*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68175 ***

THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1860.




CONTENTS.


                                                                    PAGE
  NIL NISI BONUM                                                     129

  INVASION PANICS                                                    135

  TO GOLDENHAIR (FROM HORACE). By THOMAS HOOD.                       149

  FRAMLEY PARSONAGE                                                  150
      CHAPTER IV.--_A Matter of Conscience._
         „     V.--_Amantium Iræ Amoris Integratio._
         „    VI.--_Mr. Harold Smith’s Lecture._

  TITHONUS. By ALFRED TENNYSON                                       175

  WILLIAM HOGARTH: PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER.
      Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time                      177
          I.--_Little Boy Hogarth._

  UNSPOKEN DIALOGUE. By R. MONCKTON MILNES. (With an Illustration)   194

  STUDIES IN ANIMAL LIFE                                             198
      CHAPTER II.--_Ponds and rock-pools--Our necessary tackle--
          Wimbledon Common--Early memories--Gnat larvæ--Entomostraca
          and their paradoxes--Races of animals dispensing with the
          sterner sex--Insignificance of males--Volvox globator: is
          it an animal?--Plants swimming like animals--Animal
          retrogressions--The Dytiscus and its larva--The
          dragon-fly larva--Molluscs and their eggs--Polypes, and
          how to find them--A new polype_, Hydra rubra--
          _Nest-building fish--Contempt replaced by reverence_.

  CURIOUS, IF TRUE. (Extract from a Letter from Richard Whittingham,
      Esq.)                                                          208

  LIFE AMONG THE LIGHTHOUSES                                         220

  LOVEL THE WIDOWER                                                  233
      CHAPTER II.--_In which Miss Prior is kept at the Door._
          (With an Illustration.)

  AN ESSAY WITHOUT END                                               248


                     LONDON: SMITH, ELDER AND CO.,
                             65, CORNHILL.




THE

CORNHILL MAGAZINE.

FEBRUARY, 1860.




Nil Nisi Bonum.


Almost the last words which Sir Walter spoke to Lockhart, his
biographer, were, “Be a good man, my dear!” and with the last flicker
of breath on his dying lips, he sighed a farewell to his family, and
passed away blessing them.

Two men, famous, admired, beloved, have just left us, the Goldsmith and
the Gibbon of our time. Ere a few weeks are over, many a critic’s pen
will be at work, reviewing their lives, and passing judgment on their
works. This is no review, or history, or criticism: only a word in
testimony of respect and regard from a man of letters, who owes to his
own professional labour the honour of becoming acquainted with these
two eminent literary men. One was the first ambassador whom the New
World of Letters sent to the Old. He was born almost with the republic;
the _pater patriæ_ had laid his hand on the child’s head. He bore
Washington’s name: he came amongst us bringing the kindest sympathy,
the most artless, smiling goodwill. His new country (which some people
here might be disposed to regard rather superciliously) could send
us, as he showed in his own person, a gentleman, who, though himself
born in no very high sphere, was most finished, polished, easy, witty,
quiet; and, socially, the equal of the most refined Europeans. If
Irving’s welcome in England was a kind one, was it not also gratefully
remembered? If he ate our salt, did he not pay us with a thankful
heart? Who can calculate the amount of friendliness and good feeling
for our country which this writer’s generous and untiring regard for
us disseminated in his own? His books are read by millions[1] of his
countrymen, whom he has taught to love England, and why to love her.
It would have been easy to speak otherwise than he did: to inflame
national rancours, which, at the time when he first became known as a
public writer, war had just renewed: to cry down the old civilization
at the expense of the new: to point out our faults, arrogance,
shortcomings, and give the republic to infer how much she was the
parent state’s superior. There are writers enough in the United
States, honest and otherwise, who preach that kind of doctrine. But the
good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had no place for bitterness
in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in England with
extraordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, Southey, Byron, a
hundred others have borne witness to their liking for him), he was a
messenger of goodwill and peace between his country and ours. “See,
friends!” he seems to say, “these English are not so wicked, rapacious,
callous, proud, as you have been taught to believe them. I went amongst
them a humble man; won my way by my pen; and, when known, found every
hand held out to me with kindliness and welcome. Scott is a great man,
you acknowledge. Did not Scott’s king of England give a gold medal to
him, and another to me, your countryman, and a stranger?”

Tradition in the United States still fondly retains the history of the
feasts and rejoicings which awaited Irving on his return to his native
country from Europe. He had a national welcome; he stammered in his
speeches, hid himself in confusion, and the people loved him all the
better. He had worthily represented America in Europe. In that young
community a man who brings home with him abundant European testimonials
is still treated with respect (I have found American writers of
wide-world reputation, strangely solicitous about the opinions of quite
obscure British critics, and elated or depressed by their judgments);
and Irving went home medalled by the king, diplomatized by the
university, crowned, and honoured and admired. He had not in any way
intrigued for his honours, he had fairly won them; and, in Irving’s
instance, as in others, the old country was glad and eager to pay them.

