —
And when, its force expended,
> The harmless storm was ended,
And as the sunrise splendid
Came blushing o'er the sea,
I thought, as day was breaking,
My little girls were waking
And smiling and making
A prayer at home for me.
It is noticeable how much less pro-
nounced Thackeray's cynical tone is in
his verses than in the province of fiction
wherein his chief laurels have been won.
The interfusion of pathos and humour
above exemplified is often skilfully con-
trived, especially in the "Ballad of Bouil-
labaisse " and " The cane-bottomed
Chair." Of his purely tender mood, " At
the Church-gate," the reverie of a lover
who sees his lady enter the minster, is a
delicate example. A more familiar chord
is struck in " Vanitas Vanitatum : " —
O vanity of vanities !
How wayward the decrees of Fate are ;
How very weak the very wise,
How very small the very great are ! . . .
Though thrice a thousand years are past
Since David's son, the sad and splendid,
The weary King Ecclesiast,
Upon his awful tablets penned it, —
Methinks the text is never stale.
And life is every day renewing
Fresh comments on the old, old tale
Of Folly, Fortune, Glory, Ruin.
The only other representative poet of
society belonging to our own time whose
name occurs in Mr. Locker's volume is
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
Arthur Clough, of whom " Spectator ab
extra " is a fairly characteristic lyric. It
affords a glimpse of that deep-searching
scepticism which now threatens to pen-
etrate the most cherished of our social
institutions, a tone of that deep-seated
earnestness veiled in irony by which
more than one contemporary teacher has
won the public ear.
Such are a few of the side-lights of his-
tory which a rapid run through the pages
of the " Lyra Elegantiarum " admits of
our discerning. Mr. Locker does not
include any living poets in his list, nor
could he have done so without heading it
with his own name. Though far from
being a mere poet of society, he has de-
voted himself so steadily to the role of its
lyrist, and as yet maintained his pre-em-
inence against all subsequent competi-
tors, that no survey of the subject would
be complete without some notice of his
distinguishing traits. To estimate them
fairly involves a consideration of the pre-
vailing tone of contemporary society.
The observation long ago made upon
us that we "take our pleasures sadly,
after the manner of the nation," may
have been intended as a reproach, but
we have no reason to be ashamed of it.
It is assuredly as true of us now as it
ever was. The moods of frivolity in
which we occasionally indulge seem to be
borrowed from the Continent, and are as
transient as other imported fashions.
The shadow of the end and " the burden
of the mystery " are forever recurring to
our minds, not to extinguish our mirth,
but to control its manifestations, and sug-
gest the reflections which it is only mad-
ness to ignore. That the tendency to
dwell upon the serious aspect of life has
been for some years past upon the in-
crease, we think there can be no doubt.
The growing appetite for scientific,
metaphysical, and theological specula-
tion, no longer confined to the learned,
but shared by all the educated classes ;
the interest now taken in political, edu-
cational, and sanitary questions by the
sex hitherto indifferent to study, and sat-
isfied with supremacy in accomplish-
ments ; the grave, even sombre cast of
the poetry in the first or second rank
w^hich has been most widely read, " The
Idylls of the King," " The Ring and the
Book," "Aurora Leigh," "The Spanish
Gipsy," "The Earthly Paradise," " Ata-
lanta in Calydon ; " the perpetual con-
trasts of tragedy with comedy offered in
the pages of our most popular novelists
— George Eliot, Thackeray, Dickens,
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
717
Mr, Trollope, Mr. W. Collins — and the, but none, we think, have equalled him in
tendency which the greatest of them dis
play to the manufacture of "novels with
a purpose ; " the successful cultivation
of high art by such painters as Mr. Watts,
Mr. Leighton, Mr. Holman Hunt, and
Mr. Poynter ; the long popularity of the
"domestic drama," and the reaction
which the degradation of farce into bur-
lesque has created in favour of classical
comedy : all these are signs in the same
direction. Not, indeed, that the moral-
ist, pur et simple^ has a better chance of
obtaining an audience in this than in a
less serious age. We want our pills, and
are even anxious to take them, but it is
indispensable that they should be silvered.
A writer who, like Mr. Locker, comes
forward in a jester's motley, but contin-
ually betrays the preacher's cassock be-
neath it, and is gifted with a vein of
pathos that dominates without depress-
ing his sense of humour, may fitly appeal
to the sympathy of a society thus predis-
posed. The six editions of his " London
Lyrics," a number reached by no other
volume of vers de societi in our time,
attest that he has thus appealed with suc-
cess. Of such of his poems as are purely
pathetic, we do not propose to speak.
" Implora pace," " Her quiet Resting-
place," and some others are expressions
of personal feeling that no one would
think of classing in the category to which
the majority of his lyrics belong. The
characteristic aroma of the latter cannot
better be described than in the writer's
own words : —
The wisely gay, as years advance,
Are gaily wise, VVhate'er befall-
We'll laugh at folly, whether seen
Beneath a chimney or a steeple, —
At yours, at mine ; our own, I mean,
As well as that of other people.
I'm fond of fun, the mental dew
Where wit and truth and ruth are blent. . . .
I've laughed to hide the tear I shed ;
As when the Jester's bosom swells,
And mournfully he shakes his head,
We hear the jingle of his bells.
A cheerful philosopher, persuaded that
the destiny of the world is in better hands
than his own, yet interested in all that
concerns it, he devotes to its advantage,
by way either of sympathy or satire, the
resources of a genuine poetic faculty.
The gifts which make up his credentials
have been singly possessed by one or
other of his predecessors, some of whom
have added qualifications that he lacks,
combining so much of what is excellent
with so little an admixture of what is in-
ferior. The writers of whom he most
frequently reminds us are Herrick, Prior,
Praed, and Thackeray. By the first he
is surpassed in delicacy of fancy and lyr-
ical skill, but he has equal tenderness
and simplicity, and excels in humour and
refinement. The humour both of Prior
and Thackeray is more genial, but it is
less refined than Mr. Locker's : Praed's
wit is unapproached by him, but he adds
the pathos which both Prior and Praed
want, and the music and finish of which
Thackeray has little. In irony, whether
playful or earnest, we do not know his
superior, the satirists who usually employ
it being too apt to be either cynical or
ponderous. The best-known example of
his peculiar manner is the poem on a
Skull, but the same blending of a sar-
donic with an emotional vein character-
izes " The Skeleton in the Cupboard,"
from which we extract one or two ver-
ses : —
We all have secrets : you have one
Which mayn't be quite your charming
spouse's ;
We all lock up a skeleton
In some grim chamber of our houses. . . .
Your neighbour Gay, that jovial wight,
As Dives rich and brave as Hector, —
Poor Gay steals twenty times a night,
On shaking knees, to see his spectre.
Old Dives fears a pauper fate,
So hoarding is his ruling passion ; —
Some gloomy souls anticipate
A waistcoat, straiter than the fashion !
Childless she pines, that lonely wife,
And secret tears are bitter shedding ; —
Hector may tremble all his life,
And die, — but not of that he's dreading.
Ah me, the world ! How fast it spins !
The beldams dance, the caldron bubbles ;
They shriek, and stir it for our sins.
And we must drain it for our troubles.
We toil, we groan : — the cry for love
Mounts upward from the seething city,
And yet I know we have above
A Father^ infinite in pity.
His dexterity in making the jester's
privilege a cloak for the moralist is shown
in the poem of " Beggars," which ana-
lyzes in a parable the selfishness that
lurks under the shelter of science ; a
similar service being rendered to the ir-
rationalists in the piece called " An old
Buffer." Of his playful-pathetic mood,
7i8
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
"To my Grandmother" is one of the
most charming examples : —
This relative of mine,
Was she seventy and nine ^
When she died ?
By the canvas may be seen
How she look'd at seventeen,
As a bride.
Beneath a summer tree
Her maiden reverie
Has a charm ;
Her ringlets are in taste ;
What an arm ! and what a waist
For an arm !
With her bridal-wreath, bouquet,
Lace, farthingale, and gay
Falbala, —
Were Romney's limning true,
What a lucky dog were you.
Grandpapa !
Her lips are sweet as love ;
They are parting ! Do they move ?
Are they dumb ?
Her eyes are blue, and beam
Beseechingl)^, and seem
To say " Come." ...
That good-for-nothing Time
Has a confidence sublime !
When I first
Saw this lady, in my youth,
Her winters had, forsooth.
Done their worst. . . ,
Ah, perishable clay !
Her charms had dropt away
One by one :
But if she heaved a sigh
With a burthen, it was, " Thy
Will be done."
In travail, as in tears.
With the fardel of her years
Overprest, —
In mercy she was borne
Where the weary and the worn
Are at rest.
" Gerty's Glove " and " Geraldine and
I " are favourable specimens of the
dainty grace which he can throw into a
love-lyric; "The Bear-pit" and "My
First-born," of the genuine fun which he
can extract from the ordinary incidents
of life. Clearness and simplicity of lan-
guage, polish and fluency of versification,
are qualities that belong to his poems
generally. He usually adopts a tone of
kindly banter that diffuses itself in nu-
ances of expression, and avoids epigram
as too harsh a medium, but now and then
knots his lash and leaves a mark not
easily to be effaced. For such a quatrain
and couplet as the following it is scarcely
hazardous to predict proverbiality : —
They eat and drink and scheme and plod
And go to church on Sunday ;
And many are afraid of God
And more of Mrs. Grundy.
The Cockney met in Middlesex or Surrey
Is often cold and always in a hurry.
Bringing the powers; which these poems
illustrate to bear upon the themes most
likely to interest London society, the
scenes and figures most familiar to its
denizens, the love-histories transacted ia
their midst, the pleasures they most eager-
ly pursue, the sorrows they are too prone
to neglect, Mr. Locker has condensed with-
in one little volume what is not only ac-
cepted by his contemporaries, but we
doubt not will be regarded by future histo-
rians, as a vivid and varied picture of Vic-
torian life and manners. This position we
think is secured to it by its evident free-
dom from caricature, a merit so seldom
belonging to the observations of an every-
day humourist. The sympathy between
class and class, which is one of the
healthiest symptoms of our time, is legi-
bly reflected in his verse. The purity of
tone that marks it may be primarily a
personal trait ; but we are convinced
that this, also, represents the dominant
spirit of English society, notwithstanding
the temporary notoriety of that small sec-
tion which battens upon the literature of
diseased or lawless lust.
Among contemporary writers of vers
de socidte, although their name is legion,
we are acquainted with but two whose
claims to compare with Mr. Locker ad-
mit of discussion. Priority of appear-
ance, and the respect due to his exquis-
ite scholarship, entitle Mr. C. J. Calver-
ley to the first consideration. If, how-
ever, the view we have taken be correct
as to the qualifications which modern so-
ciety demands from its representative
poet, he is ipso facto disqualified for the
office. As a mere humourist, it would
be difficult to find his match ; but he has
chosen to be no more. We say chosen,
because out of two volumes of verse, a
single poem, " Dover to Munich," con-
tains a few stanzas that evince the
writer's capacity for treating a serious
theme with reverence and grace. With
this exception, his original poems are
confined to a series of burlesques and
parodies. Some of the latter are infinite-
ly droll, especially the imitation of Mr.
Browning's mannerism in " Cock and
Bull," and that which travesties Mr.
ENGLISH VERS DE SOCIETE.
719
Swinburne's sham-antique ballads to the
burden of " Butter and eggs and a pound
of cheese." A spice of intentional ridi-
cule such as is here infused seems al-
ways requisite to make parody piquant.
For lack of this, other of Mr. Calverley's
clever echoes are comparatively weak, no
element inhering in the subject which
could avail to render it absurd, even if
the writer intended so to make it. The
mock-heroic stanzas on " Beer " and
"The Schoolmaster abroad" strike us
as the best of his burlesques. Beyond
incidental illustrations of undergraduate
life, and the superficial traits of London
humour that meet a passer's eye, these
volumes contribute nothing to the poetry
of modern manners. Regretting that Mr.
Calverley is not animated by a worthier
ambition, we must needs take him at
his own valuation ; and if he is con-
tent to do no more than amuse our idle
hours, it would be ungrateful to deny
that his verses have a raison d'etre.
Mr. Austin Dobson evidently aspires
to a higher place, and his recent volume
of collected poems is one of unusual
promise. Although his manner has ob-
viously been coloured by the study of
Mr. Locker, he is far from being merely
an imitator, and in the faculty of pictorial
expression he even excels his master.
The following extract from a poem illus-
trating the condition of France under
Louis Quinze is in his best style : —
For these were yet the days of halcyon
weather,
A marten's summer, when the nation swam.
Aimless and easy as a wayward feather,
Down the full tide of jest and epigram ; —
A careless time, when France's bluest blood
Beat to the tune of, " After us the flood."
Occasional phrases, such as describe the
engraving
In shadowy sanguine stipple-traced
By Bartolozzi,
and the signs of a coquette's old age in
The coming of the crow's feet
And the backward turn of beaux' feet,
are very happily rendered. Where the
writer chiefly fails as an artist is in over-
elaboration.' His portrait of "A Gentle-
man and a Gentlewoman of the Old
School," for example, would be more
lifelike if the strokes were fewer and
stronger. Now and then, too, his orna-
ments are strangely out of keeping, as
when he describes the sad gentle face
of an aged lady surmounted by
a coif whose crest
Like Hector's horse-plume towered. (!)
His most successful effort in portrai-
ture, we think, is " Avice," where the
handling throughout is extremely delicate.
Here are two verses : —
When you enter in a room,
It is stirred
With the wayward, flashing flight
Of a bird ;
And you speak — and bring with you
Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue,
And the wind-breath and the dew,
At a word. . . .
You have just their eager, quick
" Airs de tete,"
All their flush and fever-heat •
When elate ;
Every bird-like nod and beck,
And the bird's own curve of neck
When she gives a little peck
To her mate.
Some power of humorous characteri-
zation is shown in " Tu Quoque, a Con-
servatory Idyll," modelled after the
duologue of Horace and Lydia, and " An
Autumn Idyll," an adaptation of Theoc-
ritus. Both evince skill in preserving
antique form while fitting it to modern
usages, yet avoiding the vulgarity which
is the opprobrium of "classical bur-
lesque."
As a poet of society Mr. Dobson's
gifts differ little in kind from Mr. Lock-
er's, but they are not employed with
equal judgment. "The Virtuoso," for
example, an ironic study of aesthetic
heartlessness, is so direct in its applica-
tion as to verge on caricature, and loses
much of the force which a satirist like
Mr. Locker would have thrown into the
form of suggestion. Playfulness and
pathos, again, though Mr. Dobson has
both at command, are not so subtly
blended in " Pot-pourri " or " A Gage
d'Amour"as in his predecessor's " Pil-
grims of Pall Mall," and " My Grand-
mother." In point of technical skill the
younger writer has much to learn. The
light tripping metres, which both are
fond of using, will not bear the weight of
such heavy words as Mr. Dobson some-
times thrusts upon them.
The general impression produced by
these "Vignettes" is very favourable to
the writer's mental attitude. Their keen
and sprightly criticism of men and man-
ners is unspoilt by flippancy, their healthy
appreciation of life's purest pleasures is
tempered by kindly concern for the lot
of those who miss them. With a few
720
THREE FEATHERS.
exceptions, his observations strike us as
made from a distance rather than on the
spot, by one who has felt more than he
has seen, and read more than he has
thought. The aspect of modern life
which such a spectator seizes is neces-
sarily limited, but, as far as Mr. Dob-
son's field of vision extends, the report
is trustworthy and encouraging.
The priind facie reflection suggested
by an historic retrospect like the fore-
going may probably be, how little either
the optimist or the pessimist can find in
it that makes in favour of his creed. To
the lyrists of society, whether one or
three centuries ago, human nature seems
to have presented the same motley spec-
tacle that it presents to-day. Although
from Herrick and Prior to Mr. Locker
and Mr. Dobson they have, with rare ex-
ceptions, been "laudatores temporis
acti," they have been at no loss to discern
analogies between that past and their own
time. The same motives have always
been in operation, the same virtues hon-
ourable, the same vices detestable. The
equilibrium has frequently shifted, and
the moral standard which one age has
striven to realize another has been con-
tent to idealize, but the standard itself
has not appreciably altered. While, on
the one hand, it is evident that each age
chronicles the conquest of some vicious
habit, the reclamation of some province
from barbarism, and that the tide-mark
once scored is ineffaceable, it is evident
on the other hand, that evil tendencies
are prone to recur after a period of ap-
parent extinction, and that an ebb of
puritanism is inevitably succeeded by a
flow of libertinism. That the balance of
such advance and recession is equal may
not unreasonably be the impression first
produced. A second consideration how-
ever, is sufficient to correct it. How-
ever little the types of humanity have
changed since Horace and Martial paint-
ed them, it is certain that the painters
would not recognize the world to which
their sitters belonged, a world of refined
gentlemen and ladies who no longer de-
lighted in seeing gladiators hack each
other to death, and runaway slaves torn ,
by lions. If they discerned some resem-
blance to the habits with which they
were familiar among the fashionable con-
gregation at a Ritualistic service, the
crowd at a poll-booth, and the audience
at a theatre, they would marvel at the
interest w^iich one distinguished assem-
bly took in organizing a famine-fund,
another in the composition of a school-
board, a third in canvassing for an or-
phanage or an almshouse. If Herrick
and Prior, in their turn, were transported
to the London they had known, they
would find its manners materially altered,
the sanctity of marriage more respected,
the representations of the stage more
decorous, the evening meal no longer an
orgy. Even Praed would find something
to welcome in the abolition of Crock-
ford's, and admit that the decision of a
police-magistrate at Bow Street adjusted
a quarrel at once more equitably and
more economically than a pistol-shot at
Wormwood Scrubbs. Whatever else
has been lost, these are unquestionable
gains. The Hydra, how often soever we
behead it, will infallibly put forth new
heads, but they will not be the same as
the old. The lover of his kind, who is
disheartened by the survey of the past
and of the present, should find comfort
in this outlook for the future, inexorably
as the logic of events may convince him
that the term of human perfectibility can
never be fixed more definitely than " ad
Graecas Kalendas."
From The Cornhill Magazine,
THREE FEATHERS.
CHAPTER I.
MASTER HARRY.
zine. ^B
m
" You are a wicked boy, Harry," said a
delightful old lady of seventy, with pink
cheeks, silver hair, and bright eyes, to a
tall and handsome lad of twenty, "and
you will break your mother's heart. But
it's the way of all you Trelyons, Good
looks, bad temper, plenty of money, and
the maddest fashion of spending it —
there you are, the whole of you. Why
won't you go into the house ? "
" It's a nice house to go into, ain't it ?"
said the boy, with a rude laugh. " Look
at it ! "
It was, indeed, a nice house, — a quaint,
old-fashioned, strongly-built phce, that
had withstood the western gales fcr some
three or four centuries. And it was set
amid beautiful trees, and it overlooked a
picturesque little valley, and from this
garden-terrace in front of it you would
catch some glimpse of a tiny harbour on
the Cornish coast, with its line of blue^
water passing out through the black rod
to the sea beyond.
" And why shouldn't the blinds
THREE FEATHERS.
721
down ? " said the old lady. " It's the
anniversary of your father's death."
" It's always the anniversary of some-
body's death," her grandson said, impa-
tiently flicking at a standard rose with his
riding-switch, " and its nothing but snivel,
snivel from morning till night, and the
droning of the organ in the chapel, and
the burning of incense all about the place,
and everybody and everything dressed in
black, and the whole house haunted by
parsons. The parsons about the neigh-
bourhood ain't enough, — they must
come from all parts of the country, and
you run against 'em in the hall, and you
knock them over when you're riding out
at the gate, and just when you expect to
^et a pheasant or two at the place you
know, out jumps a brace of parsons that
have been picking brambles.
" Harry, Harry, where do you expect to
50 to, if you hate the parsons so ? " the
Did lady said ; but there was scarcely
;hat earnestness of reproof in her tone
;hat ought to have been there. " And
>-et it's the way of all you Trelyons. Did
[ ever tell you how your grandfather
lunted poor Mr. Pascoe that winter
light ? Dear, dear, what a jealous man
/our grandfather was at that time, to be
mre ! And when I told him that John
Pascoe had been carrying stories to my
"ather, and how that he (your grandfather)
•vas to be forbidden the house, dear me,
^hat a passion he was in ! He wouldn't
:ome near the house after that ; but one
licfht, as Mr.
as
grandfather
Pascoe was walking home,
rOur grandtather rode after him, and
overtook him, and called out, ' Look
lere, sir ! you have been telling lies
ibout me. I respect your cloth and I
.von't lay a hand on you ; but, by the
Lord. I will hunt you till there isn't a rag
)n your back ! ' And sure enough he
lid ; and when poor Mr. Pascoe under-
;tood what he meant he was nearly out of
lis wits, and off he went over the fields,
ind over the walls across the ditches,
vith your grandfather after him, driving
lis horse at him when he stopped, and
)nly shouting with laughter in answer to
lis cries and prayers. Dear, dear, what
I to-do there was all over the county
ide after that ! and your grandfather
lurstn't come near the house, — or he was
00 proud to come ; but we got married
or all that — oh, yes ! we got married for
.11 that."
The old lady laughed in her quiet way.
'• You were too good for a parson,
jandmother, I'll be bound," said Master
iarry Trelyon. " You are one of the
LIVING AGE. VOT.. VII. 358
right sort, you are. If I could find any
girl, now, like what you were then, see if
I wouldn't try to get her for a wife."
" Oh yes ! " said the old lady, vastly
pleased, and smiling a little ; " there were
two or three of your opinion at one time,
Harry. Many a time I feared they would
be the death of each other. And I never
could have made up my mind, I do be-
lieve, if your grandfather hadn't come in
among them to settle the question. It
was all over with me then. It's the way
of you Trelyons ; you never give a poor
girl a chance. It isn't ask and have, —
it's come and take ; and so a girl be-
comes a Trelyon before she knows where
she is. Dear, dear, what a fine man
your grandfather was, to be sure ; and
such a pleasant, frank, good-natured way
as he had with him ! Nobody could say
No twice to him. The girls were all
wild about him ; and the story there was
about our marriage ! Yes, indeed, I was
mad about him too, only that he was just
as mad about me ; and that night of the
ball, when my father was angry because
I would not dance, and when all the
young men could not understand it, for
how did they know that your grandfather
was out in the garden, and asking noth-
ing less than that I should run away with
him there and then to Gretna ? Why,
the men of that time had some spirit, lad,
and the girls, too, I can tell you ; and I
couldn't say No to him, and away we;
went just before daylight, and I in my
ball-dress, sure enough, and we never
stopped till we got to Exeter. And thea
the fight for fresh horses, and off again ;
and your grandfather had such a way
with him, Harry, that the silliest of girls
would have plucked up her spirits ! And
oh ! the money he scattered to get the
best of the horses at the posting-houses ;
for, of course, we knew that my father
was close after us, and if he overtook
us, then a convent in France for me,
and good-bye to George Trelyon "
" Well, grandmother, don't stop ! "
cried the lad before her : he had heard
the story a hundred times, but he could
have heard it another hundred times,
merely to see the light that lit up the
beautiful old face.
" We didn't stop, you booby ! " she
said, mistaking his remark; "stopping
wasn't for George Trelyon. And oh !
that morning as we drove into Carlisle,
and we looked back, and there, sure
enough, was my father's carriage a long
way off. Your grandfather swore, Harry
— yes, he did ; and well it might make a
722
THREE FEATHERS.
man swear. For our horses were dead
beat, and before we should have time to
change, my father would be up to claim
me. But there ! it was the luckiest
thing that ever happened to me, for who
could have expected to find old Lady
MacGorman at the door of the hotel, just
getting into her carriage, and when she
saw me she stared, and I was in such a
fright I couldn't speak, and she called
out, ' Good heavens, child, why did you
run away in your ball-dress ? And who's
the man ? ' ' His name, madam,' said I,
' is George Trelyon.' For by this time
he was in the yard, raging about horses.
*A nephew of the Admiral, isn't he?'
she says, and I told her he was ; and
then quick as lightning what does she do
but whip round into the yard, get hold of
your grandfather, my dear, and bundle
both of us into her own carriage ! Harry,
my father's carriage was at the end of the
street, as I am a living woman. And
just as we drove off, we heard that dear,
good, kind old creature call out to the
people around, ' Five guineas apiece to
you if you keep back the old gentleman's
carriage for an hour ! ' and such a laugh-
ing as your grandfather had as we drove
down the streets, and over the bridge,
and up the hill, and out the level lanes.
Dear, dear, I can see the country now.
I can remember every hedge, and the two
rivers we crossed, and the hills up in the
north, and all the time your grandfather
Icept up the laugh, for he saw I was
.frightened. And there we were wedded,
sure enough, and all in good time, for
Lady MacGorman's guineas had saved
us, so that we were actually driving back
again when we saw my father's carriage
coming along the road — at no great
speed to be sure, for one of the horses
was lame, and the other had cast a shoe
— all the result of that good old crea-
ture's money. And then I said to your
grandfather, ' What shall we do, George ? ^
'We shall have to stand and deliver,
Sue ! ' says he ; and with that he had the
horses pulled up, and we got out. And
when my father came up he got out, too,
and George took me by the hand — there
was no more laughing now, I can tell
you, for it was but natural I should cry a
bit — and he took off his hat, and led me
forward to my father. I don't know what
he said, 1 was in such a fright ; but I
know that my father looked at him for
a minute — and George was standing
rather abashed, perhaps, but then
handsome he looked,
natured ! — and then
so
and so good-
my father burst
into a roar of laughter, and came forward
and shook him by the hand ; and all that
he would say then, or at any other time
to the day of his death, was only this —
' By Jupiter, sir, that was a devilish good
pair that took you straight on end to
Exeter ! ' "
" I scarcely remember my grand-
father," the boy said ; " but he couldn't
have been a handsomer man than my
father, nor a better man either,"
" I don't say that," the old lady ob-
served, candidly. " Your father was just
such another. * Like father, like son,'
they used to say when he was a boy.
But then, you see, your father would go
and choose a wife for himself in spite of
everybody, just like all you Trelyons,
and so "
But she remembered, and checked her-
self. She began to tell the lad in how
far he resembled his grandfather in ap-
pearance, and he accepted these descrip-
tions of his features and figure in a heed-
less manner, as of one who had grown
too familiar with the fact of his being
handsome to care about it. Had not
every one paid him compliments, more or
less indirect, from his cradle upwards }
He was, indeed, all that the old lady
would have desired to see in a Trelyon
— tall, square-shouldered, clean-limbed,
with dark grey eyes set under black eye-
lashes, a somewhat aquiline nose, proud
and well-cut lips, a handsome forehead,
and a complexion which might have
been pale, but for its having been
bronzed by constant exposure to sun
and weather. There was something very
winning about his face, when he chose
to be winning ; and, when he laughed,
the laughter, being quite honest and care-
less and musical, was delightful to hear.
With these personal advantages, joine
to a fairly quick intelligence and a read_
sympathy. Master Harry Trelyon ought
to have been a universal favourite. S<^
far from that being the case, a section o
the persons whom he met, and whom he
shocked by his rudeness, quickly dis-
missed him as an irreclaimable cub; an-
other section, with whom he was on
better terms, considered him a bad-
tempered lad, shook their heads in a hu
morous fashion over his mother's trial-
and were inclined to keep out of his way :
while the best of his friends endeavoured
to throw the blame of his faults on his
bringing up, and maintained that he ha
many good qualities if only they had be(
properly developed. The only thing ce
tain about these various criticisms
THREE FEATHERS.
723
that they did not concern very much the
subject of them.
" And if I am like my grandfather," he
said, good-naturedly, to the old lady, who
was seated in a garden-chair, " why don't
you get me a wife such as he had ? "
" You ? A wife ? " she repeated, in-
dignantly, remembering that, after all, to
praise the good looks and excuse the hot-
headedness of the Trelyons was not pre-
cisely the teaching this young man need-
ed. " You take a wife ? Why, what girl
would have you ? You are a mere booby.
You can scarcely write your name.
George Trelyon was a gentleman, sir.
He could converse in six languages "
"And swear considerably in one, I've
heard," the lad said, with an impertinent
laugh.
"You take a wife? I believe the
stable-boys are better educated than you
are in manners, as well as in learning.
All you are fit for is to become a horse-
breaker to a cavalry regiment, or a game-
keeper ; and I do believe it is that old
wretch, Pentecost Luke, who has ruined
you. Oh ! I heard how Master Harry
used to defy his governess, and would
say nothing to her for days together, but
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met fifty old wives.
Then, old Luke had to be brought in,
and Luke's cure for stubbornness was to
give the brat a gun and teach him to
shoot starlings. Oh ! I know the whole
story, my son, though I wasn't in Corn-
wall at the time. And then Master Har-
ry must be sent to school ; but two days
afterwards Master Harry is discovered
at the edge of a wood, coolly seated with
a gun in his hand, waiting for his ferrets
to drive out the rabbits. Then Master
Harry is furnished with a private tutor ;
but a parcel of gunpowder is found be-
low the gentleman's chair, with the heads
of several lucifer matches lying about, i
So Master Harry is allowed to have his
own way ; and his master and preceptor
is a lying old gamekeeper, and Master
Harry can't read a page out of a book, [
but he can snare birds, and stuff fish,
and catch butterflies, and go cliff-hunt-
ing on a horse that is bound to break his
neck some day. Why, sir, what do you
think a girl would have to say to you if
you married her ? She would expect you
to take her into society ; she would ex-
pect you to be agreeable in your manners,
and be able to talk to people. Do you
think she would care about your cunning
ways of catching birds, as if you were a
cat or a sparrowhawk ? "
He only flicked at the rose, and
laughed ; lecturing had but little effect
on him.
" Do you think a girl would come to a
house like this, — one half of it filled with
dogs, and birds, and squirrels, and what
not, the other furnished like a chapel in a
cemetery? A combination of a church
and a menagerie, that's what I call it."
"Grandmother," he said, "these par-
sons have been stuffing your head full of
nonsense about me."
" Have they ? " said the old lady sharp-
ly, and eyeing him keenly. " Are you
sure it is all nonsense ? You talk of
marrying, — and you know that no girl of
your own station in life would look at
you. What about that public-house in
the village, and the two girls there, and
your constant visits ?"
He turned round with a quick look of
anger in his face.
" Who told you such infamous stories ?
I suppose one of the cringing, sneaking,
white-livered Bah ! "
He switched the head off the rose, and
strode away, saying as he went —
" Grandmother, you mustn't stay here
long. The air of the place affects even
you. Another week of it, and you'll be
as mean as the rest of them."
But he was in a very bad temper, de-
spite his careless gait. There was a scowl
on the handsome and boyish face that
was not pleasant to see. He walked
round to the stables, kicked about the
yard while his horse was being saddled,
and then rode out of the grounds, and
along the highway, until he went clatter-
ing down the steep and stony main street
of Eglosilyan.
The children knew well this black
horse : they had a superstitious fear of
him, and they used to scurry into the
who seldom
rein, rode down the precipi-
tous thoroughfare. But just at this mo-
ment, when young Trelyon was paying
little heed as to where he was going, a
small, white-haired bundle of humanity
came running out of a doorway, and
stumbled and fell right in the way of the
horse. The lad was a good rider, but all
the pulling up in the world could not pre-
vent the forefeet of the horse, as they
were shot out into the stones, from roll-
ing over that round bundle of clothes.
Trelyon leapt to the ground, and caught
up the child, who stared at him with big,
blue, frightened eyes.
cottages when his wild rider
tightened
724
THREE FEATHERS.
" It's you, young Pentecost, is it ?
And what the dickens do you mean by
trying to knock over my horse, eh ? "
TJie small boy was terrified, but quite
obviously not hurt a bit ; and his captor,
leading the horse with one hand and af-
fixing the bridle to the door, carried him
into the cottage.
" Well, Mother Luke," said young
Trelyon, " I know you've got too many
children, but do you expect that I'm go-
ing to put them out of the way for you ? "
She uttered a little scream, and caught
at the boy.
" Oh ! there's no harm done ; but I
suppose I must give him a couple of sov-
ereigns because he nearly frightened me
out of my wits. Poor little kid ! it's hard
on him that you should have given him
such a name. I suppose you thought it
was Cornish because it begins with Pen^
" You knaw 'twere his vather's name,
Maaster Harry," said Mrs. Luke, smiling
as she saw that the child's chubby fin-
gers were being closed over two bright
gold pieces.
Just at that moment. Master Harry,
his eyes having got accustomed to the
twilight of the kitchen, perceived that
among the little crowd of children, at the
fireside end, a young lady was sitting.
She was an insignificant little person
with dark eyes ; she had a slate in her
hand ; the children were round her in a
circle.
" Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Wen-
na ! " the young man said, removing his
hat quickly, and 'blushing all over his
handsome face. " I did not see you in
the dark. Is your father at the inn 1 —
I was going to see him. I hope I haven't
frightened you ? "
" Yes, my father has come back from
Plymouth," said the young lady, quietly,
and without rising. "And I think you
might be a little more careful in riding
through the village, Mr. Treylon."
"Good-morning," he said. "Take
better care of Master Pentecost, Mother
Luke." And with that he went out, and
got into the saddle again, and set off to
ride down to the inn, not quite so reck-
lessly as heretofore.
CHAPTER II.
JIM CROW.
When Miss Wenna, or Morwenna, as
her mother in a freak of romanticism had
called her, had finished her teaching, and
had inspected some fashioning of gar-
ments in which Mrs. Luke was engaged,
she put on her light shawl and her hat,
and went out into the fresh air. She was
now standing in the main street of
Eglosilyan ; and there were houses right
down below her, and houses far above
her, but a stranger would have been puz-
zled to say where this odd little village
began and ended. For it was built in a
straggling fashion on the sides of two
little ravines ; and the small stone cot-
tages were so curiously scattered among
the trees, and the plots of garden were
so curiously banked up with the walls
that were smothered in wild-flowers, that
you could only decide which was the
main thoroughfare by the presence there
of two greystone chapels — one the Wes-
leyans' Ebenezer, the other the Bible
Christians'. The churches were far
away on the uplands, where they were
seen like towers along the bleak cliffs by
the passing sailors. But perhaps Eglo-
silyan proper ought to be considered as
lying down in the hollow, where the two
ravines converged. For here was the
chief inn ; and here was the over-shot
flour-mill ; and here was the strange little
harbour, tortuous, narrow, and deep, into
which one or two heavy coasters came
for slate, bringing with them timber and
coal. Eglosilyan is certainly a pictu-
resque place ; but one's difficulty is to get
anything like a proper view of it. The
black and mighty cliffs at the mouth of
the harbour, where the Atlantic seethes
and boils in the calmest weather, the
beautiful blue-green water under the
rocks and along the stone quays, the
quaint bridge, and the mill, are pleasant
to look at ; but where is Eglosilyan ?
Then if you go up one of the ravines,
and get among the old houses, with their
tree-fuchsias, and hydrangeas, and mari-
golds, and lumps of white quartz in the
quaint little gardens, you find yourself
looking down the chimneys of one por-
tion of Eglosilyan, and looking up to the
doorsteps of another — everywhere a
confusion of hewn rock, and natural ter-
race, and stone walls, and bushes, and
hart's-tongue fern. Some thought that the
"Trelyon Arms" should be considered
the natural centre of Eglosilyan ; but you
could not see half-a-dozen houses from
any of its windows. Others would have
given the post of honour to the National
School, which had been there since 1843 ;
but it was up in a by-street, and could
only be approached by a flight of steps
cut in the slate wall that banked up the
garden in front of it. Others, for reasons
which need not be mentioned, held thai
THREE FEATHERS.
725
the most important part of Eglosilyan
was the Napoleon Hotel — a humble lit-
tle pot-house, frequented by the workers
in the slate-quarries, who came there to
discuss the affairs of the nation and hear
the news. Anyhow, Eglosilyan was a
green, bright, rugged, and picturesque
little place, oftentimes wet with the west-
ern rains, and at all times fresh and
sweet with the moist breezes from the
Atlantic.
Miss Wenna went neither down the
street nor up the street, but took a rough
and narrow little path leading by some of
the cottages to the cliffs overlooking the
sea. There was a sound of music in the
air ; and by-and-by she came in sight of
an elderly man, who, standing in an odd
little donkey-cart, and holding the reins
in one hand, held with the other a corno-
pean, which he played with great skill.
No one in Eglosilyan could tell precisely
whether Michael Jago had been bugler
to some regiment, or had acquired his
knowledge of the cornopean in a travel-
ling show ; but everybody liked to hear
the cheerful sound, and came out by the
cottage-door to welcome him, as he went
from village to village with his cart,
whether they wanted to buy suet or not.
And now, as Miss Wenna saw him ap-
proach, he was playing " The Girl I left
behind me ; " and as there was no one
about to listen to him, the pathos of cer-
tain parts, and the florid and skilful exe-
cution of others, showed that Mr. Jago
had a true love for music, and did not
merely use it to advertise his wares.
" Good-morning to you, Mr. Jago," said
Miss Wenna, as he came up.
" Marnin', Miss Rosewarne," he said,
taking down his cornopean.
" This is a narrow road for your cart."
" 'Tain't a very good way ; but, bless
you, me and my donkey we're used to
any zart of a road. I dii believe we could
go down to the bache, down the face of
Black Cliff."
" Mr. Jago, I want to say something to
you. If you are dealing with old Mother
Keam to-day, you'll give her a good extra
bit, won't you .? And so with Mrs. Ges-
wetherick, for she has had no letter from
her son now for three months. And this
will pay you, and you'll say nothing about
it, you know."
She put the coin in his hand — it was
an arrangement of old standing between
the two.
" Well, yii be a good young lady ; yaas,
yii be," he said, as he drove on ; and then
she heard him announcing his arrival to
the people of Eglosilyan by playing, in a
very elaborate manner, " Love's young
Dream."
The solitary young person who was
taking her morning walk now left this
rugged road, and found herself on the
bleak and high uplands of the coast.
Over there was the sea — a fair summer
sea; and down into the south-west
stretched a tall line of cliff, black, pre-
cipitous, and jagged, around the base of
which even this blue sea was churned
into seething masses of white. Close by
was a church ; and the very gravestones
were propped up, so that they should
withstand the force of the gales that
sweep over those windy heights.
She went across the uplands, and
passed down to a narrow neck of rock,
which connected with the mainland a
huge projecting promontory, on the sum-
mit of wtiich was a square and strongly-
built tower. On both sides of this ledge
of rock the sea from below passed into
narrow channels, and roared into gigantic
caves ; but when once you had ascended
again to the summit of the tall projecting
cliff, the distance softened the sound into
a low continuous murmur, and the mo-
tion of the waves beneath you was only
visible in the presence of that white foam
where the black cliffs met the blue sea.
She went out pretty nearly to the verge
of the cliff, where the close, short, wind-
swept sea-grass gave way to immense
and ragged masses of rock, descending
sheer into the waves below ; and here
she sat down, and took out a book, and
began to read. But her thoughts were
busier than her eyes. Her attention
would stray away from the page before
her — to the empty blue sea, where
scarcely a sail was to be seen, and to the
far headlands lying under the white of
the summer sky. One of these headlands
was Tintagel ; and close by were the
ruins of the great castle, where Uther
Pendragon kept his state, where the mys-
tic Arthur was born, where the brave Sir
Tristram went to see his true love. La
Belle Isoulde. All that world had van-
ished, and gone into silence ; could any-
thing be more mute and still than those
bare uplands out at the end of the world,
these voiceless cliffs, and the empty circle
of the sea ? The sun was hot on the
rocks beneath her, where the pink quartz
lay encrusted among the slate ; but there
was scarcely the hum of an insect to
break the stillness, and the only sign of
726
THREE FEATHERS.
life about was the circling of one or two
sea-birds, so far below her that their cries
could not be heard.
" Yes, it was a long time ago," the girl
was thinking, as the book lay unheeded
on her knee. "A sort of mist covers it
now, and the knights seem great and tall
men as you think of them riding through
the fog, almost in silence. But then
there were the brighter days, when the
tournaments were held, and the sun came
out, and the noble ladies wore rich col-
ours, and every one came to see how
beautiful they were. And how fine it
must have been to have sat there, and
have all the knights ready to fight for
you, and glad when you gave them a bit
of ribbon or a smile ! And in these days,
too, it must be a fine thing to be a noble
lady, and beautiful, and tall, like a prin-
cess ; and to go among the poor people,
putting everything to rights, because you
have lots of money, and because the
roughest of the men look up to you, and
think you a queen, and will do anything
you ask. What a happy life a grand and
beautiful lady must have, when she is
tall, and fair-haired, and sweet in her
manner ; and every one around her is
pleased to serve her, and she can do a
kindness by merely saying a word to the
poor people ! But if you are only Jim
Crow ? There's Mabyn, now, she is
everybody's favourite, because she is so
pretty ; and whatever she does, that is
always beautiful and graceful, because
she is so. Father never calls /ler Jim
Crow. And I ought to be jealous of her,
for every one praises her, and mere
strangers ask for her photograph ; and
Mr. Roscorla always writes to her, and
Mr. Trelyon stuffed those squirrels for
her, though he never offered to stuff
squirrels for me. But I cannot be jealous
of Mabyn — I cannot even try. She
looks at you with her blue, soft eyes, and
you fall in love with her ; and that is the
advantage of being handsome, and beau-
tiful, for you can please every one, and
make every one like you, and confer fa-
vours on people all day long. But if you
are small, and plain, and dark — if your
father calls you Jim Crow — what can
you do ?"
These despondent fancies did not seem
to depress her much. The gloom of
them was certainly not visible on her
face, nor yet in the dark eyes, which had
a strange and winning earnestness in
them. She pulled a bit of tormentil from
among the close warm grass on the rocks,
and she hummed a line or two of '• "tap-
ping Old Stairs." Then she turned to
her book ; but by-and-by her eyes wan-
dered away again, and she fell to think-
ing.
" If you were a man now," she was
silently saying to herself, " that would be
quite different. It would not matter
how ugly you were — for you could try
to be brave or clever, or a splendid rider,
or something of that kind — and nobody
would mind how ugly you were. But it's
very hard to be a woman, and to be plain ;
you feel as if you were good for nothing,
and had no business to live. They say
that you should cultivate the graces of
the mind ; but it's only old people who
say that ; and perhaps you mayn't have
any mind to cultivate. How much better
it would be to be pretty while you are
young, and leave the cultivation of the
mind for after years ! and that is why I
have to prevent mother from scolding
Mabyn for never reading a book. If I
were like Mabyn, I should be so occupied
in giving people the pleasure of looking
at me and talking to me that I should
have no time for books. Mabyn is like a
princess. And if she were a grand lady,
instead of being only an innkeeper's
daughter, what a lot of things she could
do about Eglosilyan ! She could go and
persuade Mr. Roscorla, by the mere
sweetness of her manner, to be less sus-
picious of people, and less bitter in talk-
ing ; she could go up to Mrs. Trelyon
and bring her out more among her neigh-
bours, and make the house pleasanter for
her son ; she could go to my father and
beg him to be a little more considerate to
mother when she is angry : she might
get some influence over Mr. Trelyon
himself, and make him less of a petulant
boy. Perhaps Mabyn may do some of
these things, when she gets a little older.
It ought to please her to try at all events ;
and who can withstand her when she
likes to be affectionate and winning ?
Not Jim Crow, any way."
She heaved a sigh, not a very dismal
one, and got up and prepared to go home.
She was humming carelessly to herself —
Your Polly has never been false, she declares,
Since last time we parted at Wapping Old
Stairs ;
— she had got that length when she was
startled into silence by the sound of a
horse's feet, and turning quickly round,
found Mr. Trelyon galloping up the
steep slope that stretches across to the
mainland. It was no pleasant place to
ride across, for a stumble of the animal's
THREE FEATHERS.
727
foot would have sent horse and rider
down into the gulfs below, where the
blue-green sea was surging in among the
black rocks.
" Oh ! how could you be so foolish as
to do that ? " she cried. " I beg of you
to come down, Mr. Trelyon. I can-
not "
" Why, Dick is as sure-footed as I
am," said the lad, his handsome face
flushing with the ride up from Eglosilyan.
" I thought I should find you here.
There's no end of a row going on at the
inn, Miss Wenna, and that's a fact. I
fancied I'd better come and tell you ; for
there's no one can put things straight
like you, you know."
A quarrel between her father and her
mother — it was of no rare occurrence,
and she was not much surprised.
" Thank you, Mr. Trelyon," she said.
" It is very kind of you to have taken the
trouble. I will go down at once."
But she was looking rather anxiously
at him, as he turned round his horse.
" Mr. Trelyon," she said, quickly,
" would you oblige me by getting down
and leading your horse across until you
reach the path ? "
He was out of the saddle in a moment.
" I will walk down with you to Eglosil-
yan, if you like," he said, carelessly.
"You often come up here, don't you ? "'
" Nearly every day. I always take a
walk in the forenoon."
" Does Mabyn ever go with you ? "
His companion noticed that he always ad-
dressed her as Miss Wenna, whereas her
sister was simply Mabyn..
" Not often."
"I wonder she doesn't ride — I am
sure she would look well on horseback —
don't you think so .f*"
" Mabyn would look well anywhere,"
said the elder sister, with a smile.
" If she would like to try a lady's saddle
on your father's cob, I would send you
one down from the Hall," the lad said.
" My mother never rides now. But per-
haps I'd better speak to your father about
it. Oh ! by the way, he told me a capital
story this morning that he heard in com-
ing from Plymouth to Launceston in the
train. Two farmers belonging to Laun-
ceston had got into a carriage the day be-
fore, and found in it a parson, against
whom they had a grudge. He didn't
know either of them by sight ; and so
they pretended to be strangers, and sat
down opposite each other. One of them
put up the window ; the other put it down
with a bang. The first drew it up again,
and said, ' I desire you to leave the
window alone, sir ! ' The other said, * I
mean to have that window down, and if
you touch it again I will throw you out of
it.' Meanwhile, the parson at the other
end of the carriage, who was a little
fellow and rather timid, had got into an
agony of fright ; and at last, when the
two men seemed about to seize each other
by the throat, he called out, ' For Heaven's
sake, gentlemen, do not quarrel. Sir, I
beg of you, I implore you, as a clergyman
I entreat you, to put up that knife !'
And then, of course, they both turned
upon him like tigers, and slanged him,
and declared they would break his back
over this same window. Fancy the fright
he was in ! "
The boy laughed merrily.
" Do you think that was a good joke ?"
the girl beside him asked, quietly.
He seemed a little embarrassed.
" Do you think it was a very manly
and courageous thing for two big farmers
to frighten a small and timid clergyman ?
I think it was rather mean and cowardly.
I see no joke in it at all."
His face grew more and more red ; and
then he frowned with vexation.
" I don't suppose they meant any
harm," he said, curtly ; " but you know
we can't all be squaring every word and
look by the Prayer-book. And I suppose
the parson himself, if he had known,
would not have been so fearfully serious
but that he could have taken a joke like
any one else. By the way, this is the
nearest road to Trevenna, isn't it ? I
have got to ride over there before the
afternoon. Miss Rosewarne ; so I shall
bid you good-day."
He got on horseback again, and took
off his cap to her, and rode away.
" Good-day, Mr. Trelyon," she said,
meekly.
And so she walked down to the inn by
herself, and was inclined to reproach her-
self for being so very serious, and for be-
ing unable to understand a joke like any
one else. Yet she was not unliappy
about it. It was a pity if Mr. Trelyon
were annoyed with her ; but then, she
had long ago taught herself to believe
that she could not easily please people,
like her sister Mabyn ; and she cheer-
fully accepted the fact. Sometimes, it is
true, she indulged in idle dreams of what
she might do if she were beautiful, and
rich, and noble ; but she soon laughed
herself out of these foolish fancies, and
they left no sting of regret behind them.
At this moment, as she walked down to
728
Eglosilyan, with the tune of "Wapping
Old Stairs " rocking itself to sleep in her
head, and with her face brightened by
her brisk walk, there was neither disap-
pointment, nor envy, nor ambition in her
mind. Not for her, indeed, were any of
those furious passions that shake and set
afire the lives of men and women ; her lot
was the calm and placid lot of the unre-
garded, and with it she was well content.
CHAPTER III.
RES ANGUSTiE DOMI.
When George Rosewarne, the father
of this Miss Wenna, lived in eastern
Devonshire, many folks thought him a
fortunate man. He was the land-steward
of a large estate, the owner of which
lived in Paris, so that Rosewarne was
practically his own master ; he had a
young and pretty wife, desperately fond
of him ; he had a couple of children and
a comfortable home. As for himself, he
was a tall, reddish-bearded, manlj'-look-
ing fellow ; the country folks called him
Handsome George as they saw him rid-
ing his rounds of a morning ; and they
thought it a pity Mrs. Rosewarne was so
often poorly, for she and her husband
looked well together when they walked
to church.
Handsome George did not seem much
troubled by his wife's various ailments ;
he would only give the curtest answer
when asked about her health. Yet he
was not in any distinct way a bad hus-
band. He was a man vaguely unwilling
to act wrongly, but weak in staving off
temptation ; there was a sort of indolent
selfishness about him of which he was
scarcely aware ; and to indulge this
selfishness he was capable of a good deal
of petty deceit and even treachery of a
sort. It was not these failings, however,
that made the relations of husband and
wife not very satisfactory. Mrs. Rose-
warne was passionately fond of her hus-
band, and proportionately jealous of him.
She was a woman of impulsive imagina-
tion and of sympathetic nature, clever,
bright, and fanciful, well-read and well-
taught, and altogether made of finer stuff
than Handsome George. But this pas-
sion of jealousy altogether over-mastered
her reason. When she did try to con-
vince herself that she was in the wrong,
the result was merely that she resolved
to keep silence ; but this forcible repres-
sion of her suspicions was worse in its
effects than the open avowal of them.
When the explosion came, George Rose-
THREE FEATHERS.
warne was mostly anxious to avoid it.
He did not seek to set matters straight.
He would get into a peevish temper for a
few minutes, and tell her she was a fool ;
then he would go out for the rest of the
day, and come home sulky in the even-
ing. By this time she was generally in
a penitent mood ; and there is nothing
an indolent sulky person likes so much
as to be coaxed and caressed, with tears
of repentance and affectionate promises,
into a good temper again. There were
too many such scenes in George Rose-
warne's home.
Mrs. Rosewarne may have been wrong,
but people began to talk. For there had
come to live at the Hall a certain Mrs.
Shirley, who had lately returned from
India, and was the sister-in-law, or some
such relation of George Rosewarne's
master. She was a good-looking woman of
forty, fresh-coloured and free-spoken, a
little too fond of brandy-and-water, folks
said, and a good deal too fond of the hand-
some steward, who now spent most o£
his time up at the big house. They said
she was a grass-widow. They said there
were reasons why her relations wished
her to be buried down there in the coun-
try, where she received no company, and
made no efforts to get acquainted with
the people who had called on her and
left their cards. And amid all this gos-
sip the name of George Rosewarne too
frequently turned up ; and there were
nods and winks when Mrs. Shirley and
the steward were seen to be riding about
the country from day to day, presumably
not always conversing about the prop-
erty. The blow fell at last, and that in a
fashion that needs not be described here.
There was a wild scene between two an-
gry women. A few days after, a sallow-
complexioned, white-haired old gentle-
man arrived from Paris, and was con-
fronted by a red-faced fury, who gloried
in her infatuation and disgrace, and dared
him to interfere. Then there was a sort
of conference of relatives held in the
house which she still inhabited. The
result of all this, so far as the Rose-
warnes were concerned, was simply that
the relatives of the woman, to hush the
matter up and prevent further scandal,
offered to purchase for George Rose-
warne the " Trelyon Arms " at Eglosil-
yan, on condition that he should imme-
diately, with his family, betake himself
to that remote corner of the world, and
undertake to hold no further communica-
tion of any sort with the woman who still
swore that she would follow him to the
THREE FEATHERS.
729
end of the earth. George Rosevvarne was
pleased with the offer, and accepted it.
He might have found some difficulty in
discovering another stewardship, after
the events that had just occurred. On
the other hand, the " Trelyon Arms " at
Eglosilyan was not a mere public-house.
It was an old-fashioned, quaint, and com-
fortable inn, practically shut up during
the winter, and in the summer made the
headquarters of a few families who had
discovered it, and who went there as .reg-
ularly as the warm weather came round.
A few antiquarian folks, too, and a stray
geologist or so generally made up the
family party that sat down to dinner
every evening in the big dining-room ;
and who that ever made one of the odd
circle meeting in this strange and out-of-
the-way place, ever failed to return to it
when the winter had finally cleared away
and the Atlantic got blue again ?
George Rosewarne went down to see
about it. He found in the inn an efficient
housekeeper, who was thoroughly mis-
tress of her duties and of the servants, so
that he should have no great trouble
about it, even though his wife were too
ill to help. And so the Rosevvarnes were
drafted down to the Cornish coast, and
as Mrs. Rosewarne was of Cornish birth,
and as she had given both her darlings
Cornish names, they gradually ceased to
be regarded as strangers. They made
many acquaintances and friends. Mrs.
Rosewarne was a bright, rapid, playful
talker ; a woman. of considerable reading
and intelligence, and a sympathetic lis-
tener. Her husband knew all about
horses, and dogs, and farming, and what
not, so that Master Harry Trelyon, for
example, was in the habit of consulting
him almost daily.
They had a little parlour abutting on
what once had been a bar, and here their
friends sometimes dropped in to have a
chat. There was a bar no longer. The
business of the inn was conducted over-
head, and was exclusively of the nature
described above. The pot-house of Eg-
losilyan was the Napoleon Hotel, a dilap-
idated place, half way up one of the steep
streets.
But in leaving Devonshire for Corn-
wall, the Rosewarnes had carried with
them a fatal inheritance. They could
not leave behind them the memory of the
circumstances that had caused their
flight ; and ever and anon, as something
occurred to provoke her suspicions, Mrs.
Rosewarne would break out as:ain into a
passion of jealousy, and demand expla-
nations and reassurances, which her hus-
band half-indolently and half-sulkily re-
fused. There was but one hand then —
one voice that could still the raginsT
waters. Morwenna Rosewarne knew
nothing of that Devonshire story, any
more than her sister or the neighbours
did ; but she saw that her mother had
defects of temper, that she was irritable,
unreasonable, and suspicious, and she
saw that her father was inconsiderately
indifferent and harsh. It was a hard task
to reconcile these two ; but the girl had
all the patience of a born peacemaker,
and patience is the more necessary to 'fs^
the settlement of such a dispute, in that
it is generally impossible for any human
being, outside the two who are quarrel-
ling, to discover any ground for the quar-
rel.
"Why, what's the matter, mother?"
she said on this occasion, taking off her
hat and shawl as if she had heard noth-
ing about it. " I do think you have been
crying."
The pretty, pale woman, with the large
black eyes and smoothly-brushed dark
hair, threw a book on to the table, and
said, with a sort of half-hysterical laugh,
" How stupid it is, Wenna, to cry over
the misfortunes of people in books, isn't
it ? Do you remember when old Pente-
cost Luke got the figure-head of Berna-
dotte of Sweden and stuck it in his
kitchen-garden, how fierce the whole
place looked .'' And then Harry Trelyon
got a knife, and altered the scowl into a
grin, and painted it a bit, and then you
couldn't go into the garden without
laughing. And when a man twists the
corners of his heroine's mouth down-
wards, or when it pleases him to twist
them upwards, why should one either cry
or laugh ? Well, well, she was a good ''
sort of girl, and deserved a better fate.
I will dry my eyes and think no more
about her."
The forced dragging-in of Bernadotte
of Sweden, and the incoherent speech
that followed, would not have deceived
Miss Wenna in any case, but now she was
to receive other testimony to the truth of
Mr. Trelyon's report. There was seated
at the window of the room a tall and
strikingly handsome young girl of six-
teen, whose almost perfect profile was
clearly seen against the light. Just at
this moment she rose and stepped across
the room to the door, and as she went by
she said, with just a trace of contemptu-
730 '
THREE FEATHERS.
ous indifference on the proud and beau-
tiful face, " It is only another quarrel,
Wenna."
" Mother," said the girl, when her sis-
ter had gone, " tell me what it is about.
What have you said to father ? Where
is he ? "
There was an air of quiet decision
about her that did not detract from the
sympathy visible in her face. Mrs. Rose-
warne began to cry again. Then she
took her daugliter's hand, and made her
sit down by her, and told her all her
troubles. What was the girl to make of
it ? It was the old story of suspicion, and
challenging, and sulky denial, and then
hot words and anger. She could make
out, at least, that her mother had first
been made anxious about something he
had inadvertently said about his visit to
Plymouth on the previous two days. In
reply to her questions he had grown
peevishly vague, and had then spoken in
bravado of the pleasant evening he had
spent at the theatre. Wenna reasoned
with her mother, and pleaded with her,
and at last exercised a little authority
over her, at the end of which she agreed
that, if her husband would tell her with
whom he had been to the theatre, she
would be satisfied, would speak no more
on the subject, and would even formally
beg his forgiveness.
"Because, mother, I have something
to tell you," the daughter said, " when
you are all quite reconciled."
" Was it in the letter you read just
now ?"
" Yes, mother."
The girl still held the letter in her hand.
It was lying on the table when she came
in, but she had not opened it and glanced
over the contents until she saw that her
mother was yielding to her prayers.
" It is from Mr. Roscorla, Wenna,"
the mother said ; and now she saw, as
she might have seen before, that her
daughter was a little paler than usual,
and somewhat agitated.
" Yes, mother."
" What is it, then ? You look fright-
ened."
"I must settle this matter first," said
the girl, calmly ; and then she folded up
the letter, and, still holding it in her
hand, went off to find her father.
George Rosewarne, seeking calm after
the storm, was seated on a large and cu-
riously-carved bench of Spanish oak
placed by the door of the inn. He was
smoking his pipe, and lazily looking at
some pigeons that were flying about the
mill and occasionally alighting on the
roof. In the calm of the midsummers
day there was no sound but the inces-
sant throbbing of the big wheel over
there and the plash of the water.
" Now, don't bother me, Wenna," he
said, the moment he saw her approach.
" I know you've come to make a fuss.
You mind your own business."
"Mother is very sorry "the girl
was beginning in a meek way, when he
interrupted her rudely.
" I tell you to mind your own business.
I must have an end of this. I have stood
it long enough. Do you hear .^"
But she did not go away. She stood
there, with her quiet, patient face, not
heeding his angry looks.
"Father, don't be hard on her. She is
very sorry. She is willing to beg your
pardon if you will only tell her who went
to the theatre with you at Plymouth, and
relieve her from this anxiety. That is
all. Father, who went to the theatre
with you ? "
" Oh, go away ! " he said, relapsing into
a sulky condition. " You're growing up
to be just such another as your mother."
" I cannot wish for any better," the
girl said, mildly. " She is a good woman,
and she loves you dearly.'"
"Why," he said,
upon her, and speaking in an injured
wav, " no one went with me to the theatre
at Plymouth ! Did I say that anybody
did ? Surely a man must do something
to spend the evening if he is by himself
in a strange town."
Wenna put her hand on her father's
shoulder, and said, " Da, why didn't you
take me to Plymouth ? "
" Well, I will next time. You're a good
lass," he said, still in the same sulky way.
"Now come in and make it up with
mother. She is anxious to make it up."
He looked at his pipe.
" In a few minutes, Wenna. When I
finish my pipe."
" She is waiting now," said the girl
quietly ; and with that her father burst
into a loud laugh, and got up and
shrugged -his shoulders, and then, taking
his daughter by the ear, and saying that
she was a sly little cat, he walked into
the house and into the room where his
wife awaited him.
Meanwhile, Wenna Rosewarne had
stolen off to her own little room, and
there she sat down at the window, and
with trembling fingers took out a letter and
began to read it. It was certainly a docu-
ment of some length, consisting, indeed,
turning suddenly
THREE FEATHERS.
iz-^
of four large pages of blue paper, covered
with a small, neat, and precise hand-
writing. She had not got on very far with
it, when the door of the room was opened,
and Mrs. Rosevvarne appeared, the pale
face and large dark eyes being now filled
with a radiant pleasure. Her husband
had said something friendly to her ; and
the quick imaginative nature had leapt to
the conclusion that all was right again,
and that there were to be no more need-
less quarrels.
" And now, Wenna," she said, sitting
down by the girl, " what is it all about ?
and why did you look so frightened a few
minutes ago ? "
" Oh, mother ! " the girl said, "this is
a letter from Mr. Roscorla, and he wants
me to marry him."
" Mr. Roscorla ! " cried the mother, in
blank astonishment. " Who ever dreamed
of such a thing? and what do you say,
Wenna .'' What do you think .'' What
answer will you send him ? Dear me, to
thfnk of Mr. Roscorla taking a wife, and
wanting to have our Wenna, too ! "
She began to tell her mother some-
thing of the letter, reading it carefully to
herself, and then repeating aloud some
brief suggestion of what she had read, to
let her mother know what were the ar-
guments that Mr. Roscorla employed.
And it was, on the whole, an argumenta-
tive letter, and much more calm, and
lucid, and reasonable than most letters
are which contain offers of marriage.
Mr. Roscorla wrote thus : —
" Basset Cottage, Eglosilyan, July i8, i8 — .
" My dear Miss Wenna, — I fear that
this letter may surprise you, but I hope
you will read it through without alarm or
indignation, and deal fairly and kindly
with what if has to say. Perhaps you
will think, when you have read it, that I
ou ;ht to have come to you and said the
things that it says. But I wish to put
these things before you in as simple a
manner as I can, which is best done by
writing ; and a letter will have this ad-
vantage that you can recur to it at any
moment, if there is some point on which
you are in doubt.
" The object, then, of this letter is to
ask you to become my wife, and to put
before you a few considerations which I
hope will have some little influence in de-
termining your answer. You will be sur-
prised, no doubt ; for though you must
be well aware that I could perceive the
graces of your character — the gentleness
and charity of heart, and modesty of de-
meanour that have endeared you to the
whole of the people among whom you
live — you may fairly say that I never
betrayed my admiration of you in word
or deed, and that is true. I cannot pre-
cisely tell you why I should be more dis-
tant in manner towards her whom I pre-
ferred to all the world than to her
immediate friends and associates for
whom I cared much less ; but such is the
fact. I could talk, and joke, and spend
a pleasant afternoon in the society of
your sister Mabyn, for example ; I could
ask her to accept a present from me ; I
could write letters to her when I was in
London ; but with you all that was dif-
ferent. Perhaps it is because you are so
fine and shy, because there is so much
sensitiveness in your look, that I have
almost been afraid to go near you, lest
you should shrink from some rude inti-
mation of that which I now endeavour to
break to you gently — my wish and ear-
nest hope that you may become my wife.
I trust I have so far explained what per-
haps you may have considered coldness
on my part.
" I am a good deal older than you are ;
and I cannot pretend to offer you that
fervid passion which, to the imagination
of the young, seems the only thing worth
living for, and one of the necessary con-
ditions of marriage. On the other hand,
I cannot expect the manifestation of any
such passion on your side, even if I had
any wish for it. But on this point I
should like to make a few observations
which I hope will convince you that my
proposal is not so unreasonable as it may
have seemed at first sight. When I look
over the list of aU my friends who have
married, whom do I find to be living the
happiest life ? Not they who as boy and
girl were carried away by a romantic
idealism which seldom lasts beyond a
few weeks after marriage, but those who
had wisely chosen partners fitted to be-
come their constant and affectionate
friends. It is this possibility of friend-
ship, indeed, which is the very basis of a
happy marriage. The romance and pas-
sion of love soon depart ; then the man
and woman find themselves living in the
same house, dependent on each other's
character, intelligence, and disposition,
and bound by inexorable ties. If, in
these circumstances, they can be good
friends, it is well with them. If they ad-
mire each other's thoughts and feelings,
if they are generously considerate towards
each other's weaknesses, if they have
pleasure in each other's society — if, ia
732
THREE FEATHERS.
short, they find themselves bound to each
other by the ties of a true and disinter-
ested friendship, the world has been good
to them. I say nothing against that
period of passion which, in some rare and
fortunate instances, precedes this infi-
nitely longer period of friendship. You
would accuse me of the envy of an elderly
man if I denied that it has its romantic
aspects. But how very temporary these
are ! How dangerous they are, too ! for
during this term of hot-headed idealism,
the, young people have their eyes bewil-
dered, and too often make the most griev-
ous mistake in choosing a partner for
life. The passion of a young man, as I
have seen it displayed in a thousand in-
stances, is not a thing to be desired. It
is cruel in its jealousy, exacting in its
demands, heedless in its impetuosity ;
and when it has burned itself out — when
nothing remains but ashes and an empty
fireplace — who is to say that the capa-
city for a firm and lasting friendship will
survive ? But perhaps you fancy that
this passionate love may last forever.
Will you forgive me, dear Miss Wenna,
if I say that that is the dream of a girl ?
In such rare cases as I have seen, this
perpetual ardour of love was anything but
a happiness to those concerned. The
freaks of jealousy on the part of a boy
and girl who think of getting married are
but occasions for the making of quarrels
and the delight of reconciliation ; but a
life-long jealousy involves a torture " to
both husband and wife to which death
would be preferable."
At this point Morwenna's cheeks
burned red ; she was silent for a time,
and her mother wondered why she skipped
so long a passage without saying a word.
" I have used all the opportunities
within my reach," the letter continued,
" to form a judgment of your character ;
I know something of my own ; and I sin-
cerely believe that we could live a happy
and pleasant life together. It is a great
sacrifice I ask of you, I own ; but you
would not find me slow to repay you in
gratitude. I am almost alone in the
world ; the few relatives I have I never
see ; I have scarcely a friend or acquaint-
ance except those .1 meet under your
father's hospitable roof. I cannot con-
ceal from myself that I should be by far
the greater gainer by such a marriage. I
should secure for myself a pleasant, in-
telligent, and amiable companion, who
would brighten my home, and in time, I
doubt not, soften and sweeten those views
of the world that are naturally formed by
a middle-aged man living alone and in
privacy. What can I offer you in return ?
Not much — except the opportunity of
adding one more to the many good deeds
that seem to be the chief occupation of
your life. And I should be glad if you
would let me help you in that way, and
give you the aid of advice which might,
perhaps, temper your generosity and ap-
ply it to its best uses. You are aware
that I have no occupation — and scarcely
a hobby ; I should make it my occupa-
tion, my constant endeavour and pleasure,
to win and secure your affection, to make
the ordinary little cares and duties of life,
in which you take so great an interest,
smooth and pleasant to you. In short, I
should try to make you happy ; not in
any frantic and wild way, but by the ex-
ercise of a care, and affection, and guar-
dianship by which I hope we should both
profit. May I point out, also, that, as a
married woman, you would have much
more influence among the poorer families
in the village who take up so much* of
your attention ; and you would be re-
moved, too, if I may mention such a
thing, from certain unhappy circum-
stances which I fear trouble you greatly
at times. But perhaps I should not have
referred to this ; I would rather seek to
press my claim on the ground of the hap-
piness you would thereby confer on oth-
ers, which I know to be your chief object
in life.
" I have not said half what I intended
to say ; but I must not fatigue you. Per-
haps you will give me an opportunity of
telling you personally what I think of
yourself, for I cannot bring myself to
write it in bald words ; and if you should
be in doubt, give me the benefit of the
doubt, and let me explain. I do not ask
you for a hurried answer; but I should
be glad if, out of the kindness of all your
ways, you would send me one line soon,
merely to say that I have not offended
you.
" I am, my dear Miss Rosewarne, yours
most sincerely,
" Richard Roscorla."
" Oh ! what must I do, mother ? " the
girl cried. '• Is it all true that he says .-* "
" My dear child, there is a great deal
of common sense in the letter," the
mother replied, calmly ; " but you needn't
decide all at once. Take plenty of time.
I suppose you don't dislike Mr. Ros-
corla .? "
'• Oh, not at all — not at all ! But then,
to marry him ! "
THREE FEATHERS.
733
" If you don't wish to marry him, no
harm is done," Mrs. Rosewarne said. " I
cannot advise you, Wenna. Your own
feelings must settle the question. But
you ought to be very proud of the offer,
anyway, and you must thank him prop-
erly ; for Mr. Roscorla is a gentleman,
although he is not as rich as his relations,
and it is a great honour he has done you.
Dear me, but I mustn't advise. Of
course, Wenna, if you were in love with
any one — if there was any young man
about here whom you wo«ld like to marry
— there would be no need for you to be
frightened about what Mr. Roscorla says
of young folks being in love. It is a
trying time, to be sure. It has many
troubles. Perhaps, after all, a quiet and
peaceful life is better, especially for you,
Wenna, for you were always quiet and
peaceful, and if any trouble came over
you it would break your heart. I think it
would be better for you if you were never
tried in that way, Wenna."
The girl rose, with a sigh.
" Not that it is my advice, Wenna,"
said the mother. " But you are of that
nature, you see. If you were in love with
a young man, you would be his slave. If
he ceased to care for you, or were cruel
to you, it would kill you, my dear. Well,
you see, here is a man who would be
able to take care of you, and of your
sister Mabyn, too, if anything happened
to your father or me ; and he would make
much of you, I have no doubt, and be
very kind to you. You are not like other
girls, Wenna "
"I know that, mother," said the girl, with
a strange sort of smile that just trem-
bled on the verge of tears. " They can't
all be as plain as I am."
" Oh, I don't mean that ! You make a
great mistake if you think that men only
care for doll-faces — as Mr. Roscorla says,
that fancy does not last long after mar-
riage, and then men begin to ask whether
their wives are clever, and amusing, and
well-informed, and so on. What I meant
was, that most girls could run the gaunt-
let of that sort of love that Mr. Roscorla
describes, and suffer a little if they made
a mistake. But there's no shell about
you, Wenna. You are quite undefended,
sensitive, and timid. People are de-
ceived by your quick wit, and your cheer-
fulness, and your singing. I know better.
I know that a careless word may cut you
deeply. And dear, dear me, what a terri-
ble time that is when all your life seems
to hang on the way a word is spoken ! "
The girl crossed over to a small side-
table, on which there was a writing-
desk.
" But mind, Wenna," said her mother,
with a return of anxiety, "mind I don't
say that to influence your decision.
Don't be influenced by me. Consult your
own feelings, dear. You know I think
sometimes you undervalue yourself, and
think that no one cares about you, and
that you have no claim to be thought
much of. Well, that is a great mistake,
Wenna. You must not throw yourself
away through that notion. I wish all the
girls about were as clever and good-na-
tured as you. But at the same time, you
know, there are few girls I know, and cer-
tainly none about here, who would con-
sider it throwing themselves away to
marry Mr. Roscorla."
" Marry Mr. Roscorla I " a third voice
exclaimed, and at the same moment
Mabyn Rosewarne entered the room.
She looked at her mother and sister
with astonishment. She saw that Wenna
was writing, and that she was very pale.
She saw a blue-coloured letter lying be-
side her. Then the proud young beauty
understood the situation ; and with her
to perceive a thing was to act on the sug-
gestion there and then.
'* Our Wenna ! Marry that old man !
Oh, mother ! how can you let her do such
a thing .'' "
She walked right over to the small
table, with a glow of indignation in her
face, and with her lips set firm, and her
eyes full of fire ; and then she caught up
the letter, that had scarcely been begun,
and tore it in a thousand pieces, and flung
the pieces on to the floor.
" Oh, mother ! how could you let her
do it ? Mr. Roscorla marry our Wenna ! "
She took two or three steps up and
down the room in a pretty passion of in-
dignation, and yet trying to keep her
proud eyes free from tears.
" Mother, if you do I'll go into a con-
vent ! I'll go to sea, and never come
back again ! I won't stop in the house
— not one minute — if Wenna goes
away ! "
" My dear child," said the mother, pa-
tiently, "it is not my doing. You must
not be so rash. Mr. Roscorla is not an
old man — nothing of the sort; and, if
he does offer to marry Wenna, it is a
great honour done to her, I think. She
ought to be very grateful, as I hope you
will be, Mabyn, when any one offers to
marry you "
734
THREE FEATHERS.
Miss Mabyn drew herself up ; and her
pretty mouth lost none of its scorn.
"And as for Wenna," the mother said,
" she must judge for herself "
" Oh, but she's not fit to judge for
herself ! " broke in the younger sister,
impetuously. " She will do anything that
anybody wants. She would make herself
the slave of anybody. She is always be-
ing imposed on. Just wait a moment,
and /will answer Mr. Roscorla's letter ! "
She walked over to the table again,
twisted round the writing-desk, and
quickly pulled in a chair. You would
have thought that the pale, dark-eyed
little girl on the other side of the table
had no will of her own — that she was in
the habit of obeying this beautiful young
termagant of a sister of hers ; but' Miss
Mabyn's bursts of impetuosity were no
match for the gentle patience and deci-
sion that were invariably opposed to them.
In this instance Mr. Roscorla was not to
be the recipient of a letter which doubt-
less would have astonished him.
"Mabyn," said her sister Wenna,
quietly, " don't be foolish. I must write
to Mr. Roscorla — but only to tell him
that I have received his letter. Give me
the pen. And will you go and ask Mrs.
Borlase if she can spare me Jennifer for
a quarter of an hour, to go up to Basset
Cottage ? "
Mabyn rose, silent, disappointed, and
obedient, but not subdued. She went off
to execute the errand ; but as she went
she said to herself, with her head very
erect, " Before Mr. Roscorla marries our
Wenna, I will have a word to say to him."
Meanwhile Wenna Rosewarne, appar-
ently quite calm, but with her hand trem-
bling so that she could hardly hold the
pen, wrote her first love-letter. And it
ran thus : —
"Trelyon Arms, Tuesday afternoon.
" Dear Mr. Roscorla, — I have re-
ceived your letter, and you must not
think me offended. I will try to send you
an answer to-morrow ; or perhaps the
day after, or perhaps on Friday, I will try
to send you an answer to your letter.
" I am yours sincerely,
" Morwenna Rosewarne."
She took it timidly to her mother, who
smiled, and said it was a little incoherent.
" But I cannot write it again, mother,"
the girl said. " Will you give it to Jen-
nifer when she comes ? "
Little did Miss Wenna notice of the
beautiful golden afternoon that was shin-
ing over Eglosilyan as she left the inn and
stole away out to the rock at the mouth
of the little harbour. She spoke to her
many acquaintances as she passed, and
could not have told a minute thereafter
that she had seen them. She said a
word or two to the coastguardsman out
at the point — an old friend of hers —
and then she went round to the seaward
side of the rocks, and sat down to think
the whole matter over. The sea was as
still as a sea in a dream. There was but
one ship visible, away down in the south,
a brown speck in a flood of golden haze.
When the first startled feeling was
over — when she had recovered from th«
absolute fright that so sudden a propo-
sal had caused her — there was some-
thing of pride and pleasure crept into her
heart to know that she was not quite the
insignificant person she had fancied her-
self to be. Was it true, then, what he
had said about her being of some use to
the people around her .'* Did they really
care for her ? Had she really won the
respect and approval of a man who had
hitherto seemed to her suspicious and
censorious ?
There flashed upon her some faint pic-
ture of herself as a matron, and she found
herself blushing and smiling at the same
time to think of herself going round the
cottages as Mrs. R.oscorla, and acting the
part of a little married woman. If mar-
riage meant no more than that, she was
not afraid of it ; on the contrary, the
prospect rather pleased her. These were
duties she could understand. Marriage,
in those idle day-dreams of hers, had
seemed to her some vague, and distant,
and awful thing ; all the romance, and
worship and noble self-surrender of it
being far away from a poor little plain
person, not capable of inspiring idealism
in anybody. Bijt this, on the other hand,
seemed easily within her reach. She be-
came rather amused with the picture of
herself which she drew as Mrs. Roscorla.
Her quick fancy put in little humorous
touches here and there, until she found
herself pretty nearly laughing at herself,
as a small married woman. For what did
the frank-spoken heroine of that sailor-
ballad say to her lover ? If he would be
faithful and kind.
Nor your Molly forsake,
Still your trousers I'll wash, and yo
too, I'll make.
dolly lorsake,
wash, and your grog,'
Mr. Roscorla did wear certain white gar-i
ments occasionally in summer-time, andi
very smart he looked in them. As forj
his grog, would she mix the proper
THREE FEATHERS.
735
quantities, as they sat together of an
evening, by themselves, in that little par-
lour up at Basset Cottage ? And would
she have to take his arm as they w^alked
of a Sunday morning to church, up the
main street of Eglosilyan, where all her
old friends, the children, would be look-
ing at her ? And would she some day,
with all the airs and counsels of a mar-
'ried woman, have to take Mabyn to her
'arms and bid the younger sister have
confidence, and tell her all the story of
her wonder and delight over the new and
strange love that had come into her
heart ? And would she ask Mabyn to
describe her lover ; and would she act
the ordinary part of an experienced ad-
viser, and bid her be cautious, and ask
her to wait until the young man had
made a position in the world, and had
proved himself prudent and sensible, and
of steady mind? Or would she not
rather fling her arms round her sister's
neck, and bid her go down on her knees
and thank God for having made her so
beautiful, and bid her cherish as the one
good thing in all the world the strong
and yearning love and admiration and
worship of a young and wondering soul ?
Wenna Rosewarne had been amusing
herself with these pictures of herself as a
married woman ; but she was crying all
the same ; and becoming a little impa-
tient with herself, and perhaps a trifle
hysterical, she rose from the rocks and
thought she would go home again. She
had scarcely turned, however, when she
met Mr. Roscorla himself, who had seen
her at a distance, and followed her.
CHAPTER IV.
THE LAST LOOK BACK.
Mr. Roscorla may be recommended
to ladies generally, and to married men
who are haunted by certain vague and
vain regrets, as an excellent example of
the evils and vanity of club-life. He was
now a man approaching fifty, careful in
dress and manner, methodical in habit,
and grave of aspect, living out a not over-
enjoyable life in a solitary little cottage,
and content to go for his society to the
good folks of the village inn. But five-
and-twenty years before he had been a
gay young fellow about town, a pretty
general favourite, clever in his way, free
with his money, and possessed of excel-
lent spirits. He was not very wealthy, to
be sure ; his father had left him certain
shares in some sugar-plantations in Ja-
maica, but the returns periodically for-
warded to him by his agents were suffi-
cient for his immediate wants. He had
few cares, and he seemed on the whole to
have a pleasant time of it. On disen-
gaged evenings he lounged about his
club, and dined with one or other of the
men he knew, and then he played bil-
liards till bed-time. Or he would have
nice little dinner-parties at his rooms;
and, after the men had changed their
coats, would have a few games at whist,
perhaps finishing up with a little spurt of
unlimited loo. In the season he went to
balls, and dinners, and parties of all sorts,
singling out a few families with pretty
daughters for his special attentions, but
careful never to commit himself. When
every one went from town he went too,
and in the autumn and winter months he
had a fair amount of shooting and hunt-
ing, guns and horses alike and willingly
furnished by his friends.
Once, indeed, he had taken a fancy
that he ought to do something, and he
went and read law a bit, and ate some
dinners, and got called to the Bar. He
even went the length of going on Circuit ;
but either he travelled by coach, or fra-
ternized with a solicitor, or did some-
thing objectionable : at all events his Cir-
cuit mess fined him : he refused to pay
the fine, threw the whole thing up, and
returned to his club, and its carefully-
ordered dinners, and its friendly game of
sixpenny and eighteen-penny pool.
Of course he dressed, and acted, and
spoke just as his fellows did, and grad-
ually from the common talk of smoking-
rooms imbibed a vast amount of non-
sense. He knew that such and such a
statesman professed particular opinions
only to keep in place and enjoy the loaves
and fishes. He could tell you to a penny
the bribe given to the editor of the Tifnes
by a foreign Government for a certain
series of articles. As for the stories he
heard and repeated of all manner of noble
families, they were many of them doubt-
less true, and they were nearly all un-
pleasant ; but then the tale that would
have been regarded with indifference if
told about an ordinary person, grew lam-
bent with interest when it was told about
a commonplace woman possessed of a
shire and a gaby crowned with a coronet.
There was no malice in these stories ;
only the young men were supposed to
know everything about the private affairs
of a certain number of families no more
nearly related to them than their washer-
woman.
He was unfortunate, too, in a few per-
73^
THREE FEATHERS.
sonal experiences. He was a fairly well-
intentioned young man, and, going home
one night, was moved to pity by the sob-
bing and exclamations of a little girl of
twelve, whose mother was drunk and
tumbling about the pavement. The child
could not get her mother to go home,
and it was now past midnight. Richard
Roscorla thought he would interfere, and
went over the way and helped the woman
to her feet. He had scarcely done so,
when the virago turned on him, shouted
for help, accused him of assaulting her,
.and finally hit him straight between the
eyes, nearly blinding him, and causing
him to keep his chambers for three
weeks. After that he gave up the lower
classes.
Then a gentleman who had been his
bosom friend at Eton, and who had car-
ried away with him so little of the atmos-
phere of that institution that he by-and-
by abandoned himself to trade, renewed
his acquaintance with Mr. Roscorla, and
besought him to join him in a little busi-
ness transaction. He only wanted a few
thousand pounds to secure the success
of a venture that would make both their
fortunes. Young Roscorla hesitated.
Then his friend sent his wife, an exceed-
ingly pretty woman, and she pleaded
with such sweetness and pathos that she
actually carried away a cheque for the
amount in her beautiful little purse. A
couple of days after Mr. Roscorla dis-
covered that his friend had suddenly left
the country ; that he had induced a good
many people to lend him money to start
his new enterprise ; and that the beauti-
ful lady whom he had sent to plead his
cause was a wife certainly, but not his
wife. She was, in fact, the wife of one
of the swindled creditors, who bore her
loss with greater equanimity than he
showed in speaking of his departed
money. Young Roscorla laughed, and
said to himself that a man who wished to
have any knowledge of the world must
be prepared to pay for it.
The loss of the money, though it
pressed him hardly for a few years, and
gave a fright to his father's executors,
did not trouble him much ; for in com-
pany with a good many of the young fel-
lows about, he had given himself up to
one of the most pleasing delusions which
even club-life has fostered. It was the
belief of those young men that in Eng-
land there are a vast number of young
ladies of fortune who are so exceedingly
anxious to get married, that any decent
young fellow of fair appearance and good
manners has only to bide his time in
order to be provided for for life. Ac-
cordingly Mr. Roscorla and others of his
particular set were in no hurry to take a
wife. They waited to see who would
bid most for them. They were not in
want ; they could have maintained a wife
in a certain fashion ; but that was not
the fashion in which they hoped to
spend the rest of their days, when they
consented to relinquish the joys and
freedom of bachelorhood. Most of them,
indeed, had so thoroughly settled in their
own mind the sort of existence to which
they were entitled — the house, and
horses, and shooting necessary to them
— that it was impossible for them to con-
sider any lesser offer; and so they wait-
ed from year to year, guarding them-
selves against temptation, cultivating
an excellent taste in various sorts of
luxuries, and reserving themselves for
\\-\Q. grand coup which was to make their
fortune. In many cases they looked
upon themselves as the victims of the
world. They had been deceived by this
or the other woman ; but now they had
done with the fatal passion of love, its
dangerous perplexities, and insfncere ro-
mance ; and were resolved to take a
sound common-sense view of life. So
they waited carelessly, and enjoyed their
time, growing in wisdom of a certain
sort. They were gentlemanly young fel-
lows enough ; they would not have done
a dishonourable action for the world ;
they were well-bred, and would have said
no discourteous thing to the woman they
married, even though -they hated her ;
they had thetf cold bath every morning ;
they lived soberl}', if not very righteously ;
and' would not have asked ten points at
billiards if they fairly thought they could
have played even. The only thing was
that they had changed their sex. They
were not Perseus, but Andromeda ; and
while this poor masculine Andromeda re-
mained chained to the rock of an ima-
ginary poverty, the feminine Perseus who
was to come in a blaze of jewels and gold
to the rescue, still remained afar off,
until Andromeda got a little tired.
And so it was with Mr. Richard Ros-
corla. He lounged about his club, and
had nice little dinners ; he went to other
people's houses, and dined there ; with
his crush hat under his arm he went
to many a dance, and made such acquaint-
ances as he might ; but somehow that
one supreme chance invariably missed.
He did not notice it, any more than his
fellows. If you had asked any of them,
THREE FEATHERS.
737
they would still have given you those
devil-may-care opinions about women,
and those shrewd estimates of what was
worth living for in the world. They did
not seem to be aware that year after year
was going by, and that a new race of
younger men were coming to the front,
eager for all sorts of pastimes, ready to
dance till daybreak, and defying with their
splendid constitutions the worst cham-
pagne a confectioner ever brewed. A
man who takes good care of himself is
slow to believe that he is growing middle-
aged. If the sitting up all night to play
loo does him an injury such as he would
not have experienced a few years before,
he lays the blame of it on the brandy-and-
soda. When two or three hours over
wet turnips make his knees feel queer, he
vows that he is in bad condition, but
that a few days' exercise will set him
right. It was a long time before Mr.
Richard Roscorla would admit to himself
that his hair was growing grey. By this
time many of his old friends and asso-
ciates had left the club. Some had died ;
some had made the best of a bad bargain,
and married a plain country cousin ;
none, to tell the truth, had been rescued
by the beautiful heiress for whom they
had all been previously waiting. And
while these men went away, and while
new men came into the club — young fel-
lows with fresh complexions, abundant
spirits, a lavish disregard of money, and
an amazing enjoyment in drinking any
sort of wine — another set of circum-
stances came into play which rendered it
more and more necessary for Mr. Ros-
corla to change his ways of life.
He was now over forty ; his hair was
grey ; his companions were mostly older
men than himself ; and he began to be
rather pressed for money. The mer-
chants in London who sold for his agents
in Jamaica those consignments of sugar
and rum sent him every few months
statements which showed that either the
estates were yielding less, or the markets
had fallen, or labour had risen — what-
ever it might be, his annual income was
very seriously impaired. He could no
longer afford to play half-crown points at
whist : even sixpenny pool was danger-
ous ; and those boxes and stalls which it
was once his privilege to take for dowa-
gers gifted with daughters, were alto-
gether out of the question. The rent of
his rooms in Jermyn Street was a serious
matter ; all his little economies at the
club were of little avail ; at last he re-
solved to leave London, And then it
LIVING AGE. vni.. VII. 359
was that he bethought him of living per-
manently at this cottage at Eglosilyan,
which had belonged to his grandfather,
and which he had visited from time to
time during the summer months. He
would continue his club-subscription ;
he would still correspond with certain of
his friends ; he would occasionally pay a
flying visit to London ; and down here by
the Cornish coast he would live a healthy,
economical, contented life.
So he came to Eglosilyan, and took up
his abode in the plain white cottage
placed amid birch-trees on the side of the
hill, and set about providing himself with
amusement. He had a good many books,
and he read at night over his final pipe ;
he made friends with the fishermen, and
often went out with them ; he took a
little interest in wild plants ; and he rode
a sturdy little pony by way of exercise.
He was known to the Trelyons, to the
clergymen of the neighbourhood, and to
one or two families living farther off; but
he did not dine out much, for he could
not well invite Jiis host to dinner in re-
turn. His chief friends, indeed, were
the Rosewarnes ; and scarcely a day
passed that he did not call at the inn
and have a chat with George Rosewarne,
or with his wife and daughters. For the
rest, Mr. Roscorla was a small man,
sparely built, with somewhat fresh com-
plexion, close-cropped grey hair and iron-
grey whiskers. He dressed very neatly
and methodically ; he was fairly light ani
active in his walk ; and he had a grave,
good-natured smile. He was much im-
proved in constitution, indeed, since he
came to Eglosilyan ; for that was not a
place to let any one die of languor, or to
encourage complexions of the colour of
apple-pudding. Mr. Roscorla, indeed,
had the appearance of a pleasant little
country lawyer, somewhat finical in dress
and grave in manner, and occasionally
just a trifle supercilious and cutting in
his speech.
He had received Wenna Rosewarne's
brief and hurriedly-written note ; and if
accident had not thrown her in his way,
he would doubtless have granted her that
time for reflection which she demanded.
But happening to be out, he saw her go
down towards the rocks beyond the har-
bour. She had a pretty figure, and she
walked gracefully ; when he saw her at a
distance some little flutter of anxiety dis-
turbed his heart. That glimpse of her
— the possibility of securing as his con-
stant companion a girl who walked so
daintily and dressed so neatly — added
738
some little warmth of feeling to the wish
he had carefully reasoned out and ex-
pressed. For the offer he had sent to
Miss Wenna was the result of much cal-
culation. He was half aware that he had
let his youth slip by and idled away his
opportunities ; there was now no chance
of his engaging in any profession or pur-
suit ; there was little chance of his bet-
tering his condition by a rich marriage.
What could he now offer to a beautiful
young creature possessed of fortune such
as he had often looked out for, in return
for herself and her money ? Not his
grey hairs, and his asthmatic evenings in
winter, and the fixed, and narrow, and
oftentimes selfish habits and opinions
begotten of a solitary life. Here, on the
other hand, was a young lady of pleasing
manners and honest nature, and of hum-
ble wishes as became her station, whom
he might induce to marry him. She had
scarcely ever moved out of the small
circle around her ; and in it were no pos-
sible lovers for her. If he did not marry
her, she might drift into as hopeless a
position as his own. If she consented to
marry him, would they not be able to
live in a friendly way together, gradually
winning each other's sympathy, and mak-
ing the wdrld a little more sociable and
comfortable for both ? There was no
chance of his going back to the brilliant
society in which he had once moved ;
for there was no one whom he could ex-
pect to die and leave him any money.
When he went up to town and spent an
evening or two at his club, he found him-
self among strangers ; and he could not
get that satisfaction out of a solitary din-
ner that once was his. He returned to
his cottage at Eglosilyan with some de-
gree of resignation ; and fancied he could
live well enough there if Wenna Rose-
warne would only come to relieve him
from its frightful loneliness.
He blushed when he went forward to
her on these rocks, and was exceedingly
embarrassed, and could scarcely look her
in the face as he begged her pardon for
intruding on her, a^^d hoped she would
resume her seat. She Vv..s a little pale,
and would have liked to get away, but
was probably so frightened that she did
not know how to take the step. Without
a word she sat down again, her heart
beating as if it would suffocate her.
Then there was a terrible pause.
Mr. Roscorla discovered at this mo-
ment— and the shock almost bewildered
him — that he would have to play the
part of a lover. He had left that out of
THREE FEATHERS.
the question. He had found it easy to
dissociate love from marriage in writing a
letter ; in fact he had written it mainly to
get over the necessity of shamming sen-
timent, but here was a young and sensi-
tive girl, probably with a good deal of
romantic nonsense in her head, and he
was going to ask her to marry him. And
just at this moment, also, a terrible re-
collection flashed in on his mind of
Wenna Rosewarne's liking for humour,
and of the merry light he had often seen
in her eyes, however demure her manner
might be ; and then it occurred to him
that if he did play the lover, she would
know that he knew he was making a fool
of himself, and laugh at him in the safe
concealment of her own room.
" Of course," he said, making a sudden
plunge, followed by a gasp or two — " of
course — Miss Wenna — of course you
were surprised to get my letter — a letter
containing an offer of marriage, and al-
most nothing about affection in it. Well,
there are some things one can neither
write nor say — they have so often been
the subject of good-natured ridicule that,
that "
" I think one forgets that," Wenna said
timidly, " if one is in earnest about any-
thing."
" Oh, I know it is no laughing matter,"
he said hastily, and conscious that he was
becoming more and more commonplace.
Oh ! for one happy inspiration from some
half-remembered drama — a mere line of
poetry even ! He felt as if he were in
court opening a dreary case, uncertain as
to the points of his brief, and fearing
that the judge was beginning to show im-
patience.
" Miss Wenna," he said, "you know I
find it very difficult to say what I should
like to say. That letter did not tell you
half — probably you thought it too dry
and business-like. But at all events you
were not offended .''"
" Oh, no," she said, wondering how she
could get away, and whether a precipi-
tate plunge into the sea below her would
not be the simplest plan. Her head,
she felt, was growing giddy, and she
began to hear snatches of " Wapping Old
Stairs " in the roar of the waves around
her.
" And of course you will think me un-
fair and precipitate in not giving you more
time — if I ask you just now whether I
may hope that your answer will be favou,j
able. You must put it down to my an:
ety ; and although you may be incline
to laugh at that "
THREE FEATHERS.
739
" Oh, no, Mr. Roscorla," she said, with
her eyes still looking down.
" Well, at all events, you won't think
that I was saying anything I didn't be-
lieve, merely to back up my own case in
that letter. I do believe it — I wish I
could convince you as I certainly know
time would convince you. I have seen a
great deal of that wild passion which ro-
mance-writers talk about as a fine thing
— I have seen a great deal of it in circles
where it got full play, because the people
were not restrained by the hard exigen-
cies of life, and had little else to think
about than falling in love and getting out
of it again. I would not sadden you by
telling you what I have seen as the gen-
eral and principal results. The tragedies
I have witnessed 'of the young fellows
whose lives have been ruined — the wo-
men who have been disgraced and turned
out into the world broken-hearted — why
I dare not sully your imagination with
such stories ; but any one who has had
experience of men and women, and
known intimately the histories of a few
families, would corroborate me."
He spoke earnestly ; he really believed
what he said. But he did not explain to
her that his knowledge of life was chiefly
derived from the confidences of a few
young men of indifferent morals, small
brains, and abundant money. He had
himself, by the way, been hit. For one
brief year of madness he had given him-
self up to an infatuation for somebody or
other, until his eyes were opened to his
folly, and he awoke to find himself a suf-
ferer in health and purse, and the object
of the laughter of his friends. But all
that was an addition to his stock of
knowledge of the world. He grew more
and more wise ; and was content to have
paid for his wisdom.
" My knowledge of these things may
have made me suspicious," he continued,
" and very often I have seen that you
considered me unjust to people whom you
knew. Well, you like missionary work.
Miss Wenna, and I am anxious to be
converted. No — no — don't imagine I
press you for an answer just now, I am
merely adding a little to my letter."
" But you know, Mr. Roscorla," the
girl said, with a meekness that seemed to
have no sarcasm in it — "you know you
have often remonstrated with me about
ray missionary work. You have tried to
make me believe that I was doing wrongly
in giving away little charities that I could
afford. Also, that 1 had a superstition
about self-sacrifice — although I am sure
I don't consider myself sacrificed."
He was a little embarrassed, but he
said in an off-hand way : —
" Well, speaking generally, that is what
I think. I think you should consider
yourself a little bit. Your health and
comfort are of as great importance as
anybody's in Eglosilyan ; and all that
teaching and nursing — why don't the
people do it for themselves ? But then,
don't you see, Miss Wenna, I am willing
to be converted on all these points ? "
It occurred to Wenna Rosewarne at
this moment that a harsh person might
think that Mr. Roscorla only wanted her
to give up sacrificing herself to the people
of Eglosilyan, that she might sacrifice
herself to him. And somehow there
floated into her mind a suggestion of
Molly's duties — of the washing of clothes
and the mixing of grog — and for the life
of her she could not repress a smile.
And then she grew mightily embar-
rassed ; for Mr. Roscorla had perceived
that smile, and she fancied he might be
hurt, and with that she proceeded to
assure him with much earnestness that
doing good to others, in as far as she
could, was in her case really and truly
the blackest form of selfishness, that she
did it only to please herself, and that the
praises in his letter to her, and his no-
tions as to what the people thought of
her, were altogether uncalled-for and
wrong.
But here Mr. Roscorla got an opening,
and made use of it dexterously. For
Miss Wenna's weak side was a great dis-
trust of herself, and a longing to be as-
sured that she was cared for by anybody,
and of some little accout in the world.
To tell her that the people of Eglosilyan
were without exception fond of her, and
ready at all moments to say kind things
of her, was the sweetest flattery to her
ears. Mr. Roscorla easily perceived this,
and made excellent use of his discovery.
If she did not quite believe all that she
heard, she was secretly delighted to hear
it. It hinted at the possible realization
of all her dreams, even though she could
never be beautiful, rich, and of noble
presence. Wenna's heart rather inclined
to her companion just then. He seemed
to her to be a connecting link between
her and her manifold friends in Eglosil-
yan ; for how had he heard those things,
which she had not heard, if he were not
in general communication with them.?
He seemed to her, too, a friendly coun-
740
THREE FEATHERS.
seller on whom she could rely ; he was
the very first, indeed, who had ever
offered to help her in her work.
Mr. Roscorla, glad to see that he was
getting on so well, grew reckless some-
what and fell into a grievous blunder.
He fancied that a subtle sort of flattery
to her would be conveyed by some hinted
depreciation of her sister Mabyn. Alas !
at the first suggestion of it, all the
pleased friendliness of her face instantly
vanished, and she looked at him only
with a stare of surprise. He saw his
error. He retreated from that dangerous
ground precipitately ; but it needed a
good deal of assiduous labour before he
had talked her into a good humour again.
He did not urge his suit in direct terms.
But surely, he said to himself, it means
much if a girl allows you to talk in the
most roundabout way of a proposal of
marriage which you have made to her,
without sending you off point-blank.
Surely she was at least willing to be con-
vinced or persuaded. Certainly, Miss
Wenna could not very well get away
without appearing to be rude ; but at the
same time she showed no wish to get
away. On the contrary, she talked with
him in a desultory and timid fashion, her
eyes cast down, and her fingers twisting
bits of sea-pink, and she listened with
much attention to all his descriptions
of the happy life led by people who knew
how to be good friends.
" It is far more a matter of intention
than of temper," he said. " When once
two people find out the good qualities in
each other, they should fix their faith on
those, and let the others be overlooked
as much as possible. With a little con-
sideration, the worst of tempers can be
managed ; but to meet temper with tem-
per ! And then each of them should
remember, supposing that the other is
manifestly wrong at this particular mo-
ment, that he, or she is likely to be wrong
at some other time. But I don't think
there is much to be feared from your
temper. Miss Wenna ; and as for mine
— I suppose I get vexed sometimes, like
other people, but I don't think I am bad-
tempered, and I am sure I should never
be bad-tempered to you. I don't think I
should readily forget what I owe you for
taking pity on a solitary old fellow like
myself, if I can only persuade you to do
that, and for being content to live a hum-
drum life up in that small cottage. By
the way, do you like riding, Wenna.''
Has your father got a lady's saddle ? "
The question startled her so that the
blood rushed to her face in a moment,
and she could not answer. Was it not
that very morning that she had been
asked almost the same question by Mr.
Trelyon ? And while she was dreamily
looking at an imaginative picture of her
future life, calm and placid and common-
place, the sudden introduction into it of
Harry Trelyon almost frightened her.
The mere recalling of his name, indeed,
shattered that magic-lantern slide, and
took her back to their parting of the fore-
noon, when he left her in something of
an angry fashion ; or rather it took her
still further back — to one bright summer
morning on which she had met young
Trelyon riding over the downs to St.
Gennis. We all of us know how apt the
mind is to retain onrf particular impres-
sion of a friend's appearance, sometimes
even in the matter of dress and occupation.
When we recall such and such a person,
we think of a particular smile, a particular
look ; perhaps one particular incident of
his or her life. Whenever Wenna Rose-
warne thought of Mr. Trelyon, she
thought of him as she saw him on that
one morning. She was coming along
the rough path that crosses the bare up-
lands by the sea ; he was riding by
another path some little distance off, and
did not notice her. The boy was riding
hard ; the sunlight was on his face. He
was singing aloud some song about the
Cavaliers and King Charles. Two or
three years had come and gone since
then. She had seen Master Harry in
many a mood, and not unfrequently ill-
tempered and sulky ; but whenever she
thought of him suddenly, her memory
presented her with that picture ; and it
was a picture of a handsome English lad
riding by on a summer morning, singing
a brave song, and with all the light of
youth, and hope, and courage shining on
his face.
She rose quickly, and with a sigh, as if
she had been dreaming for a time, and
forgetting for a moment the sadness of
the world.
" Oh, you asked about a saddle," she
said in a matter-of-fact-way. " Yes, 1
think my father has one. I think I must
be going home now, Mr. Roscorla."
" No, not yet," he said in a pleading^
way. " Give me a few more minutes,
mayn't have another chance before yoi
make up your mind ; and then, when thai
is done, I suppose it is all over, so fal
as persuasion goes. What I am mosj
anxious about is that you should believ<
there is more affection in my ofiEer than
THREE FEATHERS.
741
have actually conveyed in words. Don't
imagine it is merely a commonplace bar-
gain I want you to enter into. I hope,
indeed, that in time I shall win from you
something warmer than affection, if only
you give me a chance. Now, Wenna,
won't you give me some word of assu-
rance— some hint that it may come all
right ? "
She stood before him, with her eyes
cast down, and remained silent for what
seemed to him a stran2:elv long: time.
Was she bidding good-by to all the ro-
mantic dreams of her youth — to that
craving in a girl's heart for some firm
and sure ideal of manly love, and cour-
age, and devotion to which she can cling
through good report and bad report ?
Was she reconciling herself to the plain
and common ways of the married life
placed before her ? She said at length,
in a low voice :
" You won't ask me to leave Eglosil-
yan ? "
" Certainly not," he said, eagerly.
" And you will see how I will try to join
you in all your work there, and how
much easier and pleasanter it will be for
you, and how much more satisfactory for
all the people round you."
She put out her hand timidly, her eyes
still cast down.
" You will be my wife, Wenna ? "
" Yes," she said.
Mr. Roscorla was conscious that he
ought at this supreme moment in a man's
life to experience a strange ihrill of hap-
piness. He almost waited for it ; he felt
instead a very distinct sense of embar-
rassment in not knowing what to do or
say next. He supposed that he ought to
kiss her, but he dared not. As he him-
self had said, Wenna Rosewarne was so
fine and shy that he shrank from wound-
ing her extreme sensitiveness, and to
step forward and kiss this small and gen-
tle creature, who stood there with her
pale face faintly flushed and her eyes
averted — why, it was impossible. He
had heard of girls, in wild moments of
pleasure and persuasion, suddenly rais-
ing their tear-filled eyes to their lovers'
face, and signing away their whole ex-
istence with one full, passionate and
yearning kiss. But to steal a kiss from
this calm little girl ! He felt he should
be acting the part of a jocular ploughboy.
"Wenna," he said at length, "you
have made me very happy. I am sure
you will never repent your decision ; at
least I shall do my best to make you
think you have done right. And, Wen-
na, I have to dine with the Trelyons
on Friday evening ; would you allow me
to tell them something of what has hap-
pened ? "
" The Trelyons ! " she repeated, look-
ing up in a startled way.
It was of evil omen for this man's hap-
piness that the mere mention of that
word turned this girl, who had just been
yielding up her life to him, into a woman
as obdurate and unirapressible as a piece
of marble.
" Mr. Roscorla," she said, with a cer-
tain hard decision of voice, " I must ask
you to give me back that promise I made.
I forgot — it was too hurried ; why would
you not wait ? "
He was fairly stupefied.
" Mr. Roscorla," she said, with almost
something of petulant impatience in her
voice, "you must let me go now; I am
quite tired out. I will write to you to-
morrow or next day, as I promised."
She passed him and went on, leaving
him unable to utter a word of protest.
But she had only gone a few steps when
she returned, and held out her hand, and
said :
" I hope I have not offended you ? It
seems that I must offend everybody
now ; but I am a little tired, Mr. Ros-
corla."
There was just the least quiver about
her lips ; and as all this was a profound
mystery to him, he fancied he must have
tired her out, and he inwardly called
himself a brute.
" My dear Wenna," he said, " you
have not offended me — you have not
really. It is I who must apologize to
you. I am so sorry I should have worried
you ; it was very inconsiderate. Pray
take your own time about that letter."
So she went away, and passed round
to the other side of the rocks, and came
in view of the small winding harbour,
and the mill, and the inn. Far away up
there, over the cliffs, were the downs on
which she had met Harry Trelyon that
summer morning, as he rode by, singing
in the mere joyousness of youth, and
happy and pleased with all the world.
She could hear the song he was singing
then ; she could see the sunlight that
was shining on his face. It appeared to
her to be long ago. This girl was but
eighteen years of age, and yet, as she
walked down towards Eglosilyan, there
was a weight on her heart that seemed to
tell her she was growing old.
And now the western sky was red with
the sunset, and the rich light burned
742
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
along the crests of the hills, on the gold-
en furze, the purple heather, and the
deep-coloured rocks. The world seemed
all ablaze up there ; but down here, as
she went by the harbour and crossed
over the bridge by the mill, Eglosilyan
lay pale and grey in the hollow ; and
even the great black wheel was silent.
From The Contemporary Review.
HOMER'S PLACE IN HISTORY.
BY HON. W. E. GLADSTONE.
PART I.*
In an endeavour to fix the place of
Homer in History and in the Egyptian
Chronology, now in some degree es-
tablished, I may perhaps be allowed, for
the sake of clearness, to begin by stating
my point of departure.
I am among those who have con-
tended —
1. That the poems of Homer were in
the highest sense historical, as a record
of "manners and characters, feelings and
tastes, races and countries, principles
and institutions." f
2. That there was a solid nucleus of
fact in his account of the Trojan War.
3. That there were no adequate data
for assigning to him, or to the Troica, a
place in Chronology.^
4. That his Chronology was to be
found in his Genealogies, which were
usually careful and consistent, and which
therefore served to establish a relative
series of persons and events, within his
proper sphere, but did not supply links
of definite connection with the general
course of human affairs outside of that
sphere in time or place. §
■ 5. That there was no extravagance in
supposing he might have lived within a
half century after the War, though he
was certainly not an eye-witness of it. ||
6. That there was very strong reason
to believe that he lived before the Dorian
conquest of the Peloponnesos.^
And in 1868** I pointed out that the
* The second part of this article was accidentally
substituted for the first in Living Age, No. 1574.
t " Studies on Homer and the Homeric Age," vol, i.
pp. 35-6 ; Juventus Mundi, p. 7.
t Studies, vol. i., p. 37 ; Juv. Mundi, p. 6.
§ Juv. Mundi, p. 3.
il Studies, vol. i., p. 37.
if Studies, vol. i., p. 37, and Juv. Mundi, p. 6.
** la 1867, Professor Lauch, of Munich, published
his valuable tract called " Homer und ^gypten," in
which he traces philologically numerous notes of con-
nection between the Poems and Egypt, of which the
text itself would for the most part convey no idea to the
time might be at haijd, when from further
investigations it would be possible to de-
fine with greater precision those periods
of the Egyptian Chronology, to which
the Homeric Poems, and their subject,
appeared to be related. It appears to me
that the time has now come to expand
and add to the suggestions which even
at that time I ventured to submit.*
In the argument I am about to intro-
duce, it is not necessary to beg any of
the questions which relate to the exist-
ence of one or several Homers, or to the
reference of the two Poems to the same
authorship, or to deal with the subject,
of subsequent textual manipulation. By
the word Homer, which probably means
no more than Composer, it is not neces-
sary at this stage to understand more
than " the Poet or Poets from whom pro-
ceeded the substance of the Iliad and
the Odyssey."
Without at all impairing the force of
these admissions, I wish now to carry
the propositions themselves greatly far-
ther, and to offer various presumptions,
which combinedly carry us some way on
the road to proof, of a distinct relation of
time between the Homeric Poems, and
other incidents of human history, which
are extraneous to them, but are already
in the main reduced into chronological
order and succession — namely, part of
the series of Egyptian Dynasties. If
this relation shall be established, it indi-
rectly embraces a further relation to the
Chronology of the Hebrew Records.
The whole taken together may soon come
to supply the rudiments of a corpus of
regular history, likely, as I trust, to be
much enlarged, and advanced towards
perfect order and perspicuity, from As-
syrian and other sources, some of them
Eastern, others lying on the cincture of
the Mediterranean Sea.
We have seen that, until lately, the
Poems, even if offering within their own
area a wide space of solid and coherent
ground, yet seemed to float like Delos on
the sea of time.
The present century, and the present
generation, have been enriched by a sup-
ply of new materials. When the great
Egyptian Empire came to be the subject
of real knowledge, another waif of history
ordinary reader. I received this treatise, through his
great courtesy, from himself in 1873. He describes
this essay towards a connection of the two as the first
(p. 40), and as, therefore, requiring indulgence. His
line of movement is however distinct from, though
parallel to mine. To a certain extent Sir G. Wilkinson
had touched on the same matter as Professor Lauch.
* Juv. Mundi, chap. v. p. 143.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
743
was firmly set upon the shore ; and the
deciphering of the inscriptions of the
Egyptian monuments and papyri has
opened new lights, of some of which I
hope to show the value.
Those who attach weight to the specu-
lations of the ancients individually on
the date of Homer or of the Poems, may
find them set out and discussed in Dr.
H. Diintzer's Homerische Fragen, chap,
iv.* The different opinions seem to
agree only in this, that they have no dis-
tinctly historical or evidential basis.
They are opinions, and nothing more.
But they range over the whole period be-
tween the time of the Capture, and the
date of the Olympiad of Coroebus, I'j^y B.C.
The Capture itself was placed by some in
the twelfth century, but more commonly
in the thirteenth, till Eratosthenes com-
puted it to have taken place in the year
1 183 B.C. Collateral knowledge, and the
growth of critical arts, have opened to us
paths, which were closed at earlier dates
to better men. Before proceeding, how-
ever, to extend generally the ground of
the propositions, I shall submit some re-
marks in confirmation on the Second and
Sixth of them, and thus I hope to pre-
pare the way for the more strictly histori-
cal argument.
The doctrine of the nucleus of fact ap-
pears to have derived, and that very re-
cently, most powerful confirmations from
the progress of Archaeology. The re-
searches of General CesnolU in Cyprus
resulted in obtaining a collection of
sculptured objects, which considerably
enlarged the range of pre-historic Art ;
and of implements and utensils, exhibit-
ing so extensive an use of uncombined
copper, and so clear and wide an applica-
tion of that metal to cutting purposes, as
at once to suggest a modification of the
theories of those who, in arranging what
may be termed their metallic periods, as-
sume that the age of bronze invariably
came in immediate succession to the age
of stone. These objects were partially
opened to view in London during the au-
tumn of 1872, on their way to their new
home in America.