In America the love and regard for Irving was a national sentiment.
Party wars are perpetually raging there, and are carried on by the
press with a rancour and fierceness against individuals which exceed
British, almost Irish, virulence. It seemed to me, during a year’s
travel in the country, as if no one ever aimed a blow at Irving. All
men held their hand from that harmless, friendly peacemaker. I had
the good fortune to see him at New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and
Washington,[2] and remarked how in every place he was honoured and
welcome. Every large city has its “Irving House.” The country takes
pride in the fame of its men of letters. The gate of his own charming
little domain on the beautiful Hudson River was for ever swinging
before visitors who came to him. He shut out no one.[3] I had seen many
pictures of his house, and read descriptions of it, in both of which
it was treated with a not unusual American exaggeration. It was but a
pretty little cabin of a place; the gentleman of the press who took
notes of the place, whilst his kind old host was sleeping, might have
visited the whole house in a couple of minutes.

And how came it that this house was so small, when Mr. Irving’s books
were sold by hundreds of thousands, nay, millions, when his profits
were known to be large, and the habits of life of the good old bachelor
were notoriously modest and simple? He had loved once in his life. The
lady he loved died; and he, whom all the world loved, never sought to
replace her. I can’t say how much the thought of that fidelity has
touched me. Does not the very cheerfulness of his after life add to the
pathos of that untold story? To grieve always was not in his nature;
or, when he had his sorrow, to bring all the world in to condole with
him and bemoan it. Deep and quiet he lays the love of his heart, and
buries it; and grass and flowers grow over the scarred ground in due
time.

Irving had such a small house and such narrow rooms, because there was
a great number of people to occupy them. He could only afford to keep
one old horse (which, lazy and aged as it was, managed once or twice
to run away with that careless old horseman). He could only afford to
give plain sherry to that amiable British paragraph-monger from New
York, who saw the patriarch asleep over his modest, blameless cup, and
fetched the public into his private chamber to look at him. Irving
could only live very modestly, because the wifeless, childless man had
a number of children to whom he was as a father. He had as many as nine
nieces, I am told--I saw two of these ladies at his house--with all of
whom the dear old man had shared the produce of his labour and genius.

“_Be a good man, my dear._” One can’t but think of these last words
of the veteran Chief of Letters, who had tasted and tested the value
of worldly success, admiration, prosperity. Was Irving not good, and,
of his works, was not his life the best part? In his family, gentle,
generous, good-humoured, affectionate, self-denying: in society, a
delightful example of complete gentlemanhood; quite unspoiled by
prosperity; never obsequious to the great (or, worse still, to the
base and mean, as some public men are forced to be in his and other
countries); eager to acknowledge every contemporary’s merit; always
kind and affable with the young members of his calling; in his
professional bargains and mercantile dealings delicately honest and
grateful; one of the most charming masters of our lighter language; the
constant friend to us and our nation; to men of letters doubly dear,
not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar of goodness,
probity, and pure life:--I don’t know what sort of testimonial will
be raised to him in his own country, where generous and enthusiastic
acknowledgment of American merit is never wanting: but Irving was in
our service as well as theirs; and as they have placed a stone at
Greenwich yonder in memory of that gallant young Bellot, who shared
the perils and fate of some of our Arctic seamen, I would like to hear
of some memorial raised by English writers and friends of letters in
affectionate remembrance of the dear and good Washington Irving.

As for the other writer, whose departure many friends, some few most
dearly-loved relatives, and multitudes of admiring readers deplore, our
republic has already decreed his statue, and he must have known that he
had earned this posthumous honour. He is not a poet and man of letters
merely, but citizen, statesman, a great British worthy. Almost from the
first moment when he appears, amongst boys, amongst college students,
amongst men, he is marked, and takes rank as a great Englishman. All
sorts of successes are easy to him: as a lad he goes down into the
arena with others, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A
place in the senate is straightway offered to the young man. He takes
his seat there; he speaks, when so minded, without party anger or
intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm
for his cause. Still he is poet and philosopher even more than orator.
That he may have leisure and means to pursue his darling studies, he
absents himself for a while, and accepts a richly-remunerated post
in the East. As learned a man may live in a cottage or a college
common-room; but it always seemed to me that ample means and recognized
rank were Macaulay’s as of right. Years ago there was a wretched outcry
raised because Mr. Macaulay dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where
he was staying. Immortal gods! Was this man not a fit guest for any
palace in the world? or a fit companion for any man or woman in it? I
daresay, after Austerlitz, the old K. K. court officials and footmen
sneered at Napoleon for dating from Schönbrunn. But that miserable
“Windsor Castle” outcry is an echo out of fast-retreating old-world
remembrances. The place of such a natural chief was amongst the first
of the land; and that country is best, according to our British notion,
at least, where the man of eminence has the best chance of investing
his genius and intellect.

If a company of giants were got together, very likely one or two of
the mere six-feet-six people might be angry at the incontestable
superiority of the very tallest of the party: and so I have heard some
London wits, rather peevish at Macaulay’s superiority, complain that he
occupied too much of the talk, and so forth. Now that wonderful tongue
is to speak no more, will not many a man grieve that he no longer has
the chance to listen? To remember the talk is to wonder: to think not
only of the treasures he had in his memory, but of the trifles he had
stored there, and could produce with equal readiness. Almost on the
last day I had the fortune to see him, a conversation happened suddenly
to spring up about senior wranglers, and what they had done in after
life. To the almost terror of the persons present, Macaulay began with
the senior wrangler of 1801–2–3–4, and so on, giving the name of each,
and relating his subsequent career and rise. Every man who has known
him has his story regarding that astonishing memory. It may be he was
not ill-pleased that you should recognize it; but to those prodigious
intellectual feats, which were so easy to him, who would grudge his
tribute of homage? His talk was, in a word, admirable, and we admired
it.