Still more, and much more, important
have been the excavations of Dr. Schlie-
mann. His large collections have been
inspected at Athens by Professor Burnouf
of Athens, and by Mr. Newton of the
British Museum. In this country we
have had the opportunity of such exami-
nation as Dr. Schliemann's collection of
* Leipsic, 1874.
photographs, in some instances rather
imperfectly executed, would allow. Re-
views of high authority have, within a
few weeks of the publication of the
" Ausgrabungen," recognized their im-
portance in elaborate essays. The care-
ful and able article of the Quarterly Re-
view in particular, accepts as completely
proved, the existence of a pre-historic
city (I use the epithet in reference to
Greek History as commonly received) on
the small hill of Hissarlik in the Troad,
sacked by enemies, and consumed by
fire ; one which exhibits signs of wealth
and considerable civilization, and which
lies under the several beds of debris be-
longing to three subsequent locations on
the same spot. And, of these three, the
most modern is the Iliitm Novum, which
has for the approximate date of its foun-
dation about 700 B.C.* The two sets of
intermediate possessors of the ground
appear to have been composed of less
civilized tribes, probably from Thrace, and
to have erected slighter habitations with
the incidents of ruder life.f A real ob-
jective Troy is thus, for the first time,
with some marked notes of probability,
presented to our view.
Of the two very distinct senses which
I have specified above, and in either of
which the Poems may, or may not, be
historical, one is but a little illustrated
either way in detail by these remarkable
discoveries. There may have been a real
Troy, and a real sack and conflagration
of Troy, and yet not one of the charac-
ters or of the other incidents of the tale,
may ever have existed. But in the other
and higher sense in which, taught always
by the text itself, I have ever contended
that the Poems are historical, these re-
searches have apparently provided us
with some, and perhaps with sufficient
means of carrying the question to a final
issue. I shall not here attempt to exam-
ine this matter in detail. It would not
suit the present design, which is to effect
something towards linking the Homeric
Poems with the general history of the
world. But I will briefly furnish in the
form of Theses, a comparison in a number
of leading points of usages and manners,
between the testimony of the Poems and
what we have thus far every reason to
believe to be the testimony rendered by
the excavations of this intelligent, enter-
prising, and indefatigable explorer.
I admit, indeed, that in no view of the
* Qtiarterly Review* No. 272, p. 530.
t Ibid. p. 558. / » f 3J
744
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
case do the discoveries of Dr. Schliemann ! mer a metal
avail or assist towards the design of fix-
ing for the Trojan War a place in Chro-
nology. Any opinion whatever may be
held with reference to these excava-
tions, without either strengthening or en-
feebling the arguments which have been,
or may be, offered for the purpose of
fixing a date for Homer. M. Frangois
Lenormant* considers that we have
reached a point at which we may hope to
find a chronological basis for the Trojan
War and the Pelopid dynasty ; but en-
tirely declines to allow that the Schliemann
excavations have given us the Homeric
Troy. He conceives that the objects re-
covered belong to an older period and
city. I confine myself altogether to a
rapid notice of the relation between these
excavations and the Homeric text. It
appears to me to be, as far as it goes, one
of undeniable and even somewhat close
correspondence. But neither will the
correspondence determine the chrono-
logical question, nor the failure to estab-
lish it impede that determination.
1. The Excavations present to us the
handiwork, in the City disclosed, amidst
other remains of dwellings not durable or
solid, of great primitive Builders.-f Even
so the Poems, which represent the walls
of Troy as the work of Poseidon, thus
place the City in immediate relation to
the great Building race of prehistoric
times, which has left traces of its works
at so many points on the shores of the
Mediterranean.
2. The Excavations, according to our
present information, present to us copper
as the staple material of the implements,
utensils, and of the weapons, so far as
they were metallic, of the inhabitants of
Troy. So do the Poems.
3. The Excavations appear to show,
together with the general prevalence of
copper, an occasional use of Bronze.J
So, if I am right in holding that Kuanos
probably signifies Bronze,§do the Poems.
I may add a remark. The two Battle-
axes, which have been determined by
chemical analysis^ to be of bronze, were
found in immediate, or close juxtaposi-
tion with the mass of the more precious
objects. The presumption is thus raised
that they belonged to the Royal House,
or to the wealthy. Now, as tin is in Ho-
* The Academy, No. 99, p. 344. Date March 28,
1874.
t Schliemann, Photographische Abbildungen, Tafel
218. The Edinburgh Review, April 1874, p. 529.
X Schliemann, Trojanische Alterthiimer, p. 323.
§ Juv. Mundi, p. 537.
of high value and rarity,*
would evidently be costly,
confined to the
highest
bronze axes
and their use
classes.
4. The Excavations have supplied
two head-dresses or ornaments of pure
gold.f These appear to supply a perfect
explanation of the tt^/ct^ ava6koini^ the
twined or plaited fillet (of gold), which
formed part of the head-dress of An-
dromache.J torn off in the agony of her
grief on Hector's death. These ornaments
form part of Dr. Schliemann's " Treas-
ure," which he, not without reasonable
presumption, conceives to have been lost,
or put away, in an endeavour to save it on
account of its great importance. And
the passage in the Iliad testifies to the
great significance of this, head-dress ; of
which a portion, the Kp7/6efj.vov or turban,
was presented, so runs the legend, to the
princess by Aphrodite on her marriage
day.§
5. Among his other treasures Dr.
Schliemann has found six oblong plates,
said to be of silver,|| which he takes to
be the talanta of Homer, and which
range in weight from 171 up to 190
grammes ; they may be taken roughly at
five ounces each, more or less, and at the
present value of twenty-five shillings in
our money. Such plates evidently be-
long to an epoch when the use of the
precious metals was unknown in minor
transactions of exchange, but when they
might be employed (i) as stored wealth ;
(2) in manufacture of rare and valuable
objects for great and royal households ;
(3) in simple and at the same time con-
siderable payments or presents. Now
this is the very light in which the use of
these metals is represented to us by the
Poem throughout. In the last named
use of them, we have the two examples
of the fee to the successful Judge, ^ and
of the fourth prize in the Chariot race,**
each of which consists of two talents of
gold. We have no mention of talents of
silver in the Poems : but the same state
of things which would lead to the hand-
ling of the one metal in this way would
probably have the same result with the
other : indeed it is plain from the Poems
that silver and gold were much more
nearly on a par as to value than they
now are.
* Ibid.
t Quarterly Review, pp. 552-3
i II. xxii. 468-72.
§ Ibid.
II Photo^aphische Abbildungen, Tafel 200 and p. 52
of description.
^ II. xviii., 507. ♦* II. xxiu. 269.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
745
6. There is no trace in the Excavations
of any image which could be employed
for purposes of popular worship. Indeed
there is no representation, apparently, of
the human face or form proper, but only
scratchings, and perhaps some partial
moulding, not rude only but generally re-
pulsive, and executed on the face of
some jug or like vessel. It has been
much contested whether the Poems bear
any testimony to the use of statues in
Divine worship. Col. Mure argues
strongly the affirmative, from the deposi-
tion of the votive robe " on the knees "
of Athen^.* But when Homer's intense
feeling for Art is considered, it would
seem that if there had been anything like
well-wrought statues, or any frequent use
of images as objects of veneration, the
reference must have been more specific,
and must almost certainly, in one form or
other, and probably in several, have re-
curred. The most probable supposition
seems to be that there was in the temple
of Athene, and possibly in other temples,
some rude figure of wood, one of the
^oava mentioned by Pausanias as the ar-
chaic description of statue for purposes
of religion. Such an object could not
fail to be consumed in the conflagration
of the city. In the absence of statues of
the gods, as we understand them, both
from the Poems and from the Excava-
tions, we seem to find another remark-
able correspondence.
7. The remark may be extended to Art
generally. Objects of fine Art in the
Poems, it may be said as a rule, are im-
ported into Greece or Troas, and stand
in immediate relation to the East, to
Hephaistos, and to the Phoinikes as the
carriers of them by sea. Even so, I
think, we may conclude that the higher
ornamental objects disclosed by the Ex-
cavations were not the productions of the
same people who scratched hideous indi-
cations of eyes, noses, and the like, on
their earthenware ; but were imported
from abroad.
8. Again, with respect to writing. I
do not presume to give any opinion as to
the so-called Inscriptions on the objects
excavated from the Troic level. They
are the subjects of much debate among
the learned.f Taking them at the most,
and under any of the interpretations
which have been suggested, they seem to
show a state of thinsfs in which writing:
was practically unknown for ordinary
* Mure's " Literature of Greece ; " II. vi. 303.
t See Edinburgh Review, April, 1874, p. 530.
purposes, was struggling into the very
first stages of alphabetic use, was still in
a foreign character, and was the rare and
recondite possession of a very few. But
this affords a close parallel to the posi-
tion of writing in the Homeric Poems,
where anything approaching to it is but
twice, or more probably but once, men-
tioned, or even implied.
9. In the Poems, iron is very rare. In
the Excavations, it has not yet even ap-
peared. I need hardly observe that it is
a metal extremely perishable.
10. The Electron,* a mixture of gold
and silver, or, as some think, gold with
its native silver unextracted, has been
discovered by Dr. Schliemann in a nota-
ble case of a cup. It is named, though
only thrice by Homer, once in the ab-
stract for brilliancy, twice in works of fe-
male ornament.f
11. There is no trace, we are given to
understand, of painted pottery at Hissar-
lik. Neither is there in the Poems.
12. The larger works of Art in the
Poems are never of gold, always of sil-
ver ; although silver appears to have
been the rarer (not the more precious) of
the two metals. Dr. Schliemann has
found a vase of silver, with a cup of Elec-
tron near it ; but no such vessel of gold.
(The numbers are 3585, 3586, Photogr.
^97-) .
This is a considerable body of evi-
dence ; and the Excavations and the
Poems thus far greatly fortify one
another. It may hereafter be enlarged.
I do not at any rate expect a contrary
movement, though I admit it to be pos-
sible, and do not absolutely rely on all
the particulars I have quoted. I observe
a want of substance in the only case of
discrepancy which as yet appears to have
been raised. Dr. Schliemann himself
considers that according to the Iliad Troy
should have had at least 50,000 inhabit-
ants ; and he is disappointed at its small-
ness. He thinks it limited to a space
about equal to a square of 260 yards.
The Edinburgh Review X justly observes,
following a hint of Mr. Clark in his
" Peloponnesus," that the walled city was
commonly a place of strength and ref-
uge, with a population in huts and cabins
around it. But the Review falls into the
error of representing that the Poem de-
scribes Troy as a noble city with spa-
cious streets. This is not so. Ilios in
* It is, however, much debated whether the Electron
of Homer means a metal thus mixed, or amber,
t Od. iv. 73, and Od. xv. 459, xviii. 295.
% Edinburgh Review, April, 1874, p. 530.
THE PLACE OF HOiMER IN HISTORY.
746
Homer is lofty, is beetling, is wind-swept,
is sacred, is I know not what, except
large, or well-built, or broad, or broad-
wayed. True, he represents the Trojan
watchfires* as a thousand (a number
which I think he never uses except
vaguely — it is beyond his arithmetical
faculty or habit) ; and fifty men, but not
fifty Trojans, by each. The explanation
is, that the great numerical bulk of the '.
Trojan force is understood to have been
composed of the Allies,! who inhabited
a range of country twenty times as large
as Troas. In a passage more exact and
trustworth}^,^ for it avoids the use of
large numbers, we are informed that the
Trojans proper were much less than one-
tenth of the Achaian force.
So much for the gift Dr. Schliemann
has made us, and for the nucleus of fact
in the Poems. A few words now on the
Sixth Proposition.
I must confess it to be a common as-
sumption, repeated in a multitude of
quarters, that Homer was an Asiatic
Greek, living after the great eastward
migration. I could almost as easily be-
lieve him an Englishman, or Shakespeare
a Frenchman, or Dante an American.
In support of this proposition, I have
seen but little serious argument. The
elegant but very slight treatise of Wood
adopted it, and occupied the field in this
country, at a period when the systematic
study of the text had not yet begun. The
passage in II. IV. 51 § requires, I think,
no such conclusion. But if it did (though
this remedy is not one to be lightly adopt-
ed) it ought itself to be rejected without
hesitation or mercy. I will only here men-
tion a few of the arguments against the
opinion which denies to Homer a home
in Achaian Greece ; only premising that
he lived under the voluntary system, and
sang for his bread.
1. It is the Achaian name and race, to
which the Poems give paramount glory.
But, after the invasion of the Heraclids,
the Achaians had sunk to be one of the
most insignificant, and indeed discred-
ited, portions of the Greek people.
2. Conversely, if Homer had sung at
such a period, the Dorians, supreme in
the Greek Peninsula, the lonians, rising
in Attica, or distinguished and flourishing
in Asia Minor, could not have failed to
hold a prominent and favourable posi-
tion in the Poems. Whereas, while the
* II. vili. 562-3.
t II. ii. 130.
t II. ii. 123-8.
§ Studies, &c., vol. i. p. 39.
older names of Argeiot and Danaoi are
constantly put forward, the Dorian name,
but twice mentioned, is altogether insig-
nificant ; and the Ionian name, besides
being obscure, is coupled with the epi-
thet tkKtxiTidveq^ tunic-trailing, in the one
place where the Ionian soldiery are in-
troduced ; * surely a disparaging designa-
tion for troops.
3. The Athenians, who had been the
hosts of the non-Dorian Refugees, must
have been in very high estimation with a
Bard sprung from them. But their gen-
eral position in the Poems is one of infe-
riority ; their chief is undistinguished;
he is even capable of terror, which never
happens with the great or genuine
Achaian chieftain ; and the passage of
the Catalogue, in which he and they are
praised, is wholly isolated, stands in con-
trast with the general strain of the Cat-
alogue itself, and is on the whole the
most justly as well as perhaps the most
generally suspected passage in the Poems.
4. In the Greek Catalogue, there are
about seventy points of what may be
called distinct local colour or association,
it consists of 265 lines \ out of which
from twenty to thirty give the numbers
in ships, and a larger number detail his-
toric legends. The Trojan Catalogue,
embracing the whole west coast of Asia
Minor, is in 62 verses ; but instead of
having a note of local colour in each three
lines or thereabouts, has one in each ten.
How is this compatible with the doc-
trine that Homer was an Asiatic Greek,
pursuing his vocation as a minstrel,
chiefly on the east side of the Archipel-
ago (the richer and more peaceful), but
was a comparative stranger in the Greek
Peninsula ?
5. As the Hymn to Apollo cannot, in
its present form, be the work of the Poet
of the Iliad and Odyssey, the authority of
the passage quoted by Thucydides is not
great ; but the assertion contained in the
passage itself is not that Homer was an
Asiatic Greek. It is only that he being
blind, and from the tone of it apparently
in advanced life, was a dweller in Chios.
6. It is true that the Poet's knowledge
of the South of Greece, and especially of
the Islands on the West, does not appear
to have been extensive and exact ; but of
Asia Minor, except at the extreme North-
western corner, the scene of the War,
he has shown hardly any knowledge at
all.
7. Is it conceivable that, after a revo-
♦ II. xiii. 68s.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
747
lution involving such extensive change,
and such translocation of races, as the
Return of the Heraclids, not one word
betraying any reference to it should be
found in 27,600 lines, except an indica-
tion of the destruction of Sparta, Argos,
and Mycenae by this revolution, which
after ail it did not destroy ? although the
transfer of power to Sparta and Argos
threw Mycenae into the shade.
8. But this strong negative argument
is less strong than the positive argument.
What is it, what men, what manners,
what a2:e is it that Homer sinjjs of ? I
aver that they are Achaian men, Achaian
manners, an Achaian age. How could
the Colonies in Asia Minor have supplied
him with his ideas of free yet kingly gov-
ernment ? What do we know of any
practice of oratory there such as could
have inspired his great speeches and de-
bates ? The Achaian character in the
heroic form, with its astonishing union of
force and even violence, with gentleness
and refinement, how did he learn of this
but by observation of those among whom
and whose representatives he lived "i
There is an entireness and an originality in
that Achaian life, an atmosphere in which
all its figures move, which was afterwards
vaguely and faintly embodied by poets in
the idea of an heroic age, which hardly
could have been, and which we have not
the smallest reason to suppose was, re-
produced on a new soil, and in immensely
modified circumstances after the migra-
tion.
9. In truth, the traditions about the
birthplace of Homer are covered with
marks truly mythical. That is, they are
just such as men, in the actual course of
things, were likely to forge. If he lived
and sung amidst an Achaian civilization,
yet that civilization was soon and vio-
lently swept away. The most masculine,
but the hardest and rudest offspring of
the Hellenic stock were brought to the
front, and became supreme for centuries ;
a race apparently incapable, throughout
all time, of assimilating the finer elements
of Greek civilization. Together with the
more genial and appreciative portion of
the nation, the recitation of the Poems
could not but migrate too. Hence with-
out doubt the tradition that Lucourgos
brought them into Greece ; that is, he
probably brought them back, to melt, or
smelt, if he could, his men of iron. But,
during all the time of their banishment
from the Peninsula, these Poems may
well have had an enduring continuous
currency among the children of those
whose sires in recent generations had so
loved to hear them, and whose remoter
heroes had, or were thought to have, re-
ceived from them the gift of immortality.
Thus, by a natural progression, as the
Poems were for the time Asiatic, all re-
lating to them, and most of all the Singer,
came to be claimed as Asiatic too. In
the verse Smyrna, Rhodos, Cohphon,
Salamis, Chios ^ Argos, AthencE, we have
set forth as candidates for the honour of
having given him birth, cities of which
only one (Argos) has a considerable in-
terest in the action of the " Iliad," but
most of which, as the seats of an after
civilization and power, had harboured
and enjoyed his works. Such, it appears
to me, is no unnatural explanation of the
growth and progress of an opinion which,
when tried upon its merits only, must, I
think, seem a strange one to those who
have at all tried to measure truly the ex-
traordinary nearness of feeling and sym-
pathy between Homer and the men and
deeds he celebrates.
I have touched on these two collateral
subjects for different, but I think suffi-
cient reasons. The excavations of Dr.
Schliemann demanded at least a slight
notice from any one, who happened to be
engaged upon the Homeric question in
its historical aspect at the moment when
they have just been made known : and
their tendency is to give him possession
of a point in space, as I seek for him the
possession of a point in time. It was
more directly needful to enter my pro-
test against the notion that the Poems
were or could have had their birthplace
in Asia, and after the Dorian invasion.
Over the period preceding that invasion,
Egypt, even in the decline of its power,
still cast a majestic shadow ; from out of
the bosom of that empire it was that im-
migration, navigation, and perhaps the
direct exercise of political power, had
carried forth the seeds of knowledge and
the arts, and had deposited them in the
happiest soil in which they were ever to
germinate. And with the indirect signs
and effects of this remarkable process,
the Poems are charged throughout. I
am now about to draw attention, not to
these numerous and sometimes obscure
indications, but to notes which, though
few in number, are generally of a very
direct character. But I feel that they
could hardly appear other than an idle
dream to minds tenaciously prepossessed
with the belief that Homer was an Asiat-
ic Greek of the period after the Migra-
tion. Egypt then was for Greece no
748
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
more than a name : its greatness was for-
gotten, it was neither friend nor foe, so
far as we know ; the relations, which had
once subsisted, were buried in darkness,
the old migrations from the East had as-
sumed the form almost of old wives'
fables. A poet of that day and place
would scarcely have had occasion to give
so much as a note of the existence of
Egypt. And if the notes on which I shall
now dwell, or the many and varied notes
which others have observed, have sub-
stance in them, they certainly supply a
new argument against placing the compo-
sition of the Poems, in their substance,
after the Dorian Conquest.
What I have to do is to investigate the
relation of certain names, which appear
upon the Egyptian records in connection
with specified events, to those same
names as they stand in the Homeric
Poems ; and the consequences which
arise from the establishment of such re-
lation. The heads of evidence may be
arranged as follows : —
I. The Dardanian link.
II. The Achaian link.
III. The link of Egyptian Thebes.
IV. The Sidonian link.
V. The Legend of Memnon, and
THE KeTEIANS or KhITIANS OF
THE Eleventh Odyssey.
VI. The Legend of the Pseudodys-
SEUS ; AND the VOYAGE OF THE
Ship Argo.
VII. Homer and Sesostris, or Ram-
ESES II.
We may now, therefore, pass to the
proper subject of this inquiry : but let it
be borne in mind that I take the Poems
simply as facts, and that I ask nothing
in limme from such as follow Bentley, or
Wolf, or Lachmann, or Nitszch, or Grote,
or Paley ; though I believe that the re-
sults of all investigation truly historical
will have their bearings, in various de-
grees and forms, on the respective the-
ories of those learned men.
I.— The Dardanian link.
The Dardanian name in the Iliad is
the oldest of all those names found in
the Poems, which are linked by a distinct
genealogy with the epoch of the action.
I enter into no question concerning such
names as laon * or lapetos.f Nor do I
attempt to examine the case of the name
Havanu, found in the Inscriptions of the
* 11. xlii. 685.
t 11. viii. 479.
Eleventh Egyptian Dynasty, on account
of the great uncertainty still attaching to
the Chronology of and before the time of
the Shepherd Kings.
Hector, Paris, and Aineias are in the
seventh generation from Dardanos.*
They each individually may be taken
as men of mature age. Dardanos at ^
a corresponding age may thus be taken jj
roughly to belong to a point in time
about 180 years before the War of Troy.
He founded the city of Dardania, sit-j
uated upon the lowest slopes of Ida. Andf
he was the son of Zeus ; that is, in le-
gendary language, as I apprehend, there
being no mother or incident of the le-
gendary phrase, he was the first record-
ed king and first regular settler of the
country. The Poem expressly states
that he gave his name to the city. He
also gave his name to the inhabitants ;
who in the seventh generation are still
called DardanioL And this adjective is
used in the feminine plural with respect
to the Dardanian Gates,f those which
faced the hills and the South, while the
Skaian Gates faced the sea and the North.
As it extended also to the people, every-
thing seems to show that this Eponu-'
mos, or Name-founder, left a deep mark.
The Dardanians appear in the Catalogue
as a separate contingent.^ Under the
supremacy of Troy and Priam, Anchises,
their king, was a sub-sovereign, and the
famous prophecy of Poseidon, in II. XX.
307, imports not the rebuilding of Ilios,]
but the continuance of the Dardanian]
sovereigns, and the resumption of theifj
authority over Troas. This is stated ii
so many words ; Tpwecrcriy uvu^ei. And il
is generally admitted and alleged that
Homer must himself have witnessed th(
fulfilment of the prophecy.
The word Dardanides stands for Dar-1
danian women, expressly distinct from th(
Trojan women,§ So does Dardaniones
for the men. Though the Trojan nam(
covers the whole force in the general de-
scriptions, the Dardans or Dardanians!
are always separate in the vocative ad-
dresses of the Chieftains, which are di-
rected either to " Trojans, Dardans, an(
allies," ^ or to "Trojans, Lukians, an(
Dardans fighting hand to hand." ** W(
have also two cases of Dardan warriors
* 11. XX. 215-40.
t 11. ii. 819; II. V. 789 ; xxii. 194 & 413.
X II. ii. 819.
§ II. xviii. 122, 339.
II II. vii. 414 ; viii. 154.
IT II. iii. 455, et al.
** II. viii. 173, et al. \ II. ii, 701 ; xvi. 807.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
749
mentioned in the singular. Again, though
it is rare in Homer to give a patronymic
from a remote ancestor, yet Priam, and
he only of contemporary personages, is
many times called Dardanides.* And,
lastly, we learn from the mouth of Posei-
don that Dardanos was more loved by
Zeus than any other of his mortal chil-
dren.f
It appears probable from the genealo-
gical narration that there were inhabitants
in Troas before Dardanos. The Poet
does not say the country was desert, but
that Dardanos founded Dardania when
or because there v/as no city constituted
in the plain, i.e., combined and inclosed,
having a regular character and a govern-
ment ;
k-nki ovTTO) 'IXiog ifn)
kv Tredicf) TzenoT^^iaro, Tro/lif /xsponuv avdpuircov.X
Nor can there, I think, be a doubt, from
the tenacious vitality, as we have seen it,
of the name, that under Dardanos, and
after his date the whole of the inhabitants
of the Troad which Homer usually calls
Troi^, were known as Dardanians. Per-
haps a conjecture might be hazarded that
the name politically revived after the de-
struction of Troy, and subsisted at least
until the site had been reoccupied from
Thrace : but this is little material, as
Egyptology appears to afford no evidence
which can be brought down so low in
point of date.
The succession of the family was as
follows : —
1. Dardanos.
2. Erichthonios.
3. Tros ; who is called Tpcoeaaiv ava^.
4. Ilos, Assarakos, and Ganumedes,
5. Laomedon, son of Ilos : Kapus, son
of Assarakos.
6. Priam and others, sons of Laomedon.
Anchises, son of Kapus.
6. Hector, son of Priam. Aineias, son
of Anchises.
8. Astuanax, son of Hector. (Children
of Aineias).§
With his usual care for historic details
of real weight the Poet has here marked
for us the period when the Trojan name
emerged ; namely, under Tros. The
building of the City in the plain was with-
out doubt due to his son Ilos. But the
name derived from him to the capital did
* II. iii. 303, and in six other places,
t II. XX. 304.
t II. XX. 216.
§ II. XX. 215-40.
not displace the name of Troos, which,
doubtless with that of Troie for the coun-
try, either had already become, or was
becoming, the proper designation of the
inhabitants. And we may perhaps con-
sider that the existence of his tomb as a
landmark on the plain, the cr/^^ua 'Uov,* con-
tributes another piece of testimony to
the great importance of this sovereign in
the annals of the country.
Thus, then, it appears that the inhabit-
ants of the north-west angle of Asia
Minor, between Ida and the sea, were,
for not less than two generations, that is
to say for a period of about sixty years,
known as Dardanians ; and were after-
wards known as Trojans.
Turning now to the Egyptian records,
we find that, as they have been inter-
preted by French inquirers, they place
the commencement of the Nineteenth
Dynasty about 1462 B.C. ; and the acces-
sion of Rameses the Second, the Sesos-
tris of the Greeks (Sestesou-Raor Sesou-
Ra in certain of his Egyptian names),
somewhere near the year 1410 b.c. In
the fourth year of his reign, or about
1406 B.C., the formidable people called
Khita, of the Valley of the Orontes, the
same in race with the Hittites of the Old
Testament, organized a powerful con-
federacy against him, encouraged by the
troubles which he had to meet, on his
accession to the throne, from the south-
ward. This combination, besides the
Asiatic nations of Armenia and the Assyr-
ian plain, embraced the peoples of Asia
Minor: of whom are enumerated the
Mysians, the Lycians, the Pisidians, and
the Dardanians. It is not necessary to
pursue the history of the prolonged strug-
gle, which ended some fifteen years after-
wards in an accommodation recognizing
the independence of the Khita, and ap-
pearing to deal with them on terms of
reciprocity. But we have now a clear
chronological datum for Dardania, sub-
ject only to whatever questions may be
raised on the chronology of the middle
Egyptian dynasties. The year 1406,!
approximately fixed, seems, then, to have
been within the sixty years or there-
abouts when the inhabitants of Troas
were known only as Dardanians. That
is to say, the settlement of Dardania was
probably founded between 1466 and 1406
B.C. And the overthrow of Troy, on the
* II. X. 415 ; xi. 166, 372.
t F. Lenormant, Hist. Anc. de I'Orient, B. iii. ch.
iii. sect. v. Chabas, E tuds sur I'Antiquite Histo-
rique, ch. iv. p. 185. De Roug^, Memoire sur les
attaques dirig^es contre 1' Egypte, p. 4.
750
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
same basis of computation, would proba-
bly fall between 1286 and 1226 B.C.
If, however, we are to read the Inscrip-
tion as meaning that these Dardanians
were Dardanians of Ilios, as appears to
be held, by high authority,* a new and
rather important element is introduced,
and we at once reach the time of King
Ilos. We must then suppose that the
rivalry of the Dardan and Trojan names
for territorial supremacy had lasted for
one generation longer ; and the combi-
nation against Rameses II. thus operates
in a different manner on the date of the
foundation of Dardania. For as Ilios
was not founded until some ninety years
after Dardanos, if the name of that city
was known in 1406 B.C., the epoch of
Dardanos is thrown back to 1496 B.C., at
the lowest ; and farther, according to the
number of years for which we suppose
Ilios to have been founded before 1406
B.C. Thus the epoch of the T?'oica is
thrown back at least to about 1316B.C.
As the Dardanian name must, when Ilios
was once founded, have been an expiring
one, we need not make any considerable
addition to this high number of years.
According, then, to this piece of evi-
dence, the overthrow of Troy may have
been as late as 1226 B.C., or as early as
about 13 16 B.C.
II. — The Achaian link.
Early in the present century, Damm
observed in his " Lexicon Homericum,"
that the Achaian name, while it was a
name of the Greeks in general, had a
special sense also, denoting the nobiles
et priiicipes GrcBCoriim.^ Thucydides,J
in his Prefatory Chapters, refers to the
three great Homeric Appellatives — the
Danaan, Argeian, and Achaian, — and
perhaps intends, by. the order in which
he thus places them, to indicate the order
of time in which their several origins
ought to stand.
Endeavouring to ascertain the scope
aad significance of this name from the
text of the Poems, I found abundant
evidence to sustain the opinion of Damm
that the Achaian name frequently leans
towards designating the chiefs, and like-
wise the opinion, which Thucydides may
have meant to indicate, that it is the
youngest of the three designations. But
I was also led on to two further proposi-
•* See ?,I. F. Lenormant, Academy, No.
Mr-.rL.i 21, 1874.
X Damm in voc. 'A;j^aiOf.
% Thuc. i. 3-
B, p. 315;
tions, which appear to me hardly deni-
able : —
1. That the Achaian name was the
proper national name, for that epoch, of
the people who captured Troy, and who
were afterwards called by the Romans,
and by the moderns, Greeks.
2. That the date, at which this name
thus became the proper designation of
the nation, is approximately shown by
the Poems.
For the first of these I would appeal,
not without confidence, to the simple and
homely test of commonness of use. The
Achaian name is used more than three
times as often as the Argeian name,
more than four times as often as the
Danaan, almost exactly twice as often as
both put together. In an age when prose
and poetry exist as distinct kinds of
composition, it would be unsafe to draw
an inference from the predominant use
in a poem of a name which might be pe-
culiarly a poetical name ; but it appears
to me that* at a period when Poem and
Chronicle were one, such a prevalence of
use, as I have shown, of itself establishes
the proposition. And it is confirmed by
that leaning of the phrase to the ruling
class — the kings, chiefs, and nobles —
which might if needful be shown from a
score and more of passages. Three of
these, lying within a very short compass
indeed, may be found in II. IX. 370, 391,
395-
Nor is it difficult to allow that, as the
name does not point to a particular indi-
vidual, or a particular mode of life or
other speciality, political predominance
was probably the cause which gave it
this general currency. But then arises
the question — can we show, from the
Poems, that there had been a time when
the Greeks had not yet come to be called
Achaians ?
Now this can be shown, both by nega-
tive and by positive evidence, from the
text of the Poems ; and it is necessary,
in order to establish a connection with
any given point of Egyptian chronology.
For if the Achaian name had prevailed in
the Greek Peninsula from an immemorial
antiquity, the fact of its being used in
the Egyptian records would furnish no
bond of chronological relation with the
War of Troy.f It is needful to establish
the limit on both sides.
First, then, the Achaians, although
* This question is copiously, and I think in the main
soundly argued in Studies on Homer, vol. i. pp. 402,
seq ; also Juventus Mundi, pp. 60, seq.
t Od. xix. 175-7.
I
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
751
standing for the nation generally, were
also still, at the time of the war, a special
race in Greece. They are distinguished,
among the inhabitants of Crete, from the
Dorians, and from the Pelasgians. In
the Catalogue, the Achaian name is
especially given (i) to the inhabitants
of Aigina and of Mases ; (2) to the contin-
gent of Achilles.* Again, in the Elev-
enth Book, Nestor relates a local war
which took place in his youth, and in it
he once calls the Pullans Achaians, but
the men of Elis always Eleians and
Epeians.f The use of the word Pana-
chaioi in like manner proves that origi-
nally the Achaians were but a part of the
whole which it had come to embrace,
and that the local and special sense was
not yet entirely absorbed.
Now, none of the above-named indica-
tions carry the Achaian name back beyond
fifty or sixty years. The Legend of Nes-
tor cannot date more than half a century
back. The family of Achilles, whose
subjects are connected with the special
references in the Catalogue to the
Achaian name, goes back only for two
generations to Aiakos, his grandfather.
When in the Nineteenth Iliad Herd is
introduced, speaking of the time just
before the birth of Eurustheus, she calls
the inhabitants over whom he was to rule
not Achaians, but Argeians.J This may
be considered as about eighty years
before the war. The legend of Bellero-
phon would give to Proitos a- date slight-
ly more remote. But it is said that
Proitos had the power to banish Bellero-
phon, because he was paramount among
the Argeians.§ When, however, we
come down to the time of Tudeus, whose
dominion was in Argolis and part of the
country over which Proitos had reigned,
then we find the force which Tudeus led
against Thebes described (Iliad IV. 384
and V. 803) as Achaian, and thus distin-
guished from the inhabitants of Thebes,
who are in both narratives called Kad-
meioi and Kadmeiones.
I submit, therefore, that, according to
the testimony, afforded by the text of
Homer with a perfect self-consistency,
the Achaian name had come to be the
prevailing or national designation of the
Greeks at the period of the War, but
that it could not have been used to des-
ignate the inhabitants of Greece at any
period more than fifty or sixty years
* II. ii. 562 ; 684.
t II. xi. 759.
t II. xix. 122.
§ II. vi. 152.
before the War. Indeed the evidence
warrants the belief that it had still more
recently come into vogue as the national
name, and perhaps that it was the War
itself that fully established and confirmed
it in that sense.
But now arises another question, which
the Poems cannot answer for us — How
long after their date did the Achaian
name continue to hold the same position ?
The blankness and vagueness of Greek
tradition in general, between the time of
the Poet and the historic epoch, preclude
any exact reply. But we know enough to
warrant the assertion that Greece was
greatly disorganized by the incidents of its
victorious war with Troy ; that the Pelo-
pid dynasty was wounded in the person
and family of its head ; that a great Dorian
invasion, within no long period after the
war, altered the face of the country, and
limited the range of the Achaian name to
a narrow strip of coast. And it may also
be said that the Achaian name, as a na-
tional name, has no place in the litera-
ture of Greece subsequent to Homer. It
is used once only by Hesiod,* and that
in a retrospective passage which refers to
the Troic expedition assembled at Aulis.
The Hellenic name in fact takes the
place of the Achaian. It revives, indeed,
with the tragedians to some extent, but
of course only as contemporary with cer-
tain persons and events of their dramas.
If then I have succeeded in fixing, with
reasonable though not absolute certainty,
the rise of the Achaian name as an event
which happened within about half a cen-
tury before the War of Troy, it may
upon grounds more general but perhaps
not less trustworthy, be alleged that its
decline rapidly followed upon the War :
that it could not have been known as the
national name of the Greeks after the
Dorian invasion, which is affirmed by
Thucydides,f and is generally taken to
have occurred at a period of 80 years
after the fall of Troy ; and that it is quite
possible that even before that event it
may have been superseded by the name
of Hellenes, which was evidently com-
ing into use at the Epoch of the Poems,
and which appears to have obtained such
currency before the great revolution ef-
fected by the Heraclids, that the Dorian
appellation never supplanted or made
head against it.
In other words, the Achaian name ap-
* Hesiod, epya, 269.
t Thucyd. i. 12. Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, i. 106,
segg.
752
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
pears to have had a currency which can-
not have exceeded 140 years, and which
very possibly fell below 100 years, down
to the period when it was driven into an
insignificant corner of the Peloponnesos,
or at any rate entirely lost its national
character.
It must be added that, as far as the evi-
dence goes, it came suddenly or rapidly
to its supremacy. We cannot find that
it rested as a local name like the Graian
or the Dorian names, in particular places,
for a length of time before it grew to be
national. All the uses of it by Homer
for periods anterior to the war are almost
certainly local, because Achaians are dis-
tinguished from Cadmeians, and again
from Epeians. The probable supposition
is that the great national effort of the
War itself lifted it into clear and full pre-
dominance ; and that we ought to place
the commencement of its reign near that
epoch, but its first emerging at a time
earlier by two generations.
If now we turn to the records of Egyp-
tology,* we find that at some point of
time within the limits of that term, a na-
tion bearing the Achaian name, and com-
ing from the northward, was placed in
sharp collision with that Empire, by
taking part in an invasion of the country.
Under Thothmes III., whose reign is
computed to have extended over the first
half of the i6th century B.C. (or 1600-
1550), the power of the great Egyptian
Empire reached its climax. He first es-
tablished a maritime supremacy north-
wards, by means of a fleet in the Medi-
terranean. In all likelihood this is the
change which had come down by report
(a/co?/) to Thucydides| as the act of Mi-
nos. But even that report, vague as it
was, embodied this essential element,
that he constituted also a dominion on
land by placing his own sons as govern-
ors in the places he conquered, which, if
we construe with the Scholiast, embraced
most of the population of Greece. These
sons were without doubt so-called as being
the officers and representatives of the
Empire thus established. In my opinion
they were probably those, in whole or in
part, of whom we hear in the Poems as
the Aiolidai or descendants of Aiolos ;
for Aiolos is a characteristic and probably
a typical name closely connected with
the East, and with those through whom
the East became known to Greece —
namely, the actual agents, almost cer-
* F. Lenormant, Hist. Ancienne de 1' Orient, B. iii.
chap. iii. sec. 2.
t Thuc. i. 4.
tainly Phoenician, by whom this maritime
supremacy was made effective. From
an inscription at Karnak, where Amnon,
the supreme god of Thebes, is supposed
to speak, I quote a few words : —
" I came, I suffered thee to smite the
inhabitants of the isles ; those who dwell
in the midst of the sea are reached by
thy roaring. . . . The isles of Greece are
in thy power.* I permitted thee to smite
the farthest bounds of the sea."
The inscription then records that the
Southern Isles of the Archipelago were
subdued, together with a great extent of
the Coasts of Greece.
So, then, we learn that the inhabitants
of the Greek Peninsula and Isles had
once been subject to this great Empire
at the zenith of its power, under the
Eighteenth Dynasty. We need, there-
fore, feel no surprise if in the days of its
decline we find them like Hittites, Liby-
ans, and others, endeavouring to avenge
themselves for the past, or to seek wealth
for the present or security for the future,
by assailing it.
Under the Nineteenth Dynasty, the
maritime supremacy of Egypt had passed
away. We hear of Seti, the father of
Rameses PL, that he reconstituted the
Egyptian fleet of the Red Sea, but there
is no similar statement as to the north-
ern waters.f Rameses II., as we have
seen, had had to encounter a formidable
combination in the northern and north-
western quarters of Asia. Under his
son Merepthah, a new danger arose
from a new quarter. Libya appears now
to have been possessed, at least in part,
by an Aryan or Japhetic population.
This people entered with others into a
new and powerful coalition against
Merepthah. I take the account of it
as it is to be found in the works of
Viscomte de Rougd, M. F. Lenormant,
and M. Chabas ; % and though I speak
in ignorance of the art of Egyptian in-
terpretation, I understand through Dr.
Birch, of the British Museum, and from
the agreement of these authors, that
there is no difference as to the reading of
the monumental inscription at Karnak in
the more important particulars,
* "Au pouvrir de tea esprits." I translate the
French of M. de Rouge. See Lenormant, i. 3S6.
t Lenormant, Manuel d'Hist. i. 402.
t F. Leuormant in T/t^ A cadetnjy oiltlarch 2S, 1874.
Also his Manual de I'Histoire, vol. i. p. 429, and
Premieres Civilizations, vol. i. p. 429; De Rouge, Ex-
traits d'un memoire sur les attaques dirigees contre
I'Egypte par les peuples de la Mediterranee vers le
xivme Siecle avant notre era, p. 6 se^g. P. Smith,
Anc. Hist, of the East, p. 105. Chabas, Etudes sur
Antiquite Historique, pp. 187-98.
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
753
Some four years ago, Professor Raw-
linson in this'i?^7//^w* stated his objec-
tions to parts of the interpretation of this
Inscription, and declined to accept its
authority as a whole. He observed justly,
that Achaians and Laconians had no in-
tercourse, even in the time of Homer,
with Sikels and Sardinians, and knew
nothing of any foreign ships in Greek
waters except those of the Phoenicians.
It is not necessary for my purpose to de-
termine anything with respect to the
races farther west, as to their local seats
at the time, or otherwise. There is no
improbability or difficulty in t4ie main
tenour of the inscription, which shows
that the invasion was principally con-
tinental, or in that portion of it which
points out Achaians, and perhaps other
Greeks, as forming an auxiliary force.
It appears, then, that in the reign of
Merepthah, together with the Lebu or
Libyans, were in arms the Shardana or
Sardones (whether yet planted in Sar-
dinia or not is little material) and some
other tribes called Mashuash (the Max-
yes,) f and Kahuka. There were also the
Achaiusha or Achaians, and with them
were the Leku or Laconians (or, less
probably, Peloponnesian Lukians or Ly-
cians). There were likewise the Turska,
who are interpreted to be Tyrrhenians ;
and the Shekulsha of Siculi. According
to M. de Rough's reading,t the Tyrrhe-
nians took the initiative : and brought
moreover their families, with aa evident
view to settlement in the country. But
this is contested by M. Chabas,§ appar-
ently with reason. At any rate it ap-
pears incontestable, from the comparative
smallness of their losses in action, that
that they were in small numbers. The
invasion was by the North-Western fron-
tier. It produced the utmost alarm in
Egypt ; according to the monuments,
the sufferings inflicted were such as had
not been known since the evil times of
the Shepherd Kings : " The days and the
months pass, and they abide on the
ground." They went beyond Memphis,
and reached the town of Paari, or Paari-
sheps, in middle Egypt. Here they were
defeated in a great and decisive battle,
which lasted for six hours. Nearly fif-
teen thousand were slain of the Libyans,
Maxyes, and Kahuka; about looo Tyr-
rhenians and Sikels : the losses of the
* Contemporary Review, April, 1870.
t Herodotus, iv. 191.
X De Roug^, p. 2og.
§ Chabas, Etudes sur 1' Antiquity Historique, pp.
198-200.
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 360
Sardones, and of the Achaians and La-
conians, are not known, as that portion
of the record is destroyed. The hands
of the Achaian dead and those of the
other non-African tribes, and another
portion of the bodies of the Libyans and
Maxyes, were brought back, either as
trophies or by way of account.* There
were 9376 prisoners. The remainder of
the invading army fled the country, and
the Libyans treated for peace. But a
portion of those who had in a manner
planted themselves in the Delta, princi-
pally Mashuash or Maxyes, were con-
firmed in the possession of their lands,
and became Egyptian subjects.
This invasion took place near the com-
mencement of the reign of Merepthah.-f
His accession is placed by the French
authorities at about A.D. 1350, and we
may perhaps roughly assume 1345 B. C.
as the date. Therefore the year 1345 B.C.
may be taken as falling within the term
which, as we have seen, may reasonably
be stated at about or under 100 years of
the historic life of the Achaian name for
the Greek nation.
That term, then, can hardly have begun
earlier than 1345 B.C., and cannot have
ended later than 1245 B.C.
But the period of (say) 100 years sub-
divides itself, as we have seen, into what
may be taken as two moieties ; the first
when it was a gentile or local name, the
second when it was national. To which
of these significations does the use of
the name under Merepthah probably be-
long .? I answer, without hesitation, to
the earlier ; becsuse the Greeks who take
part in it are described as Achaians and
Laconians. If, instead of Laconians, we
were to read Lukians, viz., those con-
nected with the Lucaonian tradition of
the Peloponnesos, it would not affect the
argument, which is that the Achaian
name evidently does not cover the whole
Peninsula,! or even the whole Pelopon-
nesos : the Laconians, according to the
Karnak monument, being Peloponne-
sians, were not then Achaians.
Returning to the figures under this
narrower specification, the Invasion we
speak of was probably at a date within
some fifty or sixty year^ before the War
of Troy. If so, we should have 1345 B.C.
for the higher limit of the war (which
could not have coincided with the inva-
sion), and 1285 B.C. for the latest.
* De Rouge, p. 6.
t M. de Roug6 also states, that according to the In-
scription these Achaians did not include the Inhabitants
of the Isles, and thinks they were confined to the Pelo-
ponnesos.— De Rougd, Extraits, &c., p. 28.
754
THE PLACE OF HOMER IN HISTORY.
Carried thus far, the statement and ar-
gument may rest on their own ground.
But it is a notable fact, that the Egyp-
tian records, which supply evidence of
the prevalence of the Achaian name
under Merepthah, at a later date also
supply evidence that it had ceased to
prevail. To that evidence we will now
proceed.
Rameses III. belongs to the Twentieth
Dynasty, and is reckoned as the last
among the sovereigns of the ancient
Egyptian monarchy who was distin-
guished by personal greatness. His
function was, like that of several preced-
ing monarchs, not to enlarge but to defend
the Empire. His accession is fixed,
through a date astronomically calculated
by M. Biot, to the year 13 ii B.C., and
from this time onwards we are assured
that the Egyptian chronology attains al-
most to an absolute trustworthiness.*
In his fifth year, or 1306 B.C., the White
(or Aryan) Lib)^ans again invaded Egypt.
A simultaneous but independent attack
was made from the North and East.
The Maxyes of the Delta revolted.f
From beyond the continent the leading
nations of the enemy were " the Pelesta
of the Mid Sea " and the Tekkri, inter-
preted as meaning the Pelasgians of
Crete, and the Teucrians ; who, again,
are assumed to have succeeded the
Trojans in Troas. These Pelestas J M.
Lenormant understands to be the ances-
tors of the Philistines, a question beside
my purpose. They entered Syria by land.
Their ships, with those of the Tekkra and
Shekulsha, assailed the coast, while the
Daanau, the Tursha, and the Uashasha,
supplied land forces only. Rameses III.,
having defeated the land invasion, also
mastered his naval enemies by means of
a Phoenician fleet.
It seems difficult to dispute that these
Pelesta " of the mid sea " were proba-
bly Cretan ; or that the Daanau repre-
sent the same people who in the war of
Merepthah appear as Achaians. The
point material in the present inquiry is
that if the Danaau are Greeks of the
mainland, that is to say, Danaoi, or Da-
naans, the Achaian name had now, forty
years after the War of Merepthah, so far
lost its currency that it no longer repre-
sented the nation to the foreign ear.
We may, however, stay for a moment
to inquire whether these Daanau were
* F. Lenormant, Premieres Civilisations, vol. i. pp.
221-3. Hist. Ancienne, vol. i. pp. 443> 4.
t Chabas, p. 227.
i F. Lenormant, in The Academy of March 22, 1874.
really Greeks of the mainland. There is
an objection to the supposition on more
than one ground. First, I have argued,
in conformity with Greek tradition, and
with what seems to me the clear indica-
tion of the Homeric text, that the Daanau
name was certainly older, not younger,
than the Achaian.* Secondly, the Achai-
an, and the later Greeks were alike, and
increasingly with time, a maritime people.
Again the account (from the Harris /a'/j-
rus of the British Museum) represents
the Tekkra and Pelesta as supplying the
aggressive fleet ; but both Trojans and
Pelasgians are in Homer wholly without
any sign of maritime habits ; a remarka-
ble fact in the case of the Trojans, be-
cause they inhabited a country with a
long line of sea-coast. But when we con-
sider that the Egyptians carried on the
maritime war through the Phoenicians, it
seems that we can hardly relv upon as
much accuracy of detail as in the records
of a land warfare conducted by them-
selves. On the other hand, if the Achaian
name had gone out of use, and no other
was yet fully established, the Danaan
name was a most natural one for Phoeni-
cians to give to Greeks. For, as I have
endeavoured to show,f there is every
reason to believe that the Danaan immi-
gration into Greece came from Phoenicia,
or from Egypt through Phoenicia ; and it
was an immigration into Peloponnesos.
If, as has long been popularly assumed,
it was from Egypt, the ascription of the
name to the nation by the Egyptians is
natural, even if it had gone out of use in
the Peloponnesos itself.
The Achaians, then, of Merepthah's
reign probably are the Danaans of the
reign of Rameses III. But the Achaian
power predominated in the Peloponnesos
till the return of the Heraclids. Reason-
ing from this fact alone, we might be in-
clided to argue that the Danaan name
could not probably have been employed
until about eighty years after the fall of
1 Troy, and that event must have occurred
{ as far back as 1387 B.C. But the disor-
ganization of the Peloponnesos caused
by the Trojan War probably caused the
title of Achaians to descend from its
zenith as rapidly as it had risen. If from
this cause the Achaian name had lost
its lustre, and if the Danaan designation
had also been, as is probable, that by
which the Greeks were known in Phoeni-
cia and Egypt before the Achaian period,
* " Studies on Homer," vol. i. and Juv. Mundi, pp.
42-4.
t Juv. Mundi, p. 137.
ALICE LORRAINE.
755
there seems to be no reason why at
ten or twenty years after the war the
Danaan title might not again become, for
those countries, the proper descriptive
title. What appears quite inadmissible
is the idea that the period of Achaianism,
so to call it, could have come after the
time of Rameses III., when the Greeks
were called Danaans ; for in that case
there would have been not one but two
Achaian periods before the Olympiads.
On the whole, the presumptions from
this part of the Egyptian evidence would
place the capture of Troy some time be-
fore 1306 B.C., and possibly even before
the middle of the fourteenth century B.C.
1874.
From Blackwood's Magazine.
ALICE LORRAINE.
A TALE OF THE SOUTH DOWNS.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
At Coombe Lorraine these things had
been known and entered into some time
ago. For Sir Roland had not left his son
so wholly uncared for in a foreign land as
Hilary in his sore heart believed. In his
regiment there was a cetain old major,
lame, and addicted to violent language,
but dry and sensible according to his
lights, and truthful, and upright, and
quarrelsome. Burning to be first, as he
always did in every desperate conflict.
Major Clumps saw the young fellows get
in front of him, and his temper exploded
always. " Come back, come back,
you — " condemned offspring of canine
lineage, he used to shout ; " let an honest
man have a fair start with you ! Because
my feet are — there you go again; no
consideration, any of you ! "
This Major Clumps was admirably
"connected," being the nephew of Lord
de Lampnor, the husband of Lady Vale-
ria's friend. So that by this means it
was brought round that Hilary's doings
should be reported. And Lady Valeria
had received a letter in which her grand-
son's exploits at the storming of Ciudad
Rodrigo were so recounted that Alice
wept, and the ancient lady smiled with
pride ; and even Sir Roland said, "Well,
after all, that boy can do something."
The following afternoon the master of
Coombe Lorraine was sent for, to have a
long talk with his mother about matters
of dry business. Now Sir Roland par-
ticularly hated business ; his income was
enough for all his wants ; his ambition
(if ever he had any) was a vague and va-
porous element ; he left to his lawyers all
matters of law ; and even the manage-
ment of his land, but for his mother's
strong opposition, he would gladly have
left to a steward or agent, although the
extent of his property scarcely justified
such an appointment. So he entered his
mother's room that day with a languid
step and reluctant air.
The lady paid very little heed to that.
Perhaps she even enjoyed it a little.
Holding that every man is bound to
attend to his own affairs, she had little
patience and no sympathy with such phil-
osophic indifference. On the other hand.
Sir Roland could not deny himself a little
quiet smile, when he saw his mother's
great preparations to bring him both to
book and deed.
Lady Valeria Lorraine was sitting as
upright as she had sat throughout her
life, and would sit, until she lay down
forever. On the table before her were
several thick and portentously dirty doc-
uments, arranged and docketed by her
own sagacious hand ; and beyond these,
and opened at pages for reference, lay
certain old law-books of a most deterrent
guise and attitude. Sheppard's " Touch-
stone " (before Preston's time), Littleton's
" Tenures," Viner's " Abridgment," Co-
myn's " Digest," Glanville, Plowden, and
other great authors, were here prepared
to cause delicious confusion in the keen-
est feminine intellect ; and Lady Valeria
was quite sure now that they all contra-
dicted one another.
After the formal salutation, which she
always insisted upon, the venerable lady
began to fuss about a little, and pretend
to be at a loss with things. She was
always dressed as if she expected a visit
from the royal family ; and it was as good
as a lecture for any slovenly young girls
to see how cleverly she avoided soil of
dirty book or dirtier parchment, upon her
white cuffs or Flemish lace. Even her
delicate pointed fingers, shrunken as they
were with age, had a knack of flitting
over grime, without attracting it.
. " I daresay you are surprised," she
said, with her usual soft and courteous
smile, "at seeing me employed like this,
and turning lawyer in my old age."
Sir Roland said something compli-
mentary, knowing that it was expected of
him. The ancient lady had always taught
him — however erroneous the doctrine —
that no man who is at a loss for the proper
compliment to a lady deserves to be
756
thought a gentleman. She always had
treated her son as a gentleman, dearer to
her than other gentlemen ; but still to be
regarded in that light mainly. And he,
perhaps by inheritance, had been led to
behave to his own son thus — a line of
behaviour warmly resented by the impet-
uous Hilary.
" Now I beg you to attend — you must
try to attend," continued Lady Valeria :
" rouse yourself up, if you please, dear
Roland. This is not a question of astrol-
ogers, or any queer thing of that sort, but
a common-sense matter, and, I might say,
a difficult point of law, perhaps."
" That being so," Sir Roland answered,
with a smile of bright relief, " our course
becomes very simple. We have nothing
that we need trouble ourselves to be puz-
zled with uncomfortably. Messrs. Crook-
son, Hack, & Clinker — they know how
to keep in arrear, and to charge."
" It is your own fault, my dear Roland,
if they overcharge you. Everybody will
do so, when they know that you mean to
put up with it. Your dear father was
under my guidance much more than you
have ever been, and he never let people
overcharge him — more than he could
help, I mean."
" I quite perceive the distinction,
mother. You have put it very clearly.
But how does that bear upon the matter
you have now to speak of ? "
" In a great many ways. This account
of Hilary's desperate behaviour, as I
must call it upon sound reflection, leads
me to consider the great probability of
something happening to him. There are
many battles yet to be fought, and some
of them may be worse than this. You
remember what Mr. Malahide said when
your dear father would insist upon that
resettlement of the entire property in the
year 1799."
Sir Roland knew quite well that it was
not his dear father at all, bat his mother,
who had insisted upon that very strin-
gent and ill-advised proceeding, in which
he himself had joined reluctantly, and
only by dint of her persistence. How-
ever, he did not remind her of this.