Of the notices which have appeared regarding Lord Macaulay, up to
the day when the present lines are written (the 9th of January), the
reader should not deny himself the pleasure of looking especially at
two. It is a good sign of the times when such articles as these (I
mean the articles in _The Times_ and _Saturday Review_) appear in our
public prints about our public men. They educate us, as it were, to
admire rightly. An uninstructed person in a museum or at a concert may
pass by without recognizing a picture or a passage of music, which
the connoisseur by his side may show him is a masterpiece of harmony,
or a wonder of artistic skill. After reading these papers you like
and respect more the person you have admired so much already. And so
with regard to Macaulay’s style there may be faults of course--what
critic can’t point them out? But for the nonce we are not talking about
faults: we want to say _nil nisi bonum_. Well--take at hazard any three
pages of the _Essays_ or _History_;--and, glimmering below the stream
of the narrative, as it were, you, an average reader, see one, two,
three, a half-score of allusions to other historic facts, characters,
literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Why is this epithet
used? Whence is that simile drawn? How does he manage, in two or
three words, to paint an individual, or to indicate a landscape? Your
neighbour, who has _his_ reading, and his little stock of literature
stowed away in his mind, shall detect more points, allusions, happy
touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of
this master, but the wonderful industry, the honest, humble previous
toil of this great scholar. He reads twenty books to write a sentence;
he travels a hundred miles to make a line of description.

Many Londoners--not all--have seen the British Museum Library. I speak
_à cœur ouvert_, and pray the kindly reader to bear with me. I have
seen all sorts of domes of Peters and Pauls, Sophia, Pantheon,--what
not?--and have been struck by none of them so much as by that catholic
dome in Bloomsbury, under which our million volumes are housed. What
peace, what love, what truth, what beauty, what happiness for all, what
generous kindness for you and me, are here spread out! It seems to me
one cannot sit down in that place without a heart full of grateful
reverence. I own to have said my grace at the table, and to have
thanked heaven for this my English birthright, freely to partake of
these bountiful books, and to speak the truth I find there. Under the
dome which held Macaulay’s brain, and from which his solemn eyes looked
out on the world but a fortnight since, what a vast, brilliant, and
wonderful store of learning was ranged! what strange lore would he not
fetch for you at your bidding! A volume of law, or history, a book of
poetry familiar or forgotten (except by himself who forgot nothing),
a novel ever so old, and he had it at hand. I spoke to him once about
_Clarissa_. “Not read _Clarissa_!” he cried out. “If you have once
thoroughly entered on _Clarissa_, and are infected by it, you can’t
leave it. When I was in India, I passed one hot season at the hills,
and there were the governor-general, and the secretary of government,
and the commander-in chief, and their wives. I had _Clarissa_ with
me: and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a
passion of excitement about Miss Harlowe and her misfortunes, and her
scoundrelly Lovelace! The governor’s wife seized the book, and the
secretary waited for it, and the chief justice could not read it for
tears!” He acted the whole scene: he paced up and down the Athenæum
library: I daresay he could have spoken pages of the book--of that
book, and of what countless piles of others!

In this little paper let us keep to the text of _nil nisi bonum_. One
paper I have read regarding Lord Macaulay says “he had no heart.”
Why, a man’s books may not always speak the truth, but they speak
his mind in spite of himself: and it seems to me this man’s heart is
beating through every page he penned. He is always in a storm of revolt
and indignation against wrong, craft, tyranny. How he cheers heroic
resistance; how he backs and applauds freedom struggling for its own;
how he hates scoundrels, ever so victorious and successful; how he
recognizes genius, though selfish villains possess it! The critic who
says Macaulay had no heart, might say that Johnson had none: and two
men more generous, and more loving, and more hating, and more partial,
and more noble, do not live in our history.

The writer who said that Lord Macaulay had no heart could not know him.
Press writers should read a man well, and all over, and again; and
hesitate, at least, before they speak of those αἰδοἴα. Those
who knew Lord Macaulay knew how admirably tender, and generous,[4] and
affectionate he was. It was not his business to bring his family before
the theatre footlights, and call for bouquets from the gallery as he
wept over them.

If any young man of letters reads this little sermon--and to him,
indeed, it is addressed--I would say to him, “Bear Scott’s words in
your mind, and ‘_be good, my dear_.’” Here are two literary men gone
to their account, and, _laus Deo_, as far as we know, it is fair, and
open, and clean. Here is no need of apologies for shortcomings, or
explanations of vices which would have been virtues but for unavoidable
&c. Here are two examples of men most differently gifted: each pursuing
his calling; each speaking his truth as God bade him; each honest in
his life; just and irreproachable in his dealings; dear to his friends;
honoured by his country; beloved at his fireside. It has been the
fortunate lot of both to give uncountable happiness and delight to the
world, which thanks them in return with an immense kindliness, respect,
affection. It may not be our chance, brother scribe, to be endowed
with such merit, or rewarded with such fame. But the rewards of these
men are rewards paid to _our service_. We may not win the baton or
epaulettes; but God give us strength to guard the honour of the flag!


FOOTNOTES:

[1] See his _Life_ in the most remarkable _Dictionary of Authors_,
published lately at Philadelphia, by Mr. Alibone.

[2] At Washington, Mr. Irving came to a lecture given by the writer,
which Mr. Filmore and General Pierce, the president and president
elect, were also kind enough to attend together. “Two Kings of
Brentford smelling at one rose,” says Irving, looking up with his
good-humoured smile.

[3] Mr. Irving described to me, with that humour and good humour which
he always kept, how, amongst other visitors, a member of the British
press who had carried his distinguished pen to America (where he
employed it in vilifying his own country) came to Sunnyside, introduced
himself to Irving, partook of his wine and luncheon, and in two days
described Mr. Irving, his house, his nieces, his meal, and his manner
of dozing afterwards, in a New York paper. On another occasion,
Irving said, laughing: “Two persons came to me, and one held me in
conversation whilst the other miscreant took my portrait!”

[4] Since the above was written, I have been informed that it has been
found, on examining Lord Macaulay’s papers, that he was in the habit of
giving away _more than a fourth part_ of his annual income.




Invasion Panics.


When, about the year 1899, Field-marshal Dowbiggin, full of years and
honours, shall edit, with copious notes, the Private Correspondence
of his kinsman, Queen Victoria’s celebrated War Minister during
England’s bloody struggle with Russia in 1854–5, the grandchildren of
the present generation may probably learn a good deal more respecting
the real causes of the failures and shortcomings of that “horrible and
heartrending” period than we, their grandfathers, are likely to know on
this side our graves.

And when some future Earl of Pembroke shall devote his splendid
leisure, under the cedar groves of Wilton, to preparing for the
information of the twentieth century the memoirs of his great
ancestor, Mr. Secretary Herbert, posterity will then run some chance
of discovering--what is kept a close secret from the public just
now--whether any domestic causes exist to justify the invasion-panic
under which the nation has recently been shivering.

The insular position of England, her lofty cliffs, her stormy seas, her
winter fogs, fortify her with everlasting fortifications, as no other
European power is fortified. She is rich, she is populous, she contains
within herself an abundance of coal, iron, timber, and almost all other
munitions of war; railways intersect and encircle her on all sides; in
patriotism, in loyalty, in manliness, in intelligence, her sons yield
to no other race of men. Blest with all these advantages, she ought,
of all the nations of Europe, to be the last to fear, the readiest to
repel invasion; yet, strange to say, of all the nations of Europe,
England appears to apprehend invasion most!

There must be some good and sufficient reason for this extraordinary
state of things. Many reasons are daily assigned for it, all differing
from each other, all in turn disputed and denied by those who know the
real reason best.

The statesman and the soldier declare that the fault lies with
parliament and the people. They complain that parliament is niggardly
in placing sufficient means at the disposal of the executive, and
that the people are distrustful and over-inquisitive as to their
application; ever too ready to attribute evil motives and incapacity
to those set in authority over them. Parliament and the people, on
the other hand, reply, that ample means are yearly allotted for the
defence of the country, and that more would readily be forthcoming,
had they reason to suppose that what has already been spent, has been
well spent; their Humes and their Brights loudly and harshly denounce
the nepotism, the incapacity, and the greed, which, according to them,
disgrace the governing classes, and waste and weaken the resources of
the land. And so the painful squabble ferments--no probable end to it
being in view. Indeed, the public are permitted to know so little of
the conduct of their most important affairs--silence is so strictly
enjoined to the men at the helm--that the most carefully prepared
indictment against an official delinquent is invariably evaded by the
introduction of some new feature into his case, hitherto unknown to any
but his brother officials, which at once casts upon the assailant the
stigma of having arraigned a public servant on incomplete information,
and puts him out of court.

But if, in this the year of our Lord 1860, we have no means of
discovering why millions of strong, brave, well-armed Englishmen should
be so moved at the prospect of a possible attack from twenty or thirty
thousand French, we have recently been placed in possession of the
means of ascertaining why, some sixty years ago, this powerful nation
was afflicted with a similar fit of timidity.

The first American war had then just ended--not gloriously for the
British arms. Lord Amherst, the commander-in-chief at home, had been
compelled by his age and infirmities to retire from office, having, it
was said, been indulgently permitted by his royal master to retain it
longer than had been good for the credit and discipline of the service.
The Duke of York, an enthusiastic and practical soldier, in the prime
of life, fresh from an active command in Flanders, had succeeded him.
In that day there were few open-mouthed and vulgar demagogues to carp
at the public expenditure and to revile the privileged classes; and the
few that there were had a very bad time of it. Public money was sown
broadcast, both at home and abroad, with a reckless hand; regulars,
militia, yeomanry, and volunteers, fearfully and wonderfully attired,
bristled in thousands wherever a landing was conceived possible; and,
best of all, that noble school of Great British seamen, which had
reared us a Nelson, had reared us many other valiant guardians of our
shores scarcely less worthy than he. But in spite of her Yorks and her
Nelsons, England felt uneasy and unsafe. Confident in her navy, she
had little confidence in her army, which at that time was entirely
and absolutely in the hands and under the management of the court;
parliament and the people being only permitted to pay for it.