*' To be sure," he replied, " I remem-
ber it clearly ; and I have his very words
somewhere. He declined to draw it in
accordance with the instructions of our
solicitors, until his own opinion upon it
had been laid before the family — a most
unusual course, he said, for counsel in
chambers to adopt, but having some
knowledge of the parties concerned, he
ALICE LORRAINE.
hoped they would pardon his interfer-
ence. And then his words were to this
effect — ' The operation of such a settle-
ment may be most injurious. The par-
ties will be tying their own hands most
completely, without — so far as I can
perceive — any adequate reason for doing
so. Supposing, for instance, there should
be occasion for raising money upon these
estates during the joint lives of the grand-
son and granddaughter, and before the
granddaughter is of age, there will be no
means of doing it. The limitation to her,
which is a most unusual one in such
cases, will preclude the possibility of
representing the fee-simple. The young
lady is now just five years old, and if this
extraordinary settlement is made, no
marketable title can be deduced for the
next sixteen years, except, of course, in
the case of her decease.' And many
other objections he made, all of which,
however, were overruled ; and after that
protest he prepared the settlement."
" The matter was hurried through your
father's state of health ; for at that very
time he was on his death-bed. But no
harm whatever has come of it, which
shows that we were right, and Mr. Mala-
hide quite wrong. But I have been look-
ing to see what would happen, in case
poor Hilary — ah, it was his own fault
that all these restrictions were intro-
duced. Although he was scarcely twelve
years old, he had shown himself so thor-
oughly volatile, so very easy to lead away,
and, as it used to be called by vulgar
people, so ' happy-go-lucky,' that your
dear father wished, while he had the
power, to disable him from lessening any
further our lessened estates. And but
for that settlement, where might we be ? "
'•You know, my dear mother, that I
never liked that exceedingly complicated
and most mistrustful settlement. And if
I had not been so sick of all business,
after the loss of my dear wife, even your
powers of persuasion would have failed
to make me execute it. At any rate, it
has had one good effect. It has robbed
poor Hilary to a great extent of the
charms that he must have possessed for
the Jews."
" How can they discover such things ?
With a firm of trusty and most respectable
lawyers — to me it is quite wonderful."
" How many things are wondrous, and
nothing more wondrous than man him-
self— except, of course, a Jew. They
do find out ; and they never let us find
out how they managed it. But do let me
ALICE LORRAINE.
757
ask you, my dear mother, what particular
turn of thought has compelled you to be
so learned ? "
" You mean these books ? Well, let
me think. I quite forget what it was
that I wanted. It is useless to flatter me,
Roland, now. My memory is not as it
was, nor my sight, nor any other gift.
However, I ought to be very thankful ;
and I often try to be so."
" Take a little time to think," Sir Ro-
land said, in his most gentle tone ; "and
then, if it does not occur to you, we can
talk of it some other time."
" Oh, now I remember ! They told me
something about the poor boy being
smitten with some girl of inferior station.
Of course, even he would have a little
more sense than ever to dream of marry-
ing her. But young men, although they
mean nothing, are apt to say things that
cost money. And above all others, Hil-
ary may have given some grounds for
damages — he is so inconsiderate! now
if that should be so, and they give a large
verdict, as a low-born jury always does
against a well-born gentleman, several
delicate points arise. In the first place,
has he any legal right to fall in love under
this settlement ? And if not, how can
any judgment take effect on his interest ?
And again, if he should fall in battle,
would that stay proceedings ? And if all
these points should be settled against us,
have we any power to raise the money ?
For I know that you have no money,
Roland, except what you receive from
land ; as under my advice every farthing
of accumulation has been laid out in
buying back, field by field, portions of
our lost property."
" Yes, my dear mother ; and worse than
that ; every field so purchased has been
declared or assured — or whatever they
call it — to follow the trusts of this set-
tlement, so that I verily believe if I
wanted ;!^5ooo for any urgent family pur-
poses, I must raise it — if at all — upon
mere personal security. But surely, dear
mother, you cannot find fault with the
very efficient manner in which your own
desires have been carried out."
" Well, my son, I have acted for the
best, and according to your dear father's
plans. When I married your father,"
the old lady continued, with a soft quiet
pride, which was quite her own, " it was
believed, in the very best quarters, that
the Duchess Dowager of Chalcorhin, of
whom perhaps you may have heard me
speak "
" Truly yes, mother, every other day."
" And, my dear son, I have a right to
do so of my own god-mother, and great-
aunt. The sneering spirit of the present
day cannot rob us of all our advantages.
However, your father (as was right and
natural on his part) felt a conviction — as
those low Methodists are always saying
of themselves — that there would be a
hundred thousand pounds, to help him
in what he was thinking of. But her
Grace was vexed at my marriage ; and so,
as you know, my dear Roland, I brought
the Lorraines nothing."
" Yes, my dear mother, you brought
yourself, and your clear mind, and clever
management."
'• Will you always think that of me,
Roland, dear ? Whatever happens, when
I am gone, will you always believe that I
did my best ? "
Sir Roland was surprised at his moth-
er's very unusual state of mind. And he
saw how her delicate face was softened
from its calm composure. And the like
emotion moved himself ; for he was a
man of strong feeling, though he deigned
so rarely to let it out, and froze it so
often with fatalism.
" My dearest mother," he answered,
bowing his silver hair over her snowy
locks, " surely you know me well enough
to make such a question needless. A
more active and devoted mind never
worked for one especial purpose — the
welfare of those for whose sake you have
abandoned show and grandeur. Ay,
mother, and with as much success as our
hereditary faults allowed. Since your
labours began, we must have picked up
fifty acres."
" Is that all you know of it, Roland ? "
asked Lady Valeria, with a short sigh ;
" all my efforts will be thrown away, I
greatly fear, when I am gone. One hun-
dred and fifty-six acres and a half have
been brought back into the Lorraine
rent-roll, without even counting the
hedgerows. And now there are two
things to be done, to carry on this great
work well. That interloper, Sir Rem-
nant Chapman, a man of comparatively
modern race, holds more than two thou-
sand acres of the best and oldest Lor-
raine land. He wishes young Alice to
marry his son, and proposes a very hand-
some settlement. Why, Roland, you
told me all about it — though not quite
so soon as you should have done."
" I do not perceive that I neglected my
duty. If I did so, surprise must have
' knocked me out of time,' as our good
Struan expresses it."
758
" Mr. Hales ! Mr. Hales, the clergy-
man ! I cannot imagine vvjiat he could
mean. But it must have been something
low, of course ; either badger-baiting, or
prize-fighting — though people of really
good position have a right to like such
things. But now we must let that poor
stupid Sir Remnant, who cannot even
turn a compliment, have his own way
about silly Alice, for the sake of more
important things."
" My dear mother, you sometimes try
me. What can be more important than
Alice ? And to what overpowering in-
fluence is she to be sacrificed ?"
" It is useless to talk like that, Sir
Roland. She must do her best, like
everybody else who is not of ignoble
family. The girl has plenty of pride, and
will be the first to perceive the necessity.
'Twill not be so m.uch for the sake of the
settlement, for that of course will go with
her ; but we must make it a stipulation,
and have it set down under hand and
seal, that Sir Remnant, and after his
time his son, shall sell to us, at a valua-
tion, any pieces of our own land which
we may be able to repurchase. Now,
Roland, you never would have thought
of that. It is a most admirable plan, is it
not?"
" It is worthy of your ingenuity,
mother. But will Sir Remnant agree to
it ? He is fond of his acres, like all land-
owners."
" One acre is as good as another to a
man of modern lineage. Some of that
land passed from us at the time of the
great confiscation, and some was sold by
that reckless man, the last Sir Hilary but
one. The Chapmans have held very little
of it for even so much as two centuries ;
how then can they be attached to it ?
No, no. You must make that condition,
Roland, the first and the most essential
point. As for the settlement, that is
nothing ; though of course you will also
insist upon it. For a girl of Alice's
birth and appearance, we could easily get
a larger settlement and a much higher
position, by sending her to London for
one season, under Lady de Lampnor.
But how would that help us towards get-
ting back the land ? "
"You look so learned," said Sir Ro-
land, smiling, " with all those books
which you seem to have mastered, that
surely we may employ you to draw the
deed for signature by Sir Remnant."
" I have little doubt that I could do it,"
replied the ancient lady, who took every-
thing as in earnest ; " but I am not so
ALICE LORRAINE.
strong as I was, and therefore I wish you
to push things forward. I have given up,
as you know, my proper attention to
many little matters (which go on very
badly without me) simply that all my
small abilities might be devoted to this
great purpose. I hope to have still a few
years left — but two things I must see
accomplished before I can leave this
world in peace. Alice must marry Cap-
tain Chapman, upon the conditions which
I have expressed, and Hilary must marry
a fortune, with special clauses enabling
him to invest it in land upon proper
trusts. The boy is handsome enough
for anything ; and his fame for courage,
and his martial bearing, and above all his
regimentals, will make him irresistible.
But he must not stay at the wars too
long. It is too great a risk to run."
" Well, my dear mother, I must con-
fess that your scheme is a very fine one.
Supposing, I mean, that the object is
worth it ; of which I am by no means
sure. I have not made it the purpose of
my life to recover the Lorraine estates ;
I have not toiled and schemed for that
end ; although," he added with dry irony,
which quite escaped his mother's sense,
" it is of course a far less exertion to sell
one's children, with that view. But there
are several hitches in your little plan —
for instance, Alice hates Captain Chap-
man, and Hilary loves a girl without a
penny — though the Grower must have
had good markets lately, according to the
price of vegetables." Clever as Sir Ro-
land was, he made the mistake of the
outer world
" good markets."
"Alice is a mere child," replied her
grandmother, smiling placidly; "she
cannot have the smallest idea yet, as to
what she likes, or dislikes. The captain
is much better bred than his father ; and
he can drive four-in-hand. I wonder that
she has shown such presumption, as
either to like or dislike him. It is your
fault, Roland. Perpetual indulgence sets
children up to such dreadful things ; of
which they must be broken painfully,
having been encouraged so."
"My dear mother," Sir Roland an-
swered, keeping his own opinions to him-
self ; "you clearly know how to manage
young girls, a great deal better than I do.
Will you talk to Alice (in your own con-
vincing and most eloquent manner) if I
send her up to you ?"
"With the greatest pleasure," said
Lady Valeria, having long expected this :
" you may safely leave her to me, I be-
there are no such things as
ALICE LORRAINE.
759
lieve. Chits of girls must be taught
their place. But I mean to be very quiet
with her. Let me see her to-morrow,
Roland ; I am tired now, and could not
manage her, without more talking than I
am fit for. Therefore I will say 'good-
evening.' "
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Alice had "plenty of spirit of her
own," which of course she called " sense
of dignity ; " but in spite of it all, she
was most unwilling to encounter her val-
iant grandmother. And she knew that
this encounter was announced, the mo-
ment she was sent for.
" Is my hair right ? Are my bows
right .'* Has the old dog left any paw-
marks on me ? " she asked herself ; but
would rather have died — as in her quick
way she said to herself — than have con-
fessed her fright by asking any of the
maids to tell her. Betwixt herself and
her grandmother, there was little love
lost, and still less kept ; for each looked
down upon the other, from heights of
pure affection. " A flighty, romantic, un-
fledged girl, with no deference towards
her superiors " — "A cold-blooded,
crafty, plotting old woman, without a
bit of faith in any one;" — thus would
each have seen the other's image, if she
had clearly inspected her own mind, and
faced its impressions honestly.
The elder lady, having cares of her
own, contrived, for the most part, to do
very well without seeing much of her
grandchild ; who on the other hand was
quite resigned to the affliction of this ab-
sence. But Alice could never perceive
the justice of the reproaches wherewith
she was met whenever she came, for not
having come more often where she was
not wanted.
Now with all her courage ready, and
not a sign in eye, face, or bearing, of the
disquietude all the while fluttering in the
shadow of her heart, the young lady
looked at the ancient lady respectfully,
and saluted her. Two fairer types of
youth and age, of innocence and expe-
rience, of maiden grace and matron dig-
nity, scarcely need be sought for ; and
the resemblance of their features height-
ened the contrast of age and character.
A sculptor might have been pleased to
reckon the points of beauty inherited by
the maiden from the matron — the slim
round neck, the graceful carriage of the
well-shaped head, the elliptic arch of
brow, the broad yet softly moulded fore-
head, as well as the straight nose, and
delicate chin — a strong resemblance of
details, but in the expression of the
whole an even stronger difference. For
Alice, besides the bright play of youth
and all its glistening carelessness, was
gifted with a kinder and larger nature
than her grandmother. And as a kind,
large-fruited tree, to all who understand
it, shows — even by its bark and foliage
and the expression of its growth — the
vigour of the virtue in it, and liberality
of its juice ; so a fine sweet human na-
ture breathes and shines in the outer as-
pects, brightens the glance, and enriches
the smile, and makes the whole creature
charming.
But Alice, though blest with this very
nice manner of contemplating humanity,
was quite unable to bring it to bear upon
the countenance of her grandmother.
We all know how the very best benevo-
lence perpetually is pulled up short ; and
even the turn of a word, or a look, or a
breath of air with a smell in it, scatters
fine ideas into corners out of harmony.
" You may take a chair, my dear, if you
please ; " said Lady Valeria, graciously ;
'• you seem to be rather pale to-day. I
hope you have not taken anything likely
to disagree with you. If you have, there
is still a little drop left of my famous
sringer-cordial. You make a face ! That
is not becoming. You must get over
those childish tricks. You are — let me
see, how old are you ? "
" Seventeen years and a half, madam ;
about last Wednesday fortnight."
" It is always good to be accurate,
Alice. ' About ' is a very loose word in-
deed. It may have been either that day
or another."
" It must have been either that day,
or some other," said Alice, gravely
curtsying.
" You inherit this catchword style
from your father. I pass it over, as you
are so young. But the sooner you leave
it off, the better. There are many things
now that you must leave off. For in-
stance, you must not pretend to be witty.
It is not in our family."
" I did not suppose that it was, grand-
mother."
" There used to be some wit, when I
was young ; but none of it has descend-
ed. There is nothing more fatal to a
young girl's prospects than a sad ambi-
tion for jesting. And it is concerning
your prospects now, that I wish to ad-
vise you kindly. I hear from your fa-
ther a very sad thing — that you receive
760
with ingratitude the plans which we have
formed for you."
" My father has not told me of any
plans at all about me."
" He may not have told you ; but you
know them well. Consulting your own
welfare and the interest of the family, we
have resolved that you should at once re-
ceive the addresses of Captain Chap-
man."
"You cannot be so cruel, I am sure.
Or if you are, my father cannot. I would
sooner die than so degrade myself."
" Young girls always talk like that,
when their fancy does not happen to be
caught. When, however, that is the
case, they care not how they. degrade
themselves. This throws upon their
elders the duty of judging and deciding
for them, as to what will conduce to
their happiness."
"To hear Captain Chapman's name
alone conduces to my misery."
" I beg you, Alice, to explain what
you mean. Your expressions are strong ;
and I am not sure that they are altogether
respectful."
" I mean them to be quite respectful,
grandmother ; and I do not mean t'liem
to be too strong. Indeed I should de-
spair of making them so."
" You are very provoking. Will you
kindly state your objections to Captain
Chapman ? "
Alice for the first time dropped her
eyes under the old lady's steadfast gaze.
She felt that her intuition was right, but
she could not put it into words.
" Is it his appearance, may I ask ? Is
he too short for your ideal ? Are his
eyes too small, and his hair too thin ?
Does he slouch in walking, and turn his
toes in ? Is it any trumpery of that
sort ? " asked Lady Valeria, though in
her heart such things were not scored as
trumpery.
" Were such things trumpery, when
you were young ? " her grandchild longed
to ask, but duty and good training
checked her.
" His appearance is bad enough ; " she
replied, " but I do not attach much im-
portance to that." " As if I believed it ! "
thought Lady Valeria.
" Then what is it that proves fatal to
him, in your sagacious judgment ? "
" I beg you as a favour, not to ask me,
madam. I cannot — I cannot explain
to you."
" Nonsense, child," said the old lady,
smiling; " you would not be so absurd
■if you had only seen a little good society.
ALICE LORRAINE.
If you are so bashful, you may look away ;
but at any rate you must tell me."
" Then it is this," the maiden an-
swered, with her grey eyes full on her
grandmother's face, and a rich blush add-
ing to their lustre ; " Captain Chapman
is not what I call a good man."
"In what way ? How ? What have
you heard against him ? If he is not per-
fect, you can make him so."
" Never, never ! He is a very bad
man. He despises all women ; and he —
he looks — he stares quite insolently —
even at me ! "
" Well, this is a little too good, I de-
clare ! " exclaimed her grandmother,
with as loud a laugh as good breeding
ever indulges in — " My dear child, you
must go to London ; you must be pre-
sented at Court ; you must learn a little
of the ways of the world ; and see the
first gentleman in Europe. How his
Royal Highness will laugh, to be sure !
I shall send him the story through Lady
de Lampnor, that a young lady hates and
abhors her intended, because he even
ventures to look at her ! "
" You cannot understand me, madam.
And I will not pretend to argue with
you."
" I should hope not, indeed. If we
spread this story at the beginning of the
season, and have you presented v/hile it
is fresh, we may save you, even yet, from
your monster perhaps. There will be
such eagerness to behold you, simply be-
cause you must not be looked at, tliat
everybody will be at your feet, all closing
their eyes for your sake, I should hope. *
Alice was a very sweet-tempered girl ;
but all the contempt, with which in her
heart she unconsciously regarded her
grandmother, was scarcely enough to
keep her from flashing forth at this com-
mon raillery. Large tears of pride and
injured delicacy formed in her eyes, but
she held them in ; only asking with a
curtsy, " May I go now, if you please ? "
" To be sure, you may go. You have
done quite enough. You have made me
laugh, so that I want my tea. Only re-
member one serious thing — the interest
of the family requires that you should
soon learn to be looked at. You must
begin to take lessons at once. Within
six months you must be engaged, and
within twelve months you must be mar-
ried to Captain Stephen Chapman."
" I trow not," said Alice to herself, as
with another curtsy, and a shudder, she
retreated.
But she had not long been sitting by
MARY LAMBS LETTERS.
761
herself, and feeling the bitterness of de-
feat, before she determined, with woman-
ly wit, to have a triumph somewhere ; so
she ran at once to her father's room ;
and he of course was at home to her.
" If you please, dear papa, you must
shut your books, and you must come into
this great chair, and you must not shut
even one of your eyes, but listen in the
most respectful manner to all I have to
say to you."
" Well, my dear," Sir Roland answered ;
" what must be must. You are a thor-
ough tyrant. The days are certainly get-
ting longer; but they scarcely seem to
be long enough for you to torment your
father."
" No candles, papa, if you please, as
yet. What I have to say can be said in
the dark, and that will enable you to look
at me, papa, which otherwise you could
scarcely do. Is it true that you are plot-
ting to marry me to that odious Captain
Chapman ? "
Sir Roland began to think what to say ;
for his better nature often told him to
wash his hands of this loathsome scheme.
" Are you so tired of me already," said
the quick girl, with sound of tears in
her voice ; " have I behaved so very
badly, and shown so little love for you,
that you want to kill me so very soon,
father?"
"Alice, come, Alice, you know how I
love you ; and that all that I care for is
for your own good."
" And are we so utterly different, papa,
in our tastes, and perceptions, and prin-
ciples, that you can ever dream that it is
good for me to marry Mr. Chapman ? "
" Well, my dear, he is a very nice man,
quiet, and gentle, and kind to every one,
and most attentive to his father. He
could place you in a very good position,
Alice ; and you would still be near me.
Also there are other reasons making it
desirable,"
" What other reasons, papa, may I
know ? Something about land, I sup-
pose. Land is at the bottom of every
mischief."
" You desperate little radical! Well,
I will confess that land has a good deal
to do with it."
" Papa, am I worth twenty acres to
you ? Tell the truth now, am I .? "
"My darling, you are so very foolish.
How can you ask such a question ? "
" Well, then, am I worth fifty ? Come
now, am I worth as much as fifty ? Don't
be afraid now, and say that I am, if you
really feel that I am not."
"How many fifties — would you like
to know ? Come to me, and I will tell
you."
" No, not yet, papa. There is no kiss
for you, unless you say I am worth a
thousand ! "
" You little coquette ! You keep all
your coquetries for your own old father,
I do believe."
" Then tell me that I am worth a thou-
sand, father — a thousand acres of good
rich land with trees and hedges, and cows
and sheep — surely I never can be worth
all that : or at any rate not to you, papa."
" You are worth to me," said Sir Ro-
land Lorraine as she fell into his arms,
and sobbed, and kissed him., and stroked
his white beard, and then sobbed again ;
" not a thousand acres, but ten thousand,
land, and hearth, and home, and heart ! "
" Then after all you do love me, father.
I call nothing love that loves anything
else. And how much," she asked, with
her arms round his neck, and her red
lips curving to a crafty whisper, " how
much should I be worth if I married a
man I despise and dislike ? Enough for
my grave, and no more, papa, just the
size of your small book-table."
Here she fell away, lost in her father's
arms, and for the moment could only
sigh with her lips and eyelids quivering ;
and Sir Roland watching her pale loving
face, was inclined to hate his own mother.
" You shall marry no one, my own child,"
he whispered through her unbraided
hair ; " no one whom you do not love
dearly, and who is not thoroughly worthy
of you."
" Then I will not marry any one, papa,"
she answered with a smile reviving ; " for
I do not love any one a bit, papa, except
my own father, and my own brother ; and
Uncle Struan of course, and so on, in an
outer and milder manner. And as for
being worthy of me, I am not worth very
much, I know. Still if I am worth half
an acre, I must be too good for that Cap-
tain Chapman."
From The Spectator.
MARY LAMB'S LETTERS.*
To say in the same sentence that we
are grateful to Mr. Hazlitt for this vol-
ume of "gleanings after the gleaners,"
* Mary and Charles Lamb : Poems, Letters, and
Remains. Now first collected, with Reminiscences
and Notes. By W. Carew Hazlitt. London : Chatto
and Windus.
762
MARY LAMBS LETTERS.
and that we dislike its tone and dispute
the accuracy of many of its assertions,
may seem inconsistent, but it is an incon-
sistency into which all lovers of Charles
Lamb and his writings will be likely to
fall. His life was so intimately blended
with that of his sister, that letters from
Mary Lamb are, for biographical pur-
poses, almost as valuable as his own ;
indeed, we are not sure that in the light
they throw upon the fireside existence of
one so wedded to his fireside, that on
one of his removals he doubted if some
of his flesh would not be found adhering
to the door-posts of his late home, they
are not superior to any of his own ;
while in force and clearness of expres-
sion, in keenness of insight into charac-
ter, in strong sense, and in a pleasant,
quaint originality of ideas, they are equal
to anything we have ever read in the
range of feminine correspondence. We
are therefore sensible of our indebted-
ness to Mr. Hazlitt for the publication of
the " Lamb-Stoddart " letters, — letters
which deal pretty freely with the virgin
fancies and matrimonial aspirations of
his grandmother, and place in a very at-
tractive light the character of one of the
most unselfish, amiable, and spite of her
repeated attacks of insanity, most ration-
al of women.
The friendship between Mary Lamb
and Sarah Stoddart — sister of the Doc-
tor, afterwards Sir John Stoddart, to
whom some of Lamb's letters are ad-
dressed — was of earlier date than Barry
Cornwall has assigned to it. Talfourd,
too, is in error in heading a letter from
Charles Lamb in 1806 " To Mrs. Hazlitt."
Miss Stoddart did not marry Hazlitt till
1808, and in the intervening years had
more " slips 'twixt the cup and the lip "
than, we hope, often fall to the lot of any
young lady. Miss Lamb's cordial in-
terest in tbenkaleidoscopic changes of
her friend's fpr.ospects is made healthy by
sound advice, and by so wide a tolerance
for the fundamental difference of view be-
tween them, as goes far to justify the
bold assertion made in one of her earlier
letters, that she thinks herself the only
woman who could live with a brother's
wife and make a real friend of her.
When we are first introduced to Miss
Stoddart, she is engaged to a Mr. Turner,
of whom Mary Lamb writes : —
The terms you are upon with your lover
does (as you say it will) appear wondrous
strange to me ; however, as I cannot enter
into your feelings, I certainly can have nothing
to say to it, only that I sincerely wish you
happy in your own way, however odd that way
may appear to me to be. I would now advise
you to drop all correspondence with William
[not W. Hazlitt, we are informed, in a foot-
note, but an earlier William], but, as I said
before, as I cannot enter into your feelings
and views of things, your ways not being my
ways, why should I tell you what I would do
in your situation ; so, child, take thy own
ways, and God prosper thee in them ! . . .
What is Mr. Turner, and what is likely to
come of him .-* and how do you like him .-* and
what do you intend to do about it ? I almost
wish you to remain single till your mother
dies, and then come and live with us ; and we
would either get you a husband, or teach you
how to live comfortably without. I think I
should like to have you always, to the end of
our lives, living with us ; and I do not know
any reason why that should not be, except for
the great fancy you seem to have for marrying,
which, after all, is but a hazardous kind of an
affair. But, however, do as you like ; every
one knows what pleases himself best. I have
known many single men I should have liked
in my life {if I had suited them) for a husband,
but very few husbands have I ever wished was
mine, which is rather against the state in gen-
eral ; but one never is disposed to envy wives
their good husbands. So much for marrying ;
but, however, get married, — if you can.
About two years later, after sundry in-
termediate love-affairs, Mary Lamb ends
a letter to her friend, —
Determine as wisely as you can with regard
to Hazlitt ; and if your determination is to
have him, Heaven send you many happy years
together ! If I am not mistaken, I have con-
cluded letters on the Corydon Courtship with
this same wish. I hope it is not ominous of
change, for if I were sure you would not be
quite starved to death nor beaten to a mummy,
I should like to see Hazlitt and you come
together, if (as Charles observes) it were only
for the joke's sake. Write instantly to me.
The marriage thus doubtfully welcomed
was not a happy one, but of later differ-
ences no trace is visible in the brief re-
mainder of the correspondence after
Sarah Stoddart became Sarah Hazlitt.
The following extract from one of the
earlier letters seems to us inexpressibly
touching, coming from one who was (and
knew that she was), in her brother's
words, " always on the verge of insan-
ity : " —
I have no power over Charles. He will do,
— what he will do. But I ought to have some
little influence over myself. And therefore I
am most manfully resolving to turn over a new
leaf within my own mind. . . . You shall hear
a good account of me, and the progress I make
in altering my fretful temper to a calm and
quiet one. It is but being once thoroughly
convinced one is wrong, to make one resolve
MARY LAMBS LETTERS.
to do so no more ; and I know that my dismal
face has been ahnost as great a drawback upon
Charles's comfort as his feverish, teasing ways
have been upon mine. Our love for each
other has been the torment of our lives hith-
erto. I am most seriously intending to bend
the whole force of my mind to counteract this,
and I think I see some prospect of success.
Of Charles's ever bringing any work to pass at
home I am very doubtful, and of the farce
(Mr. H ) succeeding I have little or no
hope ; but if I could once get into the way of
being cheerful myself, I should see an easy
remedy in leaving town and living cheaply
almost wholly alone, but till I do find we
really are comfortable alone and by ourselves,
it seems a dangerous experiment.
We know that in laler years this experi-
ment was tried, not from the cause al-
luded to in this extract (poverty), but
from a perception on Charles Lamb's
part that the excitement of town life was
bad for his sister. The sacrifice was
great, for he loved the streets as John-
son loved them, and society was almost a
necessity of his existence. The year be-
fore he died he crowned the devotion of
a life-time by settling with Mary under
the roof of a medical man at Edmonton,
so that she might not be harassed by the
frequent removals from home necessitat-
ed by her attacks, and that he might not
be separated even by these from one
whose " rambling tale is better" to him
"than the sense and sanity of others."
It is, we imagine, this joint residence
with Mr. Walden at Edmonton that has
led to the assertion (credited, without
proof, by Mr. Hazlitt) that Lamb was out
of his mind at the time of his death.
Both his biographers positively assert
that he never lost the balance of his
mind but once, and that prior to the ter-
rible death of his mother by his sister's
hand. Mr. S. C. Hall's positive asser-
tion that he was in confinement at En-
field at the close of 1834, is contradicted
by the dates of Charles Lamb's latest
letters, and we do not look upon what
" somebody else " alleges as worthy of dis-
proof. The concealment of the fact that
their friend was more than once insane
is one of the counts of Mr. Hazlitt's fierce
indictment against Barry Cornwall and
Talfourd of " literary " and " moral fal-
sification," and of a "desire to present
Lamb before a generation which had not
known him as they knew him in a light
which was not a true one ; " and for this
purpose not scrupling " to tamper with
the man's correspondence, and to put a
figure of wax, of their own fashioning, in
the place of the real flesh and blood."
763
These are heavy charges. Let us look
a little closer into them. They resolve
themselves into three principal counts.
" Lamb used strong expletives, but this
was not allowed to appear anywhere."
We confess this offence appears to us
a venial one. Would Mr. Hazlitt have
had the oaths printed at length, or would
he prefer the elegant obscurity of a ?
The fashion of the age was to swear ; it
was no peculiar characteristic of the man.
" Lamb partook freely of beer and
spirits, but this was to be flatly contra-
dicted." So far from flatly contradicting
it, both Lamb's biographers own to this
weakness in him, and have made it quite:
sufficiently prominent. Who does not.
know that Lamb got drunk '^. Mr. Hazlitt
rejects with scorn Barry Cornwall's plea
that a little spirituous liquid upset Lamb's
weak head, yet surely he must have read
the letter to Mr. Wilson in which Lamb
himself says, in extenuation of an over-
night's excess, "You knew me well
enough before, that a very little liquor
will cause a considerable alteration in
me."
" Lamb was deranged once or twice in
the course of his life, but this was to be
glossed over at any cost." This charge
is quite untrue. Both his biographers
distinctly state that Lamb was deranged
07ice, but not more than once in his life ;
and we fail to see that Mr. Hazlitt has
brought any proof of the " twiceP In-
deed his treatment of this whole subject
shows either great obtuseness of percep-
tion, or a wilful determination to find
groundless fault.
This is his statement, at page 214 of
his Reminiscences : —
We know that after his mother's shocking
end, in the autumn of 1796, Lamb temporarily
lost his reason. His state of mind has been
described by some one as nervous disorder,
consequently it becomes necessary to give the
patient's own account, as it appears in the fol-
lowing passage from a letter to Coleridge.
Then follows, verbatim, an extract from
a letter given in full in the Final Meino-
?'ials, and which, we believe, Talfourd is
quite justified in placing before the fatal
outbreak of madness in Mary Lamb. In
this letter he speaks of " a person " who
was " the more immediate cause of my
temporary frenzy," and in a later letter
to Coleridge, he says : —
When you left London, I felt a dismal void
in my heart ; I found myself cut off, at one
, and the same time, from two most dear to me.
' In your conversation you had blended so many
764
pleasant fancies, that they cheated my grief ;
but in your absence, the tide of melancholy
rushed in again, and did its worst mischief by
overwhelming my reason.
He then goes on, in the strain usual at
that time between himself and Coleridge,
to criticise passages in poetry and give
pieces of his own writings, in a letter
written directly after the tragedy in his
home, the whole tone is different. "With
me, ' The former things are passed away,'
and I have something more to do than
to feel. . . . Mention nothing of
poetry. I have destroyed every vestige
of past vanities of that kind." The per-
son alluded to as the more immediate
cause of his madness was, we believe, the
fair-haired maid of his Sonnets, the
Alice W- of his essay. In one of his
letters to Coleridge he alludes to the
time in which they were both suffering
under disappointment ; and we think Mr.
Hazlitt has made out clearly enough that
the passion for Alice W was not a
mere poetical fancy, but a painful expe-
rience in Lamb's early life. As a proof,
however, of the extreme recklessness of
assertion that takes all value from Mr.
Hazlitt's criticism of the works of his
predecessors, he turns a passage — in a
letter to Coleridge referring to his love-
sonnets, and stating that they express a
passion of which he retains nothing —
against Mary Lamb, thus : —
He once opened his mind to Coleridge,
however, to the extent of confessing a half-
belief that his self-devotion, if it had been in
some respects advantageous, was not unat-
tended, on the other hand, by certain draw-
backs. " 'Twas a weakness " (this is what he
says to him), " concerning which I may say, in
the words of Petrarch (whose ' life ' is now
open before me), if it drew me out of some
vices, it also prevented the growth of many
virtues."
How any one reading the whole of this
letter can fail to see that the weakness
referred to is his past love for Alice
W passes our comprehension.
Again, besides asserting that Lamb's
reason gave way under the weight of the
shock of his domestic tragedy, against
which all Lamb's letters of the period
bear forcible evidence, Mr. Hazlitt, in
that patronizing and, to our fancy, depre-
ciating tone he assumes towards the sub-
ject of his memoirs, writes : —
It was soon after the catastrophe of Septem-
ber 23rd that the alarming accident to which I
have adverted in an earlier chapter occurred
MARY LAMB S LETTERS.
I to John Lamb. Charles, it appears from the
I correspondence, had been complaining to
Coleridge just laefore of his brother's want of
sympathy and proper brotherly feeling ; but
when that brother was laid on his back help-
less, and even in peril of his life perhaps,
Charles and his sister not only turned nurses,
but the former tried to retract what he had let
slip in a bitterer mood about John.
Now there are here at least three mis-
representations. John's accident oc-
curred before the catastrophe of Septem-
ber 23. In a letter to Coleridge, speak-
ing of the time when his mother lay
dead in the next room, and his sister was
carried off to the mad-house (an infirm
father and aunt formed the rest of the
family circle), Charles writes, " I had the
whole weight of the family thrown on
me ; for my brother, little disposed (I
speak not without tenderness for him)
at any time to take care of old age and
infirmities, had now, with his bad \Q.g^ an
exemption from such duties, and I was
now left alone." Mary Lamb did not
"turn nurse," for it was the nursing of
her disabled brother, together with the
care of her infirm aunt and parents, .that
had broken down her never strong mental
constitution, and in the whole course of his
letters we find no bitter word in Charles
Lamb which ever needed to be repented
of. His kindness and consideration for
John Lamb were always far above that
selfish person's deserts.
Later on, he speaks of Lamb's neglect
of Coleridge in particular, and of his old
friends in general, and calls the excla-
mation, often on Lamb's lips, " Coleridge
is dead!" a "surely half-remorseful
call ; " and exclaims, with an amusing air
of shocked prudery, after instancing the
whimsical aspects of Lamb's writings by a
quotation from one of his "Essays," in
which he professes his sense of relief in
"taking an airing beyond the diocese
of strict conscience, and wearing his
shackles the more contentedly for having
respired the breath of an imaginary free-
dom," " Let us pass to pleasanter
ground." On the whole, if his readers
will resolutely avoid what is Mr. Hazlitt's,
and read carefully all that is Charles
and Mary Lamb's, they will find in this
" Book of Remains " much to refresh
their memory, and not a little to increase
their knowledge, of two of the purest
and noblest lives ever lived by man and
woman on this " condemned, slandered
earth."
PROFESSOR TYNDALLS ADDRESS.
From The Spectator.
PROFESSOR TYNDALL'S ADDRESS.
The " Unknown and the Unknow-
able " is discovered,, and is Matter. That,
so far as we understand an argument
which is protected, and, as it were, spirit-
ualized at one or two points by the ad-
mission of a " mystery," is the dreary
conclusion which Professor Tyndall, in
his splendid address to the British Asso-
ciation at Belfast, lays before the world
as the outcome of his vigorous research.
After a long but not tedious historical
resume oi the perennial conflict between
natural science and the theoloo^ies of the
world, a clear account of the rise of the
doctrine of Evolution, a statement of that
dogma of "the conservation of energy"
which he accepts much as a Catholic ac-
cepts Infallibility — because it must be
true, though the evidence is imperfect —
the Professor proceeds to declare that
the ultimate cosmical force is unknown
and unknowable : — " We have the con-
ception that all we see around us, and all
we feel within us — the phenomena of
physical nature as well as those of the
human mind — have their unsearchable
roots in a cosmical life, if I dare apply
the term, an infinitesimal span of which
only is offered to the investigation of
man. And even this span is only know-
able in part. We can trace the develop-
ment of a nervous system and correlate
with it the parallel phenomena of sensa-
tion and thought. We see witn undoubt-
ing certainty that they go hand-in-hand.
But we try to soar in a vacuum the mo-
ment we seek to comprehend the connec-
tion between them. An Archimedean
fulcrum is here required which the human
mind cannot command, and the effort to
solve the problem, to borrow an illustra-
tion from an illustrious friend of mine, is
" like the effort of a man trying to lift
himself by his own waistband." The uni-
verse is too vast for man to grasp all its
conditions — it is but a span one sees —
nor will any advance in his powers enable
him to grasp them ; and as till they are
grasped perfect truth cannot be attained,
the ultimate cosmical force must remain
unknown and unknowable. Neverthe-
less, that force is Matter. " Is there not
a temptation to close to some extent with
Lucretius, when he affirms that ' Nature
is seen to do all things spontaneously of
herself, without the meddling of the
gods ? ' or with Bruno, when he declares
that Matter is not 'that mere empty ca-
pacity which philosophers have pictured
her to be, but the universal mother who
765
brings forth all things as the fruit of her
own womb ?' The questions here raised
are inevitable. They are approaching us
with accelerated speed, and it is not a mat-
ter of indifference whether they are intro-
duced with reverence or with irreverence.
Abandoning all disguise, the confession
that I feel bound to make before you is
that I prolong the vision backward across
the boundary of the experimental evi-
dence, and discern in that Matter, which
we in our ignorance, and notwithstanding
our professed reverence for its Creator,
have hitherto covered with opprobrium,
the promise and potency of every form
and quality of life." True, Matter needs
other and wider definitions than it has
yet received, definitions less mechanical,
and according it wider range ; but still it
is Matter, and as we conclude from the
tone of the entire lecture, in Professor
Tyndall's opinion, self-existent. Any
cause for Matter is an inference, a guess,
which no scientific man is warranted in
making. Life and reason, as well as their
instruments, have their origin in Matter,
the idea of a separate and immortal rea-
son or soul being, on the whole, inad-
missible, though on this point Professor
Tyndall — who puts this division of his
view into the form of a wonderfully elo-
quent dialogue between Bishop Butler
and a disciple of Lucretius — admits, or
seems to admit, a mystery beyond which
may lie somewhat of which the human
understanding is too feeble to take cog-
nizance. This, however, even if Profes-
sor Tyndall really allows so much, is but
far-off and unsupported conjecture ; and
the teaching of his whole lecture is, that
so far as science can ascertain, Matter —
expanding that word to include Force as
one of its attributes — is the Final Cause.
Religion is but man's creation, though,
as the desire for religion is one of the
inherent forces of the mind, the gratifica-
tion of that desire, so long as such grati-
fication does not interfere with the para-
mount claim of science to be free, may
often be not only not injurious, but highly
beneficial. It is good for man to invent
a creed. " And if, still unsatisfied, the
human mind, with the yearning of a pil-
grim for his distant home, will turn to
the Mystery from which it has emerged,
seeking so to fashion it as to give unity
to thought and faith, so long as this is
done, not only without intolerance or
bigotry of any kind, but with the enlight-
ened recognition that ultimate fixity of
conception is here unattainable, and that
each succeeding age must be held free to
766
fashion the mystery in accordance with
its own needs — then, in opposition to all
the restrictions of materialism, I would
affirm this to be a field for the noblest
exercise of what, in contrast with the
knowing faculties, may be called the cre-
ative faculties of man. Here, however,
I must quit a theme too great for me to
handle, but which will be handled by the
loftiest minds ages after you and I, like
streaks of morning cloud, shall have
melted into the infinite azure of the past."
Plainer speaking than this can no man
desire, and we need not say we have no
quarrel with Mr. Tyndall for the plain-
ness of his speech. We rather honour
him for the courage which impels him to
tell out his real thought, and face what-
ever of obloquy now attaches — and
though little, it is often bitter — to opin-
ions so extreme. If Materialism, — we
use the wor4 without endorsing the op-
probrium it is supposed to convey — is
true, why waste time and energy and
character in teaching what we know, or
at least believe, to be so false ? That
practice can lead only to a restriction of
intellectual effort, or to an intellectual
hypocrisy even worse in its effects than
hypocrisy as to morals. That the result
of such a philosophy, if universally ac-
cepted, would be evil, or rather, to avoid
theological terminology, would be injuri-
ous to human progress, we have no
doubt ; but if it be true, the injury is no
argument against its diffusion, for the
injury, whatever its amount, is less than
that which must proceed from the delib-
erate lying of the wise, or from the ex-
istence of that double creed, an exoteric
and an esoteric one, which is the invari-
able result of their silence, or their lim-
itation of speech to a circle of the initiat-
ed. Lucretius denying God and deifying
Nature is a safer as well as nobler teacher
than the Augur chuckling in silent scorn
as he announces to the mob the imagi-
nary will of the Gods whom, for him and
for them alike, he believes to be non-
existent. The evil the Professor will do
arises not from any fault of his — save so
far as there may be moral fault in accept-
ing such conclusions, a point upon which
his conscience, and no other man's, must
judge — but from the cowardly subser-
vience to authority which marks some
would-be students of science as strongly
as ever it marked any students of Theol-
ogy. There is a class of men among us
who are in matters of Science as amen-
able to authority as ever were Ultramon-
tanes, and who will accept a decision from
PROFESSOR TYNDALL S ADDRESS.
Professor Tyndall that the Final Cause
is Matter just as readily and with just as
complete a surrender of the right of pri-
vate judgment as Catholics show when a
Pope decides that usury is immoral, or as
the Peculiar People show when they let
their children die because St. James did
not believe in the value of medical ad-
vice. If Professor Tyndall affirmed that
the Final Cause was heat, they would go
about extolling the instinctive wisdom of
the Guebres, and perhaps subscribe for
a temple to maintain a perpetual fire.
There will, however, be injury to such
men, and if only for their sake, it would
have been well if Professor Tyndall had,
when announcing a conclusion which, if
true, is fatal to all religion — for thought
evolved from matter is thought without
responsibility, and man is necessarily
sinless — at all events stated frankly
what his opponents would consider the
great objections to his theory, had re-
moved at least the primary difficulty, that
the reference of all thought to motors
apart from the independent and conceiv-
ably immortal mind in man, does not,
like any other scientific assumption, ex-
plain the visible phenomena.
The hypothesis does not, for instance,
explain in any way the consciousness of
free-will, which is as strong as that con-
sciousness of existence without which it
is impossible to reason ; or the independ-
ent influence of will, whether free or
not, on the brain itself ; or above all, the
existence of conflicting thoughts going on
in the mind at the same indivisible point
of time. If a consciousness which is uni-
versal and permanent is not to be ac-
cepted as existing, why should the evi-
dence of the senses, or the decision ol
reason, or the conclusions of science bej
accepted either.? If the fact, as we]
should call it, is mere illusion, why is not!
the evidence for the conservation of en-j
ergy mere illusion too ? Belief in either]
can only be the result of experience, and!
the experience as to the one is at least as
great as the experience as to the other.]
Yet as the outcome of material forces, of]
any clash of atoms, any active relation!
between the organism and its environ-
ments, must be inevitable, — free-willj
and thought evolved from machinery
could not co-exist. The machine may be
as fine as the mind can conceive, but
still it can only do its natural work,
cannot change its routine, cannot, above
all, decline to act, as the mind unques-
tionably often consciously does. Lucre-
tius, who killed himself to avoid corrupt
PROFESSOR TYNDALLS ADDRESS.
imaginings, could, had his sanity been
perfect, have controlled them, — that is,
could have declined to let the mind act
as it was going to act ; and in that con-
trol is at least an apparent demonstra-
tion that he possessed something above
the product of any material energies.
Professor Tyndall will say that animals
show the same will, the dog, for instance^
restraining the inclination to snap at food,
though his mind, as you can see in his
eyes, wants it as much as his body, but
what new difficulty does that involve ?
Immortality for animals, says Bishop
Butler, when he met that dilemma ; and
Professor Tyndall accepts that conclu-
sion as only logical ; but where is the
logic that requires it ? There is no ob-
jection, that we know of, except preju-
dice, to the immortality of animals high
enough in the scale to receive the sep-
arate reason, but neither is there any
necessity why their separate reason
should be deathless or incapable of ab-
sorption. The free-will of man does not
prove or involve immortality, which must
be defended on quite other grounds,
though it does prove the existence in
man of a force not emanating from ma-
terial sources. Professor Tyndall says,
if there were such a separate reason, it
could not be suspended or thrown into a
trance, as it were, by an external accident,
but he does not prove that it is. His
argument from surgical experience — the
apparent suspense of all faculties be-
cause a bone presses the brain — only
shows that the relation between the soul
— to employ the theological and best-
known term — and its instrument maybe
suspended for a time, but does not prove
that the soul ceases even temporarily to
be. The electric fluid exists even when
the wire which conveys it ceases to be
insulated. His moral illustration is
stronger, because it carries us to the
edge of the region where thought and ex-
perience alike begin to fail, but it is not
conclusive : — " The brain may change
from health to disease, and through such
a change the most exemplary man may be
converted into a debauchee or a murderer.
My very noble and approved good master
767
[Lucretius] had, as you know, threaten-
ings of lewdness introduced into his brain
by his jealous wife's philter ; and sooner
than permit himself to run even the risk
of yielding to these base promptings, he
slew himself. How could the hand of
Lucretius have been thus turned against
himself, if the real Lucretius remained as
before ? Can the brain or can it not act
in this distempered way without the in-
tervention of the immortal reason ? If it
can, then it is a prime mover which re-
quires only healthy regulation to render
it reasonably self-acting, and there is no
apparent need of your immortal reason at
all. If it cannot, then the immortal rea-
son, by its mischievous activity in ope-
rating upon a broken instrument, must
have the credit of committing every im-
aginable extravagance and crime." Why
should it not have the credit, if the " im-
mortal reason " has full power ? What
else but that is the essence of the idea of
sin ? If the immortal reason, indeed,
has not full power — if, by reason of the
imperfection of the instrument, it cannot,
to use ordinary language, transmit its
orders intact, then, in the degree to
which that transmission is imperfect,
there is neither extravagance nor crime,
but merely action, to that extent morally
indifferent. The alternative which the
Professor puts down as a reductio adab-
surdiim is the main assumption not only of
every Christian creed, but of every creed
that ever existed, is, as we should say,
one of the intuitions of which every man
is as certain as he is of his legs. In the
same way, the existence of conflict in the
mind seems to us fatal to any idea that
mind is a product of material action alone.
The result of the physical brain-process,
whatever it is, must surely be a result,
and not a struggle of two results, in
which one not only gives way, but is ex-
tinguished by the other. It is possible
to deny that the struggle arises from one
and the same operation, although it con-
stantly seems to do so ; but if it does so
arise, there must be something in mind
other than mental steam arising from
physical friction.
In a paper in Petermann's Mittheilungen
(Heft vii. 1874) by Dr. Joseph Chavanne, of
Vienna, on " The Arctic Continent and Polar
Sea," the author deduces the following con-
clusions from the data furnished by recent ex-
peditions, and which he carefully discusses :
— I. The long axis of the arctic land-mass
(which probably consists of an island archi-
pelago separated by narrow arms of the sea,
perhaps only fjords) crosses the mathematical
pole ; it thus bends round Greenland, north of
Shannon Island, not towards the north-west,
768
MISCELLANY.
I
but runs across to 82° or 83° N. lat. in a
northerly direction, proceeding thence towards
N.N.E. or N.E. 2. The coast of this arctic
continent is consequently to be found between
25'^ and 170" E. long, in a mean N. lat. of 84*^
and 85'', the west coast between 90" and 170*
W. long, in a latitude from 86" to 80^. 3.
Robeson Channel, which widens suddenly
north of 82*^ i6m. N. lat., still widening, bends
sharply in 84^ N. lat. to the west ; Smith
Sound, therefore, is freely and continuously
connected with Behring Strait. Grinnell
Land is an island which probably extends to
95*^ W. long., south of which the Parry Is-
lands fill up the sea west of Jones's Sound.
4. The sea between the coast of the arctic
polar land and the north coast of America is
traversed by an arm of the warm drift-current
of the Kuro Siwo, which pierces Behring
Strait, and thus at certain times and in certain
places is free of ice, allowing the warm cur-
rent to reach Smith Sound. 5. The Gulf
Stream gliding between Bear Island and No-
vaya Zemlya to the north-east washes the
north coast of the Asiatic continent, and is
united east of the New Siberia Islands with
the west arm of the drift current of the Kuro
Siwo. On the other hand, the arm of the
Gulf Stream, which proceeds from the west
coast of Spitzbergen to, the North, dips, north
of the Seven Islands, under the polar current,
comes again to the surface in a higher lati-
tude, and washes the coast of the arctic polar
land, the climate of which, therefore, is under
the influence of a temporarily open polar sea ;
hence both the formation of perpetual ice, as
well as excessive extreme of cold, is manifestly
impossible. 6. The mean elevation of the
polar land above the sea diminishes towards
the pole. 7. The sea between Spitzbergen
and Novaya Zemlya to Behring Strait is even
in winter sometimes free of ice, and may be
navigated in summer and autumn. 8. The
most likely routes to the pole are : — first, the
sea between Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya ;
and second, the sea north of Behring Strait
along the coast of the unknown polar land.
We have been so alarmed by the denuncia-
tion of '' the Editors of the European press "
in the new number of J^'ors Clavigera, and their
habit of living by the sale of their " opinions,
instead of knowledges," that we scarcely ven-
ture to hold, much less to express, the very
harmless " opinion" that the following passage
is one of painful interest : —
The Pope's new tobacco manufactory under the Pala-
tine [is] an infinitely more important object now, in all
views of Rome from the west, than either the Palatine
or the Capitol ; while the still more ancient documents
of Egyptian religion — the obelisks of the Piazza del
Popolo, and of the portico of St. Peter's — are entirely
eclipsed by the obelisks of our English religion, lately
elevated, m full view from the Pincian and the Mon-
torio, with smoke coming out of the top of them. And
farther, the entire eastern district of Rome, between
the two Basilicas of the Lateran and St. Lorenzo, is
now one mass of volcanic ruin ; a desert of dust and
aslies, the lust of wealth exploding there, out of a
crater deeper than Etna's, and raging, as far as it can
reach, in one frantic desolation of whatever is lovely, or
holy, or memorable, in the central city of the world.
Academy.
"A Rose in June," the publication of
which was recently completed in The Living
Age, is from the pen of Mrs. Oliphant.
THE FISHER.
Sorrow, and strife and pain
Have crushed my spirit with relentless hand.
Long have I toiled, O Lord, and wrought in
vain.
But still, at Thy command
Into the wide blue sea,
Clinging to Thine own word, I cast the net ;
Thy covenant was made of old with me
And I will trust Thee yet.
Lord, it is hard to stand
Waiting and watching in this silent toil,
While other fishers draw their nets to land.
And shout to see their spoil.
My strength fails unawares.
My hands are weak, — my sight grov/s dim
with tears ;
My soul is burdened with unanswered prayers,
And sick of doubts and fears.
I see, across the deep,
The moon cast down her fetters, silver-bright,
As if to bind the ocean in his sleep
With links of living light.
I hear the roll and rush
Of waves that kiss the bosom of the beach ; —
That soft sea- voice which ever seems to hush
The tones of human speech.
A breeze comes sweet and chill
Over the waters, and the night wanes fast ;
His promise fails ; the net is empty still.
And hope's old dreams are past !
Slow fade the moon and stars,
And in the east, the new dawn faintly shines
Through dim grey shadows, flecked with
pearly bars,
And level silver lines.
But lo ! what form is this
Standing beside me on the desolate shore .?
I bow my knees ; His garment's hem I kiss ;
Master, I doubt no more I
" Draw in thy net, draw in,"
He cries, "behold the straining meshes
break ! "
Ah, Lord, the spoil I toiled so long to win
Is granted for Thy sake !
The rosy day blooms out
Like a full-blossomed ilower ; the joyous sea
Lifts up its voice ; the winds of morning shout
j All glory, God, to Thee !
1 Sunday Magazine. SarAH DouDNEY.
I
LITTELL'S LIVIlSra AGE.
Fifth Series
Volume VII
ies, I
m. 5
No. 1581.— September 26, 1874.
^ From Beginning,
I Vol. CXXII.
CONTENTS.
I. The Depths of the Sea, .... British Quarterly Review^
II. The Manor-House at Milford. Part IV., Chambers' Journal^
III. Inaugural Address of Prof. John Tyn-
DALL, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., . . . Nature,
*#* Title and Index to Volume CXXII.
771
793
802
POETRY.
Two Sonnets, . .\ . . . 770 1 The Spectre of the Rose,
The Happy Man, 770 1 Voices of the Dead, .
770
824
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770
TWO SONNETS, ETC.
TWO SONNETS.
If we be fools of chance, indeed, and tend
No whither, then the blinder fools in this :
That, loving good, we live, in scorn of bliss,
Its wageless servants to the evil end.
If at the last, man's thirst ior higher things
Be quench'd in dust, the giver of his life,
Why press with growing zeal a hopeless
strife, —
Why — born for creeping — should he dream
of wings ?
O Mother Dust ! thou hast ©ne law so mild,
We call it sacred — all thy creatures own
it —
The tie w^hich binds the parent and the child, —
Why has man's loving heart alone outgrown
it?
Why hast thou travail'd so to be denied,
So trampled by a would-be matricide ?
II.
Ripe fruit of science — demonstrated fact —
We grasp at thee in trembling expectation,
We humbly wait on thee for explanation ;
Words of the Universe, enshrin'd in act !
Words, pregnant words, but only parts of
speech
As yet, curt utterance such as children use,
With meanings struggling through but to
confuse,
And hinted signs which soar beyond our reach.
Work on in patience, children of the time
Who lend your faultering modes to Na-
ture's voice, —
Fulfil your present task ; some prize sublime
Ye wot not of your hearts may still rejoice, —
Some strain of music shape the wild turmoil,
And consecrate the pauses of your toil.
Spectator. EmILY PfEIFFER.
THE HAPPY MAN.
No longer any choice remains ;
All beauty now I view,
All bliss that womankind contains,
Completely summ'd in you.
Your stature marks the proper height ;
Your hair the finest shade ;
Complexion — Love himself aright
Each varying tint hath laid.
JVo longer ^c.
Your voice — the very tone and pitch
Whereto my heart replies !
Blue eyes, or black, or hazel, — which
Are best t Kc/^r-colour'd eyes.
No longer &>*€.
Your manners, gestures, being of you,
Most easily excel.
Have you defects ? I love them too,
I love yourself so well.
No longer (5t*c.
To me, once careworn, veering, vext.
Kind fate my Queen hath sent ;
In full allegiance, unperplext,
I live in sweet content.
No longer any choice remains ;
All beauty now I view.
All bliss that womankind contains^
Completely summ''d in you.
Eraser's Magazine.
\
THE SPECTRE OF THE ROSE.
FROM THE FRENCH OF THEOPHILE GAUTIER.
The original begins :
*' Souleve ta paupiere close,
Qu'effleure un songe virginal! "
I.
Those slumbering lids unclose.
Where pure dreams hover so light !
A spectre am I — the Rose
That you wore at the ball last night.
You took me, watered so late
My leaves yet glistened with dew ;
And amid the starry fete
You bore me the evening through.