Yet the royal commander-in-chief was declared by the general officers
most in favour at court to know his business well, and to be carrying
vigorously into effect the necessary reforms suggested by our American
mishaps; his personal acquaintance with the officers of the army was
said to have enabled him to form his military family of the most
capable men in the service;[5] his exalted position, and his enormous
income, were supposed to place him above the temptation of jobbing:
in short, the Duke of York was universally held up to the nation by
his military friends--and a royal commander-in-chief has many and warm
military friends--as the regenerator of the British army, which just
then happened to be sadly in need of regeneration.

A work has recently been published which tells us very plainly now
many things which it would have been treasonable even to suspect sixty
years ago. It is entitled _The Cornwallis Correspondence_, and contains
the private papers and letters of the first Marquis Cornwallis, one of
the foremost Englishmen of his time. Bred a soldier, he served with
distinction in Germany and in America. He then proceeded to India in
the double capacity of governor-general and commander-in-chief. On
his return from that service he filled for some years the post of
master-general of the Ordnance, refused a seat in the Cabinet, offered
him by Mr. Pitt; and, although again named governor-general of India,
on the breaking out of the Irish rebellion of 1798 was hurried to
Dublin as lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief. He was subsequently
employed to negotiate the peace of Amiens, and, in 1805, died at
Ghazeepore, in India, having been appointed its governor-general for
the third time.

From the correspondence of this distinguished statesman and soldier,
we may now ascertain whether, sixty years ago, the people of England
had or had not good grounds for dreading invasion by the French, and
whether the governing classes or the governed were most in fault on
that occasion for the doubtful condition of their native land.

George the Third was verging upon insanity. So detested and despised
was the Prince of Wales, his successor, that those who directed his
Majesty’s councils, as well as the people at large, clung eagerly to
the hopes of the king’s welfare; trusting that the evil days of a
regency might be postponed. And it would seem from the _Cornwallis
Correspondence_, that the English were just in their estimation of
that bad man. H. R. H. having quarrelled shamefully with his parents,
and with Pitt, had thrown himself into the hands of the Opposition,
and appears to have corresponded occasionally with Cornwallis, who
had two votes at his command in the Commons, during that nobleman’s
first Indian administration. In 1790, Lord Cornwallis, writing to his
brother, the Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, says: “You tell me that
I am accused of being remiss in my correspondence with a certain great
personage. Nothing can be more false, for I have answered every letter
from him by the first ship that sailed from hence after I received it.
The style of them, although personally kind to excess, has not been
very agreeable to me, as they have always pressed upon me some infamous
and unjustifiable job, which I have uniformly been obliged to refuse,
and contained much gross and false abuse of Mr. Pitt, and improper
charges against other and greater personages, about whom, to me at
least, he ought to be silent.”[6]

The intimacy which had existed from boyhood between General Richard
Grenville, military tutor to the Duke of York, and Lord Cornwallis,
and the correspondence which took place between them, to which we have
now access, afford ample means of judging of the real capacity of that
royal soldier, to whose charge the military destinies of England, both
at home and abroad, were intrusted by the king at such a critical
moment.

At seventeen years of age the duke became, _per saltum_, as the
usage is with royal personages, a colonel in the British army. After
attending for two or three years the great Prussian reviews, by way
of studying his profession, he was, on attaining his majority, raised
to the rank of general, and appointed colonel of the Coldstream
Guards. Various notices of H. R. H. are to be found in the numerous
confidential letters which passed about that time between Cornwallis
and Grenville. They were both warmly attached to him; both most anxious
for his own sake, and for that of their profession, that he should turn
out well.

They describe H. R. H. as brave, good-humoured, and weak; utterly
destitute of military talent, incapable of attending to business, much
given to drink, and more to dice, hopelessly insolvent, and steeped in
debauchery and extravagance of all kinds. In 1790, Grenville writes to
Cornwallis in India: “The conduct of a certain great personage, who has
so cruelly disappointed both you and myself, still continues to give me
great uneasiness; more especially as I see no hopes of amendment.” The
duke was at that date twenty-seven years of age.

In 1791, the Duke of York married, and but two years afterwards
Lord Cornwallis, on his return from India, actually found his
friend Grenville’s unpromising pupil in Flanders, at the head of a
considerable English force, acting in conjunction with the Austrians,
Russians, and Dutch, against the French. His utter want of military
talent, his inexperience, his idleness, and his vices had not prevented
his being intrusted by his royal parent with the lives of a large body
of brave men, and with the honour of England. Great difficulties soon
arose in this allied army, its chiefs mutually accusing each other,
possibly not without good reason, of incapacity. At last, a person,
whose name is not even now divulged, but who possessed the entire
confidence of both Pitt and Cornwallis, wrote as follows, from the
British head-quarters at Arnheim, on the 11th Nov. 1794:--

“We are really come to such a critical situation, that unless some
decided, determined, and immediate steps are taken, God knows what may
happen. Despised by our enemies, without discipline, confidence, or
exertion among ourselves, hated and more dreaded than the enemy, even
by the well-disposed inhabitants of the country, every disgrace and
misfortune is to be expected. You must thoroughly feel how painful
it must be to acknowledge this even to your lordship, but no honest
man who has any regard for his country can avoid seeing it. Whatever
measures are adopted at home, either removing us from the continent
or remaining, something must be done to restore discipline, and the
confidence that always attends it. The sortie from Nimeguen, on the
4th, was made entirely by the British, and executed with their usual
spirit; they ran into the French without firing a single shot, and,
consequently, lost very few men,--their loss was when they afterwards
were ordered to retire. Yet from what I have mentioned in the first
part of my letter, I assure you I dread the thought of these troops
being attacked or harassed in retreat.”[7]

Upon the receipt of this grave intelligence, Mr. Pitt at once
communicated to the king the absolute necessity of the duke’s
immediate recall. His Majesty had no choice but to consent, which he
reluctantly did; and H. R. H. returned home, was immediately created a
field-marshal, and placed in command of all the forces of the United
Kingdom!