II.
O lady, for whom I died,
You cannot drive me away !
My spectre at your bed-side
Shall dance till the dawning of day.
Yet fear not, nor make lament.
Nor breathe sad psalms for my rest !
For my soul is this tender scent,
And I come from -the bowers of the Blest.
III.
How many for deaths so divine
Would have given their lives away !
Was never such fate as mine —
For in death on your neck I lay !
To my alabaster bier
A poet came with a kiss :
And he wrote, " A rose lies here.
But kings might envy its bliss."
Francis David Morice.
Macmillan's Magazine.
\
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
771
From The British Quarterly Review.
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.*
The results of the deep-sea explora-
tions recently carried out by Dr. Car-
penter, Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, and Pro-
fessor Wyville Thomson have excited so
much interest, not only among men of
science, but also among the general pub-
lic— and this not less in other countries
than in our own — that we feel sure
of our readers' welcome to an endeavour
to place before them a general account of
the most important of them ; chiefly di-
recting their attention to those new ideas
which these researches have introduced
into science, since without such any mere
accumulation oi facts remains a rudis in-
digestaque moles^ not animated and quick-
ened by any vital force. On two of these
ideas we shall especially dwell — viz., the
doctrine advocated by Dr. Carpenter, of
a General Oceanic Circulation sustained
by thermal agency alone, characterized
by Sir Roderick Murchison * as one,
which, " if borne out by experiment,"
would " rank amongst the di-scoveries in
physical geography, on a par with the
discovery of the circulation of the blood
in physiology ; " and Professor Wyville
Thomson's doctrine of the Continuity of
the Chalk-formation on the bed of the
Atlantic, from the Cretaceous epoch to the
present time, of which Mr. Kingsley has
* (i.) The Depths of the Sea. An account of the
General Results of the Dredging Cruises of H.M.SS.
Porcnpi7ie and Lightning during the Summers of
1868, 1869, and 1870, under the Scientific Direction of
Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S., J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S., and
Dr. Wyville Thomson. By C. Wyville Thomson,
LL.D.,' D.Sc, F.R.S.S.L. and E., F.L.S., F.G.S.,
&c., Regius Professor of Natural History in the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh, and Director of the Civilian
Scientific Staff of the Challenger- Exploring Expedi-
tion. With numerous Illustrations and Maps. Lon-
don.
(2.) Reports of Deep-Sea Explorations carried on
in H.M.SS. Lightning, Porcupifte, and Shearivater,
171 the years 1868, 1869, iSjo, afid iSji. "Proceedings
of the Royal Society," Nos. 107, 121, 125, and 138.
(3.) H.M.S. Challenger : Reports of Captain G. J.
Nares, R.N.., with Abstracts of Soundings and Dia-
grams of Ocean Tetnperature ifi the North and
South A tlantic Oceans. Published by the Admiralty :
1873.
(4.) Lecture on " The Temperature of the A tlantic P
delivered at the Royal Institution on March 7.0th,
1874. By William B. Carpenter, M.D., LL.D.
* " Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society,"
January, 1871.
spoken as a " splendid generalization, to
have added which to the sum of human
knowledge is a glorious distinction."
No stronger testimony could have been
given to the opinion entertained by the
most competent judges, as to the great
value of the work already done, and the
probability that a far richer harvest would
jbe gathered by the prosecution of similar
'researches on a more extended scale,
than the fact that our late Government,
certainly not unduly liberal in its en-
couragement of Science, unhesitatingly
adopted the proposal for a scientific cir-
cumnavigation expedition submitted to
the Admiralty by Dr. Carpenter on the
part of himself and his colleagues, fitted
out the Challenger with every appliance
asked for by the committee of the Royal
Society to wliich the scientific direction
of the expedition was entrusted, and sent
her forth fuBy equipped for her work,
under the coiimand of one of the ablest
surveying officers in the naval service, to-
gether with if complete civilian scientific
staff, under /he experienced direction of
the distinguished naturalist by whom the
inquiry wasf initiated, and who had taken
an active siare in the earlier prosecution
of it.
Professor Wyville Thomson's beauti-
tifully illujtrated volume, entitled " The
Depths of the Sea," which made its ap-
pearance n the eve of the departure of
the C/i!iz//(£?§'^r expedition, gives a highly
interestin< account of the explorations
carried onby Dr. Carpenter and himself
in the tenlitive Lightning zx\i\s>q. of 1868,
and by the same gentlemen, with the co-
operation if Mr. J. Gwyn Jeffreys, in the
Po7'cupine exploration which extended
over the 'our summer months of 1869.
In the wok of the following year, which
extended nto the Mediterranean, Pro-
fessor W;ville Thomson was prevented
by illness "rom participating, and its re-
sults are bit slightly noticed in his vol-
ume. Arl of the results of Dr. Car-
penter's scond visit to the Mediterra-
nean in 1I71, no mention whatever is
made, as hey had not long been pub-
lished whd " The Depths of the Sea "
made its ippearance. They constitute,
however, lie subject of two very elabo-
772
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
rate reports in the " Proceedings of the |
Royal Society," in which Dr. Carpenter '
fully develops his doctrine in regard to 1
Oceanic Circulation, mee-ts the objec- j
tions which had been raised to it, and !
discusses the question of the Gulf |
Stream (necessarily mixed up with it) on
the basis of the most recent information.
And, as his views have received very
striking confirmation from the observa-
tions made during the survey of the
North and South Atlantic Oceans by the
Challenger, of which the results have
been recently published by the Admiralty
as the first fruits of the circumnavigation
expedition, we shall treat this portion of
the subject in accordance with Dr. Car-
penter's doctrine, rather than with that
of Professor Wyville Thomson. The
latter, while devoting a special chapter
of his work to " The Gulf Stream," seems
to have proceeded on a foregone conclu-
sion in regard to the extent af its agency,
which weakens the value of his ar^u-
nient ; and hence, while cordially com-
mending every other portion of Professor
Wyville Thomson's book to tie attention
of our readers, we would ask them in pe-
rusing this chapter to suspend their
judgment, until they have acquainted
themselves with the argummts which
may be advanced on the other side.
We propose, in the followinj^ sketch of
the results of these inquiries, o dwell on
the generalizations to which they point,
rather than on any of the mutitudinous
details which they have addid to our
physical and biological knowedge. A
very interesting selection of these has
been made by Professor Wyvlle Thom-
son ; and there is not one of lis admira-
ble figures and descriptions, ,vhich will
not be deeply interesting to every one
who is possessed of but an ;lementary
knowledge of Zoology, as shaving what
manner of creatures they are vhich dwell
in those depths which were previously
deemed uninhabitable.
The state of our previous cnowledge,
or rather of our ignorance, i. regard to
the condition of the deep s:a, is thus
graphically described by Proessor Wy-
ville Thomson : —
The sea covers nearly three-fourths of the
surface of the earth, and until within the last
few years very little was known with anything
like certainty about its depths, whether in
their physical or their biological relations.
The popular notion was, that after arriving at
a certain depth the conditions became so pecu-
liar, so entirely different from those of any
portion of the earth to which we have access,
as to preclude any other idea than that of a
waste of utter darkness, subjected to such
stupendous pressure as to make life of any
kind impossible, and to throw insuperable
difficulties in the way of any attempt at in-
vestigation. Even men of science seemed to
share this idea, for they gave little heed to the
apparently well-authenticated instances of ani-
mals, comparatively high in the scale of life,
having been brought up on sounding lines
from great depths, and welcomed any sugges-
tion of the animal having got entangled when
swimming on the surface, or of carelessness
on the part of the observers. And this was
strange, for every other question in physical
geography had been investigated by scientific
men with consummate patience and energy.
Every gap in the noble little army of martyrs
striving to extend the boundaries of knowledge
in the wilds of Australia, on the Zambesi, or
towards the North or South Pole, was stru<j-
gled for by earnest volunteers ; and still the
great ocean slumbering beneath the moon
covered a region apparently as inaccessible to
man as the Mare Serenitatis. (p. 2.)
Thanks, however, to the enterprise of
the scientific men who commenced the
inquiry, to the support which they re-
ceived from the Royal Society, and to
the efiicient means placed at their dis-
posal year after year by the Admiralty, it
has been shown that with sufficient
power and skill, an ocean of three miles'
depth may be explored with as much cer-
tainty, if not with as much ease, as what
may now be considered the shallows
around our shores, lying within loo
fathoms of the surface.
The bed of the deep sea, the 140,000,000 of
square miles which we have now added to the
legitimate field of natural history research, is
not a barren waste. It is inhabited by a fauna
more rich and varied on account of the enor-
mous extent of the area ; and with the or-
ganisms in many cases apparently even more
elaborately and delicately formed, and more
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
773
exquisitely beautiful in their soft shades of
colouring and in the rainbow tints of their
wonderful phosphorescence, than the fauna of
the well-known belt of shallow water teeming
with innumerable invertebrate forms, which
fringes the land. And the forms of these
hitherto unknown living beings, and their
mode of life, and their relations to other or*-
ganisms, whether living or extinct, and the
phenomena and laws of their geographical
distribution, must be worked out. (p. 4.)
The first point to be determined in the
exploration of what are often called the
"fathomless abysses" of the ocean, is
their actual depth. This, it might be
supposed, would be very easily ascer-
tained by letting down (as in ordinary
"sounding") a heavy weight attached to
a line strong enough to draw it up again,
until the weight touches the bottom ; the
length of line carried out giving the
measure of the depth. But this method
is liable to very great error. Although a
mass of lead or iron thrown freely into
the sea would continue to descend at an
increasing rate (at least until the aug-
mented friction of its passage through
the water should neutralize the accelerat-
ing force of gravity), the case is quite
altered when this mass is attached to the
end of a thick rope, of which the im-
mersed length increases as the weight
descends. For the friction of such a
rope comes to be so great, when a mile
or two has run out, as seriously to reduce
the rate of descent of the weight, and at
last almost to stop it ; and since the upper
part of the rope will continue to descend
by its own gravity (which, when the rope
has been wetted throughout, so as to
hold no air between its fibres, considera-
bly exceeds that of water), any quantity
of it may be drawn down, without the
bottom being reached by the weight at
its extremity. Further, if there should
be a movement, however slow, of any
stratum of the water through which it
masses, this movement, acting continu-
ously against the extended surface pre-
sented b}' the rope, will carry it out hori-
zontal!} into a loop or " bight," the length
of which will depend upon the rate of the
flow and the time during which the line
is being acted on by it. Under such cir-
cumstances it is impossible that the im-
pact of the weight upon the bottom, even
j if it really strikes the ground, should be
I perceptible above ; and thus the quantity
I of rope which runs out, may afford no
j indication of the actual depth of the sea-
bed. Hence all those older " soundin2"s "
which were supposed to justify the state-
ment that the bottom of the ocean lies in
some places at not less than six or eight
miles depth, — still more, those which
represented it as absolutely unfathom-
able, — are utterly untrustworthy.
Various liethods have been devised for
obtaining dore correct measurements, of
several of \yhich illustrated descriptions
Willie found in Professor Wyville Thom-
son's pages. One principle may be said
to be common to them all ; namely, that
regard shoul^ be had, not so much to the
recovery of t^ plummet or " sinker," as
to securing tile vertical direction of the
line to which it is attached, so that the
measurementof the amount run out may
give as ne/rly as possible the actual
depth of wafer through which the sinkers
have descended. Now, as it is by the
friction of toe line through the water that
the rate of/descent of the plummet is in-
creasingly/etarded, it is obvious that the
size of thj line should be reduced to a
minimum jbut since, for the purposes of
scientific Ixploration, it is requisite to
send dowi and bring up again thermom-
eters and rvater-bottles, as well as to ob-
tain samfes of the bottom, it is now
found dejrable to employ, not the fine
twine or j Ik thread of the earlier instru-
ments costructed on this plan, but a
line aboutlhe thickness of a quill, which,
if made (E the best hemp, will bear a
strain of nore than half a ton. The
plummet eing disengaged by a simple
mechanics contrivance, and being left on
the sea-bd, the instruments only are
drawn up y the line.
The tn;tworthiness of the modern
! method of ;ounding is shown by the coin-
cidence of he results obtained by differ-
ent marine surveyors. Thus the Porcit-
//«<? souncngs taken about 200 miles to
the west c Ushant, which reached to a
depth of 435 fathoms, correspond very
closely wii the soundings previously
taken in tl: same locality for the French
774
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
Atlantic cable ; and the soundings taken
by the Porcupine 2in6. the Shearwater \n
the Strait of Gibraltar, bear an equally
exact correspondence with those pre-
viously laid down in the Admiralty charts,
on the authority partly of our own and
partly of French surveyors ; though the
deeper and narrower part of this Strait,
in which the current runs the strongest,
had been formerly pronounced "unfath-
omable." Hence it may be said that the
ocean depths, on areas that have been
carefully examined, are known with al-
most the same exactness as the heights
of mountain ranges. Until very re-
cently there was reason to believe that
the depth of the North Atlantic nowhere
exceeds about 2,800 fathoms (16,800
feet) ; but the Challenger ^las recently
met with the extraordinary depth of 3,800
fathoms (more than four miles), a little to
the north of St. Thomas's ; and that this
result did not proceed from an accidental
error, is shown by the fact :hat two ther-
mometers, protected in the manner to be
hereafter described, which lad been test-
ed under a hydrostatic pressure of three
tons and a half (corresponcing to a col-
umn of 2,800 fathoms) wert crushed by
the excess.
Before proceeding to inqiire into the
relation which the depth of the ocean
bears to its temperature, and to the dis-
tribution of animal life on thesea-bed, we
may stop to point out how imiortant is a
knowledge of the exact depthof the sea-
bottom to the geologist. It is only by
such knowledge that he can judge what
departures from the present distribution
of land and sea would have been pro-
duced by those changes of lev;l, of which
he has evidence in the upheaval and sub-
mergence of the stratified deposits that
formed the ocean-bed of succssive geo-
logical periods ; or that he 2an obtain
the clue to the distribution of the animal
and vegetable forms, by whi<h he finds
those periods to have been espectively
characterized. For example a knowl-
edge of the comparative shdowness of
the Seas that surround the British Is-
lands, enables us readily tounderstand
the former connection of ourslands, not
merely with each other, but w;h the Con-
tinent of Europe. For theystand upon
a sort of platform, of which tie depth is
nowhere greater than 100 ithoms ; so
that an elevation of 600 fee (only half
as much again as the height c St. Paul's)
would not only unite Irelari to Great
Britain, and extend the nortbrn bound-
ary of Scotland so as to inclde the Ork-
ney and Shetland Islands, but would
obliterate a large part of the North Sea,
which (with the exception of a narrow
channel along the coast of Norway and
Sweden) would become a continuous
plain, connecting our present eastern
coast with Denmark, Holland, and Bel-
gium ; would in like manner wipe out the
British Channel, and unite our southern
coast with the present northern shores of
France ; and would carry the coast-line
of Ireland a long distance to the west
and south-west, so as to add a large area
of what is now sea-bottom to its land-sur-
face. Even an elevation not greater thart
the height of St. Paul's would establish a
free land communication between Eng-
land and the Continent, as well as be-
tween England and Ireland. And thus
we see how trifling a change of level, by
comparison, would have sufficed to pro-
duce those successive interruptions and
restorations of continuity, of which we
have evidence in the immigrations of the
Continental mammalia, on each emer-
gence that followed those successive sub-
mergences of which we have evidence in
our series of Tertiary deposits.*
Many of our readers, we doubt not,
have been in the habit — as we formerly
were ourselves — of looking at the Med-
iterranean as only a sort of British Chan-
nel on a larger scale ; whereas it is a
basin of quite another character. For
whilst the separation between Great
Britain and the Continent may be pretty
certainly attributed to the removal, by
denudation, of portions of stratified de-
posits that were originally continuous,,
the extraordinary depth of the Mediter-
ranean basin can scarcely be accounted
for on any other hypothesis than that of
the subsidence of its bottom ; which was,
perhaps, a part of that " crumpling " of
the earth's crust, which occasioned the
elevation of the high mountain chains in
its neighbourhood. This great inland sea
may be said to consist of two basins ; the
western extending from the Strait of
Gibraltar to the "Adventure" and
" Skerki " banks, which lie between
Sicily and the Tunisian shore ; while the
eastern extends from the Adventure
bank to the coast of Syria. Now, over a
large part of the former area, the depth
ranges to between 1,000 and 1,500
fathoms, being often several hundred
fathoms within sight of land ; and over a
large part of the latter, it ranges from
* See Professor Ramsay's "Physical Geology and
Geography of Great Britain," chap. xii.
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
775
1,500 to 2,000 fathoms, the descent being
so rapid that a depth of upwards of 2,000
fathoms (above 12,000 feel) is met with at
not more than fifty miles to the east of
Malta, But the ridge between Capes
Spartel and Trafalgar, which constitutes
the "' marine watershed " between the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic basins,
is nowhere more than 200 fathoms in
depth ; and as the Adventure and Skerki
banks, which lie between Sicily and the
Tunisian coast, are within that depth
(some of their ridges being not more than
fifty fathoms from the surface), it is ob-
vious that an elevation of 1,200 feet, by
closing the Strait of Gibraltar, and unit-
ing Sicily with Africa, would convert. the
Mediterranean into two great salt-water
lakes, still of enormous depth, and of
but slightly reduced area, — as is shown
in regard to the Western basin, in Plate
V. of "The Depths of the Sea." That
such a partition did at one time exist, is
evident from the number and variety of
the remains of large African mammalia
entombed in the caves of Sicily and in
the Tertiary deposits of Malta. Thus in
caverns of the hippurite limestone, not
far from Palermo, there is a vast collec-
tion of bones of the hippopotamus, asso-
ciated with those not only of Elephas
antiqims^ but of the living African ele-
phant. And in Malta there have been
found remains of several species of
elephants ; amongst them a pigftty of
about the size of a small ass. It is not a
little curious that there is distinct evi-
dence of considerable local changes of
level, in various parts of the Mediterra-
nean area, within the human period. Thus
Captain Spratt has shown that the Island
of Crete has been raised about twenty-
five feet at its western extremity, so that
ancient ports are now high and dry above
the sea ; while at its eastern end it has
sunk so much, that the ruins of old towns
are seen under water. And on the
southern coast of Sardinia, near Cagliari,
there is an old sea-bed at the height of
nearly 300 feet above the present level
of the Mediterranean, which contains
not merely a great accumulation of ma-
rine shells, but numerous fragments of
antique pottery — among them a flat-
tened ball with a hole through its axis,
which seems to have been used for
weighting a fishing-net.
It is doubtful, however, whether the
western basin of the Mediterranean was
ever cut off from the Atlantic ; for
though there is pretty clear evidence of
former continuitv between the two " Pil-
lars of Hercules," the evidence is equally
clear of a depression of the south-western
portion of France at no remote geologi-
cal period ; so that a wide communica-
tion would have existed between the Bay
of Biscay and the Gulf of Lyons, along
the course of the present canal of Lan-
guedoc. And certain very curious con-
formities between the marine fauna of
the Mediterranean and that of the Arctic
province, are considered by Mr. Gwyn
Jeffreys as indicating that Arctic species
which migrated southwards in the cold
depths congenial to them, found their
way into the Mediterranean through this
channel. We shall presently see what
very important modifications in the con-
dition of this great Inland Sea, affecting
its power of sustaining animal life, would
result from any considerable increase in
the depth of its channel of communica-
tion with the great oceanic basin, from
which all but its superficial stratum is
now cut off.
Another most interesting example of
the importance of the information sup-
plied by exact knowledge of the depth of
the sea, is furnished by the inquiries of
Mr. A. R. Wallace in regard to the geo-
graphical distribution of the fauna of the
Eastern Archipelago. For while Java,
Sumatra, and Borneo clearly belong to
the Indian province, Celebez, the Mo-
luccas, and New Guinea no less clearly
belong to the Australian ; the boundary-
line between them passing through the
Strait of Lombok — a channel which,
though no more than fifteen miles in
width, separates faunre not less differ-
ing from each other than those of the
Old and the New Worlds. The explana-
tion of these facts becomes obvious,
when we know that an elevation of no
more than fifty fathoms would unite
Borneo, Sumatra, and Java with each
other, and with the peninsula of Malacca
and Siam ; while an elevation of 100
fathoms (600 feet) would convert nearly
the whole of the bed of the Yellow Sea
into dry land, and would reunite the
Philippine Islands to the south-eastern
part of the continent of Asia. But even
the latter elevation would not connect the
upraised area with the Australian prov-
ince, the depth of the narrow dividing
strait being greater than that of any part
of the large Asiatic area now submerged.
In some parts of the Australian portion
of the Eastern Archipelago, indeed, there
are some very extraordinary and sudden
depressions, showing the activity of the
changes which have taken place in the
776
crust of this portion of the earth within a
very recent geological period. Thus,
whilst every geologist knows that the
Himalayas are not only the highest, but
among the newest of great mountain
ranges — even the later Tertiary depos-
its lying in slopes high up on their
flanks — it is not a little curious to find
the almost land-locked Celebez Sea
going down to the enormous depth of
2,800 fathoms, or three miles. That
this remarkable depression is in some
way connected with the volcanic ac-
tivity of the region, may be surmised
from the fact that the similar hollow,
nea?'ly a thousand faiho?ns deeper, lately
found by the Challenger 2, little to the
north of St. Thomas's (p. 6), lies at what
maybe regarded as the northern termina-
tion of that "line of fire," which has ele-
vated the chain of islands that separate
the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic
Ocean.
In the general uniformity of depth of
the present area of the North Atlantic,
however, and in the conformation of its
boundaries on either side, we have evi-
dence that this vast basin was a deep sea at
least as far back as the Cretaceous epoch.
From the edge of the loo-fathom platform
on which the British Isles are based, and
which extends about fifty miles to the
westward of the coast of France, be-
tween Brest and Bayonne, the bottom
rapidly descends to 1,500 fathoms, and
generally to more than 2,000 ; so that,
with the exception of the modern vol-
canic plateau of the Azores, the sea-bed
of the North Atlantic undulates gently
from the European to the American
coast, at an average depth of at least
2,000 fathoms, or 12,000 feet.* Now, as
Professor Wyville Thomson remarks, all
the principal axes of elevation in the
North of Europe and in North America
^ave a date long anterior to the depo-
\ition of the Tertiary, or even of the
aewer Secondary strata ; though some of
hem, such as those of the Alps and
"Pyrenees, have received great accessions
o their height in later times. All these
* The Bermuda group has been shown by the Cha.1-
fnger soundings to rise like a vast column from a
small base lying at a depth of more than three miles ;
and since there is no submarine ridge of which it
could be supposed to be an outlier, and the islands
are themselves entirely composed of coral, it seems
likely that we have here a typical exemplification of
Mr. Darwin's remarkable doctrine, that though the
reef-building coral animals cannot live and grow at a
greater depth than twenty fathoms, yet that by the
slow progressive subsidence of the bottom, and the
contemporaneous addition of new coral to the summit,
a pile of coral limestone may be built up (or rather may
grow up) to any height.
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
newer beds have, therefore, been de-
posited with a distinct relation of position
to certain important features of contour,
which, dating back to more remote peri-
ods, are maintained to the present day : —
Many oscillations have doubtless taken
place, and every spot on the European plateau
may have probably alternated many times be-
tween sea and land ; but it is difficult to show
that these oscillations have occurred in the
North of Europe to a greater extent than from
4,000 to 5,000 feet, the extreme vertical dis-
tance between the base of the Tertiaries and
the highest point at which Tertiary or Post-
tertiary shells are found on the slopes and
ridges of mountains. A subsidence of even
1,000 feet would, however, be sufficient to
produce over most of the northern land a sea
100 fathoms deep — deeper than the German
Ocean ; while an elevation of a like amount
would connect the British Isles with Den-
mark, Holland, and France, leaving only a
long deep fjord separating a British peninsula
from Scandinavia, (p. 473.)
There is abundant evidence that these
minor oscillations, with a maximum range
of 4,000 or 5,000 feet, have occurred
over and over again all over the world
within comparatively recent periods, al-
ternately uniting lands, and separating
them by shallow seas, the position of the
deep waters remaining the same. And
though mountain-ridges have been ele-
vated from time to time, to heights equal-
ling or exceeding the average depth of
the Atlantic, there is no reason whatever
to believe that any area at all comparable
to that of the North Atlantic has ever
changed its level to the extent of 10,000
feet. As Sir Charles Lyell has re-
marked (•' Principles of Geology," 1872,
p. 269) : — ^
The effect of vertical movements equally
1,000 feet in both directions, upwards and
downwards, is to cause a vast transposition of
land and sea in those areas which are now
continental, and adjoining to which there is
much sea not exceeding 1,000 feet in depth.
But movements of equal amount would have
no tendency to produce a sensible alteration
in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, or to cause
the oceanic and continental areas to change
places. Depressions of 1,000 feet would sub-
merge large areas of existing land ; hvX fifteen
times as much movemeiit would be required to
convert such land into an ocean of average
depth, or to cause an ocean three miles deep
to replace any one of the existing continents.
Thus, then, whilst the wide extent of
Tertiary strata in Europe and the North
of Africa sufficiently proves that much
dry land has been gained in Tertiary and
Post-tertiary times along the European
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
m
border of the Atlantic, while the great
mountain-masses of Southern Europe
give evidence of much local disturbance,
it is extremely improbable that any such
contemporaneous depression could have
taken place, as would have sufficed to
produce the vast basin of the Atlantic.
For as Professor Wyville Thomson justly
remarks : —
Although the Alps and the Pyrenees are of
sufficient magnitude to make a deep impres-
sion upon the senses of men, taking them
together, these mountains would, if spread
out, only cover the surface of the North
Atlantic to the depth of six feet ; and it would
take at least 2,000 times as much to fill up its
bed. It would seem by no means improbable
that while the edges of what we call the great
"Atlantic depression have been gradually
raised, the central portion may have acquired
an equivalent increase in depth ; but it seems
most unlikely that while the main features of
the contour of the northern hemisphere re-
main the same, an area of so vast an extent
should have been depressed by more than the
height of Mont Blanc, (p. 477.)
We quite agree with him, therefore, in
the belief that a considerable portion of
this area must have been constantly
under water during the whole of the Ter-
tiary period ; and looking to the relation
of this area to that of the old Cretaceous
sea which formerly occupied the place
of a large part of what is now the conti-
nent of Europe, we feel justified in con-
curring with Mr. Prestwich * in the con-
clusion that this sea extended continu-
ously from Asia to America. It may
well have been that when the European
portion of that sea-bottom underwent ele-
vation into the chalk cliffs of Dover, a
corresponding subsidence took place in
the Atlantic area. But this subsidence
would have only added a little to the
depth of what must have previously been
an enormously deep basin, without alter-
ing its condition in any essential degree;
and thus on physical grounds alone, we
seem justified in concluding that an es-
sential continuity must have existed in
the deposits progressively formed on this
sea-bottom, from the Cretaceous epoch
to the present time. How strikingly this
conclusion harmonizes with the results
obtained by the biological exploration of
the " Depths of the Sea," will be shown
hereafter.
The pressure exerted by the waters of
the ocean, either upon its bed, or upon
* Presidential Address to the Geological Society,
187X.
anything resting upon it, may be readily
calculated from its depth ; for the weight
of a column of one inch square is almost
exactly a ton ior every 800 fathoms of its
height ; and consequently the pressure at
2,400 fathoms depth is three toiis Jtpon
every square inch, while at 3,800 fathoms
it is nearly five tons. How life can be
sustained under tliis enormous pressure,
is a question to be considered hereafter ;
at present we shall speak only of its ef-
fects on the instruments employed to de-
termine the tejnperature of the deep sea,
— a part of the inquiry which is second
to none in interest and importance. For
while it is from accurate observations of
the temperature of the ocean-bottom, that
we derive our knowledge of those differ-
ences of submarine climate, on which
the distribution of animal life mainly de-
pends, it is from observations of the'tem-
perature of successive strata that we de-
rive our chief information as to that great
system of oceanic circulation, which, al-
together independent of those superficial
currents that have their origin in winds,
has a most powerful influence upon ter-
restrial climate, — modifying alike the ex-
tremes of equatorial heat and of polar
cold, — and also, by bringing every drop
of ocean-water at som.e time or other to
the surface, gives to it the power of sus-
taining animal life on its return to the
sea-bed over which it flows, at depths it
may be, of thousands of fathoms.
It was in consequence of the remark-
able character of the temperature-ob-
servations made in the Channel between
the North of Scotland and the Faroe
Islands, in the tentative Lightning cruise
of 1868, that the importance of obtaining
thoroughly trustworthy observations of
ocean-temperature was first brought
prominently into notice. At that time
the doctrine of a uniform deep-sea tem-
perature of 39^* was generally accepted
among physical geographers, chiefly on
the basis of the temperature-observa-
tions made in Sir John Ross's Antarctic
Expedition ; which were considered by
Sir John Herschel as justifying the as-
sumption that the temperature of the sea
r/i-^fi- with increase of depth in the two
Polar areas, while it sinks with increase
of depth in the Equatorial zone, — there
being an intermediate line of division be-
tween these regions, corresponding with
the annual isotherm of 39'^, on which the
temperature of the sea is uniform from
the surface to the bottom. It is true
that lower bottom-temperatures than 39**
had been occasionally observed, even in
778
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
the intertropical zone ; but these were
considered as proceeding from special
" Polar currents." Thus the United
States coast surveyors had met with a
temperature of 35"^ in the very channel
of the Gulf Stream, the surface temper-
ature of which was 80" ; and Captain
Maury regarded this as a cold current
coming down from the north beneath the
Gulf Stream, to replace the warm water
v^hich is carried by that great surface-
current to moderate the cold of Spitz-
bergen. And Captain Shortland, of
, H.M.S. Hydra, who had surveyed the
line between Aden and Bombay, along
which a telegraph cable has since been
carried, found a temperature of 36 1-2*',
at depths of from i,8o-d to 2,000 fathoms
in the bed of the Arabian Gulf, at about
12"^ north of the' equator.
Now the Lightning temperature-
soundings, carried on in different parts
of the above-mentioned channel, which
has an average depth of between 500 and
600 fathoms, showed a difference of from
13*=* to 15*^, at depths almost identical,
between points which were sometimes
not many miles apart ; the bottom tem-
perature, which, according to Sir John
Herschel's doctrine, ought to have been
everywhere 39°, being as high as 45^ on
some spots, and as low as 32^ on others.
With this marked difference of tempera-
ture, there was an equally well-marked
difference alike in the mineral charac-
ters of the two bottoms, and in the types
of animal life they respectively yielded.
For whilst the " warm area," as Dr. Car-
penter named it, was covered by the
whitish globigerina-mud, which may be
considered as chalk in process of for-
mation, and supported an abundant and
varied fauna, of which the fades was
that of a more southerly clime, the " cold
area " was entirely destitute of globige-
rina-mud, and was covered with gravel
and sand containing volcanic detritus, on
which lay a fauna by no means scanty,
but of a most characteristically boreal
type.
Here, then, whatever might be the
error in the determination of the actual
temperatures, occasioned by the pressure
of about three-fourths of a ton per square
inch on the bulbs of the thermometers
employed, it became obvious that there
could be n'o such error in regard to the
striking differences which showed them-
selves between temperature-observa-
tions taken at similar depths ; and the
importance of this phenomenon became
so apparent to all who were interested in
the inquiry, that as soon as the further
prosecution of these researches had been
decided on, arrangements were made for
testing the effect of pressure upon the ^
thermometers used for deep-sea obser- fl
vations, which are maximum and mini- "
mum self-registering instruments of the
ordinary (Six's) construction, made with
special care to prevent the displacement
of the indices by accidental jerks. These
instruments being placed under water-
pressure in the interior of a hydrostatic
press, the very best of them were found
to rise 8*^, or even 10^, when the pressure-
o-auge indicated three and a quarter tons
on the square inch ; whilst inferior in-
struments rose 20^, 30% 40'', or even 50**
under the same pressure. Thus it be-
came obvious that no reliance could be
placed on most of the older tempera-
ture-observations taken at great depths ;
those only being at all to be trusted,
which had been taken with instruments
whose probable error could be ascer-
tained. Thus the temperature-sound-
ings taken not long previously, in vari-
ous parts of the North Atlantic, by Com-
mander Chimmo, R.N., and Lieutenant
Johnson, R.N., gave 44*^ at depths ex-
ceeding 2,ooo fathoms ; but these, when
corrected by an allowance of 8^* for the
known influence of pressure on ther-
mometers of the Admiralty pattern,
would give an ^^//^^Z temperature of 36*=* ;
and this agrees very closely with the re-
sults of the soundings recently taken by
the Challetiger with trustworthy instru-
ments.
. The existence of this most important
error having been thus determined, the
} next question was how to get rid of it ;
and a very simple plan was devised by
I the late Professor W. A. Miller, which,
j carried into practice by Mr. Casella, was
found to answer perfectly. It is due to
Mr. Negretti, however, to state that this
plan had been previously devised and
adopted by him ; and that he had sup-
plied his "protected " thermometers to
Captain Shortland, by whom they were
used in the observations mentioned in
the preceding pages, which, therefore,
may be regarded as not far from the
truth. The "protection" consists in
the enclosure of the ordinary bulb of the
thermometer by an outer bulb sealed
round its neck ; the space left between
the two being partly filled with spirit or
mercury, for the transmission of heat or
cold between the medium surrounding
the outer bulb and the liquid occupying
the inner, but a vacuity being left, which
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA. 779
serves to take off pressure entirely from been reduced by atmospheric cold, suc-
the innei bulb. It is obvious that if the cessively sink, and are replaced by
whole intermediate space were occupied warmer layers rising up from below,
by liquid, any diminution of the capacity ; until the temperature of the deeper
of the outer bulb would equally compress layers has been reduced to 39^*2 ; but
the inner ; but that the vacuity acts as a | that, when this stage has been reached,
sort of buffer-spring, entirely taking off the further chilling of the surface-layer
pressure from the inner bulb, — the only i makes it lighter instead of heavier, so
effect of a reduction of the capacity of ; that it continues to float upon the
the outer bulb, by external pressure, ' warmer water beneath, which retains its
being to diminish the unfilled part of the temperature of 39'^-2 though covered with
intermediate space. j a layer of ice or of ice-cold water. This,
All the temperature-observations since however, is not the case with sea-water,
made under authority of the British Ad- which, as was long ago ascertained by
miralty have been taken with these " pro- 1 Despretz, differs from fresh water in
tected " thermometers ; which were first continuing to contract (thus a^igmeiituig
used in the iP^r^/<r//;i^ expeditions of 1869 in density) down to its freezing point at
and 1870, with the most satisfactory re- ; about 27'' Fahr. ; and thus, when its sur-
sults. Every instrument sent out by the face is exposed to extreme atmospheric
maker is tested to a pressure exceeding cold, each layer as it is chilled will de-
three tons, and is rejected if it shows scend, and will be replaced by a warmer
more than the slight elevation of some- layer either from beneath or from around ;
thing less than a degree, which is attrib- ; the coldest water always gravitating to
utable to the increase of the tempera- ; the bottom, unless the effect of tempera-
ture of the water of the interior of the ture be modified by some difference in
press, occasioned by its rapid compres- ' salinity, or by movement of one stratum
sion. And the Challenger \'& furnished i independently of another. Of the former
with a press of similar power, by which conditon we have an example in the fact
the thermometers in use may be tested that, in the neighbourhood of melting ice,
from time to time, so as to make sure the water of which is .either fresh (as in
that they have undergone no deteriora- \ the case of icebergs, which are land gla-
tion. Two thermometers are used in ' ciers that have floated out to sea), or of
every observation ; and their ordinarily , low salinity (as in the case of field-ice),
close accordance serves to give to their the surface-layer is often colder than the
indications a high degree of trustworthi- more saline water beneath, on which it
ness ; whilst, when they disagree, there floats in virtue of its lower salinity. And
is generally but little difficulty in deter- ! the latter case constantly presents itself
mining, by collateral evidence, which of when some movement of translation
the two is likely to be wrong. Before ' slants upwards a deeper and colder
proceeding to give a general summary stratum ; which we shall presently find
of the temperature-observations carried to be a general fact along the eastern
out in the Porcupine expeditions of 1869 coasts of our continents and to be attrib-
and 1870, with those collected in the ^ utable to the earth's rotation on its axis.
North and South Atlantic during the first j Under ordinary circumstances, then,
year of the Challenger^ s work — the re- i the miyiimiun temperature recorded by
suits of which, so far as regards this sub- self-registering thermometers sent down
ject, are now before us — we shall cor- 1 with the sounding apparatus, may be ex-
rect a prevalent misconception as to the | pected to be the <^<?/'/i9/;z-temperature ;
temperature at which sea-water attains and this expectation has been fully veri-
its maximum density. I fied by the results of the serial tem-
Every one knows that fresh water con- \ perature-observations made in the Porcu-
tracts {aw^ thus increases in density) as 'jJ/«^ 2ind Challe7tger expeditions; which
it cools from any higher temperature , have shown that the temperature of the
down to about 39'^'2 Fahr. ; and that it | Atlantic undergoes a progressive Teduc-
then expands again (thereby undergoing ' tion from above downwards, but at a rate
a diminution of density) as its tempera- by no means uniform ; and have clearly
ture is reduced to 32*^ Fahr. ; so that, | proved the fallacy of those older obser-
when just about to freeze, it has the same | vations in which the temperature seemed
density that it had at the temperature of to rise in the deepest stratum — the
about 46 1-2*^. And thus it happens that ' elevation of the " unprotected " thermom-
before a pond or a lake is frozen, the ■ eters having been really due to increase
surface-layers, whose temperature has ' of pressure, not to increment of heat.
780
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
In order to render the scientific ratio-
7iale of these observations more intelli-
gible, we shall first state the results of
the temperature-soundings taken by Dr.
Carpenter in his two visits (1870 and
1871) to the Mediterranean, the peculiar
conditions of whose basin have been
already adverted to (p. "]']^.
We have here a great inland sea, of
which the depth ranges downwards
almost to that of the North Atlantic, and
exceeds that of many other large oceanic
areas ; whilst its channel of communica-
tion with the great Atlantic basin is so
shallow on the line of the " ridge," or
"marine watershed" (as Dr. Carpenter
terms it), between Capes Spartel and
Trafalgar, that all but the most super-
ficial strata of the two basins are com-
pletely cut off from each other. Both
the summer and the winter surface-tem-
peratures are very nearly the same in the
two seas, with a slight excess on the side
of the Mediterranean, which shows that
its warmth is not dependent — as some of
the extravagant advocates of the heating
power of the Gulf Stream have supposed
— on an influx of water from that source.
And the rapid reduction of temperature
which shows itself in the summer from
the surface downwards, alike in the Med-
iterranean and in the Atlantic under the
same parallels, clearly proceeds from the
superheating oi the superficial stratum un-
der the influence of direct solar radiation.
The surface-temperature of the Mediter-
ranean during the months of August and
September ranges between '](^'^ and So*^ ;
but the thermometer descends rapidly in
the first fifty fathoms, the temperature at
that depth being about iZ'^ ; and a slight
further decrease shows itself between
fifty and a hundred fathoms, at which
depth the temperature is 54^ near the
western extremity of the basin, 55"^ nearer
its middle, and 56'' in its eastern part.
Now from the hundred fathoms' plane to
the bottom, even where it lies at a depth
of 2,000 fathoms, the temperature of the
Mediterranean is uniform, the difference
never exceeding a degree. In the winter
months, on the other hand, a temperature,
alik^ of the surface, and of the superficial
100 fathoms' stratum, is brought down, by
the reduction of the temperature of the
superjacent atmosphere, to that of the
uniform stratum beneath ; so that the en-
tire column of Mediterranean water has
then a like uniform temperature from its
surface to its greatest depths.
Now, we hold these observations to be
of fundamental importance in two ways.
For, in the first place, they show uu the
limit of the direct heating power of the
solar rays that fall on the surface of tlie
sea. There are few parts of the open
ocean of which the surface-temperature is
ever much higher than that of the Medi-
terranean ; the most notable excess be-
ing seen in the Red Sea, the enclosure
of which between two coast lines, no-
where more than 100 miles apart, while a
large portion of it lies within the hottest
land-area we know, causes its surface-
temperature occasionally to rise even
above 90^. The direct heating power of
the solar rays at Aden, as measured by a
thermometer with a blackened bulb, ex-
posed on a blackened board, has been
seen (in the experience of Colonel Play-
fair, our former consul at that station) to
be above 212"^ ; but that heat is mainly
used up in converting the surface-film of
the sea into vapour. All experiment
shows that solar heat directly pene-
trates to so small a depth, and that the
conducting power of water is so very
slight, that some other means must exist
for the extension of its influence even to
the depth of twenty or thirty fathoms.
This extension is attributed by Dr. Car-
penter (who is supported in this and other
physical doctrines by the most eminent
authorities in that department of science)
to a downward convection, taking place in
the following mode : — Each surface-film,
as it loses part of its water by evapora-
tion, becomes more saline, and, therefore,
specifically heavier, notwithstanding the
increase of its temperature ; and will thus
sink, carrying down an excess of heat,
until it loses its excess of salt by diffu-
sion. It is, of course, replaced by a fresh
film from below ; and this will sink in its
turn, to be again replaced by a less
saline stratum ; and the process will go
on so long as the superheating action
continues. Now, in the Mediterranean
the depth of this " superheating " is lim-
ited by the periodical alternation of the
seasons ; but it might be expected that
under the Equator, where even the win-
ter temperature of the ocean-surface does
not fall much below 80^ (save under the
local influence of cold currents), it would
extend further downwards. The 67/rz/-
/^?/;^;?r observations, however, have shown
that this is not the case, the thickness of
the superheated stratum being no greater
under the Equator than it is anywhere
else — a fact of which the significance
will presently become apparent.
These Mediterranean observations,
when taken in connection with others
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
781
made elsewhere on the constant tempera- 1 cheimal of the locality, it may be pre-
ture of deep lakes, show, in the second
place, that the temperature of any en-
closed body of water which is sufficfently
deep to be but little influenced either by
direct solar radiation, or by admixture of
water flowing into it from without, will
be the isocheimal, or lowest mean winter
temperature, of the locality. We notice
that in Dr. Carpenter's report of his first
Mediterranean cruise, he connected it
with the temperature of the solid crust of
the earth, which there is reason to fix at
between 50^* and 54° in Central and
sumed to have flowed thither from a
colder region ; whilst, if the temperature
of any stratum beneath 100 fathoms be
above the isocheimal, it may be presumed
to have flowed thither from ^. warmer re-
gion. This is simply to put upon differ-
ences of ocean-temperature the interpre-
tation we constantly give to variations
in the temperature of the atmosphere ;
which every one knows to be mainly de-
pendent upon the direction in which the
wind is moving. The comparative per-
manence of the great movements of the
Southern Europe ; this being the con- ocean is simply due to that of the an-
stant temperature shown in deep caves,
and at depths in the soil at which sea-
sonal variations cease to show them-
selves, while there is as yet no such in-
crement of mean temperature as shows
itself at greater depths. But the obser-
vations taken during his second Mediter-
ranean cruise, having proved that the
temperature of the uniform substratum is
higher in the eastern basin than in the
western, in accordance with the higher
isocheimal of the former, whilst those
subsequently taken by Captain Nares, in
the Gulf of Suez, gave a bottom-tempera-
ture of 71^ at 400 fathoms, even in Feb-
ruary, Dr. Carpenter has been led to
abandon his first impression, and to re-
gard the constant uniform temperature
as determined by the isocheimal. And
this conclusion, we have reason to be-
lieve, will be found to accord well with
the results of observations made else-
where. Thus it has been ascertained by
Mr. Buchan, the able Secretary of the
Scottish Meteorological Society, that in
the deeper parts of Loch Lomond there
is a permanent temperature of about 41'=',
and that this is exactly the mean of the
temperature of the air during the winter
months in that locality.
Hence, if it were possible for a body of
ocean-water to remain unaffected by any
other thermal agencies than those to
which it is itself subjected, it seems clear
that all below that superficial stratum of
which the temperature varies with the
season, would have a constant uniform
temperature corresponding to the isochei-
mal of the locality. For whilst coidYe.dL<\\\y
extends downwards, just as heat extends
upwards, by convection, the extension of
heat in a downward direction is very
limiied ; the power of the sun being
mainly expended in surface-evaporation.
As a corollary from the foregoing, it
follows that v/lien any stratum of ocean
tagonistic forces constantly operating to
produce them.
A sort of epitome of the general
oceanic circulation is presented, as Dr.
Carpenter has pointed out, in that deep
channel between the North of Scotland
and the Faroe Islands, which was first
explored by Professor Wyville Thomson .
and himself in the Lightning {^. 777), and
which was next year examined more
particularly by serial temperature-sound-
ings taken with "protected " thermome-
ters at every fifty fathoms' depth. In
the north-eastern part of this channel,
there was found to be a distinct hori-
zontal division of its water into two
strata ; the upper one wanner than the
normal, and the deeper one far colder than
the normal, with a "stratum of intermix-
ture " between the two. 7'he deeper
stratum, whose thickness is nearly two
thousand feet, has a temperature ranging
downwards from 32° to 29" ; and it ob-
viously constitutes a vast body of gla-
cial water moving slowly from the Polar
Sea to the south-west, to discharge
itself into the North Atlantic basin.
Traced onwards in this direction, it was
found to be diverted by a bank rising in
the middle of the channel, so as to be
narrowed and at the same time increased
in velocity; as was indicated by the
rounding of the pebbles which covered
the bottom, and also by the nearer ap-
proach of the cold stratum to the surface,
consequent upon the shallowing of the
bottom off the edge of the Faroe Banks.
The other part of the channel was there
occupied to its bottom by the warm flow
slowly setting from the Mid-Atlantic to
the north-east ; and thus was formed that
division of the bottom at the same depths
into "cold" and "warm areas," which
was noticed in the Lightning cruise (p.
77'^), and which was found to exert so im-
portant an influence on the distribution
water has a temperature below the iso- \ of animal life ; whilst, when difference of
782
depth also came in as an element, a dif-
ference of bottom-temperature amount-
m^\.o fifteen degrees sometimes showed
itself within a distance of three or four
miles.
On applying the same test to the deep
temperature-soundings taken in the Por-
aipine, off the western coast of Portugal,
in the same parallel as the middle of the
western basin of the Mediterranean, we
find that they plainly indicate tlie deriva-
tion of a large part of the deeper water of
the Atlantic basin from a Polar source.
For while the temperature of its super-
ficial stratum varies with the season,
being rather below that of the Mediterra-
nean in the summer, and about the same
in winter, there is beneath this a stratum
of several hundred fathoms, which shows
so slow a reduction down to about 700
fathoms, that the thermometer only falls
to 49*^. But between 70D and 900 fath-
oms there is a distinct " stratum of inter-
mixture," comparable to that encountered
in the " Lightning Channel," in which
the thermometer falls nifieorten degrees;
and beneath this is a vast body of water,
ranging downwards from 900 fathoms to
2,000 or more, of which the temperature
shows a progressive reduction to 36° or
There is here no distinct evidence of
the presence of water warmer than the
normal ; but such evidence is very
clearly afforded by the Porcupi?ie temper-
ature-soundings taken at various points
between the latitude of Lisbon and that
of the Faroe Islands, extending north-
wards through a range of twenty-five
degrees of latitude. For while these
show a considerable progressive reduc-
tion of temperature alike at the surface
and in the first loo fathoms, they also
show that in the thick stratum between
100 and 700 fathoms, the reduction is so
slight as we proceed northwards, that the
temperature of the whole of this stratum
presents a greater and greater elevation
above the isocheimal of the locality, —
thus clearly indicating its derivation
from a southern source.
On these facts Dr. Carpenter has based
a doctrine of a general oceanic circula-
tion, sustained by the opposition of tem-
perature between the Polar and Equa-
torial areas ; which produces a disturb-
ance of hydrostatic equilibrium sufficient
to produce a creeping fiouu of a deep
stratum of water from the Polar to the
Equatorial area, while the superficial
stratum is slowly draughted from the
Equatorial towards the Polar areas. This
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
vertical circulation he considers tp be
altogether independent of the horizontal
circulation produced by winds, which
shows itself in definite currents, of which
the most notable are the Gulf Stream of
the North Atlantic, and the Kuro Siwo
of the North Pacific — which owe their
origin to the action of the trade winds on
the Equatorial portions of tlie Atlantic
and Pacific Oceans respectively, — and
the monsoon currents of the Indian
Ocean. Dr. Carpenter's doctrine has
thus scarcely any resemblance to that of
Captain Maury, who attributed the Gulf
Stream to the elevation of level in the
intertropical area, produced by the eleva-
tion of temperature ; a notion which was
effectually disposed of by Sir John Her-
schel, who showed that no elevation of
level that could be thus occasioned could
possibly produce so rapid and powerful a
current. And the only feature common
to the two, is the existence of an under-
flow from the Pole towards the Equator ;
which Captain Maury advocated without
an}' definite conception of the conditions
under which it would be produced ;
while, according to Dr. Carpenter, a vera
causa for this under-flow (as also of the
complemental upper-flow in the opposite
direction) is supplied by the action of
Polar cold, of which the following is an
experimental illustration : —
Let a long narrow trough, with glass sides,
be filled with water having a temperature of
50*, and let cold be applied to the surface of
the water at one end, whilst heat is similarly
applied at the other. By the introduction of
a colouring liquid, mixed with gum of sufficient
viscidity to prevent its too rapid diffusion, it
will be seen that a vertical circulation will be
set up in the liquid ; for that portion of it
which has been acted on by the surface-cold,
becoming thereby increased in density, falls
to the bottom, and is replaced by a surface-
flow, which, when cooled in its turn, descends
like the preceding ; and the denser water, in
virtue of its excess of lateral pressure, creeps
along the bottom of the trough towards the
other end, where it gradually moves upwards
to replace that which has been draughted off.
As it approaches the surface, it comes under
the influence of the heat applied to it ; and
being warmed by this, it carries along its ex-
cess of temperature in a creeping flow towards
the cold extremity, where it is again made to
descend by the reduction of its temperature ;
and thus a circulation is kept up, as long as
this antagonism of temperature at the two
ends of the trough is maintained. The case,
in fact, only differs from that of the hot water
apparatus used for heating buildings in this,
— that whilst t)\Q primiim mobile in the latter
is heat applied below, which causes the water
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
to rise in it by the diminution ot its specific
gravity, the prhmcm inobile of the circulation
in the trough is cold applied at the surface,
which causes the water to descend through the
increase of its specific gravity. The applica-
tion of surface-heat at the other end of the
trough would have scarcely any effect per se
in giving motion to the water; but it serves
to maintain the disturbance of equilibrium,
which, if cold alone were in operation, would
gradually decrease with the reduction of tem-
perature of the entire body of water in the
trough, which would cease to circulate as soon
as its temperature should be brought to one
uniform degree of depression.
It is maintained by Dr. Carpenter, that
beiween a colunnn of Polar water, of
which the average temperature will be
below 30^^, and a column of Equatorial
Vv'ater of an average temperature of (say)
40*^, such a difference of downward, and
therefore of lateral, pressure must exist,
as will suffice to maintain a slow circula-
tion in the "great ocean-basins, corre-
sponding to that in the trough ; the
heavier Polar water moving along the
floor of the basin towards the Equator,
and gradually rising there towards the
surface, as each nev/ arrival pushes up
that which preceded it ; whilst an upper
stratum of lighter Equatorial water will
be continually moving towards each Pole,
in virtue of the indraught produced by
the downward movement of the Polar
column. — In this doctrine he is sup-
ported by the authority of Sir John Her-
schel (who addressed to hin on this
subject one of his last scientific letters),
of Sir William Thomson, and of Sir
George Airy, who all concur in sanction-
ing his proposition as dynamically cor-
rect.* But as his colleague, Professor
Wyville Thomson, has expressed his dis-
sent— so far, at least, as regards the
cause' of the amelioration of the climate
of North-Western Europe — it is but fair
to Dr. Carpenter to point out that his
doctrine has received from the results of
the C/z^z//^«^(?r investigations in the At-
lantic, that strong confirmation which is
afforded by the precise verification of a
prediction. For in his later reports Dr.
Carpenter gave expression to the follow-
ing conclusion from the data at that time
before him : —
* It is further noteworthy that Pouillet, one of the
greatest authorities of his time in Thermotics, had long
ago (1S47) exnressed the opinion that a surface-move-
ment from the Equator towards the Poles, and a deep
movement from the Poles towards the Equator, would
best exnress the facts of ocean-temperature then known ;
though that opinion was afterwards pushed aside for a
time by the prevalence of the erroneous doctrine of a
uniti (•m deep-sea temperature of sg''.
1. That the whole mass of water in the
North Atlantic below about 900 fathoms
depth, will have a temperature of from
40^ to 36*^, this reduction depending on
an inflow of Arctic water into its ba-
sin, which brings down, as in the case
already cited (p. 781), a temperature
which may be even below 30"^ ; but that
the limitation of the supply of this
Arctic water will prevent as great reduc-
tion in the bottom-temperature of the
Mid-Atlantic, as is seen elsewhere. For,
putting aside what may possibly come
down from Baffin's Bay, which is not
likely to be much, there can be no south-
ward underflow of Arctic water, except
through the channel between Green-
land and Iceland, which is not a very
wide one, and the still narrower channel
between the North of Scotland and the
Faroe Islands ; the bank which extends
between the Faroe Islands and Iceland,
and the shallowness of the bed of the
North Sea, presenting an effectual bar-
rier to the exit of the glacial water of the
Arctic basin through those passages.
2. That, on the other hand, the unre-
stricted communication between the Ant-
arctic basin and that of the South At-
lantic, by allowing the free flow of Polar
water over the bed of the latter, would
reduce its bottom-temperature below that
of the North Atlantic ; and that the in-
fluence of this predominant Antarctic
underflow might 'perhaps extend to the
north of the Equator.
3. That in the Equatorial region, from
which the upper warm stratum is being
continually draughted off towards each
pole, whilst the two Polar streams, which
meet on the bottom, are as continually
rising towards the surface, water below
40° would lie at a less depth beneath the
surface than it does in the temperate re-
gions of the North and South Atlantic.
Now the Challenger soundings taken
in various parts of the Mid-Atlantic
show (i) that the general temperature of
the North Atlantic sea-bed, between the
latitude of Lisbon and the Azores, and
the tropic of Cancer, ranges from 40^
Fahr. at the depth of about 900 fathoms
to 35°'5 at a depth of 3,150 ; so that this
sea-bed is overlaid by a stratum of al-
most ice-cold water, having an average
thickness of ten thousand feet, which, if
it has not all come from one or oiher of
the Polar areas, must contain a large ad-
mixture of water that has brought with
it a glacial temperature. But (2) as the
Challenger approached the Equator, the
bottom-temperature, instead of rising,
784
was found to sink still lower ; 34''*4 being
reached at 3,025 fathoms in the neigh-
bourhood of St. Thomas's (lat. iS°i-2 N.),
and 32 ''•4 at 2.475 fathoms, half-way be-
tween St. Paul's Rocks in lat. i*' N., and
Fernando Noronhain lat. 5*^ S. Further,
the temperature-section taken by the
Challenger \'ci crossing from Brazil to the
Cape of Good Hope, shows the South
Atlantic to be altogether considerably
colder than the North Atlantic under the
same parallels ; not only the surface-
temperature being lower, but the bottom
being colder by from 2"^ to 3^*. And (3)
it was found, as the Challenger proceed-
ed southward from the Azores, past Ma-
deira, to the Equator, that the line of 40''
progressively approached the surface,
from the depth of 900 fathoms at which
it lay at the Azores, to only 300 fathoms
at the Equator, where the descent of the
thermometer from the surface-tempera-
ture of 78° was 7no7'e rapid than in any
other locality^ more than a degree being
lost for every ten fathoms. That in the
South Atlantic the line of 40*^ rises much
nearer the surface than it does in the
North-Atlantic, — lying in the former
ocean at an average depth of only about
400 fathoms, — seems attributable in part
to the general depression of its tempera-
ture, which is due to a variety of causes ;
the loss of heat from the surface to the
40"^ line, between lat. 35° S. and lat. 38*^ S.,
being only about 15'', "or at the rate of
one degree for every twenty-six fathoms.
But it seems not improbable that the
comparative warmth of the upper stratum
of the North Atlantic is due to the trans-
port of a large body of Equatorial water
as far north as the parallel of 40° ; not
so much, however, by the true Gulf
Stream or Florida current, as through
the northward deflection, by the' chain of
West India Islands and the Peninsula of
Florida, of that large portion of the
Equatorial current which strikes against
them without entering the Caribbean Sea
at all.
We are thus led to the question which is
very fully discussed both in Dr. Carpen-
ter's last report, and in Chapter VIII. of
Professor Wyville Thomson's book, as
to the influence of the Gulf Stream upon
the climate of North-Western Europe ;
and this is a subject of such general in-
terest, that, as there is a decided differ-
ence of opinion between these two au-
thorities, our readers will naturally de-
sire to know the precise nature of the
doctrine advocated by each, and the
principal arguments on which it rests.
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
It is admitted on both sides that the
climate of the western shores of the
British Islands, still more that of the
Shetlands and the Faroes, and yet
more again that of the northern part of
the Norwegian coast, of the north coast
of Russia, at least as far as the entrance
of the White Sea, and even of Iceland
and Spitzbergen, is ameliorated by a
north-east flow of surface-water, bringing
with it the warmth of a lower latitude.
For although Mr. Findlay in this coun-
try, and Dr. Hayes (the Arctic explorer)
in the United States, have attributed this
amelioration to the prevalence of south-
west winds alone, yet the recent correla-
tion of a large body of comparative ob-
servations on the winter temperature of
the sea and of the air has clearly shown
that the former — as we proceed north —
has so much higher an average than the
latter, as to be clearly independent of it.
Now Professor Wyville Thomson accepts
the current doctrine that this north-east
flow is an extension of the Gulf Stream,
using that term, however, to include, with
the true Gulf Stream or Florida current,
the portion of the Equatorial current
which never enters the Gulf of Mexico ;
and he considers that the whole of that
vast body of water, extending downwards
to at least 600 fathoms, which the tem-
perature-soundings of \\\Q Porciipine\\'3iVQ
shown to be slowly creeping northwards
(p. 782), is impelled by the vis a tergo, or
propulsive force imparted to the Equa-
torial current by the trade-winds. That
this propulsive force here extends itself
downwards to a depth far greater than
that of either the Equatorial or the Gulf
Stream current, he attributes to the re-
collection of its waters in the cul de sac
formed by the north-eastern corner of
the Atlantic, and the gradual narrowing
of the channel through which it is im-
pelled. But this is entirely inconsistent
with the fact, shown in his own chart of
Dr. Petermann's isothermal lines, that
the northward movement extends all
across the Atlantic, from the coast of Ire-
land to Newfoundland ; the isotherms
there turning sharply round the corner,
and running to the north, and even to the
north-west, in a manner that cannot pos-
sibly be accounted for by the propulsive
force which is carrying the real Gulf
Stream nearly due east. In fact, Profes-
sor Wyville Thomson seems to us to
have fallen into the error of his leader
Dr. Petermann and other physical geog-
raphers, in assuming that the proved
excess of temperature in the Arctic area
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
can be due to nothing else than "the
Gulf Stream." If, by this term, they
avowedly mean nothing else than a north-
ward movement of warm water from the
Mid-Atlantic, we are entirely at one with
them, only deprecating the application of
the term " Gulf Stream " to that move-
ment, as leading to a misconception.
But if they distinctly attribute it, with
Professor Wyville Thomson, to the action
of the trade-winds, we ask them for some
intelligible rationale of the manner in
which the trade-wind circulation drives
northwards into the Polar area a body of
water more than 2,000 miles wide and 700
fathoms deep.
Dr. Carpenter, on the other hand, who
finds a definite vera causa for this move-
ment in the indraught of the whole upper
stratum of the North Atlantic into the
Polar area as complemental to the outflow
of its deeper stratum, — has been led by
a careful investigation of all accessible
data as to the volume, temperature, and
rate of movement of the true Gulf Stream
in various parts of its course, to adopt
the view previously advocated by Mr.
Findlay, and accepted by Sir John Her-
schel and Admiral Irminger (of the Dan-
ish navy), that the Florida current —
which gradually spreads itself out like a
fan, diminishing in depth as it increases
in extent — is practically broken up and
dispersed in the Mid-Atlantic, not long
after passing the banks of Newfound-
land ; so that if any of its extensions
really reach our shores, they bring with
them little or no warmth. Even at its
deepest and strongest, this powerful cur-
rent loses 15° of surface-temperature
during its winter passage to the longitude
of Nova Scotia, which occupies from forty
to fifty days. And when it reaches the
banks of Newfoundland it encounters the
Labrador current, with its fleet of ice-
bergs, by which its temperature is still
further greatly reduced ; and as its super-
ficial area increases, its depth diminishes,
so that it becomes less and less able to
maintain its temperature against the cool-
ing influence of the air above it. As its
rate of movement, where it is last recogniz-
able as a current, is so reduced, that at
least TOO davs must be occupied in its
passage from' the banks of Newfoundland
to the Land's End, it is scarcely to be
conceived that a thinned-out surface
layer of only fifty fathoms' depth, should
do otherwise than /^/^■z£^ the temperature
of the atmosphere above it, as the thin
super-heated layer of the Mediterranean
most certainly does. The continuance
LIVING AGE. VOL. VIL 362
of its north-east movement as a surface-
drift, bearing with it trunks of tropical
trees, fruits, floating shells, &c., is fully
accounted for by the prevalence of south-
west winds over that portion of the At-
lantic, which land these products on the
shores it washes. Further, of that out-
side reflection of the Equatorial current
which is included by Professor Wyville
Thomson under the term Gulf Stream,
the main body appears to cross the At-
lantic near the parallel of the Azores, and
to turn southwards when it has passed
them, being drawn back as a "supply-
current " towards the sources of the
Equatorial ; and this seems to be the
final destination of the greater part of the
Florida current itself ; only one small
branch of it being occasionally recogniz-
able in the Bay of Biscay as Rennel's
current, while two other narrow bands
can be distinguished by their somewhat
higher temperature, one between the
Shetland and the Faroe Isles, and the
other between the Faroes and Iceland.
Tiie real heater of North- Western Eu-
rope, according to Dr. Carpenter, is the
stratum of 600 to 700 fathoms depth,
which, as already mentioned (p. 782), he
has traced northwards by continuity of
temperature from the coast of Portugal
to the Faroe banks, and the movement
of which he attributes to a vis a frontey
or indraught, resulting from the continual
descent, in the Polar area, of the water
whose temperature has been brought
down by surface-cold, — as in the experi-
mental illustration, of which his account
has been already cited (p. 782). The sur-
fice-temperature of this stratum, in the
summer months, follows that of the air,
which is generally warmer than itself ;
but in the winter, when the temperature
of the air falls below that of the sub-
surface stratum, each surface-film, as it is
cooled and descends, will be replaced by
warmer water from below; and thus, as
Dr. Carpenter points out, a deep, moder-
ately warm stratum becomes a much
more potent heat-carrier than a mere
surface-layer of superheated water.
Hence it is the 700 fathoms' depth, in the
North Atlantic, of the stratum having a
temperature above 45°, which gives to
this slow-moving mass its special calorific
power. In corresponding latitudes of
the South Atlantic, on the other hand,
the stratum exceeding 45^ of tempera-
ture is not more than 300 fathoms deep ;
so that if this stratum be moving towards
the South Pole, its power of ameliorating
the Antarctic climate will be much infe-
786
rior. To whatever extent, therefore,
the greater depth of the stratum above
45*^ in the North Atlantic is due to
the prolongation into it of the Equa-
torial current (a matter still open to
investigation), to that extent Dr. Car-
penter admits our obligation to it ; but
he argues that a cause for its northward
flow must be sought somewhere else than
in the original vis a tergo of the horizon-
tal circulation, which will tend, if not
exhausted, to bring it back to its source ;
and that this cause is to be found in the
vis a f route of the vertical circulation, of
which \\\Q primuin mobile is Polar cold.
The decision of this question will ulti-
mately rest mainly on the temperature-
phenomena of high southern latitudes, to
which no Gulf Stream brings warm water
from the Equatorial source ; and as the
Challenger was ordered (at Dr. Carpen-
ter's special instance) to run due south
from Kerguelen's Land, so as to ap-
proach the great ice-barrier of the Ant-
arctic as nearly as may be deemed expe-
dient, and as we have already heard from
Melbourne that she has done, we shall
learn ere long whether the upper stratum
of the Southern Ocean is really travel-
ling polewards, as on Dr. Carpenter's
theory it ought to do, and as the slow
southernly " set " noticed by several
Antarctic navigators would seem to indi-
cate that it does. In the mean time,
however, we may notice that a remarka-
ble confirmation of Dr. Carpenter's doc-
trine of a continual upward movement of
water in the Equatorial zone, from the
bottom towards the surface, is afforded
by the Challenger observations. For
this ascent is indicated, not only by the
remarkable approach of the isotherm of
40*^ to within 300 fathoms at the Equa-
tor, but also by the marked reduction of
the salinity of the surface-water, which is
there encountered. For the Challenger
observations, confirming others previous-
ly made, show that the specific gravity of
surface-w^tev (allowance for temperature
being duly made) falls within the Tropics
from an average of io27'3 to an average
of I026*3 ; and that this reduced salinity
corresponds exactly with that of the low
salinity of the Polar water which is
traceable over the sea-bed even into the
Equatorial area.
It is obvious that such a continual
ascent of glacial water towards the sur-
face, must have a moderating effect
upon the surface-temperature of the
Equatorial zone ; and it seems to us that
this doctrine of a vertical oceanic circu-
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
lation affords an adequate rationale of
the fact, that the surface-temperature of
the deep ocean seems never to rise much
above So"', even where (as under the Equa-
tor) it is constantly exposed to the most
powerful insolation. In the Mediterra-
nean and the Red Sea, in which there is,
ex hypothesis no such upward movement,
the surface-temperature is proportionally
much higher ; that of the Mediteranean
in lat. 35^ being nearly equal in Septem-
ber to that of the Equatorial Atlantic in
the same month, and that of the Red Sea
rising to 92''. So also, along the Guinea
coast, where the depth is not great
enough to admit the glacial under-flow,
the surface-temperature sometimes rises
as high as 90*^. Thus it appears that
this general oceanic circulation exerts
as important an influence in moderating
tropical heat, as in tempering Polar cold.
That the constantly renewed disturb-
ance of equlibrium produced by differ-
ence of temperature, is adequate to
maintain such a slow vertical oceanic
circulation as Dr. Carpenter contends for,
seems now established by the proved ex-
istence of decided under-curre7its in the
Gibraltar and Black Sea straits, which
are pretty clearly maintained by slight
differences of downward and therefore
lateral pressure between equal columns
at the two extremities of each strait. In]
the case of the Gibraltar currents, the
superficial indraught of Atlantic water]
into the Mediterranean serves to keep]
up the level of that great inland sea,i
which would otherwise be lowered by'
excessive evaporation.* But this in-
draught, which replaces by salt water|
what has passed off as fresh, would pro-
duce a progressive accumulation of salt!
in the Mediterranean basin, if it were not]
compensated by an under-current in the
opposite direction, which carries out as
much salt as the surface-current brings^
hi J and the maintaining power of this;
under-current, which sometimes runs at^
the rate of a mile and a half per hour, is
the excess of the average specific gravity
of Mediterranean water, which may be
taken as 1029, over that of Atlantic
water, which may be taken as I027'3. —
The case is still more striking, however,
in regard to the currents of the Darda-
nelles and the Bosphorus, where the con-
ditions are reversed, and the difference;
in density between the columns is great-
er. For in consequence of the excess of
* See Dr. Carpenter's Paper "On the Physical Con-j
ditions of Inland Seas," in The Contemporary Review^}
vol. xxii., p. 386.
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
787
fresh water brought down by the great
rivers which discharge themselves into
the Black Sea, above the loss by evapo-
ration from its surface, there is generally
an ou^iaard upper-current, — which, how-
ever, owes part of its force to wind, —
» setting first into the sea of Marmora, and
thence into the JEge3.n. Now the salin-
ity of Black Sea water is reduced by the
excessive influx of fresh water, to less
than half that of the Mediterranean ; its
specific gravity usually varying between
1012 and 1014, according to the season.
And it was argued by Dr. Carpenter that,
alike on d priori and a posteriori grounds,
there 7nust be a powerful inward under-
current : since the great excess of lateral
pressure at the outer end of each strait
would necessarily drive inwards the
lower stratum of its water ; while the
salt, if not thus continually returned,
would be gradually altogether washed
out of the Black Sea basin. To this it
was replied by Captain Spratt, who had
surveyed these straits some years ago,
and who strongly opposed the whole
under-current doctrine, first, that he had
ascertained their bottom-water to be
stationary, and second, that the salt which
passes outwards during a large propor-
tion of the year, is carried inwards again
during the winter months, when the Black
Sea rivers are low, and the wind sets to
the north-east, instead of from it as at
other times. Having reason, however,
to distrust the accuracy of Captain Spratt's
conclusions, as well from an examination
of his own record of his experiments, as
from local information which was strong-
ly corroborative of the existence of an
under-current. Dr. Carpenter requested
the Hydrographer to the Admiralty to
direct that a re-examination of this ques-
tion should be made by the surveying
staff of the Shearwater,' \s\{\c\\ was about
to proceed to that station ; and the result
was that most unequivocal evidence was
obtained of the existence of an inward
under-current, of which the strength is
proportional to that of the outward upper-
current ; being greatest when the latter
is impelled by a north-east wind, which,
by lowering the interior and raising the
exterior level, will increase the prepon-
derance of the outer column over the
:; inner. When the outward surface-cur-
rent was running at a rate of from three
to four knots an hour, the buoy from
which the current-drag was suspended
in the deeper stratum was carried in-
wards by its movement, at a rate greater
than that at which any row-boat could
keep up with it ; so that the apparatus
would have been lost, if the steam-launch
of the Shearwater had not been able to
follow it.
This very striking confirmation of Dr.
Carpenter's prediction will probably in-
crease our readers' confidence in the
soundness of the general physical the-
ory he propounds ; which is to the effect
that wherever two bodies of water are in
connection with each other, constantly
differing in downward pressure, — whether
in consequence of difference of tempera-
ture, excess of evaporation, or inflow of
fresh water, — there will be an under-flow
from the heavier towards the lighter,
which, by lowering the level of the for-
mer, will produce a return upper-flow
from the lighter towards the heavier.
This, as Sir John Herschel remarked,
seems the common-sense of the matter ;
and it is only because the Gulf Stream
has a body of staunch advocates, like
Dr. Petermann, Professor Wyville Thom-
son, and Mr. Croll, who strenuously up-
hold the exclusive agency of the trade-
winds, that any opposition has been
raised to Dr. Carpenter's views. Pro-
fessor Mohn of Christiania, who wrote a
very important Memoir in 1872 to prove
the dependence of the peculiar climate
of Norway upon the Gulf Stream, — his
facts really proving its dependence upon
the flow of warm water to the Norwe-
gian shores, — has since expressed to
Dr. Carpenter his conversion to Dr. C.'s
doctrine of the cause of that flow. And
by Dr. Meyer, who has been for some
years engaged in the investigation of the
currents of the Baltic (the condition of
which, as regards excess of river-supply
over evaporation, corresponds with that
of the Black Sea), they are unhesitatingly
accepted as entirely accounting for the
phenomena he has there observe !.
In another very important particular
do the results of the Challenger observa-
tions confirm Dr. Carpenter's previously
expressed views, — namely, that the cold
ba7td \s\\\z\\ intervenes between the Gulf
Stream and the Atlantic seaboard of the
United States, and which is traceable
even along the northern side of the
Florida Channel itself, is really produced
by the surging-up wards of the Polar-
Equatorial flow which underlies the Gulf
Stream, and which, as the temperature-
soundings of the United States coast
surveyors have shown, even enters the
Gulf of Mexico as an under-current flow-
ing inwards beneath the warm outflowing
; stream. This surgirig-upwards of the
788
deeper cold strata along the western
slope of the Atlantic basin is easily ac-
counted for on dynamical principles, and
does, in fact, afford very cogent evidence
that the great body of North Atlantic
water below (say) 800 fathoms is really
moving southwards. It was first pointed
out, we believe, by Captain Maury, that
the eastward tendency of the Gulf
Stream, which shows itself more and
more as it advances into higher latitudes,
is due in great part to the excess of east-
erly momentum which it brings from the
intertropical zone, where the earth's ro-
tatory movement is much more rapid
than it is half way towards the Pole ; and
this view of the case was fully accepted
by Sir John Herschel. For the same
reason, any body of water moving from
either Pole towards the Equator will
bring from higher to lower latitudes a
deficiency of easterly momentum, that is
to say, it will tend westwards ; and this
tendency will carry it towards the sur-
face, when it meets the slope of the
United States seaboard. The correctness
of this view has been further confirmed
(i) by the fact recently communicated to
Dr. Carpenter by Captain St. John, who
has lately returned from the survey of
the Japan Sea, that a similar cold band
intervenes between the Kuro Siwo (p. 782)
and the eastern coast of Japan ; and (2)
by the results of the inquiries prosecuted
in the Baltic and North Sea by Dr.
Meyer, who has found distinct evidence
of the surging-up of the southward-mov-
ing deeper and colder layer on the west-
ern slopes of those basins ; the tempera-
ture of the eastern face of the Dogger
Bank being from 10" to 15'' lower than
that of its western, and a difference of
15'^ sometimes showing itself within five
fathoms of depth.
We come lastly to the biological re-
sults of these explorations, and the bear-
ings of these on several most important
points of bio-geological doctrine, — as, for
example, the existing distribution of ma-
rine animal life in its relation to depth,
temperature, and supply of food and oxy-
gen ; its connection with anterior changes
in the relations of sea and land, and in
the depth and temperature of the sea-
bed ; the continuity of life "in some lo-
calities, whilst interruptions occurred in
others ; and the question how far a
gradual change in external conditions
may modify the characters of species, so
as to sanction that idea of ''descent with
modification" which seems increasingly
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
to find favour among unprejudiced pa-
laeontologists. On each of these points
we shall briefly touch.
Previously to the commencement of
the recent series of researches, our
knowledge of the animal life of the deep
sea was limited to that which could be '
derived from the examination of the
small samples of bottom brought up by
the sounding apparatus; the use of the
dredge having been restricted to depths
of about 400 fathoms. These samples
indicated the very extensive diffusion of
low and simple forms of animal life, be-
longing for the most part to the group of
foraminifera. Only a few specimens of
any higher type had been obtained, and
the opinion was very generally enter-
tained that the existence of such was im-
possible under the enormous pressure to
which they would be subjected at great
depths, and that the specimens brought
up by the sounding-line (as in the case
of the star-fishes which Dr. Wallich
found clustering around it) had been en-
tangled by it in its passage through the
upper stratum. It seems to have been
forgotten, however, that this pressure,
being equal in all directions, can have but j
a very trifling influence on the condition
of animals composed entirely of solid and
liquid parts ; neither altering their shape,
interfering with their movements, nor ob-
structing any of their functions. A drop
of water (as Dr. Carpenter pointed out in
his first report) enclosed in .a globular
membranous capsule of extreme tenuity,
would undergo no other change beneath
a fluid pressure of three tons on the
square inch, than a very slight reduction
of its bulk ; and if an aperture existed in
the capsule, its contents would not es-
cape, since, while the external pressure
would tend to force them out, an inward
pressure of exactly equivalent amount
would tend to keep them in.
The dredgings carried on in the Por-
cupine, in the summer of 1869, on the
eastern slope of the North Atlantic
Basin, between the latitudes of 48*^ and
60'' north, clearly showed that the sup-
posed limitation of higher forms of ani-
mal life to a depth not much exceeding
300 fathoms (an inference deduced by
Edward Forbes from his dredgings in
the iEgean) has no real existence — at
least so far as relates to the oceanic
area ; a varied and abundant fauna hav-
ing been met with in successive explora-
tions, progressively carried down to 600,
800, 1,000, 1,200, 1,50a, 1,700 fathoms ;
and when at last the dredge was sent
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
down to a depth of 2,435 fathoms, it
came up loaded with a hundredweight
and a half of " globigerina-mud " — a
large part of which was a mass of life,
having imbedded in it representatives of
nearly all the principal types of marine
invertebrata. And we understand that
many of the dredge-hauls taken in the
Challenger expedition, at yet greater
depths, have been not less prodective.
Hence it appears that no zero of depth
can be specified, at which animal life
must cease. The distribution of that
life, however, is obviously much influ-
enced by temperature ; as was most
strikingly proved by the marked differ-
ence between the faunae of the warm
and the cold areas, already pointed out
(p. 'J']^^ and by the fact that boreal forms
were traced far southwards, on the deep
cold sea-bed, although not found in shal-
lower waters. Not less striking was the
dwarfing of some of our common British
star-fishes that presented themselves in
the cold area ; and it seems probable,
therefore, .that the small size of most of
the abyssal forms is due as much to re-
duction of temperature, as to any other
condition. Of the extent of the addition
to zoological knowledge which it may be
expected that the exploration of the
deep sea will afford, some idea may be
derived from the fact that the four
months' dredgings of the Porcupine, in
what may be accounted British seas,
added 117 species of testaceous mollusca
(about one-fourth of the previous total)
to our fauna ; 56 of these being new to
science, besides 7 known only as Ter-
tiary fossils.
But to this downward extension of
animal life, a most remarkable exception
has been found to exist in the case of
the Mediterranean. While the Porctipme
dredgings of 1870, off the coast of Portu-
gal, were attended with remarkable suc-
cess,— in one instance as many as 180
species of shells, of which 71 were previ-
ously undescribed, and 24 known only as
fossils, coming up in one haul — those
taken soon afterwards in the deep water
of the Mediterranean were singularly
barren. Dredge after dredge came up
loaded with a tenacious mud, the most
careful sifting of which gave no organic
forms whatever, not even minute forami-
niferal shells. Within the depth of 300
fathoms, however, both along the African
coast, and on the Adventure and Skerki
Banks dividing the eastern from the
western basin (p. 774) there was no paucity
of animal life. A similar result was ob-
789
tained about the same time in the Adri-
atic, by Oscar Schmidt ; and the state-
ment of Edward Forbes, in regard to the
zero he met with in the ^Egean, was thus
unexpectedly confirmed. Thus the near-
ly azoic condition of the deeper part of
the Mediterranean and its two exten-
sions, as compared with the abundance of
animal life met with at similar depths in
the open ocean, obviously points to some
peculiarity in the physical condition of
the former sea, which differentiates it
from the latter.
The question as to the nature of this
peculiarity is one of great interest ; for
the existence of vast thicknesses of sed-
imentary strata almost or altogether des-
titute of organic remains, has been one
of the standing puzzles of geology, which
Edward Forbes's limitation of animal life
to 300 fathoms, was supposed to have
solved, by relegating these deposits to
seas too deep to allow of the existence
of animals on their bottom. But this ex-
planation having been found untenable,
a new solution had to be sought ; and
this is offered by Dr. Carpenter as a cor-
ollary from his general proposition as to
the sustentation of a vertical oceanic cir-
culation by thermal agency alone. For
if this proposition be accepted, it follows
that every drop of oceanic water is
brought to the surface in its turn, and
is thus exposed to the vivifying influ-
ence of prolonged contact with the at-
mosphere. But from participating in the
oceanic circulation the Mediterranean is
excluded, by the shallowness of the ridge
which separates it from the 'Atlantic ;
and the uniformity of its temperature
from 100 fathoms downwards precludes
the existence of any thermal circulation
of its own, which would have the effect
of bringing its abyssal water to the sur-
face. That water being shut in by walls
which rise 10,000 feet from its bottom, it
is difficult to conceive of any agency that
can disturb its stillness ; and thus it
comes to pass that the very fine sedimen-
tary particles brought down by the Nile
and the Rhone, being diffused by super-
ficial currents — before they have time
to subside — over the entire area, slowly
gravitate to the bottom, giving such a
turbidity to the lowest stratum, as must
be very unfavourable to the existence of
most forms of marine animals. But this
is by no means all. This sediment in-
cludes a large proportion of organic mat-
ter, the slow decomposition of which will
use up the oxygen, and replace it by car-
bonic acid ; while the absence of any
790
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
vertical circulation will prevent that
aerating process, which, in the open
ocean, furnishes the corrective. In his
second visit to the Mediterranean, Dr.
Carpenter tested the correctness of this
surmise by an analysis of the gases
boiled off from the bottom-water ; and he
found that, using the method which had
been previously employed in the ex-
amination of the gases of the bottom-
water of the Atlantic, the reduction of
oxygen and the excess of carbonic acid
were most unmistakable. This result is
of peculiar interest, now that Professor
Ramsay is advocating the doctrine that
the Red Sandstones, alike of the old and
of the new series, were deposited in in-
land seas. Every geologist knows that
while there are certain beds of these
which are rich in fossils, their general
character is barrenness. And it may well
be, as Dr. Carpenter points out in re-
gard to the Tertiaries of Malta, that the
former were the shallow-water forma-
tions, whilst the latter, composed of a
finer sediment, were deposited at the
bottom of a deep basin.
Furthermore, the doctrine of a vertical
oceanic circulation helps us to account
for the universal diffusion of food-supply,
without which abyssal life could not be
supported. Vegetation, which requires
light for its power of generating organic
compounds, and thereby providing nutri-
ment for animals, cannot exist where
light is not ; and even the stony pink
NuUipores are not found below about 300
fathoms, whilst the foliaceous sea-weeds
are for the most part limited to half that
depth. Now the cod which our fisher-
men catch on the Faroe Banks, resort
thither to feed upon the star-fish and
other marine animals which abound
there ; and these animals, in their turn,
feed upon the globigerinae which cover
the sea-bed ; so that we may be said
really to live indirectly upon globigerinae.
But on what do the globigerinae them-
selves live .'' The question is thus an-
swered — we believe correctly — by Pro-
fessor Wyville Thomson : —
All sea-water contains a certain quantity of
organic matter, in solution and in suspension.
Its sources are obvious. All rivers contain a
considerable quantity. Every shore is sur-
rounded by a fringe which averages a mile in
width, of olive and red sea-weed. In the
middle of the Atlantic there is a marine
prairie, the " Sargasso Sea," extending over
3,000,000 square miles. The sea is full of
animals, which are constantly dying and de-
caying. The amount of organic matter de-
rived from these and other sources by the
water of the ocean is very appreciable. Care-
ful analyses of the water were made during
the several cruises of the Porcupine, to detect
it, and to determine its amount ; and the
quantity everywhere was capable of being ren-
dered manifest and estimated ; and the pro-
portion was found to be very uniform in all
localities and at all depths. Nearly all the
animals at extreme depths — practically all
the animals, for the small number of higher
forms feed upon these — belong to one sub-
kingdom, the Protozoa; whose distinctive
character is that they have no special organs
of nutrition, but absorb nourishment throitgh m
the whole surface of their jelly-like bodies. 9
Most of these animals secrete exquisitely
formed skeletons, some of silica, some of car-
bonate of lime. There is no doubt that they
extract both these substances from the sea-
water ; and it seems more than probable that
the organic matter which forms their soft parts
is derived from the same source. It is thus
quite intelligible that a world of animals may
live in these dark abysses, but it is a necessary
condition that they must chiefly belong to a
class capable of being supported by absorp-
tion through the surface of their bodies of
matter in solution, developing but little heat,
and incurring a very small amount of waste
by any manifestation of vital activity. Ac-
cording to this view it seems probable that at
all periods of the earth's history some form of
the Protozoa — rhizopods, sponges, or both —
predominated greatly over all other forms of
animal life in the depths of the warmer regions
of the sea. The rhizopods, like the corals of
a shallower zone, form huge accumulations of
carbonate of lime ; and it is probably to their
agency that we must refer most of those great
bands of limestone which have resisted time
and change, and come in here and there with
their rich imbedded lettering to mark like
milestones the progress of the passing ages,
(p. 48.)
It is obvious, therefore, that, as was
long since pointed out by Edward Forbes,
who is justly lauded by Professor Wyville
Thomson (" Depths of the ^ea," p. 6) as
the pioneer in this inquiry — "the only
means of acquiring a true knowledge of
the rationale of the distribution of our
present fauna is to make ourselves ac-
quainted with its history, to connect the
present with the past." Of this our au-
thor gives us a most striking illustration
in the comparison instituted by Mr. Alex-
ander Agassiz between the Echinidea or
sea-urchins on the Pacific and Atlantic
sides of the Isthmus of Panama. For
while the species found on these two
sides respectively are distinct, they be-
long almost universally to the same gen-
era; and in most cases each genus is
represented by species on each side,
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
791
which resemble one another so closely
in habit and appearance as to be at first
sight hardly distinguishable.
Supposing species to be constant, this singu-
lar chain of resemblances would indicate
simply the special creation on the two sides of
the Isthmus of two groups of species closely
resembling one another, because the circum-
stances under which they were placed were so
similar ; but admitting " descent with modifi-
cation," while gladly availing ourselves of the
convenient term " representation," we at once
come to the conclusion that these nearly
allied " representative species " must have
descended from a common stock, and we look
for the cause of their divergence. Now, on
examining the Isthmus of Panama, we find
that a portion of it consists of Cretaceous beds,
containing fossils undistinguishable from fos-
sils from the Cretaceous beds of Europe ; the
Isthmus must therefore have been raised into
dry land in Tertiary or Post-tertiary times. It
is difficult to dou.Dt that the rising of this
natural barrier isolated two portions of a
shallow- water fauna which have since slightly
diverged under rather different conditions. I
quote Alexander Agassiz : " The question
naturally arises, have we not in different faunae
on both sides of the Isthmus a standard by
which to measure the changes which these
species have undergone since the raising of
the Isthmus of Panama and the isolation of
the two faunae ? " (p. 14.)
Few zoologists, we apprehend, will
now dissent from this conclusion; for it
is a principle accepted by all philosoph-
ical naturalists, that the more extensive
the range of comparison, the wider is
found to be the range of variation of spe-
cific types ; so that forms which might
be supposed to have had an originally
distinct parentage, if only their most dif-
ferentiated types be compared, are found,
by the gradational character which shows
itself when the comparison is instituted
among a large number of intermediate
types, to be genetically identical. Nu-
merous instances of this kind have pre-
sented themselves in the study of the
Porcupine dredgings. Thus certain sea-
urchins of the Northern seas and of the
Mediterranean, which have been account-
ed as belonging to distinct species, were
found by Professor Wyville Thomson to
be so gradationally connected with each
other by the intermediate forms dredged
along the West of Ireland, the Bay of
Biscay, and the coast of Portugal, that
the specific distinction altogether breaks
down. And Professor Duncan, who has
examined the corals, has found not only
reputed species^ but reputed genera^ to
be specifically identical ; the two forms
growing as branches from the same stem.
Now, as was long since laid down by
Edward Forbes, species which have a
wide area of j-/iZ<:^-distribution, have a
similarly prolonged distribution in time;
their capacity of adaptation to change of
conditions operating equally in both
cases. And it is just where this capacity
of adaptation is the greatest, that depar-
i tures from the primitive type show them-
j.selves most strongly ; such departures
(which often come to be so fixed and con-
stant that they might well be accounted
specific characters) being simply the re-
sults of the pliancy of the organism,
which can adapt itself to changes of ex-
ternal conditions, instead of succumbing
to them.
Keeping this principle in view, we now
proceed to those yet more remarkable
cases, in which types of animal life,
which were characteristic of former geo-
logical periods, and which, from not oc-
curring in shallow waters, were supposed
to have altogether died out, have been
discovered to be still holding their ground
in the deep sea. Mention has been al-
ready made of this in the case of certain
Tertiary shells ; but there are other cases
even more striking. The deep-sea ex-
plorations of our own countrymen may in-
deed be said to have originated in the dis-
covery, by M. Sars junior (son of the late
eminent Professor of Zoology at Chris-
tiana, and himself Inspector of Fisheries
to the Swedish Government), at a depth
of nearly 400 fathoms, off the Lofoden
Islands, of a small crinoid, differing in
the most marked manner from any crinoid
known to exist at the present time, but
clearly belonging to the Apiocrinile fam-
ily, which flourished in the Oolitic period,
— the large pear-encrinite of the Bradford
Clay being its most characteristic repre-
sentative, while the Bourgneticrinus of
the Chalk seemed to be its latest. To
Professor Wyville Thomson and Dr.
Carpenter, who had been conjointly mak-
ing a special study of this group, it was
clear that the little Rhis^ocrinus of Pro-
fessor Sars was a dwarfed and deformed
representative of the Apiocrinite type,
which might be fairly regarded as a de-
generate descendant of the old pear-en-
crinite ; and this encouraged them in the
belief, on which they based their appli-
cation for Government aid, that a large
number of such ancient types might
probably be found, by carrying down the
exploration of the bottom by the dredge
to a depth not previously thus exam-
ined. This expectation was fully justi-
792
THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.
fied by the result. For in their first
{Lightning) cruise they not only found
that the layer of globigerina-mud, pre-
viously brought up by the sounding-line
from the surface of the sea-bed, has a
thickness to which no limit can be as-
signed, and that in every particular the
whole mass resembles chalk in the pro-
cess of formation, as had been previously
stated by Bailey (U.S.), Huxley, Wallich,
and others, in regard to the small sam-
ples they examined ; but they further
discovered that this bears on its surface
a number of types of animals whose fades
is essentially that of the Cretaceous pe-
riod. The most remarkable of these was
a beautiful siliceous sponge, so closely
corresponding in general structure with
the ventriciclites of the Chalk, that no
doubt could be entertained of the inti-
macy of their relationship. The interest
excited among zoologists and palaeontol-
ogists by this discovery, powerfully rein-
forced that which had been called forth
among physicists and physical geogra-
phers by the temperature-observations
taken during the same cruise ; and this
was fully sustained by the discoveries of
the next year. For the number of Echi-
nidan forms, peculiarly characteristic of
the old Chalk, that were met with in the
Porcupine cruises of 1869 — several of
which are described and beautifully fig-
ured in Professor Wyville Thomson's
pages — surpassed all expectation ; and
some of these, as the singular " chain-
mail " urchin Calveria hystrix^ perpetuate
special Cretaceous types, which were sup-
posed to have long since died out. The
results of the dredgings simultaneously
carried on by Count Pourtales in the
Florida Channel, have proved singularly
accordant in this particular with those
obtained by our British explorers ; the
general character of the Echinoderm
fauna there met with, bearing a singular
resemblance to that of the old Chalk, al-
though without any identity of species ;
and the A^iajichyies, one of the common-
est of the Cretaceous urchins, whose type
had been regarded as altogether extinct,
being distinctly represented by the newly-
discovered form (also included in the
Porcupine collection) which Mr. Alex-
ander Agassiz has described under the
name Poitrtalesia.
These facts afford a most remarkable
confirmation to the doctrine of Professor
Wyville Thomson, propounded in Dr.
Carpenter's first report, — that the forma-
tion now going on upon the North At-
lantic sea-bed is not a repetition^ but an
absolute continuation, of the Cretaceous ;
the deposit of globigerina-mud over that
area having never been interrupted dur-
ing the whole of the Tertiary period.
The physical grounds for the belief that
there has been no such change in the
Atlantic basin during the whole of that
period, as would have converted its bot-
tom into dry land, have been already
pointed out (p. yjG) ; and if it has remained
a deep-ocean basin during that time, it is
obvious that while an interrupted suc-
cession of Tertiary deposits, imbedding
terrestrial, fresh-water, estuarine, and
shallow-WTiXex marine faunae, was formed
on the borders of that basin, where slight
differences of level would alter the whole
distribution of land and sea, an unbroken
series of layers of a substance resembling
the old Chalk in every essential particu-
lar, would have been formed by the con-
tinued activity of protozoic life over the
newest beds of what we are accustomed
to call the " Cretaceous formation," en-
tombing a deep-se^i. fauna, which would
preserve the general /^«>j of the Creta-
ceous, whilst differing from it in detail,
as that of the upper beds of our Chalk
formation differs from that of the lower.
By Sir Charles Lyell it is maintained that
we must regard the Cretaceous period
as having come to an end with the eleva-
tion of the Chalk of Europe, and with the
disappearance of the higher types of the
Cretaceous fauna, such as its character-
istic fishes and chambered Cephalopods.
But Mr. Prestwich has supplied an ade-
quate vera catcsa for this extinction, in
the establishment at this period of a free
communication between the Polar area
and the Cretaceous sea, which he regards
(on quite independent grounds) as having
been previously cut off from it by an in-
tervening continent. The reduction of
temperature thus produced would have
killed off all the inhabitants of the upper
waters which were dependent on a
warmth approaching the tropical; whilst
those which could adapt themselves to
the change would have maintained their
ground (with more or less of modification
in structure), and would in turn leave
their remains to be entombed in the ever-
accumulating mass of globigerina-mud.
That scarcely any of the molluscs, echi-
noderms, or corals of the present deposit
can be specifically \6.qw\\^q.6. with those of
the old Chalk, is exactly (as is justly re-
marked by Professsor Wyville Thomson)
what might be fairly expected, in con-
sideration of the- various changes which
must have occurred since the commence-
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
793
ment of the Tertiary epoch, in the vari-
ous conditions of their existence. " The
utmost which can be expected is the per-
sistence of some of the old generic types,
with such a resemblance between the
two faunas as to justify the opinion that,
making due allowance for emigration, im-
migration, and extermination, the later
fauna bears to the earlier the relation of
descent with extreme modification."
We must content ourselves with indi-
cating another very important bearing
which these deep-sea researches must
have upon geological theory — the modi-
fication they necessitate of the glacial
doctrine. For it now becomes obvious,
as Dr. Carpenter pointed out in his sec-
ond report, that as the climate of the sea-
bottom has no relation whatever to that
of the land (a glacial temperature now
prevailing over the Equatorial sea-bed),
the presence of Arctic types in any ma-
rine formation can no longer be accepted
as furnishing evidence per se of the gen-
eral extension of glacial action into tem-
perate or tropical regions. If, as Dr.
Carpenter maintains, the underflow of
Polar water towards the Equator is sus-
tained by the disturbance of equilibrium
produced by thermal agency alone, then
such an underflow must have taken place
in all geological periods, provided that
there existed a free and deep communi-
ation between the Polar and the Equa-
torial areas. By Professor Wyville
Thomson, on the other hand, it is main-
tained that the Polar underflow is the re-
sult of the deflection of the Equatorial
current, by the opposition of land, north-
wards and southwards, so as to occasion
an indraught which this underflow tends
to fill ; and on this hypothesis, if there
were a free passage for the Equatorial
current through Central America into the
Pacific, as there would be no Gulf Stream,
there would be no Polar underflow; so
that in any former geological period in
which any such conditions may have ex-
isted, the temperature of the Equatorial
sea-bottom would not have been de-
pressed, however free may have been its
communication with the Polar areas. '
This is tantamount to saying that an
enormous disturbance of fluid equilib-
rium must have been constantly in ex-
istence, without producing any move-
ment
cal philosopher can accept
Carpenter presented to the public the re-
sults of the tentative Lightning cruise of
the previous year : —
The facts I have now brought before you
still more the speculations which I have ven-
tured to connect with them, may seem to un-
settle much that has been generally accredited
in geological science, and thus to diminish
rather than to augment our scock of positive
knowledge ; but this is the necessary result of
the introduction of a new idea into any de-
partment of scientific inquiry. Like the flood
which tests the security of every foundation
that stands in the way of its onward rush,
overthrowing the house built only on the sand,
but leaving unharmed the edifice which rests
secure on the solid rock, so does a new
method of research, a new series of facts, or a
new application of facts previously known,
come to bear with impetuous force on a whole
fabric of doctrine, and subject it to an under-
mining power which nothing can resist, save
that which rests on the solid rock of truth.
And it is here that the moral value of scientific
study, pursued in a spirit worthy of its ele-
vated aims, pre-eminently shows itself. For,
as was grandly said by Schiller in his admira-
ble contrast between the "trader in science"
and the " true philosopher," — " New discov-
eries in the field of his activity which depress
the one enrapture the other. Perhaps they
fill a chasm which the growth of his ideas had
rendered more wide and unseemly; or they
place the last stone, the only one wanting to
the completion of the structure of his ideas.
But even should they shiver it into ruins,
should a new series of ideas, a new aspect of
nature, a newly discovered law in the physical
world, overthrow the whole fabric of his
knowledge, he has always loved truth better
than his system, and gladly will he exchange
her old and defective form for a new and
tairer one."
From Chambers' Journal.
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
CHAPTER IX.
'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed.
Frewen wildly raged when he heard
of Tom Rapley's misfortune, and his own
involvement as surety, denounced his
folly in doing a good turn for any one,
and would not hear of any suggestion
that, after all, it was possible Tom had
a proposition which no mechani- • been really robbed. He caused Tom to
be brought before him in his private
We cannot more appropriately con- 1 office, and spoke to him in a terrible
elude this exposition, than by the follow- voice. He would listen to no excuse or
ino- citation from the lecture at the Royal explanation. " Find that money, sir, by
Institution (April 9, £869), in which Dr. four o'clock to-day, or to prison you go,"
794
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
And the lawyer was not indulging in a
vain threat. There was a meeting of
magistrates that day at Biscopham. Mr.
Frewen, who attended there in his capa-
city of clerk to the bench, mentioned to
them the apprehended defalcation at Mil-
ford. At his request, they signed a war-
rant of commitment, to be executed if
the money were not paid over before the
bank closed. With knowledge of this in
their minds, the police were not likely to
e^ert themselves strenuously to find out
ti'ie alleged robber of Tom Rapley's gold.
The superintendent, indeed, took down
from his lips a statement of the circum-
stances under which he lost the money.
But when Tom came to describe the
place where he had hidden the gold, he
hesitated, and gave a very vague account ';
of it. For it occurred to him all of aj
moment : " If this money is really gone, j
and I go to prison, it will be a bit of com- j
fort to know that Lizzie has a roof over
her head, and ten shillings a week to
keep her from starvation." Now, if he
disclosed the fact, that he had been roam-
ing about in the empty house, and that
they had broken an entrance into it,
Frewen would assuredly turn them all
out without the shortest respite. The
practised ear of the police-officer de-
tected the doubt and equivocation in
Tom's narrative.
"Just so," he said, looking fixedly at
Tom when he had finished his story. " I
have no doubt we shall have the man who
took the money in custody before dark.
I think we know him."
" And will you get the money back ? "
cried Tom, plucking up a little heart for
the moment at this cheering news.
" I should think you know best about
that."
Something in the man's manner told
Tom what he really meant — that they
would have Tom himself in custody ere
night. He had been experiencing that
hard incredulous manner all the morning,
and had accustomed himself to look for
suspicion, till at last he almost imagined
that he must really be the rogue that every-
body persisted in believing him. There
was only one person in the whole of Bis-
copham to whom he could go with any
hope of having his story credited, or
gaining any sympathy, and that was
Emily CoUop.
To CoUop's shop he went, and into the
little low-pitched room over the shop,
redolent of corduroys and fustians.
Emily hadn't heard the story as yet.
Tom told her the whole, and she listened
with knitted brows. " Is there anybody
whom you can suspect ? " she said.
"Then you believe me .'' " cried Tom.
"You don't think, as other people do,
that I've taken the money myself.?"
"Of course, I believe you, Tom. Do
you mean to say that anybody suspects
you ? "
" Everybody does."
" Then you must shew everybody he is
a slanderer. Who can have taken the
money .'"'
" There was a pedler who slept in the
old barn last night, and — yes, there is
possibly Skim, who doesn't bear a very
good character."
" Skim, yes ; I know him," cried
Emily ; " he often comes to see father.
But it couldn't be Skim. Why, he was
with father last night."
All on a sudden the thought struck
her of her fathers lengthened absence
the night before, and of his coming home
with gold, too, that she had still about
her person. She felt all over her a cold
shudder. Where did her father go with
Skim?
" Could you identify any of that money,
Tom ? "
" No ; how could I ? Sovereigns are
sovereigns, as like one another as peas."
" And what will happen to you, Tom,
if you don't get the money back ? "
" I shall go to prison. Frewen has
got a warrant against me already."
" Oh ! that's dreadful," said Emily
shuddering. "To go to prison like a
criminal because you've the misfortune to
lose some money ! Wait ! I hear father ;
he's just come in. I'll call him."
Collop came in, looking pale and dis-
traught. " Do you know what's hap-
pened to Tom t " cried his daughter.
" I've heard something about it," said
Collop, shaking his head. — " Oh !
Thomas, what would your Aunt Betsy
have said if she'd seen you in such a pre-
dicament ?"
" Tell father how it happened," said
Emily.
Tom began the story once more.
When he came to speak about hiding the
money in the kitchen of the deserted
house — for he thought he was safe in
being candid with Collop and his daugh-
ter— the worthy draper trembled all
over, drops of perspiration started from
his forehead, and concealed the working
of the lower part of his face with his
hand, Emily watched them both nar-
rowly, casting quick searching glances
at each alternately. But when Tom went
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
795
on to speak about the pedler who had
lodged in the barn the night before, Col-
lop snatched eagerly at the idea of trying
to capture him.
" I'll tell you what, Tom," he said,
" I'll help you, I'll offer a reward of five-
and-twenty pounds to anybody giving
such information as will lead to the cap-
ture and conviction of this man. I'll go
with you myself to the police-office."
When they reached the police-office,
and saw the superintendent, Collop
found that it would be quite illegal to of-
fer a reward for the capture "and con-
viction " of any specified individual. It
could only be offered in a general way —
for information, that is, leading to the
conviction of " the real offenders." Col-
lop cooled down very much at this, and
said that he couldn't be a party to bringing
people who might be innocent under sus-
picion. " I don't think it would pay you,
sir, to do it," said the superintendent
knowingly.
In the interval, time was drawing on,
and Tom was doing nothing to avoid the
imprisonment that awaited him. " What
would you advise me to do ? " he asked
Collop.' " I suppose you couldn't lend
me a part of it ? Perhaps they'd be sat-
isfied with a part. It's the thought of
losing so much money that makes Frew-
en so bitter against me." Tom looked
eagerly at Collop, who pursed up his lips,
and shook his head.
" I'll tell you what," whispered Collop
in his ear, as they left the police-station
and walked slowly towards Collop's shop :
" if I were you, I'd cut and run. I dare-
say you're innocent, but it looks ugly ;
and, upon my word, Tom, I'd run for it."
Tom looked at Collop in wonder.
That such a suggestion should come
from the immaculate Collop, struck him
with a lively wonder.
" Get away, Tom," went on Collop.
"Goto London, and get a situation in
another name. I'll — yes, I'll give you
a reference, Tom. Send for your wife
afterwards. Walk quietly out towards
Balderstoke ; you can go through my
back-yard, and strike into the field-path.
There's a train you'll catch at five o'clock,
and you'll be in London before they've
got scent of your being away."
" I've got no money," muttered Tom
ruefully. Assuredly, the thought of
London, and employment, and escape
from the imprisonment that threatened
him, came temptingly upon him. Inno-
cence would be no good to him if he
were in prison — his occupation gone, his
wife and children starving. They were
in a worse plight now than ever, for he
had ruined Aunt Booth, who was the
only real friend they had. Now, if he
got a situation in London, it was a hun-
dred to one if they found him out, and
he would be able to keep his own family
from the workhouse. And yet to run —
to own himself a criminal — to see Tom
Rapley wiped out of the book of life,
even if destined to reappear under some
other designation — no, he couldn't do
it, especially as he had no money.
"I'll lend you some," said Collop, re-
plying to Tom's thoughts rather than his
words — "a sovereign. Sleep in Lon-
don to-night, Tom ; it's safer."
Tom looked at Collop in amazement.
Was this the severe moralist ! this the
man whom he had regarded as in some
uncomfortable way much better than the
common run of his fellow-creatures !
Was it his advice that coincided so com-
pletely with those secret promptings Tom
had struggled against as the offspring of
his own weakness and cowardice !
Collop didn't trust himself to say any-
thing more to Tom, who started on his
homeward walk. As soon as he had
gone, he retired into his cave. He passed
close by Emily, who was standing in the
shop beside a pile of goods, but he did
not notice her, and let himself into the
little dark counting-house. There sat
Skim in the master's chair, quite trans-
formed, in a black velveteen shooting-
jacket, with a bright crimson silk hand-
kerchief knotted round his neck, and
waistcoat of scarlet plush, with yellow
glass buttons, new white corduroy trous-
ers, and Wellington boots.
Collop looked grimly at Skim, as if he
would like to kick him out of the place.
"Skim," he said, "we made a great
blunder last night. It was wrong of us.
That money we got out of the old house
isn't ours — we've no right to it. I've
found out to-day to whom it belongs. It
was Tom Rapley's money, that he'd col-
lected for the rates. We must give it
back to him, or he'll be sent to prison. I
was willing enough to join with you.
Skim, as long as I thought we were only
finding money that had been hidden long
ago and didn't rightly belong to anybody ;
but this is robbery, downright robbery ;
and you might be transported for it, Skim.
Do you hear ? — give back the money."
Skim scorned the proposal, and suggest-
ed a further encroachment. " There's
more behind, I tell you. We didn't go
deep enough. Do you think the old wo-
796
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
man would have written falsehoods upon
her dying bed ? We must go there
again to-night. There's thousands there,
if we're only bold enough to get it."
Collop's eye glistened at the thought.
He forgot all about Tom's misfortunes ;
he could only dwell upon the golden
treasure that might reward their exer-
tions. After a long conference, the two
accomplices separated, having given each
other a rendezvous for the night.
Meantime, Tom Rapley was making
his way homewards, full of trouble and
despair, filled with a sort of blind desire
to get back to his own house, to pour out
his sorrows into the sympathizing bosom
of his wife. He avoided the high-road,
and made his way by sundry field and
bridle paths, till he reached the neigh-
bourhood of Milford's. He had just
cleared a young fir-plantation, and come
out on the brow of a hill that overlooked
the valley of Milford's. The river spar-
kled beneath him under the rays of the
wintry sun ; the hills were veiled in a
soft, sweet vapour ; the gray church
tower, the white cottages, the red roof of
the manor-house, stood out from the net-
work of leafless trees ; a thin canopy of
pale blue smoke hovered over the vil-
lage, throwing out a ribbon of almost im-
palpable haze that followed the winding
course of the stream. Sounds were
strangely distinct and clear in the rar-
efied air. The clink of the blacksmith's
hammer, the sound of wheels grating
lazily along in a far-off lane, the call of
the ploughman to his horses, the rattle
of the yoke-chains as they struggled
across the broad fallow on the hillside,
the impatient bark of a dog in the village,
the challenge of chanticleer, and the soft
caw of the rooks from that distant turnip-
field, fell upon the ear with subdued
plaintive resonance. The scene was fa-
miliar to Tom, and dear to him ; dear, as
the scenes of boyhood and youthful
scrapes and gambols, and early dreams,
and soft, youthful loves. He had thought
little of it of late years ; absorbed in the
carking cares of poverty, he had pos-
sessed no eyes for the sweet scenes
around him ; they had seemed weary and
barren to him ; but now that he was
about to lose all this, to pine within the
bare walls of a prison, he began to feel
how great a loss he had incurred, and to
wonder and regret that he had enjoyed
life so little ; that groping about among
the petty mole-hills of poverty and dis-
content, he had lost sight of all the fair
country that lay behind, free to all who
can pluck heart of grace to enjoy it. It
was all over now. There was nothing
left for him but the thought of what
might have been.
Everything seemed so still and tran-
quil— there was such an atmosphere of
content and repose, that Tom found it
difficult to realize that this great trouble
had really come upon him ; that yonder
sweet-looking village held for him a budg-
et of unnumbered troubles. But there
was one thing that brought him to a
lively sense of his present position. On
the bridge, where years age the butcher
had carried him in his cart across the
flood, stood a policeman, and Tom felt in
his heart that the man was looking out
for him.
He was cut off from home. Tired,
hungry, without a penny in his pocket,
he had the option of staying here in this
damp plantation, or of giving himself up
to the law. He felt so utterly helpless
and forsaken, that he had made up his
mind to do the latter, and bring the mat-
ter to an end, when he heard a footstep
approaching, and the cheerful note of a
song sung by a thin, cracked voice.
" Tom Rapley, ahoy ! " sung out the
voice joyously. " I was alooking out for
you. But don't you come any furder.
Back you into that 'ere plantation."
Tom went back into the fir-wood again,
where Sailor joined him ; and then they
left the path, and plunged into the wood
till they came to a warm secluded hollow,
fragrant with the scent of the turpentine
of the firs, and carpeted with the dried
spikes that had fallen from their branches.
Here they sat down, and Sailor produced
a satchel from under his coat, which
proved to contain a bottle of ale and a
meat pasty. " That was her idea," said
Sailor pointing a thumb in the direction
of Milford's. " When we found that the
bobbies were bustling about, says she :
' Sailor, just you run off, and keep Tom
out of danger ; he'll come over the hill
past Brooks's clump,' says she ; and then
she packs up this here bit of food, in
case as you might'nt have had your din-
ner. No, no. Master Tom ; that's all for
you. I had a drop afore I started."
After Tom had eaten and drunk, he
felt his courage revive, his mind more
capable of facing the troubles before
him. Sailor, who had complacently
watched the gradual disappearance of
the viands, now took his seat on the
ground beside Tom. They both lit their
pipes, and proceeded to discuss the situ-
ation seriously. Lizzie thought, so
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
797
Sailor reported, that Tom ought to keep
out of the way. There was always the
chance that the money might be re-
covered, and nobody in his senses would
submit to be put in prison if he could keep
out of it. People said, too, in the village —
for a great revulsion of feeling had taken
place in favour of Tom, when it was dis-
covered that only his sureties would
suffer, and not the parish in general —
people said, that perhaps Frewen had
gone too far, and might be made to smart
for it by-and-by. Frewen had driven
over from Biscopham in a furious temper,
accompanied by two or three policemen.