Lord Cornwallis’s bitter remark upon this astounding appointment
is--“Whether we shall get any good by this, God only knows; but I think
things cannot change for the worse at the Horse Guards. If the French
land, and that they will land I am certain, I should not like to trust
the new field-marshal with the defence of Culford.”[8]

Having thus practically ascertained, at an enormous cost of blood and
treasure, that the best-tempered and bravest general cannot command
with success a British army in the field, if he happens, as was the
case with the Duke of York, to be a weak man of high social position,
destitute of military talent and habits of business, and much addicted
to pleasure, an examination of Lord Cornwallis’s correspondence during
the next few years will show how it fared with the British army when it
was directed by such an officer at home.

In expressing his conviction that the French were determined to invade
us, Lord Cornwallis proved a true prophet. Late in 1796, a fleet,
commanded by Admiral De Galle, sailed from Brest for Ireland, carrying
General Hoche and 15,000 men. Furious December gales dispersed the
French ships,--only a portion of the expedition reached Bantry Bay;
the vessel in which De Galle and Hoche were, was missing. Admiral
Boivet, the second in command, hesitated to disembark the troops
without the orders of his superiors. The United Irishmen, who had
promised instant co-operation, made no sign; the weather rendered
even Bantry Bay insecure; and, finally, such of the ships as escaped
wreck or capture, straggled back to France, where Hoche and De Galle,
after cruising about for many days in fog and storm on the banks of
Newfoundland, had had the good luck to arrive before them. On that
occasion, our natural defences may indeed be said to have stood us in
good stead. But it was not consolatory to those who feared invasion to
reflect that such a large force should have succeeded in reaching our
shores unperceived and unmolested by the British cruisers; and that,
had the weather been tolerable, 15,000 French bayonets would have
landed without opposition on Irish ground.

The next year passed over in constant alarms; our information
respecting the local preparations of the French being unfortunately
very vague. The military defence of England appears to have been at
that time mainly intrusted to Sir David Dundas, an unlucky pedant
of the German school of tactics, of whom the king and court had the
highest opinion, so tightly had he dressed and so accurately had he
drilled the Guards. Lord Cornwallis, writing early in 1798 to the Hon.
Col. Wesley,[9] says:--“We are brought to the state to which I have
long since looked forward, deserted by all our allies, and in daily
expectation of invasion, for which the French are making the most
serious preparations. I have no doubt of the courage and fidelity of
our militia; but the system of David Dundas, and the total want of
light infantry, sit heavy on my mind, and point out the advantages
which the activity of the French will have in a country which is for
the most part enclosed.”

At this juncture, the rebellion of 1798 broke out in Ireland, and at
the urgent request of Ministers, who appear to have considered Lord
Cornwallis the man for every difficulty, his lordship consented to
undertake the joint duties of lord-lieutenant and commander-in-chief
in that unhappy country, then as disturbed and disloyal as conflicting
races and religions, and the most savage misgovernment, could make it.

His lordship’s letters to the Duke of Portland and others, from
Dublin, evince far more apprehension at the violence, cruelty, and
insubordination of the army under his command, than at the rebels who
were up in arms against him. His words are:--“The violence of our
friends, and their folly in endeavouring to make this a religious
war, added to the ferocity of our troops, who delight in murder,
most powerfully counteract all plans of conciliation.” Nevertheless
his judgment, firmness, and temper soon prevailed; by midsummer
the insurrection was suppressed with far less bloodshed than was
pleasing to the supporters of the government; and Lord Cornwallis was
endeavouring to concentrate his attention on the reorganization of
the military mob, which then, under the name of soldiers, garrisoned
Ireland against foreign and domestic foes, when the invader actually
arrived.[10]

On the 22nd of August, three frigates under English colours anchored in
Killala Bay, co. Mayo, carrying a force of about 1,100 French troops,
commanded by General Humbert. They were the vanguard of a larger force
under General Hardy, which was to have sailed at the same time, but
which had been detained by unforeseen difficulties at Brest.

There being no sufficient force to oppose them, the French easily
took possession of Killala, and established their head-quarters in
the palace of the bishop, Dr. Stock, who has left a most interesting
journal of what occurred whilst the French occupied the town.

Humbert had brought with him a large supply of arms, ammunition, and
uniforms, to be distributed amongst the United Irishmen, who he had
been led to suppose would instantly rally round his standard. But he
soon discovered that he had been deceived, that he had landed in the
wrong place, and that he had arrived too late. The peasantry of Mayo, a
simple and uncivilized race, ignorant of the use of fire-arms, crowded
round the invaders as long as they had anything to give, and as long as
there was no enemy to fight; but, at the first shot, they invariably
ran away. Besides, the neck of the rebellion had been already
dislocated by the judicious vigour of Cornwallis. Had the landing
been effected earlier, and farther north, the result might have been
different; as it was, the French general found that he had a losing
game to play--and most manfully and creditably did he play it.

Professing to wage no war against the Irish, he assured the bishop that
neither pillage nor violence should be permitted, and that his troops
should only take what was absolutely necessary for their subsistence;
and on these points, the bishop tells us, the Frenchman “religiously
kept his word;” not only controlling his own soldiers, but actually
protecting the bishop and his little Protestant flock from the rapacity
of the Irish rebels who for a time joined the invaders.

The bishop’s account of the French soldiery is notable; they appear to
have been an under-sized and mean-looking set of men, whom Sir David
Dundas would have held in no account on parade; yet they did the work
they had to do, hopeless and fatal as it was, as well as the Duke of
York’s own gigantic regiment of guards could have done it.

“The French,” says the bishop, “are a nation apt enough to consider
themselves as superior to any people in the world; but here, indeed,
it would have been ridiculous not to prefer the Gallic troops in
every respect before their Irish allies. Intelligence, activity,
temperance, patience to a surprising degree, appeared to be combined in
the soldiery that came over with Humbert, together with the exactest
obedience to discipline. Yet, if you except their grenadiers, they had
nothing to catch the eye: their stature for the most part was low,
their complexions pale and sallow, their clothes much the worse for
wear; to a superficial observer they would have appeared incapable of
enduring almost any hardship. These were the men, however, of whom it
was presently observed that they could be well content to live on bread
and potatoes, to drink water, to make the stones of the street their
bed, and to sleep in their clothes, with no covering but the canopy of
heaven. One half of their number had served in Italy under Buonaparte,
the rest were from the army of the Rhine, where they had suffered
distresses that well accounted for thin persons and wan looks.”

Humbert himself, who had accompanied the Bantry Bay expedition in 1796,
had risen from the ranks, and had brought himself into notice by his
brilliant conduct in La Vendée.

The day after landing, the French advanced towards Ballina, leaving
at Killala six officers and two hundred men to guard a quantity of
ammunition which they had no means of carrying with them. The English
garrison of Ballina fled on their approach, and Humbert, stationing
there one hundred more of his men, pushed on to Castlebar, where
General Lake was prepared to meet him. The latter had previously
ascertained, by means of a flag of truce, the exact number of the
French, and had sent a message privily to the bishop, telling him to
be of good cheer, inasmuch as the great superiority of his own numbers
would speedily enable him to give a good account of the invading force.
What did occur when the French and English met is, perhaps, best told
in the words of General Hutchinson, Lake’s second in command during the
affair. Contemporary authorities, however, prove that Hutchinson has
very much understated the numbers of the English force:--

“On Monday morning, 27th August, about an hour before sunrise, a
report was received from the outposts, distant about six miles, that
the enemy was advancing. The troops were immediately assembled, having
the night before received orders to be under arms two hours before
day-break. The troops and cannon were then posted on a position
previously taken, where they remained until seven o’clock. They were
1,600 or 1,700 cavalry and infantry, ten pieces of cannon and a
howitzer. The ground was very strong by nature; the French were about
700, having left 100 at Ballina and 200 at Killala. They did not land
above 1,000 rank and file. They had with them about 500 rebels, a great
proportion of whom fled after the first discharge of cannon. The French
had only two 4-pounders and from thirty to forty mounted men.

“Nothing could exceed the misconduct of the troops, with the exception
of the artillery, which was admirably served, and of Lord Roden’s
Fencibles, who appeared at all times ready to do their duty. There
is too much reason to imagine that two of the regiments had been
previously tampered with; the hope of which disaffection induced
the French to make the attack, which was certainly one of the most
hazardous and desperate ever thought of against a very superior body of
troops, as their retreat both on Killala and Ballina was cut off by Sir
Thomas Chapman and General Taylor.

“When the troops fell into confusion without the possibility of
rallying them, there was scarcely any danger; very few men had at that
time fallen on our part: the French, on the contrary, had suffered
considerably. They lost six officers and from 70 to 80 men, which was
great, considering how short a time the action lasted and the smallness
of their numbers. I am convinced that had our troops continued firm
for ten minutes longer, the affair must have been over to our entire
advantage, but they fired volleys without any orders at a few men
before they were within musket-shot. It was impossible to stop them,
and they abandoned their ground immediately afterwards.”

Although the French did not attempt to pursue, the defeated army of
Lake never halted till they reached Tuam, nearly forty English miles
from the field of battle. On the evening of the same day they renewed
their flight, and retired still farther towards Athlone, where an
officer of Carabineers, with sixty of his men, arrived at one o’clock
on Tuesday, the 29th August, having achieved a retreat of above seventy
English miles in twenty-seven hours! All Lake’s artillery fell into the
hands of the French. As soon as Lord Cornwallis heard of the invasion,
conscious of the uncertain temper of the troops upon whom he had to
rely, he determined to march in person to the west, collecting, as he
came, such a force as must at once overwhelm the enemy.

Meantime the victorious French were met on the 5th of September at
Colooney by Colonel Vereker, of the Limerick Regiment, an energetic
officer, who had hastened from Sligo to attack them with 200 infantry,
30 dragoons, and two guns. After a gallant struggle he was compelled
to retire with the loss of his guns, and the French advanced into
Leitrim, hoping to find elsewhere stouter and more helpful allies than
they had hitherto found amongst the half-starved cottiers of Mayo.