Tom's house had been searched, but
nothing discovered. They didn't even
detect the opening into the deserted
house. Mrs. Rapley had hung up her
gowns so as to conceal the door, and had
stood before it all the time the police
were there, haranguing them with great
vehemence. " It were beautiful to hear
her," said Sailor, who had been an eye-
witness of the scene, and described it
with great gusto. '"It were sweet to
hear her ; she 'bused 'em delightful, sir.
There was hardly a name bad enough for
'em, sir ; she give 'em their desarts,
Master Tom. And the boys hooted old
Frewen as he drove through the village."
They were still, however, on the look-
out for Tom. It wouldn't be safe to go
home till dark, and not even then by the
bridge ; but there was a punt down at the
mill, and Sailor promised to have this
ready opposite Milford's, and ferry Tom
over. He would land close to the bottom
of the garden, and could make his way in
the shadowof the tall hedge to the very
door of his home ; and when he was once
there, he could be hidden in the deserted
house. There was no chance of the po-
lice searching that place, for Frewen had
expressly forbidden them, when they
proposed to do it, after the domiciliary
visit they had paid to the house at the
back. "'He were quite mad with them,
Master Tom," said Sailor, " when .they
wanted to do it. He wouldn't have the
place broken open on no account, and
there was no other way of getting in —
not that they knew of," added Sailor,
with a wink. ' " It seemed as if he'd got
some prime reason why they shouldn't
get in there. Do you think he had, Mas-
ter Tom ? "
Tom said he didn't know, but he felt a
creepy-crawly sensation down the small
of his back when he thought of a length-
ened sojourn in that weird deserted
house. However, it was better than a
prison at all events, and Tom gladly ac-
quiesced in the arrangements that had
been made. Sailor left presently, ad-
vising Tom to keep in the wood till dusk,
and promising to have the punt ready as
soon as it was fairly dark.
The night turned out fine, and dark as
pitch. Everything went well. Tom was
ferried over the river, crept in the shadow
of the shrubs to his own door, and was
received with open arms by his wife.
Sailor came in immediately after. Then
the doors were made fast, a curtain
pinned securely across the window, the
candle lighted, and Lizzie began to pre-
pare supper. Tom was wondering a little
what there would be for supper, for there
had been nothing in the larder when he
left, and he was as much surprised as
delighted when the frying-pan began to
fizzle on the fire, and a savoury vapour to
fill the air with appetizing fragrance.
" We'll have a merry Christmas in
spite of everything," said Sailor, " just as
I recollect as happened as we was roun'-
ing Cape Horn, and "
" Hush ! " cried Mrs. Tom, holding up
her hand — "a footstep."
They all kept breathless silence, and
listened intently, as somebody advanced
along the pathway with measured tread.
CHAPTER X.
If I had a mind to be honest, I see,
Fortune would not suffer me.
Emily Collop, when she heard Tom's
account of the robbery of his money, had
felt a shock of sudden fear and shame ;
and this was intensified, and her suspi-
cion deepened, when she saw Skim enter
the shop, looking like a gorgeous-plu-
maged jail-bird, and carrrying himself
with an impudent blustering manner, as
if he were the master of everything it
contained. Would Skim behave thus in
her father's shop if he did not feel that
he had some hold upon him ? There was
no one in the shop, for the boy had gone
on an errand, and the shopman had
gone home to tea, and Emily glided cau-
tiously to the corner of the shop by the
counting-house. There was a crevice be-
tween the partition of the counting-house
and the wall of the shop, and, by putting
an ear to the wall anything that was said
within could be distinctly heard. Emily
had acquired a knowledge of this when
she was a girl, but she had made no use
of it for many years, being far too hon-
ourably minded a girl to pry into her fa-
ther's concerns. In this case, however,
798
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
she felt justified. She might be the]
means of saving both her father and Tom !
from the consequences of some cruel,
wicked deed. What she first heard, en- 1
li<jhtened and relieved her mind a good I
deal. Her father had not intended to rob j
Tom Rapley — that was evident. He
had stumbled upon the money in the '
search for something else. But, at the
same time, it was equally clear that they
had got Tom's money, and no doubt, now i
that he had found out the mistake, her I
father would insist on Skim's disgorging ;
his share of the plunder. i
The final result of the interview as- !
tounded her. They were not going to
do justice to Tom. He was to be left to
his fate, whilst the two conspirators en-
joyed the fruits of their robbery. And (
this was her father ! The moment was j
one of supreme and bitter anguish.
Then she remembered that she too was !
a participator in the crime. She carried
abont on her person a share of the ill-
gotten plunder.
On this one point her course was clear
enough. She must at once get rid of the
guilty burden she carried, and in a way
that might lift the suspicion from Tom.
At the same time, her father's safety
must not be jeopardized. She would do
this now at once, before her father had a
chance of getting the money from her.
She took the bag of gold, and hastily
wrapped it in a piece of brown paper —
first putting inside a slip of paper, on
which she had written : " Restoration
from the man who robbed Tom Rapley."
Then she addressed the parcel to the
superintendent of police, and putting on
an old waterproof cloak, and a thick Shet-
land veil, which concealed her features
completely, she set out for the police-
office. There was no one about when
she reached the place, and she made her
way to the superintendent's office un-
challenged. That was empty too. She
left the parcel upon his desk, and hurried
away. When she reached home, she
found that her father had been searching
for her everywhere, and was very angry
at her absence.
" Emily," he said, " I want some of
that money. Ten pounds or so. Give it
me."
" I haven't got it, father," she said : " I
have restored it to the rightful owner ! "
Collop turned quite livid with rage and
fear. " What do you mean, girl ? Have
you stolen it, you thief?"
" It is not I who am the thief, father ! "
cried Emily, confronting him with blaz-
ing eyes.
Collop quailed under her glance. He
sank into a chair, laid his head upon the
table, and groaned. "Then you have be-
trayed your father, girl .?" he muttered.
" No ; I haven't betrayed you, father,"'
said Emily; "and I won't! But you
must tell me everything ; and every
penny you have got of Tom's you must
refund, and make that villain Skim also.'^:
" I can't, I tell you, Emily. I had paid
away a hundred and fifty pounds before
I had heard of that fool's ill-luck. I
should have had the bailiffs in the house
if I hadn't."
Emily burst into tears. " How could
you, father ! " she sobbed.
" Look here ! " cried Collop. " Emmy,
if what I have on hand succeeds, I shall
have abundance of money to pay Tom
back again, and reward him handsomely
for what he may have suffered."
" O wild, silly schemes ! " cried Emily ;
"digging for buried treasure that has no
existence except in the muddled wits of
a tipsy labourer. Father, has it come to
this?"
" I tell you, Emmy, it is not a wild or
silly scheme. The man is right. The
old woman had lots of ready-money !
She was constantly coming to me for
gold. Why, the very day before she died,
she carried home in her chaise five hun-
dred pounds in gold. She always got it
through me, and I was glad to oblige her,
as it gave me some credit with my bankers
to have the handling of so much money.
No mention was made of that in her will.
Why, I saw the schedule of her effects
for probate, and excepting two pounds
five in her purse at her death, there wasn't
a penny of ready-monev. Now, where
is it?"
" How is it possible to tell ? "
" I tell you, Emily, it's there some-
where ! Why, the very last time I saw
her — you know how fond she was of
picking out a text and expounding upon
it. Well, she'd got hold of this : ' Lay
not up for yourselves treasures upon
earth ; ' and there was a sort of tone about
her when she said upon earth, that I felt
sure she was thinking how clever she
was to have got round a text like that.
Now, if she'd buried her money, don't
you see it didn't apply — because it was
under the earth ! "
" O, father. Aunt Betsy was never so
silly as all that."
" You didn't know her as I did, child.
\
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
799
When she was about business, she was
as keen a hand as ever you met ; but get
her on spiritual matters, and she was wild
enough. She thought that she'd found
out that there was to be another deluge ;
and more than once she's said to me :
'James, don't you think that in the new
world it will be better for those who have
saved and laid by money ? ' And I said
to her : ' You can't carry your money
with you.' — ' No ; but, James,' she said,
'one might come back to it.' — Oh! I
knew she'd some scheme of the kind
working in her mind."
" But, father, granting that you are
right — even if there is money there — it
doesn't belong to you."
" To me as much, nay, more than any
one else. Didn't she always call me her
brother ? Didn't she promise me con-
tinually, that if she were removed first,
she would take care that I should be left
comfortable ? Wasn't it to please her
that I began, first to neglect my business
a little, and take to mooning after those
false prophets ? Didn't I work for her
and for her schemes for years without
ever getting a penny from her — paid
with promises, lured on with fair words ?
And now you tell me I have no claim
upon this money, if I find it ! "
" I don't think you have, father."
" Don't tell me ! " said Collop. " Why,
for the last year I have kept that man
Skim in my employ, and he has spent
night after night in digging and delving ;
and just as we have got the clue, and see
success before us, I am to hand the trea-
sure over to Mr. Frewen, I suppose ! "
" I didn't say that, father."
" I am to go to Mr. Frewen," cried
Collop, who had been working himself
gradually into a passion; "and I am to
say to him : ' Good sir, you have been
my enemy all my life ; you have brought
me to the threshold of disgrace and des-
titution ; you have preyed upon my vitals,
and drained me of every hard-earned
penny ; and in return for this, here's
untold gold — gold I have found, and
kept for you : and now, send me to the
workhouse, or the jail, good, kind sir ! ' "
" Father, you frighten me ! " cried
Emily.
" I tell you, girl ! " he cried, almost
foaming at the mouth, "sooner than this,
I'd kill him ! yes, kill him ! and you too,
false girl, if you betray me ! "
Nothing she had ever known of her
father had prepared her for this ebulli-
tion of rage and passion.
" Don't threaten me, father," she said.
silently weeping ; "don't talk to me like
that, and I'll be true to you through
everything. I'm in the same ship with
you, and I can't help taking your part ;
only don't rob poor Tom ! "
Mr. Frewen and the superintendent
of police came back to Biscopham to-
gether at about nine o'clock that even-
ing, the former in a very bad temper.
They drove up to the police-station, and
Frewen accompanied the superintendent
into his office, to see if anything had
transpired about Tom. There was the
package of money. The superintendent
opened it, looked at the slip of paper, and
handed it to Mr. Frewen.
" Eh ! Brown, what does that mean ? "
cried the latter, looking sharply up from
under his shaggy eyebrows. The police-
officer, meantime, had been carefully ex-
amining the brown paper in which the
money had been wrapped.
" It smells of fustian," said the man,
laughing.
" What do you mean ? "
" It comes from Collop's shop ; he was
there to-day, for an hour or two."
" But the money, the gold, that's right
enough, it seems ; why should they send
back any of it ? "
"You've frightened
so determined. And
yet."
" Upon my word,
right," cried Frewen :
to Milford once more,
But we won't knock up either your horse
or mine ; we'll send to the White Lion
for a machine of some sort."
The worthy host of the White Lion
threw up his hands in amazement, when
the order for the carriage came in. " Trap
to go to Milford ! Why, they're all going
to Milford. There's a regular gathering
of 'em over there. What's up, I won-
der ? "
CHAPTER XI.
Who finds her, give her burying.
'em, sir, by being
more can be got
I think you are
we'll drive over
and surprise 'em.
Beside this treasure for a fee,
The gods requite his charity.
At the sound of the heavy tread com-
ing up the footpath, all the inmates of the
little back-kitchen turned pale. Lizzie
rose and opened the door that led up to
their bedroom, and pointed to Tom to
go. " Get into the old house," she whis-
pered as he passed her, " and I'll take
care they don't follow you."
Tom went softly up-stairs, and passed
8oo
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
from the bed-room into his little office.
Lizzie followed him, and hung up some
dresses over the cracks of the door, shut-
ting out every gleam of light. He staid a
long time in the dark whilst a conversa-
tion was going on down-stairs. Then
Lizzie came up with a light and opened
the door.
" It was a policeman," she said,
" wanted to know whether you had come
home. ' No,' says L * And what was
those voices ? ' says he. And then
Sailor steps out — he hadn't seen him
before : ' What, ain't it allowed for peo-
ple to talk to one another in this free
country without a bobby listening ! ' and
then he got cross, and said he'd come in
and see whether you was here. 'No,'
says I, 'you don't; not without a war-
rant,' says L ' Oh, well,' he said, * he'd
soon fetch that ; ' and away he goes.
But they'll be here again, sure enough.
They're regular down upon you, Tom."
" It's a burning shame," said Tom.
" They won't help a poor fellow who's
been robbed, and make all sorts of game
of him ; and they're regular slaves to
Frewen, because he's one of the big-wigs.
It ain't justice, Lizzie."
" Well, Tom, what we've got to do is to
slip our necks out of the noose. They'll
be back again directly, Tom ; and we
must make up this door somehow, so that
it shan't look as if it were a door at all.
Look here, Tom ; take a couple of blan-
kets. You should have the bed, too, only
that would be noticed."
" What ! ain't I to sleep in my own
bed ? " said Tom, ruefully regarding the
nuptial couch.
"No, indeed, Tom; you can't. We
must make up the door, and you must
be on the other side of it. Then take
the candle. No, goodness, Tom ; you
mustn't have that. I forgot ; it would
betray all."
" What ! stop here all in the dark ? "
remonstrated Tom.
"Why, yes, old man. The least shine
of a light through a chink outside would
ruin everything. Now, go, Tom — do —
directly, please."
" Weil, if I was in prison," muttered
Tom, " I should have a light, and a bed
to sleep on too, perhaps. If it wasn't for
the name of the
there."
Lizzie shut the door upon his remon-
strances, and presently hammer and nails
were at work on the o-ther side closing up
the door.
" It's for all the world as if they were
thing, I'd be better off
putting me in my coffin," said Tom, with
a shudder.
Another last word, through a slit in
the boards : " Tom, 3-ou mustn't stop
there: they will hear you cough, or
sneeze, or walk on the boards. Go down
into the kitchen."
With hands stretched out before him
blindly groping his way through the thick
darkness, Tom, in fear and trembling,
felt his way along the passage and down
the staircase of the deserted house. He
knew the way well, but once or twice he
stumbled where a board had sprung, or a
lump of plaster had fallen from the ceil-
ing ; and, stretching out his hands to
save himself, he would shudder at the
cold, clammy touch of the wall. How
the stairs creaked and groaned as he de-
scended ! they seemed to shriek almost, as
if they were given warning of his where-
abouts to people outside. He reached
the kitchen at last, and stood in the mid-
dle of the floor, and wondered what he
should do next. He shuddered at the
thought of lying down here amongst all
these crawling loathsome insects ; yet he
couldn't stand up all night shivering and
shaking. The night had turned very cold ;
there was a hard frost ; it seemed he
could see a bright star twinkling through
a crevice where the new brick-work in
the window had settled. It would not do
to have a light, certainly. The shine of
it would be as discernible to any one out-
side as the glimmer of the star to him
within.
As soon as he became perfectly quiet,
and the beating of the pulse in his ear
ceased to overpower all other sounds, he
heard a noise that made his flesh creep
upon his bones. The sound itself, in-
deed, was not appalling — a comfortable,
home-like, domestic sound ; it was the
circumstances under which he heard it
that made it so terrific. Here, in this de-
serted, abandoned house, given over to
solitude and silence for all these years —
in this house, so hermetically closed and
sealed against the outside world, the
clock was ticking loudly !
Clink, clank, with a resonant, cavern-
ous voice, the old clock was agoing ;
who could have started it .? Tom shiv-
ered and shuddered, as in the presence
of some new indefinite peril. Who could
have set that clock agoing? In Aunt
Betsy's time, no hand but hers was ever
permitted to touch that sacred clock.
At nine o'clock every Saturday night,
the clock was wound up, just before
Aunt Betsy went to bed. This was Sat-
THE MANOR-HOUSE AT MILFORD.
8oi
urday night, and just after nine. Had
Aunt Betsy arisen this cold winter's
night, and come to wind up the clock?
Tom fancied that something brushed past
him, that his hand touched something
cold : he could have shouted with terror ;
he would have run, regardless of all risks,
back to his own room, but he felt chained
and rooted to the spot. He felt, with
his foot, around him, not daring to stir
from the place ; and his foot came in
contact with something that rattled as
he struck it. It was a box of lucifer-
matches.
Tom didn't think of how the matches
got there, or of the danger of striking a
light. He was only conscious of an
eager desire to dissipate the terrors that
surrounded him. He picked up the
match-box and struck a light. As the
flame leaped into life, there was a gentle
rustle and stir about him : beetles, cock-
roaches, crickets, made a general stam-
pede. If any other forms had lurked
in the darkness, they had softly disap-
peared. The old clock, whose face was
in strong contrast to the general dirt and
griminess of the place, was placidly tick-
ing away through it all. At his feet there
lay a piece of wax-candle.
" There have been thieves here, the
thieves who stole my money," said Tom
to himself. "Surely, if the police saw
this, they would believe me ; but then
there's nothing here but what I could
have put myself, so I should be no better
off."
Then Tom became alive to the danger
he incurred of discovery. He blew out
his light, and began to ponder as to what
he should do next. His meditations were
interrupted by a low noise of grating and
grinding, that came from the direction of
the hall-door, and Tom thought that he
heard whispered conversation as well.
The sounds grew more and more dis-
tinct ; clearly some persons were trying
to get into the house from outside. The
pohce, no doubt, thought Tom ; they
have caught sight of the light, and they
mean to hem me in on all sides. To
retreat by the way he came, Tom saw,
would be to put his head into the lion's
mouth. They had possession of the
house by this time, no doubt, and _ his
capture would only be a question of time.
But there was one chance : the cellar
that ran under the old part of the house,
the entrance to which was from the inner
corner of the kitchen, the door being
close to the clock. Guided by the tick-
ing of the clock, Tom made his way to
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 363
the cellar door, which was unfastened.
When Tom got to the bottom of the
cellar stairs, he found himself in a
warmer and softer atmosphere — an at-
mosphere strangely perfumed, too, with
the fragrance of drugs and spices. There
was no damp or chilliness about these
cellars, which had been made centuries
ago. Warm in winter, and cool in sum-
mer, they had been splendid wine-cellars
in the olden days. Many a pipe of good
old port, many a cask of sherry, and butt
of generous Madeira, had been drained
dry in that famous cellar in days long
gone by.
The sounds from the hall-door had
ceased. Tom began to think that he had
been deceived, and that the noise he had
heard had simply been the wind, that
was now beginning to rise, and sough
mournfully around. But he had much
bettered his position, as he would be far
warmer and more comfortable down here
than in that dismal kitchen. Everything
was quiet above, and he thought he might
venture to strike a light, that he might
reconnoitre his position, and make him-
self snug for the night, for he began to
feel insupportably weary. The one win-
dow in the cellar opened into the garden,
and was so overgrown outside with rank
vegetation, that there was no danger of
his light being seen, even if it had not
been properly blocked up.
The candle lighted, Tom looked around
him. The cellar seemed altogether clean
and bare, just as he remembered it of
old. A ledge or table ran all round it,,
topped with a stone slab, which had
formerly held dishes and pans. There,
was the old cask-stand in one corner ;:
and in the other, there was something,
new and strange — somethinsf that struck.
Tom with an instinctive terror and dread..
In form and general appearance, this
was like a sentry-box, and of the same,
height and size ; but it was shaped at the
ends so as also to resemble a boat set oa
end. Round the edge was a broad border
of cork, painted black, so that, if a boat at
all, it must be a life-boat. It was in-
closed in front with a lid door or deck of
polished oak. At the top of this was a
narrow grating of brass or gilt metal. A
small brass knob, half-way down, indi-
cated that here was the way of opening
the lid or deck. Something was tied to
this knob by a piece of string, in appear-
ance and reality a letter. Curiosity out-
mastered fear. Tom advanced and
snatched the letter from the knob. It
was in Aunt Betsy's handwriting, sealed.
8o2 INAUGURAL ADDRESS QF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
-if
sin-
my
with her great gold seal, and addressed
simply to "My Successor."
Tom opened the letter full of strange
awe. Yes, it was from Aunt Betsy — a
posthumous message from his aunt :
When you, young sir, open this
you ever do open it, as I hope and
cerely trust you never may — all
hopes will have come to an end, and you
may smile at the folly of an old wo-
man who has trusted to lying promises.
Laugh yourself, if you will, but do not let
any one else laugh. To you, at all events,
I have proved a benefactor. Respect my
memory and my wishes. My wishes are :
that this house be pulled down, and every
trace of it destroyed ; that my poor body
be put in a coffin, with quicklime, and
buried quietly in the churchyard of
Milford, with a marble monument, and
the figure of a shipwreck over it, and
that the epitaph upon it shall be :
*' Here lies poor Betsy Rennel. She was
born before her time, lived after her
prime, and lies here in lime." To pay
these expenses, and to reward you for
executing my wishes, I will give you this
rhyme :
Underneath the thyme and mint, the marjoram
and the rue,
Dig deep, and you shall find a herb that's safe
to pleasure you.
If you can't understand this, you are a
fool, and may lose your thousands.
Betsy Rennel.
" Well, I am a fool, then," cried Tom,
"for I don't understand a single word of
it all. Then this is waiting for the young
squire that is to be. And what's inside
here, I wonder ? Fancy Aunt Betsy
writing that kind of stuff ! Why, she
ought to have been in Bedlam ; an
old "
Here Tom paused, and his tongue
cleaved to the roof of his mouth, for the
lid of the box had swung slowly open,
and there was old Aunt Betsy standing
right before him !
He gave a wild cry of horror and de-
spair, and sank helpless and senseless on
the floor.
From Nature.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROF. JOHN
TYNDALL, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., PRESI-
DENT.
An impulse inherent in primeval man
turned his thoughts and questionings be-
times towards the sources of natural
phenomena. The same impulse, in-
herited and intensified, is the spur of
scientific action to-day. Determined by
it, by a process of abstraction from expe-
rience we form physical theories which
lie beyond the pale of experience, but
which satisfy the desire of the mind to
see every natural occurrence resting
upon a cause. In forming their notions
of the origin of things, our earliest his-
toric (and doubtless, we might add, our
prehistoric) ancestors pursued, as far as
their intelligence permitted, the same
course. They also fell back upon experi-
ence, but with this difference — that the
particular experiences which furnished
the weft and woof of their theories were
drawn, not from the study of nature, but
from what lay much closer to them, the
observation of men. Their theories ac-
cordingly took an anthropomorphic form.
To supersensual beings, which, "however
potent and invisible, were nothing but a
species of human creatures, perhaps
raised from among mankind, and retain-
ing all human passions and appetites,"*
were handed over the rule and gov-
ernance of natural phenomena.
Tested by observation and reflection,
these early notions failed in the long run
to satisfy the more penetrating intellect
of our race. Far in the depths of history
we find men of exceptional power differ-
entiating themselves from the crowd, re-
jecting these anthropomorphic notions,
and seeking to connect natural phenom-
ena with their physical principles. But
long prior to these purer efforts of the
understanding the merchant had been
abroad, and rendered the philosopher
possible ; commerce had been developed,
wealth amassed, leisure for travel and for
speculation secured, while races educat-
ed under different conditions, and there-
fore differently informed and endowed,
had been stimulated and sharpened by
mutual contact. In those regions where
the commercial aristocracy of ancient
Greece mingled with its eastern neigh-
bours, the sciences were born, being nur-
tured and developed by free-thinking and
courageous men. The state of things to
be displaced may be gathered from a
passage of Euripides quoted by Hume.
" There is nothing in the world ; no glory,
no prosperity. The gods toss all into con-
fusion ; mix everything with its reverse,
that all of us, from our ignorance and un-
certainty, may pay them the more wor-
* Hume, " Natural History of Religion."
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 803
ship and reverence." Now, as science
demands the radical extirpation of ca-
price and the absolute reliance upon law
in nature, there grew with the growth of
scientific notions a desire and determina-
tion to sweep from the field of theory this
mob of gods and demons, and to place
na'ural phenomena on a basis more con-
gruent with themselves.
The problem which had been previ-
ously approached from above was now
attacked from below ; theoretic effort
passed from the super to the sub-sensi-
ble. It was felt that to construct the uni-
verse in idea it was necessary to have
some notion of its constituent parts — of
what Lucretius subsequently called the
" First Beginnings." Abstracting again
from experience, the leaders of scientific
speculation reached at length the preg-
nant doctrine of atoms and molecules,
the latest developments of which were
set forth with such power and clearness
at the last meeting of the British Associa-
tion. Thought no doubt had long hov-
ered about this doctrine before it at-
tained the precision and completeness
which it assumed in the mind of Democ-
ritus,* a philosopher who may well for
a moment arrest our attention. " Few
great men," says Lange, in his excellent
♦' History of Materialism," a work to the
spirit and the letter of which I am equally
indebted, "have been so despitefully
used by history as Democritus. In the
distorted images sent down to us through
unscientific traditions there remains of
him almost nothing but the name of the
* laughing philosopher,' while figures of
immeasurably smaller significance spread
themselves at full length before us."
Lange speaks of Bacon's high appreciation
of Democritus — for ample illustrations
of which I am indebted to my excellent
friend Mr. Spedding, the learned editor
and biographer of Bacon. It is evident,
indeed, that Bacon considered Democ-
ritus to be a man of weightier metal than
either Plato or Aristotle, though their
philosophy " was noised and celebrated in
the schools amid the din and pomp of
professors." It was not they, but Gen-
seric and Attila and the barbarians, who
destroyed the atomic philosophy. " For
at a time when all human learning had
suffered shipwreck, these planks of Aris-
totelian and Platonic philosophy, as be-
ino- of a lighter and more inflated sub-
stance, were preserved and came down
to us, while things more solid sank and
almost passed into oblivion."
* Born 460 B.C.
The principles enunciated by Democ-
ritus reveal his uncompromising antag-
onism to those who deduced the phenom-
ena of nature from the caprices of the
gods. They are briefly these : — i. From
nothing comes nothing. Nothing that
exists can be destroyed. All changes
are due to the combination and separa-
tion of molecules. 2. Nothing happens by
chance. Every occurrence has its cause
from which it follows by necessity. 3.
The only existing things are the atoms and
empty space ; all else is mere opinion.
4. The atoms are infinite in number, and
infinitely various in form ; they strike
together, and the lateral motions and
whirlings which thus arise are the begin-
nings of worlds. 5. The varieties of atl
things depend upon the varieties of their
atoms, in number, size, and aggregation.
6. The soul consists of free, smooth,
round atoms, like those of fire. These
are the most mobile of all. They inter-
penetrate the whole body, and in their
motions the phenomena of life arise.
Thus the atoms of Democritus are indi-
vidually without sensation ; they com-
bine in obedience to mechanical laws ;
and not only organic forms, but the phe-
nomena of sensation and thought are
also the result of their combination.
That great enigma, " the exquisite ad-
aptation of one part of an organism to
another part, and to the conditions of
life," more especially the construction of
the human body, Democritus made no
attempt to solve. Empedocles, a man of
more fiery and poetic nature, introduced
the notion of love and hate among the
atoms to account for their combination
and separation. Noticing this gap in
the doctrine of Democritus, he struck in
with the penetrating thought, linked,
however, with some wild speculation,
that it lay in the very nature of those
combinations which were suited to their
ends (in other words, in harmony with
their environment) to maintain them-
selves, while unfit combinations, having
no proper habitat, must rapidly disappear.
Thus more than 2,000 years ago, the doc-
trine of the "survival of the fittest,"
which in our day, not on the basis of
vague conjecture, but of positive knowl-
edge, has been raised to such extraordi-
nary significance, had received at all
events partial enunciation.*
Epicurus,! said to be the son of a poor
schoolmaster at Samos, is the next dom-
* Lange, 2nd edit., p. 23.
t Born 342 B.C.
8o4 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
inant figure in the history of the atomic
philosophy. He mastered the writings
of Democritus, heard lectures in Athens,
returned to Samos, and subsequently
wandered through various countries. He
finally returned to Athens, where he
bought a garden, and surrounded himself
by pupils, in the midst of whom he lived a
pure and serene life, and died a peaceful
death. His philosophy was almost identi-
cal with that of Democritus ; but he never
quoted either friend or foe. One main
object of Epicurus was to free the world
from superstition and the fear of death.
Death he treated with indifference. It
merely robs us of sensation. As long as
we are, death is not ; and when death is,
we are not. Life has no more evil for him
who* has made up his mind that it is no
evil not to live. He adored the gods, but
not in the ordinary fashion. The idea of
divine power, properly purified, he thought
an elevating one. Still he taught, " Not
he is godless who rejects the gods of the
crowd, but rather he who accepts them."
The gods were to him eternal and im-
mortal beings, whose blessedness ex-
cluded every thought of care or occu-
pation of any kind. Nature pursues
her course in accordance with everlasting
laws, the gods never interfering. They
haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world
Where never creeps a cloud or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their sacred everlasting calm.*
Lange considers the relation of Epicu-
rus to the gods subjective ; the indica-
tion probably of an ethical requirement
of his own nature. We cannot read his-
tory with open eyes, or study human na-
ture to its depths, and fail to discern
such a requirement. Man never has
been and he never will be satisfied with
the operations and products of the under-
standing alone ; hence physical science
cannot cover all the demands of his na-
ture. But the history of the efforts-made
to satisfy these demands might be broad-
ly described as a history of errors — the
error consisting in ascribing fixity to that
which is fluent, which varies as we vary,
being gross when we are gross, and be-
coming, as our capacities widen, more
abstract and sublime. On one great
point the mind of Epicurus was at peace.
He neither sought nor expected, here or
hereafter, any personal profit from his
* Tennyson's "Lucretius."
relation to the gods. And it is assuredly
a fact that loftiness and serenity of
thought may be promoted by conceptions
which involve no idea of profit of this
kind. " Did I not believe," said a great
man to me once, " that an Intelligence is
at the heart of things, my life on earth
would be intolerable." The utterer of
these words is not, in my opinion, ren-
dered less noble but more noble, by the
fact that it was the need of ethical' har-
mony here, and not the thought of per-
sonal profit hereafter, that prompted his
observation.
A century and a half after the death of
Epicurus, Lucretius * wrote his great
poem, " On the Nature of Things," in
which he, a Roman, developed with ex-
traordinary ardour the philosophy of his
Greek predecessor. He wishes to win
over his friend Memnius to the school of
Epicurus ; and although he has no re-
wards in a future life to offer, although his
object appears to be a purely negative
one, he addresses his friend with the
heat of an apostle. His object, like that
of his great forerunner, is the destruc-
tion of superstition ; and considering
that men trembled before every natural
event as a direct monition from the gods,
and that everlasting torture was also
in prospect, the freedom aimed at by
Lucretius might perhaps be deemed a
positive good. " This terror," he says,
" and darkness of mind must be dispelled,
not by the rays of the sun and glittering
shafts of day, but by the aspect and the
law of nature." He refutes the notion
that anything can come out of nothing,
or that that which is once begotten can
be recalled to nothing. The first begin-
nings, the atoms, are indestructible, andjj
into them all things can be dissolved at
last. Bodies are partly atoms and parti]
combinations of atoms ; but the atom*
nothing can quench. They are strong ii
solid singleness, and by their densel
combination all things can be closelj
packed and exhibit enduring strength^
He denies that matter is infinitely divisi^
ble. We come at length to the atoms,
without which, as an imperishable substra^
tum, all order in the generation and de-
velopment of things would be destroyed^
The mechanical shock of the atoms
being in his view the all-sufficient caus(
of things, he combats the notion that the
constitution of nature has been in anj
way determined by intelligent design,!
The interaction of the atoms throughout
* Bom 99 B.C
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 805
infinite time rendered all manner of com-
binations possible. Of these the fit ones
persisted, while theunfitonesdisappeared.
Not after sage deliberation did the atoms
station themselves in their right places,
nor did they bargain what motions they
should assume. From all eternity they
have been driven together, and after try-
ing motions and unmotions of every kind,
they fell at length into the arrangements
out of which this system of things has
been formed. His grand conception of
the atoms falling silently through im-
measurable ranges of space and time sug-
gested the nebular hypothesis to Kant,
its first propounder. " If you will appre-
hend and keep in mind these things, Na-
ture, free at once, and rid of her haughty
lords, is seen to do all things sponta-
neously of herself, without the meddling
of the gods." *
During the centuries between the first
of these three philosophers and the last,
the human intellect was active in other
fields than theirs. The Sophists had run
tlvough their career. At Athens had
appeared the three men, Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle, whose yoke remains to
some extent unbroken to the present
hour. Within this period also the School
of Alexandria was founded, Euclid wrote
his "Elements," and he and others made
some advance in optics. Archimedes had
propounded the theory of the lever and
the principles of hydrostatics. Pythago-
ras had made his experiments on the
harmonic intervals, while astronomy was
immensely enriched by the discoveries of
Hipparchus, who was followed by the
historically more celebrated Ptolemy.
Anatomy had been made the basis of
scientific medicine ; and it is said by
Draper t that vivisection then began. In
fact, the science of ancient Greece had
already cleared the world of the fantastic
images of divinities operating capricious-
ly through natural phenomena. It had
shaken itself free from that fruitless
scrutiny "by the internal light of the
mind alone," which had vainly sought to
transcend experience and reach a knowl-
edge of ultimate causes. Instead of ac-
cidental observation, it had introduced
observation with a purpose ; instruments
were employed to aid the senses ; and
scientific method was rendered in a great
* Monro's translation. In his criticism of this work
{Contemporary Review, 1867) Dr. Hayman does not
appear to be aware of the really sound and subtle ob-
servations on which the reasoning of Lucretius, though
erroneous, sometimes rests. , ^ , , „
t " History of the Intellectual Development of l.u-
rope," p. 295.
measure complete by the union of induc-
tion and experiment.
What, then, stopped its victorious ad-
vance ? Why was the scientific intellect
compelled, like an exhausted soil, to lie
fallow for nearly two millenniums before
it could regather the elements necessary
to its fertility and strength ? Bacon has
already let us know one cause ; Whewell
ascribes this stationary period to four
causes — obscurity of thought, servility,
intolerance of disposition, enthusiasm of
temper ; and he gives striking examples of
each.* But these characteristics must
have had their causes, which lay in the
circumstances of the time. Rome and
the other cities of the empire had fallen
into moral putrefaction. Christianity had
appeared offering the gospel to the poor,
and by moderation if not asceticism of life,
practically protesting against the profli-
gacy of the age. The sufferings of the
early Christians and the extraordinary
exaltation of mind which enabled them
to triumph over the diabolical tortures to
which they were subjected,! must have
left traces not easily effaced. They
scorned the earth, in view of that "build-
ing of God, that house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens." The
Scriptures which ministered to their spir-
itual needs were also the measure of their
science. When, for example, the cele-
brated question of antipodes came to be
discussed, the Bible was with many the
ultimate court of appeal. Augustine, who
flourished A.D. 400, would not deny the
rotundity of the earth, but he would deny
the possible existence of inhabitants at
the other side, " because no such race is
recorded in Scripture among the descend-
ants of Adam." Archbishop Boniface
was shocked at the assumption of a
" world of human beings out of the reach
of the means of salvation." Thus reined
in, science was not likely to make much
progress. Later on, the political and
theological strife between the Church and
civil goverments, so powerfully depicted
by Draper, must have done much to stifle
investigation.
Whewell makes many wise and brave
remarks regarding the spirit of the Middle
Ages. It was a menial spirit. The
seekers after natural knowledge had for-
saken that fountain of living waters, the
direct appeal to nature by observation
and experiment, and had given them-
selves up to the remanipulation of the
* " History of the Inductive Sciences," vol. i.
t Depicted v.'ith terrible vividness in R^nan's "Anti-
christ."
8o6 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
notions of their predecessors. It was a
time when thought had become abject, and
when the acceptance of mere authority
led. as it always does in science, to intel-
lectual death. Natural events, instead
of being traced to physical, were referred
to moral causes, while an exercise of the
phantasy, almost as degrading as the
spiritualism of the present day, took the
place of scientific speculation. Then
came the Mysticism of the Middle Ages,
magic, alchemy, the Neo-platonic philoso-
phy, with its visionary though sublime
attractions, which caused men to look
with shame upon their own bodies as
hindrances to the absorption of the crea-
ture in the blessedness of the Creator.
Finally came the scholastic philosophy, a
tusion, according to Lange, of the least
mature notions of Aristotle with the
Christianity of the west. Intellectual
immobility was the result. As a traveller
without a compass in a fog may wander
long, imagining he is making way, and
find himself, after hours of toil, at his
starting-point, so the schoolmen, having
tied and untied the same knots, and
formed and dissipated the same clouds,
found themselves at the end of centuries
in their old position.
With regard to the influence wielded
by Aristotle in the Middle Ages, and
which, though to a less extent, he still
wields, I would ask permission to make
one remark. When the human mind has
achieved greatness and given evidence of
extraordinary power in any domain, there
is a tendency to credit it with similar pow-
er in all other domains. Thus theologians
have found comfort and assurance in the
thought that Newton dealt with the ques-
tion of revelation, forgetful of the fact
that the very devotion of his powers,
through all the best years of his life, to
a totally different class of ideas, not to
speak of any natural disqualification,
tended to render him less instead of more
competent to deal with theological and
historic questions. Goethe, starting from
his established greatness as a poet, and in-
deed from his positive discoveries in nat-
ural history, produced a profound impres-
sion among the painters of Germany
when he published his " Farbenlehre," in
which he endeavoured to overthrow New-
ton's theory of colours. This theory he
deemed so obviously absurd, that he con-
sidered its author a charlatan, and at-
tacked him with a corresponding vehe-
mence of language. In the domain of
natural history Goethe had made really
considerable discoveries ; and we have
high authority for assuming that had he
devoted himself wholly to that side of
science, he might have reached in it an
eminence comparable with that which he
attained as a poet. In sharpness of ob-
servation, in the detection of analogies
however apparently remote, in the classi-
fication and organization of facts accord-
ing to the analogies discerned, Goethe
possessed extraordinary powers. These
elements of scientific inquiry fall in with
the discipline of the poet. But, on the
other hand, a mind thus richly endowed
in the direction of natural history, may
be almost shorn of endowment as regards
the more strictly called physical and me-
chanical sciences. Goethe was in this
condition. He could not formulate dis-
tinct mechanical conceptions ; he could
not see the force of mechanical reason-
ing ; and in regions where such reason-
ing reigns supreme he became a mere
ignis fattius to those who followed him.
I have sometimes permitted myself to
compare Aristotle with Goethe, to credit
the Stagirite with an almost superhuman
power of amassing and systematizing
facts, but to consider him fatally defec-
tive on that side of the mind in respect to
which incompleteness has been justly
ascribed to Goethe. Whewell refers the
errors of Aristotle, not to a neglect of
facts, but to " a neglect of the idea appro-
priate to the facts, the idea of mechani-
cal cause, which is force, and the substi-
tution of vague or inapplicable notions,
involving only relations of space or emo-
tions of wonder." This is doubtless
true; but the word "neglect" implies
mere intellectual misdirection, whereas
in Aristotle, as in Goethe, it was not, I
believe, misdirection, but sheer natural
incapacity which lay at the root of his
mistakes. As a physicist, Aristotle dis-
played what we should consider some of
the worst attributes of a modern physical
investigator — indistinctness of ideas,
confusion of mind, and a confident use
of language, which led to the delusive
notion that he had really mastered his
subject, while he as yet had failed to
grasp even the elements of it. He put
words in the place of things, subject in
the place of object. He preached induc-
tion without practising it, inverting the
true order of inquiry by passing from the
general to the particular, instead of from
the particular to the general. He made
of the universe a closed sphere, in the
centre of which he fixed the earth, prov-
ing from general principles, to his own
satisfaction and that of the world for neai
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 807
2,000 years, that no other universe was
possible. His notions of motion were en-
tirely unphysical. It was natural or un-
natural, better or worse, calm or violent —
no real mechanical conception regarding
it lying at the bottom of his mind. He af-
firmed that a vacuum could not exist, and
proved that if it did exist motion in it
would be impossible. He determined d
priori how many species of animals must
exist, and showed on general principles
why animals must have such and such
parts. When an eminent contemporary
philosopher, who is far removed from er-
rors of this kind, remembers these abuses
of the d priori method, he will be able to
make allowance for the jealousy of physi-
cists as to the acceptance of so-called d
priori truths. Aristotle's errors of detail
were grave and numerous. He affirmed
that only in man we had the beating of the
heart, that the left side of the body was
colder than the right, that men have
more teeth than women, and that there
is an empty space, not at the front, but
at the back of every man's head.
There is one essential quality in physi-
cal conceptions which was entirely want-
ing in those of Aristotle and his follow-
ers. I wish it could be expressed by a
word untainted by its associations ; it
signifies a capability of being placed as a
coherent picture before the mind. The
Germans express the act of picturing by
the word vorstellen, and the picture they
call a vorstellung. We have no word in Eng-
lish which comes nearer to our require-
ments than i7nagination, and, taken with
its proper limitations, the word answers
very well; but, as just intimated, it is
tainted by its associations, and therefore
objectionable to some minds. Compare,
with reference to this capacity of mental
presentation, the case of the Aristotelian,
who refers the ascent of water in a pump
to Nature's abhorrence of a vacuum, with
that of Pascal when he proposed to solve
the question of atmospheric pressure by
the ascent of the Puy de Dome. In the
one case the terms of the explanation
refuse to fall into place as a physical
image ; in the other the image is distinct,
the fall and rise of the barometer being
clearly figured as the balancing of two
varying and opposing pressures.
During the drought of the Middle
Ages in Christendom, the Arabian intel-
lect, as forcibly shown by Draper, was
active. With the intrusion of the Moors
into Spain, cleanliness, order, learning,
and refinement took the place of their
opposites. When smitten with the dis-
ease, the Christian peasant resorted to a
shrine; the Moorish one to an instructed
physician. The Arabs encouraged trans-
lations from the Greek philosophers, but
not from the Greek poets. They turned
in disgust "from the lewdness of our
classical mythology, and denounced as
an unpardonable blasphemy all connec-
tion between the impure Olympian Jove
and the Most High God." Draper traces
still further than Whewell the Arab ele-
ment in our scientific terms, and points
out that the under garment of ladies re-
tains to this hour its Arab name. He
gives examples of what Arabian men of
science accomplished, dwelling particu-
larly on Alhazen, who was the first to
correct the Platonic notion that rays of
light are emitted by the eye. He discov-
ered atmospheric refraction, and points
out that we see the sun and moon after
they have set. He explains the enlarge-
ment of the sun and moon, and the
shortening of the vertical diameters of
both these bodies, when near the hori-
zon. He is aware that the atmosphere
decreases in density with increase of
height, and actually fixes its height at
58 1-2 miles. In the Book of the Bal-
ance Wisdom, he sets forth the connec-
tion between the weight of the atmosphere
and its increasing density. He shows
that a body will weigh differently in a
rare and a dense atmosphere : he con-
siders the force with which plunged
bodies rise through heavier media. He
understands the doctrine of the centre of
gravity, and applies it to the investiga-
tion of balances and steelyards. He rec-
ognizes gravity as a force, though he falls
into the error of making it diminish as
the distance, and of making it purely ter-
restrial. He knows the relation between
the velocities, spaces, and times of falling
bodies, and has distinct ideas of capillary
attraction. He improves the hydrometer.
The determination of the densities of the
bodies as given by Alhazen approach
very closely to our own. " I join," says
Draper, in the pious prayer of Alhazen,
" that in the day of judgment the All-
Merciful will take pity on the soul of
Abur Raihan, because he was the first
of the race of men to construct a table of
specific gravities." If all this be his-
toric truth (and I have entire confidence
in Dr. Draper), well may he "deplore the
systematic manner in which the litera-
ture of Europe has contrived to put out
of sight our scientific obligations to the
Mahomedans." *
* " Intellectual Development of Europe," p. 359,
8o8 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
Towards the close of the stationary
period a word-weariness, if I may so ex-
press it, took more and more possession
of men's minds. Christendom had be-
come sick of the school philosophy and
its verbal wastes, which led to no issue,
but left the intellect in everlasting haze.
Here and there was heard the voice of
one impatiently crying in the wilderness,
" Not unto Aristotle, not unto subtle
hypotheses, not unto Church, Bible, or
blind tradition, must we turn for a knowl-
edge of the universe, but to the direct
investigation of nature by observation
and experiment." In 1543 the epoch-
making work of Copernicus on the paths
of the heavenly bodies appeared. The
total crash of Aristotle's closed universe
with the earth at its centre followed as a
consequence ; and " the earth moves "
became a kind of watchword among in-
tellectual freemen. Copernicus was the
Canon of the Church of Frauenburg, in
the diocese of Ermeland. For three-and-
thirty years he had withdrawn himself
from the world and devoted himself to
the consolidation of his great scheme of
the solar system. He made its blocks
eternal ; and even to those who feared it
and desired its overthrow it was so ob-
viously strong that they refrained from
meddling with it. In the last year of the
life of Copernicus his book appeared : it
is said that the old man received a copy
of it a few days before his death, and
then departed in peace.
The Italian philosopher Giordano
Bruno was one of the earliest converts to
the new astronomy. Taking Lucretius
as his exemplar, h& revived the notion of
the infinity of worlds ; and combining
with it the doctrine of Copernicus,
reached the sublime generalization that
the fixed stars are suns, scattered num-
berless through space and accompanied
by satellites, which bear the same rela-
tion to themas the earth does to our sun,
or our moon to our earth. This was an
expansion of transcendent import ; but
Bruno came closer than this to our pres-
ent line of thought. Struck with the
problem of the generation and mainte-
nance of organisms, and duly pondering
it, he came to the conclusion that nature
in her productions does not imitate the
technic of man. Her process is one of
unravelling and unfolding. The infinity
of forms under which matter appears
were not imposed upon it by an external
artificer; by its own intrinsic force and
virtue it brings these forms forth. Mat-
ter is not the mere naked, empty capacity
which philosophers have pictured her toj
be, but the universal mother, who brings!
forth all things as the fruit of her own
womb.
This outspoken man was originally a
Dominican monk. He was accused of
heresy and had to fly, seeking refuge in
Geneva, Paris, England, and Germany.
In 1592 he fell into the hands of the In-
quisition at Venice. He was imprisoned
for many years, tried, degraded, excom-
municated, and handed over to the civil
power, with the request that he should
be treated gently and " without the shed-
ding of blood." This meant that he was
to be burnt ; and burnt accordingly he
was, on Feb. 16, 1600. To escape a sim-
ilar fate, Galileo, thirty-three years after-
wards, abjured, upon his knees and with
his hand on the holy gospels, the helio-
centric doctrine. After Galileo came
Kepler, who from his German home de-
fied the power beyond the Alps. He
traced out from pre-existing observations
the laws of planetary motion. The prob-
lem was thus prepared for Newton, who
bound those empirical laws together by
the principle of gravitation.
During the Middle Ages the doctrine
of atoms had to all appearance vanished
from discussion. In all probability it
held its ground among sober-minded and
thoughtful men, though neither the
Church nor the world was prepared to
hear of it with tolerance. Once, in the
year 1348, it received distinct expression.
But retractation by 'compulsion immedi-
ately followed, and thus discouraged, it
slumbered till the 17th century, when it
was revived by a contemporary of Hobbes
and Descartes, the P^re Gassendi.
The analytic and synthetic tendencies
of the human mind exhibit themselves
throughout history, great writers ranging
themselves sometimes on the one side,
sometimes on the other. Men of lofty
feelings, and minds open to the elevating
impressions produced by nature as a
whole, whose satisfaction, therefore, is
rather ethical than logical, have leaned to
the synthetic side ; while the analytic
harmonizes best with the more precise
and more mechanical bias which seeks
the satisfaction of the understanding.
Some form of pantheism was usually
adopted by the one, while a detached
Creator, working more or less after the
manner of men, was often assumed by
the other.* Gassendi is hardly to be
* Boyle's model of the universe was the Strasburg
clock with au outside artificer. Goethe, on tbo other
hand, saag
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 809
part, was entertained by Bacon, Des-
cartes, Hobbes, Locke, Newton, Boyle,
and their successors, until the chemical
law of multiple proportions enabled Dal-
ton to confer upon it an entirely new sig-
nificance. In our day there are secessions
from the theory, but it still stands firm.
Only a year or two ago Sir William
Thomson, with characteristic penetra-
tion, sought to determine the sizes of the
atoms, or rather to fix the limits between
which their sizes lie ; while only last year
the discourses of Williamson and Maxwell
illustrate the present hold of the doctrine
upon the foremost scientific minds.
What these atoms, self-moved and self-
posited, can and cannot accomplish in re-
lation to life, is at the present moment
the subject of profound scientific thought.
I doubt the legitimacy of Maxwell's
logic ; but it is impossible not to feel
the ethic glow with which his lecture
concludes. There is, moreover, a Lucre-
tian grandeur in his description of the
steadfastness of the atoms : — " Natural
causes, as we know, are at work, which
tend to modify, if they do not at length
destroy, all the arrangements and dimen-
sions of the earth and the whole solar
system. But though in the course of
ages catastrophes have occurred and
may yet occur in the heavens, though
ancient systems may be dissolved and
new systems evolved out of their ruins,
the molecules out of which these systems
are built, the foundation stones of the
material universe, remain unbroken and
unworn."
Ninety years subsequent to Gassendi
the doctrine of bodily instruments, as it
may be called, assumed immense im-
portance in the hands of Bishop Butler,
who, in his famous " Analogy of Reli-
gion," developed, from his own point of
view, and with consummate sagacity, a
similar idea. The bishop still influences
superior minds ; and it will repay us to
dwell for a moment on his views. He
draws the sharpest distinction between
our real selves and our bodily instru-
ments. He does not, as far as I re-
member, use the word soul, possibly ber
cause the term was so hackneyed in his
day, as it had been for many generations
previously. But he speaks of "living
powers," "perceiving" or "percipient
powers," " moving agents," " ourselves,"
in the same sense as we should employ
the term soul. He dwells upon the fact
that limbs may be removed and mortal
diseases assail the body, while the mind,
almost up to the moment of death, re-
ranked with either. Having formally
acknowledged God as the first great
cause, he immediately drops the idea,
applies the known laws of mechanics to
the atoms, and thence deduces all vital
phenomena. God who created earth and
water, plants and animals, produced in
the first place a definite number of atoms,
which constituted the seed of all things.
Then began that series of combinations
and decompositions which goes on at the
present day, and which will continue in
the future. The principle of every change
resides in matter. In artificial produc-
tions the moving principle is different
from the material worked upon ; but in
nature the agent works within, being the
most active and mobile part of the ma-
terial itself. Thus this bold ecclesiastic,
without incurring the censure of the
Church or the world, contrives to out-
strip Mr. Darwin. The same cast of
mind which caused him to detach the
Creator from his universe led him also
to detach the soul from the bod)', though
to the body he ascribes an influence so
large as to render the soul almost unne-
cessary. The aberrations of reason were
in his view an affair of the material brain.
Mental disease is brain-disease ; but
then the immortal reason sits apart, and
cannot be touched by the disease. The
errors of madness are errors of the in-
strument, not of the performer.
It may be more than a mere result of
education, connecting itself probably with
the deeper mental structure of the two
men, that the idea of Gassendi, above
enunciated, is substantially the same as
that expressed by Prof. Clerk Maxwell at
the close of the very noble lecture deliv-
ered by him at Bradford last year. Ac-
cording to both philosophers, the atoms,
if I understand aright, are the prepared
materials^ the " manufactifred articles,"
which, formed by the skill of the High-
est, produce by their subsequent inter-
action all the phenomena of the material
world. There seems to be this difference,
however, between Gassendi and Maxwell.
The one postulates, the other infers his
first cause. In his manufactured articles,
Prof. Maxwell finds the basis of an in-
duction which enables him to scale phil-
osophical heights considered inaccessible
by Kant, and to take the logical step
from the atoms to their Maker.
The atomic doctrine, in whole or in
" Ihm ziemt's die Welt im Innern zu bewegen,
Natur in sich, sich in Natur zu hegen."
The same repugnance to the clcckmaker conception is
maai£i3t in Carlyle.
8 10 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
mains clear. He refers to sleep and to
swoon, where the " living powers " are
suspended but not destroyed. He con-
siders it quite as easy to conceive of an
existence out of our bodies as in them ;
that we may animate a succession of
bodies, the dissolution of all of them
having no more tendency to dissolve our
real selves, or " deprive us of living facul-
ties— the faculties of perception and ac-
tion — than the dissolution of any foreign
matter which we are capable of receiving
impressions from, or making use of, for
the common occasions of life." This is
the key of the bishop's position. "Our
organized bodies are no more a part of
ourselves than any other matter around
us." In proof of this he calls attention
to the use of glasses, which "prepare ob-
jects " for the "percipient power " ex-
actly as the eye does. The eye itself is
is no more percipient than the glass, and
is quite as much the instrument of the
true self, and also as foreign to the true
, self, as the glass is. " And if we
see with our eyes only in the same man-
ner as we do with glasses, the like may
justly be concluded from analogy of all
our senses."
Lucretius, as you are aware, reached a
precisely opposite conclusion ; and it
certainly would be interesting, if not
profitable, to us all, to hear what he would
or could urge in opposition to the reason-
ing of the bishop. As a brief discussion
of the point will enable us to see the
bearings of an important question, I will
here permit a disciple of Lucretius to try
the strength of the bishop's position, and
then allow the bishop to retaliate, with
the view of rolling back, if he can, the
difficulty upon Lucretius. Each shall
state his case fully and frankly ; and you
shall be umpire between them. The ar-
gument might proceed in this fashion : —
"Subjected to the test of mental pre-
sentation {Vorstellimg) your views, most
honoured prelate, would present to many
minds a great, if not an insuperable diffi-
culty. You speak of 'living powers,'
'percipient or perceiving powers,' and
' ourselves ; ' but can you form a mental
picture of any one of these apart from
the organism through which it is sup-
posed to act ? Test yourself honestly,
and see whether you possess any faculty
that would enable you to form such a
conception. The true self has a local
habitation in each of us ; thus localized,
must it not possess a form 1 If so, what
form ? Have you ever for a moment
realized it ? When a leg is amputated
the body is divided ino two parts ; is
the true self in both of them or in one .-*
Thomas Aquinas might say in both ; but
not you, for you appeal to the con-
sciousness associated with one of the
two parts to prove that the other is for-
eign matter. Is consciousness, then, a
necessary element of the true self.? If
so, what do you say to the case of the
whole body being deprived of conscious-
ness "i If not, then on what grounds do
you deny any portion of the true self to
the severed limb 1 It seems very singu-
lar that, from the beginning to the end
of your admirable book (and no one ad-
mires its sober strength more than I do),
you never once mention the brain or ner-
vous system. You begin at one end of
the body, and show that its parts may be
removed without prejudice to the per-
ceiving power. What if you begin at the
other end, and remove, instead of the
bg, the brain ? The body, as before, is
divided into two parts ; but both are now
in the same predicament, and neither
can be appealed to to prove that the other
is foreign matter. Or, instead of going
so far as to remove the brain itself, let a
certain portion of its bony covering be
removed, and let a rhythmic series of
pressure and relaxations of pressure
be applied to the soft substance. At
every pressure ' the faculties of per-
ception and of action ' vanish ; at every
relaxation of pressure they are restored.
Where, during the intervals of pressure,
is the perceiving power } I once had
the discharge of a Leyden battery passed
unexpectedly through me : I felt nothing,
but was simply blotted out of conscious
existence for a sensible interval. Where
was my true self during that interval ?
Men who have recovered from lightning-
stroke have been much longer in the
same state, and indeed in cases of ordi-
nary concussion of the brain, days may
elapse during which no experience is
registered in consciousness. Where is
the man himself during the period of in-
sensibility 1 You may say that I beg
the question when I assume the man to
have been unconscious, that he was
really conscious all the time, and has
simply forgotten what had occurred to
him. In reply to this, I can only say
that no one need shrink from the worst
tortures that superstition ever invented
if only so felt and so remembered. I do
not think your theory of instruments
groes at all to the bottom of the matter.
A telegraph operator has his intruments,
by means of which he converses with
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 8ii
the world ; our bodies possess a nervous
system, which plays a similar part be-
tween the perceiving powers and exter-
nal things. Cut the wires of the oper-
ator, break his battery, demagnetize his
needle : by this means you certainly
sever his connection with the world ; but
inasmuch as these are real instruments,
their destruction does not touch the man
who uses them. The operator survives,
a?td he knows that he survives. What is
it, I would ask, in the human system that
answers to this conscious survival of the
operator when the battery of the brain is
so disturbed as to produce insensibility,
or when it is destroyed altogether .''
" Another consideration, which you
may consider slight, presses upon me with
some force. The brain may change from
health to disease, and through such a
change the most exemplary man may be
converted into a debauchee or a murder-
er. My very noble and approved good
master had, as you know, threatenings of
lewdness introduced into his brain by
his jealous wife's philter ; and sooner
than permit himself to run even the risk
of yielding to these base promptings he
slew himself. How could the hand of Lu-
cretius have been thus turned against him-
self if the real Lucretius remained as be-
fore ? Can the brain or can it not act in
this distempered way without the inter-
vention of the immortal reason ? If it can,
then it is a prime mover which requires
only healthy regulation to render it rea-
sonably self-acting, and there is no ap-
parent need of your immortal reason at
all. If it cannot, then the immortal rea-
son, by its mischievous activity in operat-
ing upon a broken instrument, must have
the credit of committing every imaginable
extravagance and crime. I think, if you
will allow me to say so, that the gravest
consequences are likely to flow from
your estimate of the body. To regard
the brain as you would a staff or an eye-
glass— to shut your eyes to all its mys-
tery, to the perfect correlation that reigns
between its condition and our conscious-
ness, to the fact that a slight excess or
defect of blood in it produces that very
swoon to which you refer, and that in re-
lation to it our meat and drink and air and
exercise have a perfectly transcendental
value and significance — to forget all
this does, I think, open a way to innu-
merable errors in our habits of life, and
may possibly in some cases initiate and
foster that very disease, and consequent
mental ruin, which a wiser appreciation
of this mysterious organ would have
avoided."
I can imagine the bishop thoughtful
after hearing this argument. He was not
the man to allow anger to mingle with
the consideration of a point of this kind.
After due consideration, and having
strengthened himself by that honest con-
templation of the facts which was habit-
ual with him, and which includes the de-
sire to give even adverse facts their due
weight, I can suppose the bishop to pro-
ceed thus : — " You will remember that
in the 'Analogy of Religion,' of which
you have so kindly spoken, I did not pro-
fess to prove anything absolutely, and
that I over and over again acknowledged
and insisted on the smallness of our
knowledge, or rather the depth of our
ignorance, as regards the whole system
of the universe. My object was to show
my deistical friends who set forth so
eloquently the beauty and beneficence of
Nature and the Ruler thereof, while they
had nothing but scorn for the so-called
absurdities of the Christian scheme, that
they were in no better condition than we
were, and that for every difficulty they
found upon our side, quite as great a
difficulty was to be found on theirs.
I will now with your permission adopt
a similar line of argument. You are
a Lucretian, and from the combina-
tion and separation of atoms deduce all
terrestrial things, including organic forms
and their phenomena. Let me tell you
in the first instance how far I am pre-
pared to go with you. I admit that you
can build crystalline forms out of this
play of molecular force ; that the dia-
mond, amethyst, and snow-star are truly
wonderful structures which are thus pro-
duced. I will go further and acknowl-
edge that even a tree or flower might in
this way be organized. Nay, if you can
show me an animal without sensation, I
will concede to you that it also might be
put together by the suitable play of mo-
lecular force.
" Thus far our way is clear, but now
comes my difficulty. Your atoms are
individually without sensation, much
more are they without intelligence. May
I ask you, then, to try your hand upon
this problem. Take your dead hydrogen
atoms, your dead oxygen atoms, your
dead carbon atoms, your dead nitrogen
atoms, your dead phosphorus atoms, and
all the other atoms, dead as grains of
shot, of which the brain is formed. Im-
agine them separate and sensationless ;
Si 2 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
observe them running together and form-
ing all imaginable combinations. This,
as a purely mechanical process, is seeable
by the mind. But can you see, or dream,
or in any way imagine, how out of that
mechanical act, and from these individu-
ally dead atoms, sensation, thought, and
emotion are to arise ? You speak of
the difficulty of mental presentation in
my case ; is it less in yours ? I am not all
bereft of this Vorstellungs-kraft of which
you speak. I can follow a particle of
musk until it reaches the olfactory nerve ;
I can follow the waves of sound until
their tremors reach the water of the laby-
rinth, and set the otoliths and Corti's
fibres in motion ; I can also visualize the
waves of ether as they cross the eye and
hit the retina. Nay, more, I am able to
follow up to the central organ the motion
thus imparted at the periphery, and to see
in idea the very molecules of the brain
thrown into tremors. My insight is not
baflBed by these physical processes.
What baffles me, what I find unimagi-
nable, transcending every faculty I pos-
sess— transcending, I humbly submit,
every faculty j^?^ possess — is the notion
that out of those physical tremors you can
extract things so utterly incongruous with
them as sensation, thought, and emotion.
You may say, or think, that this issue of
consciousness from the clash of atoms is
not more incongruous than the flash of
light from the union of oxygen and hy-
drogen. But I beg to say that it is. For
such incongruity as the flash possesses
is that which I now force upon your at-
tention. The flash is an affair of con-
sciousness, the objective counterpart of
which is a vibration. It is a flash only
by our interpretation. You are the cause
of the apparent incongruity ; and you
are the thing that piizzles me. I need
not remind you that the great Leibnitz
felt the difficulty which I feel, and that
to get rid of this monstrous deduction of
life from death he displaced your atoms
by his monads, and which were more or
less perfect mirrors of the universe, and
out of the summation and integration of
which he supposed all the phenomena of
life — sentient, intellectual, and emo-
tional— to arise.
" Your difficulty, then, as I see you are
ready to admit, is quite as great as mine.
You cannot satisfy the human under-
standing in its demand for logical con-
tinuity between molecular processes and
the phenomena of consciousness. This
is a rock on which materialism must in-
evitably split whenever it pretends to be
a complete philosophy of life. What is
the moral, my Lucretian ? You and I are
not likely to indulge in ill-temper in the
discussion of these great topics, where
we see so much room for honest differ-
ences of opinion. But there are people
of less wit, or more bigotry (I say it with
humility) on both sides, who are ever
ready to mingle anger and vituperation
with such discussions. There are, for
example, writers of note and influence at
the present day who are not ashamed to
assume the ' deep personal sin ' of a
great logician to be the cause of his un-
belief in a theologic dogma. And there
are others who hold that we, who cherish
our noble Bible, wrought as it has been
into the constitution of our forefathers,
and by inheritance into us, must necessa-
rily be hypocritical and insincere. Let
us disavow and discountenance such
people, cherishing the unwavering faith
that what is good and true in both our
arguments will be preserved for the ben-
efit of humanity, while all that is bad or
false will disappear."
It is worth remarking that in one re-
spect the bishop was a product of his
age. Long previous to his day the nature
of the soul had been so favourite and
general a topic of discussion, that when
the students of the University of Paris
wished to know the leanings of a new
professor, they at once requested him to
lecture upon the soul. About the time
of Bishop Butler the question was not
only agitated but extended. It was seen
by the clear-witted men who entered this
arena that many of their best arguments
applied equally to brutes and men. The
bishop's arguments were of this charac-
ter. He saw it, admitted it, accepted the
consequences, and boldly embraced the
whole animal world in his scheme of
immortality.
Bishop Butler accepted with unwaver-
ing trust the chronology of the Old Tes-
tament, describing it as "confirmed by
the natural and civil history of the world,
collected from common historians, from
the state of the earth, and from the late
inventions of arts and sciences." These
words mark progress : they must seem
somewhat hoary to the bishop's succes-
sors of to-day.* It is hardly necessary to
inform you that since his time the do-
main of the naturalist has been immense-
ly extended — the whole science of geol-
* Only to some ; for there are dignitaries who even
now speak of the eartli's rocky crust as so much build-
ing material prepared for man at the Creation. Surely
it IS time that this loose language should cease.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 813
" A section," says Mr. Huxley, "a hun-
ogy, with its astounding revelations re-
garding the life of the ancient earth,
having been created. The rigidity of old
conceptions has been relaxed, the public
mimd being rendered gradually tolerant
of the idea that not for six thousand, nor
for sixty thousand, nor for six thousand
thousand, but for aeons embracing untold
millions of years, this earth has been the
theatre of life and death. The riddle of
the rocks has been read by the geologist
and palaeontologist, from sub-cambrian
depths to the deposits thickening over
the sea-bottoms of to-day. And upon the
leaves of that stone book are, as you
know, stamped the characters, plainer
and surer than those formed by the ink
of history, which carry the mind back
into abysses of past time compared with
which the periods which satisfied Bishop
Butler cease to have a visual angle.
Everybody now knows this ; all men
admit it ; still, when they were first
broached these verities of science found
loud-tongued denunciators, who pro-
claimed not only their baselessness con-
sidered scientifically, but their immor-
ality considered as questions of ethics
and religion : the Book of Genesis had
stated the question in a different fashion ;
and science must necessarily go to pieces
when it clashed with this authority. And
as the seed of the thistle produces a
thistle, and nothing else, so these object-
ors scatter their germs abroad, and re-
produce their kind, ready to play again
the part of their intellectual progenitors,
to show the same virulence, the same
ignorance, to achieve for a time the same
success, and finally to suffer the same
inexorable defeat. Sure the time must
come at last when human nature in its
entirety, whose legitimate demands it is
admitted science alone cannot satisfy,
will find interpreters and expositors oia
different stamp from those rash and ill-
informed persons who have been hither-
to so ready to hurl themselves against
every new scientific revelation, lest it
should endanger what they are pleased
to consider theirs.
The lode of discovery once struck, those
petrified forms in which life was at one
time active, increased to multitudes and
demanded classification. The general
fact soon became evident that none but
the simplest forms of life lie lowest down,
that as we climb higher and higher
among the superimposed strata more per-
fect forms appear. The change, however,
from form to form was not continuous —
but by steps, some small, some great.
dred feet thick will exhibit at different
heights a dozen species of ammonite,
j none of which passes beyond its partic-
j ular zone of limestone, or clay, into the
I zone below it, or into that above it." In
i the presence of such facts it was not pos-
I sible to avoid the question, Have these
j forms, showing, though in broken stages
land with many irregularities, this unmis-
j takable general advance, been subjected
to no continuous law of growth or varia-
tion ? Had our education been purely
j scientific, or had it been sufficiently de-
tached from influences which, however
ennobling in another domain, have al-
j ways proved hindrances and delusions
j when introduced as factors into the do-
[ main of physics, the scientific mind never
j could have swerved from the search for
I a law of growth, or allowed itself to accept
[the anthropomorphism which regarded
each successive stratum as a kind of
I mechanic's bench for the manufacture of
new species out of all relation to the old.
j Biassed, however, by their previous ed-
j ucation, the great majority of naturalists
invoked a special creative act to account
j for the appearance of each new group of
'organisms. Doubtless there were num-
I bers who were clear-headed enough to
I see that this was no explanation at all,
that in point of fact it was an attempt, by
[the introduction of a greater difficulty, to
j account for a less. But having nothing
to offer in the way of explanation, they
! for the most part held their peace. Still
j the thoughts of reflecting men naturally
I and necessarily simmered round the
I question. De Maillet,'a contemporary
j of Newton, has been brought into notice
1 by Prof. Huxley as one who " had a no-
I tion of the modifiability of living forms."
I In my frequent conversations with him,
! the late Sir Benjamin Brodie, a man of
{high philosophic mind, often drew my at-
tention to the fact that, as early as 1794,
1 Charles Darwin's grandfather was the
I pioneer of Charles Darwin. In 1801, and
;in subsequent years, the celebrated La-
j marck, who produced so profound an im-
I pression on the public mind through the
I vigorous exposition of his views by the
i author of " Vestiges of Creation," en-
\ deavoured to show the development of
i species out of changes of habit and ex-
i ternal condition. In 1813, Dr. Wells, the
'. founder of our present theory of dew,
I read before the Royal Society a paper in
j which, to use the words of Mr. Darwin,
"he distinctly recognizes the principle
of natural selection ; and this is the first
8 14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
recognition that has been indicated."
The thoroughness and skill with which
Wells pursued his work, and the obvious
independence of his character, rendered
him long ago a favourite with me ; and it
gave me the liveliest pleasure to alight
upon this additional testimony to his
penetration. Prof. Grant, Mr. Patrick
Matthew, Von Buch, the author of the
" Vestiges," D'Halloy, and others,* by the
enunciation of views more or less clear
and correct, showed that the question
had been fermenting long prior to the
year 1858, when Mr. Darwin and Mr.
Wallace simultaneously but independent-
ly placed their closely concurrent views
upon the subject before the Linnaean So-
ciety.
These papers were followed in 1859 by
the publication of the first edition of
"The Origin of Species." All great
things come slowly to the birth. Coper-
nicus, as I informed you, pondered his
great work for thirty-three years. New-
ton for nearly twenty years kept the idea
of Gravitation before his mind ; for
twenty years also he dwelt upon his dis-
covery of Fluxions, and doubtless would
have continued to make it the object of
his private thought had he not found that
Leibnitz was upon his track. Darwin for
two-and-twenty years pondered the prob-
lem of the origin of species, and doubt-
less he would have continued to do so
had he not found Wallace upon his track.f
A concentrated but full and powerful epit-
ome of his labours was the consequence.
The book was by no means an easy one ;
and probably not one in every score of
those who then attacked it had read its
pages through, or were competent to
grasp their significance if they had. I
do not say this merely to discredit them ;
for there were in those days some really
eminent scientific men, entirely raised
above the heat of popular prejudice, will-
ing to accept any conclusion that science
had to offer, provided it was duly backed
by fact and argument, and who entirely
mistook Mr. Darwin's views. In fact
the work needed an expounder ; and it
found one in Mr. Huxley. I know noth-
ing more admirable in the way of scien-
tific exposition than those early articles
of his on the origin of species. He
swept the curve of discussion through
* In 185s Mr. Herbert Spencer (" Principles of
Psychology," 2nd edit. vol. i. p. 465) expressed " the
belief that life under all its forms has arisen by an un-
broken evolution, and through the instrumentality of
what are called natural causes."
t The behaviour of Mr. Wallace in relation to this
subject has been dignified in the highest degree.
the really significant points of the sub-
ject, enriched his exposition with pro-
found original remarks and reflections,
often summing up in a single pithy sen-
tence an argument which a less compact
mind would have spread over pages. But
there is one impression made by the
book itself which no exposition of it,
however luminous, can convey ; and that
is the impression of the vast amount of
labour, both of observation and of
thought, implied in its production. Let
us glance at its principles.
It is conceded on all hands that what
are called varieties are continually pro-
duced. The rule is probably without ex-
ception. No chick and no child is in all
respects and particulars the counterpart
of its brother or sister ; and in such dif-
ferences we have "variety" incipient.
No naturalist could tell how far this vari-
ation could be carried ; but the great
mass of them held that never by any
amount of internal or external change,
nor by the mixture of both, could the off-
spring of the same progenitor so far de-
viate from each other as to constitute
different species. The function of the
experimental philosopher is to combine
the conditions of nature and to produce
her results; and this was the method of
Darwin.* He made himself acquainted
with what could, without any matter of
doubt, be done in the way of producing
variation. He associated himself with
pigeon-fanciers — bought, begged, kept,
and observed every breed that he could
obtain. Though derived from a common
stock, the diversities of these pigeons
were such that "a score of them might
be chosen which, if shown to an ornith-
ologist, and he were told that they were
wild birds, would certainly be ranked by
him as well-defined species." The sim-
ple* principle which guides the pigeon-
fancier, as it does the cattle-breeder, is
the selection of some variety that strikes
his fancy, and the propagation of this
variety by inheritance. With his eye
still upon the particular appearance
which he wishes to exaggerate, he selects
it as it reappears in successive broods,
and thus adds increment to increment
until an astonishing amount of diver-
gence from the parent type is effected.
Man in this case does not produce the
elements of the variation. He simply ob-
* The first step only towards experimental demon-
stration has been taken. Experiments now begun
might, a couple of centuries hence, furnish data of in-
calculable value, which ought to be supplied to the
science of the future
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 815
with imaginary, but with true causes ;
nor can we fail to discern what vast
modifications may be produced by nat-
ural selection in periods sufficiently long.
Each individual increment may resemble
what mathematicians call a " differen-
tial " (a quantity indefinitely small) ; but
definite and great changes may obviously
be produced by the integration of these
infinitesimal quantities through practi-
cally infinite time.
If Darwin, like Bruno, rejects the no-
tion of creative power acting after hu-
man fashion, it certainly is not because he
is unacquainted with the numberless ex-
quisite adaptations in which this notion of
a supernatural artificer has founded. His
book is a repository of the most startling
facts of this description. Take the mar-
vellous observation which he cites from
Dr. Criiger, where a bucket with an aper-
ture, serving as a spout, is formed in an
orchid. Bees visit the flower : in eager
search of material for their combs, they
push each other into the bucket, the
drenched ones escaping from their in-
voluntary bath by the spout. Here they
rub their backs against the viscid stig-
ma of the flower and obtain glue ; then
against the pollen-masses, which are thus
stuck to the back of the bee and carried
away. " When the bee, thus provided,
flies to another flower, or to the same
flower a second time, and is pushed by
its comrades into the bucket, and then
crawls out by the passage, the pollen-
mass upon its back necessarily comes
first into contact with the viscid stigma,"
which takes up the pollen ; and this is
how that orchid is fertilized. Or take
this other case of the Catasetiun. " Bees
visit these flowers in order to gnaw the
labellum ; on doing this they inevitably
touch a long, tapering, sensitive projec-
tion. This, when touched, transmits a
sensation or vibi*ation to a certain mem-
brane, which is instantly ruptured, set-
ting free a spring, by which the pollen-
mass is shot forth like an arrow in the
right direction, and adheres by its viscid
extremity to the back of the bee." In
this way the fertilizing pollen is spread
abroad.
It is the mind thus stored with the
choicest materials of the teleologist that
rejects teleology, seeking to refer these
wonders to natural causes. They illus-
trate, according to him, the method of na-
ture, not the "technic" of a man-like
artificer. The beauty of flowers is due
to natural selection. Those that distin-
guish themselves by vividly contrasting
serves them, and by selection adds them |
together until the required result has
been obtained. " No man," says Mr.
Darwin, " would ever try to make a fan-
tail till he saw a pigeon with a tail devel-
oped in some slight degree in an unusual
manner, or a pouter until he saw a pigeon
with a crop of unusual size," Thus na-
ture gives the hint, man acts upon it, and
by the law of inheritance exaggerates the
deviation.
Having thus satisfied himself by indu-
bitable facts that the organism of an ani-
mal or of a plant (for precisely the same
treatment applies to plants) is to some
extent plastic, he passes from variation
under domestication to variation under
nature. Hitherto we have dealt with the
adding together of small changes by the :
conscious selection of man. Can Nature i
thus select .'' Mr. Darwin's answer is, 1
*' Assuredly she can." The number of-
living things produced is far in excess of
the number that can be supported ;
hence at some period or other of their
lives there must be a struggle for exist-
ence ; and what is the infallible result ?
If one organism were a perfect copy of
the other in regard to strength, skill, and
agility, external conditions would decide.
But this is not the case. Here we have
the fact of variety offering itself to na-
ture, as in the former instance it offered
itself to man ; and those varieties which
are least competent to cope with sur-
rounding conditions will iniallibly give
way to those that are competent. To
use a familiar proverb, the weakest comes
to the wall. But the triumphant fraction
again breeds to over-production, trans-
mitting the qualities which secured its
maintenance, but transmitting them in
different degrees. The struggle for food
again supervenes, and those to whom
the favourable quality has been trans-
mitted in excess will assuredly triumph.
It is easy to see that we have here the
addition of increments favourable to the
individual still more rigorously carried
out than in the case of domestication ;
for not only are unfavourable specimens
not selected by nature, but they are de-
stroyed. This is what Mr. Darwin calls
" natural selection," which "acts by the
preservation and accumulation of small
inherited modifications, each profitable
to the preserved being." With this idea
he interpenetrates and leavens the vast
store of facts that he and others have
collected. We cannot, without shutting
our eyes through fear or prejudice, fail
to see that Darwin is here dealing, not
8i6 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
colours from the surroundinsf green
leaves are most readily seen, most fre-
quently visited by insects, most often
fertilized, and hence most favoured by
natural selection. Coloured berries also
readily attract the attention of birds and
beasts, which feed upon them, spread
their manured seeds abroad, thus giving
trees and shrubs possessing such berries
a greater chance in the struggle for ex-
istence.
With profound analytic and synthetic
skill, Mr. Darwin investigates the cell-
making instinct of the hive-bee. His
method of dealing with it is representa-
tive. He falls back from the more per-
fectly to the less perfectly developed
instinct — from the hive-bee to the
humble-bee, which uses its own co-
coon as a comb, and to classes of bees
of intermediate skill, endeavouring to
show how the passage might be gradu-
ally made from the lowest to the highest.
The saving of wax is the most important
point in the economy of bees. Twelve
to fifteen pounds of dry sugar are said to
be needed for the secretion of a single
pound of wax. The quantities of nectar
necessary for the wax must therefore be
vast ; and every improvement of con-
structive instinct which results in the
saving of wax is a direct profit to the in-
sect's life. The time that would otherwise
be devoted to the making of wax is now
devoted to the gathering and storing of
honey for winter food. He passes from
the humble-bee with its rude cells,
through the Melipona with its more ar-
tistic cells, to the hive-bee with its as-
tonishing architecture. The bees place
themselves at equal distances apart upon
the .wax, sweep and excavate equal
spheres round the selected points. The
spheres intersect, and the planes of inter-
section are built up with thin laminae.
Hexasfonal cells are thus formed. This
mode of treating such questions is, as I
have said, representative. He habitually
retires from the more perfect and com-
plex, to the less perfect and simple, and
carries you with him through stages of
perfecting^ adds increment to increment
of infinitesimal change, and in this way
gradually breaks down your reluctance to
admit that the exquisite climax of the
whole could be a result of natural selec-
tion.
Mr. Darwin shirks no.'difficulty ; and,
saturated as the subject was with his own
thought, he must have known, better
than his critics, the weakness as well as
the strength of his theory. This of
course would be of little avail were his
object a temporary dialectic victory in-
stead of the establishment of a truth
which he means to be everlasting. But
he takes no pains to disguise the weak-
ness he has discerned ; nay, he takes
every pains to bring it into the strongest
light. His vast resources enable him to
cope with objections started by himself
and others, so as to leave the final im-
pression upon the reader's mind that if
they be not completely answered they
certainly are not fatal. Their negative
force being thus destroyed, you are free
to be influenced by the vast positive mass
of evidence he is able to bring before
you. This largeness of knowledge and
readiness of resource render Mr. Darwin
the most terrible of antagonists. Accom-
plished naturalists have levelled heavy
and sustained criticisms against him — •
not always with the view of fairly weigh-
ing his theory, but with the express in-
tention of exposing its weak points only.
This does not irritate him. He treats
every objection with a soberness and
thoroughness which even Bishop Butler
might be proud to imitate, surrounding
each fact with its appropriate detail,
placing it in its proper relations, and
usually giving it a significance which, as
long as it was kept isolated, failed to ap-
pear. This is done without a trace of
ill-temper. He moves over the subject
with the passionless strength of a gla-
cier ; and the grinding of the rocks is
not always without a counterpart in the
logical pulverization of the objector. But
though in handling this mighty theme all
passion has been stilled, there is an emo-
tion of the intellect incident to the dis-
cernment of new truth which often
colours and warms the pages of Mr. Dar-
win. His success has been great ; and
this implies not only the solidity of his
work, but the preparedness of the public
mind for such a revelation. On this
head a remark of Agassiz impressed me
more than anything else. Sprung from
a race of theologians, this celebrated man
combated to the last the theory of natu-
ral selection. One of the many times I
had the pleasure of meeting him in the
United States was at Mr. Winthrop's
beautiful residence at Brookline, near
Boston. Rising from luncheon, we all
halted as if by a common impulse in front
of a window, and continued there a dis-
cussion which had 'oeen started at table.
The maple was in its autumn glory ; and
the exquisite beauty of the scene outside
seemed, in my case, to interpenetrate
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 817
without disturbance the intellectual ac-
tion. Earnestly, almost sadly, Agassiz
turned and said to the gentlemen stand-
ing round, " I confess that I was not pre-
pared to see this theory received as it has
been by the best intellects of our time.
Its success is greater than I could have
thought possible."
In our day great generalizations have
been reached. The theory of the origin
of species is but one of them. Another,
of still wider grasp and more radical sig-
nificance, is the doctrine of the Conser-
vation of Energy, the ultimate philosophi-
cal issues of which are as yet but dimly
seen — that doctrine which " binds nature
fast in fate " to an extent not hitherto
recognized, exacting from every antece-
dent its equivalent consequent, from
every consequent its equivalent antece-
dent, and bringing vital as well as physi-
cal phenomena under the dominion of
that law of causal connection which, as
far as the human understanding has yet
pierced, asserts itself everywhere in na-
ture. Long in advance of all definite ex-
periment upon the subject, the constancy
and indestructibility of matter had been
affirmed ; and all subsequent experience
justified the affirmation. Later researches
extended the attribute of indestructibility
to force. This idea, applied in the first
instance to inorganic, rapidly embraced
organic nature. The vegetable world,
though drawing almost all its nutriment
from invisible sources, was proved in-
competent to generate anew either mat-
ter or force. Its ma'.ter is for the most
part transmuted air ; its force trans-
formed solar force. The animal world
was proved to be equally uncreative, all
its motive energies being referred to the
combustion of its food. The activity of
each animal as a whole was proved to be
the transferred activitiefs of its molecules.
The muscles were shown to be stores of
mechanical force, potential until unlocked
by the nerves, and then resulting in mus-
cular contractions. The speed at which
messages fly to and fro along the nerves
was determined, and found to be, not as
had been previously supposed, equal to
that of light or electricity, but less than
the speed of a flying eagle.
This was the work of the physicist :
then came the conquests of the compara-
tive anatomist and physiologist, revealing
the structure of every animal, and the
function of every organ in the whole bio-
logical series, from the lowest zoophyte up
to man. The nervous system had been
made the object of profound and contin-
LIVING AGE. VOL. VII. 364
ued study, the wonderful and, at bottom,
entirely mysterious controlling power
which it exercises over the whole organ-
ism, physical and mental, being recog-
nized more and more. Thought could
not be kept back from a subject so pro-
foundly suggestive. Besides the physical
life dealt with by Mr. Darwin, there is a
psychical life presenting similar grada-
tions, and asking equally for a solution.
How are the different grades and orders
of mind to be accounted for ? What is
the principle of growth of that mysteri-
ous power which on our planet culmi-
nates in Reason ? These are questions
which, though not thrusting themselves
so forcibly upon the attention of the
general public, had not only occupied
many reflecting minds, but had been for-
mally broached by one of them before
the " Origin of Species" appeared.
With the mass of materials furnished
by the physicist and physiologist in his
hands, Mr. Herbert Spencer, twenty
years ago, sought to graft upon this
basis a system of psychology ; and two
years ago a second and greatly amplified
edition of his work appeared. Those
who have occupied themselves with the
beautiful experiments of Plateau, will
remember that when two spherules of
olive-oil suspended in a mixture of alco-
hol and water of the same density as the
oil are brought together, they do not im-
mediately unite. Something like a pel-
licle appears to be formed around the
drops, the rupture of which is immedi-
ately followed by the coalescence of the
globules into one. There are organisms
whose vital actions are almost as purely
physical as that of these drops of oil.
They come into contact and fuse them-
selves thus together. From such organ-
isms to others a shade higher, and from^
these to others a shade higher still, and
on through an ever-ascending series, Mr.
Spencer conducts his argument. There
are two obvious factors to be here taken
into account — the creature and the me-
dium in which it lives, or, as it is often
expressed, the organism and its environ-
ment. Mr. Spencer's fundamental prin-
ciple is, that between these two factors
there is incessant interaction. The or-
ganism is played upon by the environ-
ment, and is modified to meet the re-
quirements of the environment. Life he
defines to be "a continuous adjustment
of internal relations to external relations."
In the lowest organisms we have a
kind of tactual sense diffused over the
entire body ; then, through impressions
8i8 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
from without and their corresponding
adjustment, special portions of the sur-
face become more responsive to stimuli
than others. The senses are nascent,
the basis of all of them being that simple
tactual sense which the sage Democritus
recognized 2,300 years ago as their com-
mon progenitor. The action of light, in
the first instance, appears to be a mere
disturbance of the chemical processes in
the animal organism, similar to that which
occurs in the leaves of plants. By de-
grees the action becomes localized in a
few pigment-cells, more sensitive to light
than the surrounding tissue. The eye is
here incipient. At first it is merely ca-
pable of revealing differences of light
and shade produced by bodies close at
hand. Followed as the interception of
the light is in almost all cases by the con-
tact of the closely adjacent opaque body,
sight in this condition becomes a kind of
" anticipatory touch." The adjustment
continues ; a slight bulging out of the
epidermis over the pigment-granules su-
pervenes. A lens is incipient, and,
through the operation of infinite adjust-
ments, at length reaches the perfection
that it displays in the hawk and the
eagle. So of the other senses ; they are
special differentiations of a tissue which
was originally vaguely sensitive all over.
With the development of the senses
the adjustments between the organism
and its environment gradually extend in
space, a multiplication of experiences and
a corresponding modification of conduct
being the result. The adjustments also
extend in thne, covering continually
greater intervals. Along with this ex-
tension in space and time, the adjust-
ments also increase in speciality and
complexity, passing through the various
grades of brute life and prolonging them-
selves into the domain of reason. Very
striking are Mr. Spencer's remarks re-
garding the influence of the sense of
touch upon the development of intelli-
gence. This is, so to say, the mother-
tongue of all the senses, into which they
must be translated to be of service to the
organism. Hence its importance. The
parrot is the most intelligent of birds,
and its tactual power is also greatest.
From this sense it gets knowledge unat-
tainable by birds which cannot employ
their feet as hands. The elephant is the
most sagacious of quadrupeds — its tac-
tual range and skill, and the consequent
multiplication of experiences, which it
owes to its wonderfully adaptable trunk,
being the basis of its sagacity. Feline
animals, for a similar cause, are more sa-
gacious than hoofed animals — atone-
ment being to some extent made, in the
case of the horse, by the possession of
sensitive prehensile lips. In the Pri-
mates the evolution of intellect and the
evolution of tactual appendages go hand
in hand. In the most intelligent anthro-
poid apes we find the tactual range and
dehcacy greatly augmented, new avenues
of knowledge being thus opened to the
animal. Man crowns the edifice here,
not only in virtue of his own manipulatory
power, but through the enormous exten-
sion of his range of experience, by the
invention of instruments of precision,
which serve as supplemental senses and
supplemental limbs. The reciprocal ac-
tion of these is finely described and il-
lustrated. That chastened intellectual
emotion to which I have referred in con-
nection with Mr. Darwin is, I should say,
not absent in Mr. Spencer. His illus-
trations possess at times exceeding viv-
idness and force, and from his style on
such occasions it is to be inferred that
the ganglia of this apostle of the under-
standing are sometimes the seat of a
nascent poetic thrill.
It is a fact of supreme importance that
actions, the performance of which at first
requires even painful effort and deliber-
ation, may by habit be rendered automat-
ic. Witness the slow learning of its let-
ters by a child, and the subsequent facil-
ity of reading in a man, when each group
of letters which forms a word is instantly
and without effort fused to a single per-
ception. Instance the billiard-player,
whose muscles of hand and eye, when he
reaches the perfection of his art, are un-
consciously co-ordinated. Instance the
musician, who by practice is enabled to
fuse a multitude of arrangements, audi-
tory, tactual, and muscular, into a process
of automatic manipulation. Combining
such facts with the doctrine of hereditary
transmission, we reach a theory of in-
stinct. A chick, after coming out of the
^g'g, balances itself correctly, runs about,
picks up food, thus showing that it pos-
sesses a power of directing its move-
ments to definite ends. How did the
chick learn this very complex co-ordina-
tion of eye, muscles, and beak 1 It has
not been individually taught ; its per-
sonal experience is nil j but it has the
benefit of ancestral experience. In its
inherited organization are registered all
the powers which it displays at birth. So
also as regards the instinct of the hive-
bee, already referred to. The distance
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 819
at which the insects stand apart when
they sweep their hemispheres and build
their cells is " organically remembered."
Man also carries with him the physical
texture of his ancestry, as well as the
inherited intellect bound up with it. The
defects of intelligence during infancy and
youth are probably less due to a lack of
individual experience than to the fact
that in early life the cerebral organization
is still incomplete. The period necessary
for completion varies with the race and
with the individual. As a round shot
outstrips a rifled one on quitting the
muzzle of the gun, so the lower race in
childhood may outstrip the higher. But
the higher eventually overtakes the lower,
and surpasses it in range. As regards
individuals, we do not always find the
precocity of youth prolonged to mental
power in maturity, while the dulness of
boyhood is sometimes strikingly con-
trasted with the intellectual energy of
after years. Newton, when a boy, was
weakly, and he showed no particular apti-
tude at school ; but in his eighteenth
year he went to Cambridge, and soon
afterwards astonished his teachers by his
power of dealing with geometrical prob-
lems. During his quiet youth his brain
was slowly preparing itself to be the
organ of those energies which he subse-
quently displayed.
By myriad blows (to use a Lucretian
phrase) the image and superscription of
the external world are stamped as states
of consciousness upon the organism, the
depth of the impression depending upon
the number of the blows. When two or
more phenomena occur in the environment
invariably together, they are stamped to
the same depth or to the same relief, and
are indissolubly connected. And here we
come to the threshold of a great question.
Seeing that he could in no way rid him-
self of the consciousness of space and
time, Kant assumed them to be necessary
"forms of thought," the moulds and
shapes into which our intuitions are
thrown, belonging to ourselves solely and
without objective existence. With un-
expected power and success Mr. Spencer
brings the hereditary experience theory,
as he holds it, to bear upon this question.
•' If there exist certain external relations
which are experienced by all organisms
at all instants of their waking lives — re-
lations which are absolutely constant and
universal — there will be established an-
swering internal relations that are abso-
lutely constant and universal. Such re-
liUions we have in those of space and
time. As the substratum of all other re-
lations of the Non-Ego, they must be
responded to by conceptions that are the
substrata of all other relations in the Ego.
Being the constant and infinitely repeated
elements of thought, they must become
the automatic elements of thought — the
elements of thought which it is impos-
sible to get rid of — the 'forms of intui-
tion.'"
Throughout this application and exten-
sion of the " law of inseparable associa-
tion," Mr. Spencer stands on totally dif-
ferent ground from Mr. John Stuart Mill,
invoking the registered experiences of
the race instead of the experiences of the
individual. His overthrow of Mr. Mill's
restriction of experience is, I think, com-
plete. That restriction ignores the power
of organizing experience furnished at the
outset to each individual ; it ignores the
different degrees of this power possessed
by different races and by different indi-
viduals of the same race. Were there
not in the human brain a potency ante-
cedent to all experience, a dog or cat
ought to be as capable of education as a
man. These predetermined internal re-
lations are independent of the experiences
of the individual. The human brain is
the " organized register of infinitely nu-
merous experiences received during the
evolution of life, or rather during the
evolution of that series of organisms
through which the human organism has
been reached. The effects of the most
uniform and frequent of these experi-
ences have been successively bequeathed,
principal and interest, and have slowly
mounted to that high intelligence which
lies latent in the brain of the infant.
Thus it happens that the European in-
herits from twenty to thirty cubic inches
more of brain than the Papuan. Thus it
happens that faculties, as of music, which
scarcely exist in some inferior races, be-
come congenital in superior ones. Thus
it happens that out of savages unable to
count up to the number of their fingers,
and speaking a language containing only
nouns and verbs, arise at length our
Newtons and Shakespeares."
At the outset of this address it was
stated that physical theories which lie
beyond experience are derived by a pro-
cess of abstraction from experience. It
is instructive to note from this point of
view the successive introduction of new
conceptions. The idea of the attraction
of gravitation was preceded by the obser-
vation of the attraction of iron by a mag-
net, and of light bodies by rubbed amber.
820 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
The polarity of magnetism and electricity
appealed to the senses ; and thus became
the substratum of the conception that
atoms and molecules are endowed with
definite, attractive, and repellent poles,
by the play of which definite forms of
crystalline architecture are produced.
Thus molecular force becomes stnictiiral.
It required no great boldness of thought
to extend its play into organic nature,
and to recognize in molecular force the
agency by which both plants and animals
are built up. In this way out of experi-
ence arise conceptions which are wholly
ultra-experiential.
The origination of life is a point
lightly touched upon, if at all, by Mr.
Darwin and Mr. Spencer. Diminishing
gradually the number of progenitors, Mr.
Darwin comes at length to one "primor-
dial form ; " but he does not say, as far
as I remember, how he supposes this
form to have been introduced. He
quotes with satisfaction the words of a
celebrated author and divine who had
"gradually learnt to see that it is just as
noble a conception of the Deity to be-
lieve He created a few original forms, ca-
pable of self-development into other and
needful forms, as to believe that He re-
quired a fresh act of creation to supply
the voids caused by the action of His
laws." What Mr. Darwin thinks of this
view of the introduction of life I do not
know. Whether he does or does not in-
troduce his " primordial form " by a crea-
tive act, I do not know. But the ques-
tion will inevitably be asked, " How came
the form there.'"' With regard to the
diminution of the number of created
forms, one does not see that much advan-
tage is gained by it. The anthropomor-
phism, which it seemed the object of Mr.
Darwin to set aside, is as firmly asso-
ciated with the creation of a few forms as
with the creation of a multitude. We
need clearness and thoroughness here.
Two courses, and two only, are possible.
Either let us open our doors freely to the
conception of creative acts, or, abandon-
ing them, let us radically change our no-
tions of matter. If we look at matter as
pictured by Democritus, and as defined
for generations in our scientific text-
books, the absolute impossibility of any
form of life coming out of it would be
sufficient to render any other hypothesis
preferable ; but the definitions of matter
gives in our text-books were intended to
cover its purely physical and mechanical
properties. And taught as we have been
to regard these definitions as complete,
we naturally and rightly reject the mon-
strous notion that out of such matter any
form of life could possibly arise. But are
the definitions complete? Everything
depends on the answer to be given to this
question. Trace the line of life back-
wards, and see it approaching more and
more to what we call the purely physical
condition. We reach at length those or-
ganisms which I have compared to drops
of oil suspended in a mixture of alcohol
and water. We reach the protogenes of
Haeckel, in which we have a " type dis-
tinguishable from a fragment of albumen
only by its finely granular character."
Can we pause here .'' We break a magnet
and find two poles in each of its frag-
ments. We continue the process of
breaking, but however small the parts,
each carries with it, though enfeebled,
the polarity of the whole. And when we
can break no longer, we prolong the in-
tellectual vision to the polar molecules.
Are we not urged to do something s'lmWdx
in the case of life ? Is there not a temp-
tation to close to some extent with Lucre-
tius, when he affirms that " Nature is
seen to do all things spontaneously of
herself without the meddling of the
gods t " or with Bruno, when he declares
that matter is not " that mere empty ca-
pacity which philosophers have pictured
her to be, but the universal mother who
brings forth all things as the fruit of her
own womb ?" The questions here raised
are inevitable. They are approaching us
with accelerated speed, and it is not a
matter of indifference whether they are
introduced with reverence or irreverence.
Abandoning all disguise, the confession
that I feel bound to make before you is
that I prolong the vision backward across
the boundary of the experimental evi-
dence, and discern in that matter, which j
we in our ignorance and notwithstanding ^
our professed reverence for its Creator
have hitherto covered with opprobrium,
the promise and potency of every form
and quality of life.
The " materialism " here enunciated
may be different from what you suppose,
and I therefore crave your gracious pa-
tience to the end. " The question of an
external world," says Mr. J. S. Mill, " is
the great battle-ground of metaphysics." *
Mr. Mill himself reduces external phe-
nomena to "possibilities of sensation."
Kant, as we have seen, made time and
space " forms " of our own intuitions.
Fichte, having first by the inexorable
* " Examination of Haniilton," p. 154.
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 821
logic of his understanding proved him-
self to be a mere link in that chain of
eternal causation which holds so rigidly
in nature, violently broke the chain by
making nature, and all that it inherits, an
apparition of his own mind.* And it is
by no means easy to combat such no-
tions. For when I say I see you, and
that I have not the least doubt about it,
the reply is, that what I am really con-
scious of is an affection of my own
retina. And if I urge that I can check
my sight of you by touching you, the
retort would be that I am equally trans-
gressing the limits of fact ; for what I
am really conscious of is, not that you
are there, but that the nerves of my hand
have undergone a change. All we hear,
and see, and touch, and taste, and smell,
are, it would be urged, mere variations
of our own condition, beyond which,
even to the extent of a hair's breadth, we
cannot go. That anything answering to
our impressions exists outside of our-
selves is not a fact, but an inference, to
which all validity would be denied by an
idealist like Berkeley, or by a sceptic
like Hume. Mr. Spencer takes another
line. With him, as with the uneducated
man, there is no doubt or question as to
the existence of an external world. But
he differs from the uneducated, who think
that the world really is what conscious-
ness represents it to be. Our states of
consciousness are mere symbols of an
outside entity which produces them and
determines the order of their succession,
but the real nature of which we can
never know.f In fact the whole process
of evolution is the manifestation of a
Power absolutely inscrutable to the in-
tellect of man. As little in our day as in
the days of Job can man by searching
find this Power out. Considered funda-
mentally, it is by the operation of an
insoluble mystery that life is evolved,
* " Bestimmung des Menschen."
t In a paper, at once popular and profound, entitled
"Recent Progress in the Theory of Vision," contained
in the volume of lectures by Helmholtz, published by
Longmans, this symbolism of our states of conscious-
ness is also dwelt upon. The impressions of sense are
the mere sigtis oi external things. In this paper
Helmholtz contends strongly against the view that the
consciousness of space is inborn; and he evidently
doubts the power of the chick to pick up grains of corn
without some preliminary lessons. On this point, he
says, further experiments are needed. Such experi-
ments have been since made by Mr. Spalding, aided, I
believe, in some of his observations by the accomplished
and deeply lamented Lady Amberley ; and they seem
to prove conclusively that the chick does not need a
single moment's tuition to teach it to stand, run, govern
the muscles of its eyes, and peck. Helmholtz, how-
ever, is contending against the notion of pre-established
harmony ; and I am not aware of his views as to the
organization of experiences of race or breed.
species differentiated, and mind unfolded
from their prepotent elements in the im-
measurable past. There is, you will ob-
serve, no every rank materialism here.
The strength of the doctrine of evolu-
tion, consists, not in an experimental
demonstration (for the subject is hardly
accessible to this mode of proof), but in
its general harmony with the method of
nature as hitherto known. From con-
trast, moreover, it derives enormous rela-
tive strength. On the one side we have
a theory (if it could with any propriety
be so called) derived, as were the theo-
ries referred to at the beginning of this
address, not from the study of nature, but
from the observation of men — a theory
which converts the Power whose garment
is seen in the visible universe into an
Artificer, fashioned after the human
model, and acting by broken efforts as
man is seen to act. On the other side
we have the conception that all we see
around us, and all we feel within us —
the phenomena of physical nature as well
as those of the human mind — have their
unsearchable roots in a cosmical life, if
I dare apply the term, an infinitesimal
span of which only is offered to the in-
vestigation of man. And even this span
is only knowable in part. We can trace
the development of a nervous system,
and correlate with it the parallel phe-
nomena of sensation and thought. We
see with undoubting certainty that they
go hand in hand. But we try to soar
in a vacuum the moment we seek to
comprehend the connection between
them. An Archimedean fulcrum is here
required which the human mind cannot
command ; and the effort to solve the
problem, to borrow an illustration from
an illustrious friend of mine, is like the
effort of a man trying to lift himself by
his own waistband. All that has been
here said is to be taken in connection
with this fundamental truth. When
"nascent senses" are spoken of, when
"the differentiation of a tissue at first
vaguely sensitive all over" is spoken of,
and when these processes are associated
with " the modification of an organism by
its environment," the same parallelism,
without contact, or even approach to
contact, is implied. There is no fusion
possible between the two classes of facts
— no motor energy in the intellect of
man to carry it without logical rupture
from the one to the other.
Further, the doctrine of evolution de-
rives man, in his totality, from the in-
teraction of organism and environment
82 2 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
through countless ages past. The human
understanding, for example — the faculty
which Mr. Spencer has turned so skil-
fully round upon its own antecedents —
is itself a result of the play between or-
ganism and environment through cosmic
ranges of time. Never surely did pre-
scription plead so irresistible a claim.
But then it comes to pass that, over and
above his understanding, there are many
other things appertaining to man whose
prescriptive rights are quite as strong as
that of the understanding itself. It is a
result, for example, of the play of organ-
ism and environment that sugar is sweet
and that aloes are bitter, that the smell
of henbane differs from the perfume of
a rose. Such facts of consciousness (for
which, by the way, no adequate reason
has ever yet been rendered) are quite as
old as the understanding itself ; and
many other things can boast an equally
ancient origin. Mr. Spencer at one place
refers to that most powerful of passions
— the amatory passion — as one which,
when it first occurs, is antecedent to all
relative experience whatever ; and we
may pass its claim as being at least as
ancient and as valid as that of the under-
standing itself. Then there are such
things woven into the texture of man as the
feeling of awe, reverence, wonder — and
not alone the sexual love just referred to,
but the love of the beautiful, physical and
moral, in nature, poetry, and art. There
is also that deep-set feeling which, since
the earliest dawn of history, and probably
for ages prior to all history, incorporated
itself in the religions of the world. You
who have escaped from these religions in
the high-and-dry light of the understand-
ing may deride them; but in so doing
you deride accidents of form merely, and
fail to touch the immovable basis of the
religious sentiment in the emotional na-
ture of man. To yield this sentiment
reasonable satisfaction is the problem of
problems at the present hour. And gro-
tesque in relation to scientific culture as
many of the religions of the world have
been and are — dangerous, nay, destruc-
tive, to the dearest privileges of freemen
as some of them undoubtedly have been,
and would, if they could, be again — it
will be wise to recognize them as the
forms of force, mischievous, if permitted
to intrude on the region of knowledge^
over which it holds no command, but
capable of being guided by liberal thought
to noble issues in the region of efnotion,
which is its proper sphere. It is vain to
oppose this force with a view to its extir-
pation. What we should oppose, to the
death if necessary, is every attempt to
found upon this elemental bias of man's
nature a system which should exercise
despotic sway over his intellect. I do
not fear any such consummation. Science
has already to some extent leavened the
world, and it will leaven it more and
more. I should look upon the mild light
of science breaking in upon the minds of
the youth of Ireland, and strengthening
gradually to the perfect day, as a surer
check to any intellectual or spiritual
tyranny which m.ight threaten this island,
than the laws of princes or the swords of
emperors. Where is the cause of fear "i
We fought and won our battle even in
the Middle Ages : why should we doubt
the issue of a conflict now .?
The impregnable position of science
may be described in a few words. All
religious theories, schemes, and systems,
which embrace notions of cosmogony, or
which otherwise reach into its domain,
must, in so far as they do this, submit to
the control of science, and relinquish all
thought of controlling it. Acting other-
wise proved disastrous in the past, and
it is simply fatuous to-day. Every sys-
tem which would escape the fate of an
organism too rigid to adjust itself to its
environment, must be plastic to the ex-
tent that the growth of knowledge de-
mands. When this truth has been thor-
oughly taken in, rigidity will be relaxed,
exclusiveness diminished, things now
deemed essential will be dropped, and
elements now rejected will be assimi-
lated. The lifting of the life is the essen-
tial point ; and as long as dogmatism,
fanaticism, and intolerance are kept out,
various modes of leverage may be em-
ployed to raise life to a higher level.
Science itself not unfrequently derives
motive power from an ultra-scientific
source. Whewell speaks of enthusiasm
of temper as a hindrance to science ;
but he means the enthusiasm of weak
heads. There is a strong and resolute
enthusiasm in which science finds an
ally ; and it is to the lowering of this
fire, rather than to a diminution of in-
tellectual insight, that the lessening pro-
ductiveness of men of science in their
maturer years is to be ascribed. Mr.
Buckle sought to detach intellectual
achievement from moral force. He
gravely erred ; for without moral force
to whip it into action, the achievements
of the intellect would be poor indeed.
It has been said that science divorces
itself from literature. The statement,
INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL. 823
like so many others, arises from lack of
knowledge. A glance at the less techni-
cal writings of its leaders — of its Hehm-
holtz, its Huxley, and its Du Bois-Rey-
mond — would show what breadth of lit-
erary culture they command. Where
among modern writers can you find their
superiors in clearness and vigour of lit-
erary style ? Science desires no isola-
tion, but freely combines with every
effort towards the bettering of man's
estate. Single-handed, and supported
not by outward sympathy, but by inward
force, it has built at least one great wing
of the many-mansioned home which man
in his totality demands. And if rough
walls and protruding rafter-ends indicate
that on one side the edifice is still incom-
plete, it is only by wise combination of
the parts required with those already
irrevocably built that we can hope for
completeness. There is no necessary
incongruity between what has been ac-
complished and what remains to be done.
The moral glow of Socrates, which we all
feel by ignition, has in it nothing incom-
patible with the physics of Anaxagoras
which he so much scorned, but which he
would hardly scorn to-day. And here I
am reminded of one amongst us, hoary,
but still strong, whose prophet-voice,
some thirty years ago, far more than any
other of this age, unlocked whatever of
life and nobleness lay latent in its most
gifted minds — one fit to stand beside
Socrates or the Maccabean Eleazar, and
to dare and suffer all that they suffered
and dared — fit, as he once said of
Fichte, " to have been the teacher of the
Stoa, and to have discoursed of beauty
and virtue in the groves of Academe.''
With a capacity to grasp physical princi-
ples which his friend Goethe did not
possess, and which even total lack of
exercise has not been able to reduce to
atrophy, it is the world's loss that he, in
the vigour of his years, did not open his
mind and sympathies to science, and
make its conclusions a portion of his
message to mankind. Marvellously en-
dowed as he was — equally equipped on
ths side of the heart and of the under-
standing— he might have done much
towards teaching us how to reconcile the
claims of both, and to enable them in
coming times to dwell together in unity
of spirit and in the bond of peace.
And now the end is come. With more
time, or greater strength and knowledge,
what has been here said might have been
better said, while worthy matters here
omitted might have received fit expres-
sion. But there would have been no
material deviation from the views set
forth. As regards myself, they are not
the growth of a day ; and as regards you,
I thought you ought to know the envi-
ronment which, with or without your con-
sent, is rapidly surrounding you, and in
relation to which some adjustment on
your part may be necessary. A hint of
Hamlet's, however, teaches us all how
the troubles of common life may be
ended ; and it is perfectly possible for
you and me to purchase intellectual peace
at the price of intellectual death. The
world is not without refuges of this de-
scription ; nor is it wanting in persons
who seek their shelter and try to persuade
others to do the same. I would exhort
you to refuse such shelter, and to scorn
such base repose — to accept, if the
choice be forced upon you, commotion
before stagnation, the leap of the torrent
before the stillness of the swamp. In
the one there is at all events life, and
therefore hope ; in the other, none. I
have touched on debatable questions,
and led you over dangerous ground —
and this partly with the view of telling
you, and through you the world, that as
regards these questions science claims
unrestricted right of search. It is not to
the point to say that the views of Lucre-
tius and Bruno, of Darwin and Spencer,
may be wrong. Here I should agree with
you, deeming it indeed certain that these
views will undergo modification. But the
point is, that, whether right or wrong, we
claim the freedom to discuss them. The
ground which they cover is scientific
ground ; and the right claimed is one
made good through tribulation and an-
guish, inflicted and endured in darker
times than ours, but resulting in the im-
mortal victories which science has won
for the human race. I would set forth
equally the inexorable advance of man's
understanding in the path of knowledge,
and the unquenchable claims of his emo-
tional nature which the understanding
can never satisfy. The world embraces
not only a Newton, but a Shakespeare —
not only a Boyle, but a Raphael — not
only a Kant, but a Beethoven — not only
a Darwin, but a Carlyle. Not in each of
these, but in all, is human nature whole.
They are not opposed, but supplement-
ary— not mutually exclusive, but recon-
cilable. And if, still unsatisfied, the
human mind, with the yearning of a pil-
grim for his distant home, will turn to the
mystery from which it has emerged, seek-
ing so to fashion it as to give unity to
824 INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PROFESSOR JOHN TYNDALL.
thought and faith, so long as this is done,
not only without intolerance or bigotry of
any kind, but with the enlightened recog-
nition that ultimate fixity of conception
is here unattainable, and that each suc-
ceeding age must be held free to fashion
the mystery in accordance with its own
needs — then, in opposition to all the re-
strictions of Materialism, I would affirm
this to be a field for the noblest exercise
of what, in contrast with the knowing fac-
ulties, may be called the creative facul-
ties of man. Here, however, I must quit
a theme too great for me to handle, but
which will be handled by the loftiest
minds ages after you and I, like streaks
of morning cloud, shall have melted into
the infinite azure of the past.
VOICES OF THE DEAD.
A FEW snow-patches on the mountain-side,
A few white foam-flakes from the ebbing tide,
A few remembered words of malice spent.
The record of some dead man's ill intent, —
They cannot hurt us, all their sting is gone.
Their hour of cold and bitterness is done ;
Yet deepest snows and fiercest lashing seas
Bring not such cold or bitter thoughts as these.
A few soiled lilies dropped by childish hands,
A few dried orange-blooms from distant lands,
A few remembered smiles of some lost friend,
Few words of love some dear dead fingers
penned, —
They are not beautiful for love to see,
And death's pale presence seems in them to
be;
Yet never living blooms, most fresh and gay,
Fill us with thoughts of love so sweet as they.
Spectator. F. W. B.
END OF VOL. CXXn.
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