Crawford, afterwards the celebrated leader of the light division in
Spain, rashly attacked them on the 7th of September with an inferior
force near Ballynamore, and was very roughly handled by them; but
on the 8th, Humbert, closely followed by Lake and Crawford, found
himself confronted at Ballynamuck by Cornwallis and the main army.
In this desperate situation, surrounded by upwards of 25,000 men,
Humbert coolly drew up his little force, with no other object, it
must be presumed, than to maintain the honour of the French flag. His
rearguard, again attacked by Crawford, surrendered, but the remainder
of the French continued to defend themselves for about half-an-hour
longer, and contrived to take prisoner Lord Roden and some of his
dragoons. They then, on the appearance of the main body of General
Lake’s army, laid down their arms--746 privates and 96 officers; having
lost about 200 men since their landing at Killala, on the 22nd of
August.

The loss of the British at the battle of Ballynamuck was officially
stated at three killed, and thirteen wounded. Their losses at Castlebar
and elsewhere were never communicated to the public.

Plowden, who gives a detailed account of Humbert’s invasion in his
_Historical Review of the State of Ireland_, published but five
years after the event, observes:--“It must ever remain a humiliating
reflection upon the power and lustre of the British arms that so
pitiful a detachment as that of 1,100 French infantry should, in a
kingdom in which there was an armed force of above 150,000 men, have
not only put to rout a select army of 6,000 men prepared to receive the
invaders, but also provided themselves with ordnance and ammunition
from our stores, taken several of our towns, marched 122 Irish (above
150 English) miles through the country, and kept arms in their
victorious hands for seventeen days in the heart of an armed kingdom.
But it was this English army which the gallant and uncompromising
Abercromby had, on the 26th of the preceding February, found ‘in such a
state of licentiousness as must render it formidable to every one but
the enemy.’”

Although the private letters of Lord Cornwallis, General Lake and
Captain Herbert Taylor, which are now submitted to us, breathe nothing
but indignation and disgust at the misconduct, insubordination, and
cruelty of their panic-stricken troops, the public despatches, as the
custom is, contain unalloyed praise.

A lengthy despatch penned by General Lake, on the evening of the
surrender of Humbert’s little band, is worded almost as emphatically
as Wellington’s despatch after Waterloo; about thirty officers are
especially mentioned in it by name, and the conduct of the cavalry is
sub-sarcastically described as having been “highly conspicuous.” Lord
Cornwallis’s general order, too, dated on the following day, declares
“that he cannot too much applaud the zeal and spirit which has been
manifested by the army from the commencement of the operations against
the invading enemy until the surrender of the French forces.” Such is
too often the real value of official praise.

Notwithstanding this public testimony to the worth of the large army
which surrounded and captured the handful of French invaders of 1798,
the information which we now glean from _The Cornwallis Correspondence_
serves but little to establish the Duke of York’s character as a
successful military administrator, if a commander-in-chief is to be
judged of by the effective state of the officers and troops under his
direction.

Tired of the parade-ground and the desk, or, possibly, feeling that
he did not shine at them, H. R. H. again tried his hand at active
campaigning in 1799, and again failed. On the 9th of September of that
year he once more sailed for Holland, and was actually permitted to
assume the direction of the most considerable expedition that ever left
the British shores. In conjunction with Russia, its object was to expel
the French from Holland. After several bloody battles, fought with
doubtful success, the duke found himself, in less than five weeks, so
situated as to render it advisable for him to treat with the enemy. He
proposed that the French should allow the allied army under his command
to re-embark, threatening to destroy the dykes and ruin the surrounding
country if his proposal was not entertained. After some discussion
the French agreed to the re-embarkation of the allies, provided they
departed before the 1st of November, left behind them all the artillery
they had taken, and restored 8,000 French and Batavian prisoners who
had been captured on former occasions. On these terms “a British king’s
son, commanding 41,000 men, capitulated to a French general who had
only 30,000,”[11] and the duke, fortunately for England, sheathed his
sword, to draw it no more on the field of battle.

Lord Cornwallis writes on the 24th October: “By private letters which
I have seen from Holland, our troops in general seem to have been
in the greatest confusion, and on many occasions to have behaved
exceedingly ill. There may be some exception in the corps belonging
to Abercromby’s division. Considering the hasty manner in which they
were thrown together, and the officers by whom they were commanded, I
am not surprised at this. Would to God they were all on board! I dread
the retreat and embarkation. David Dundas will never be like Cæsar,
the favourite of fortune; hitherto, at least, that fickle goddess has
set her face very steadily against him.” “I see no prospect of any
essential improvement in our military system, for I am afraid that a
buttoned coat, a heavy hat and feather, and a cursed sash tied round
our waist will not lead the way to victory.”

The abortive expeditions against Ostend and Ferrol, which had
terminated in the capture and disgrace of the troops employed in them,
appear to have induced Lord Cornwallis to draw up a memorandum on the
subject, and to submit it to the duke. The following is an extract from
it:--

“I admit that while we are at war, and have the means of acting, we
should not remain entirely on the defensive, but at the same time I
would not go lightly in quest of adventures, with regiments raised
with extreme difficulty, without means of recruiting, and commanded
principally by officers without experience or knowledge of their
profession. The expense, likewise, of expeditions is enormous, and the
disgrace attending upon ill success is not likely to promote that most
desirable object--a good peace.”

After the re-embarkation of the Ferrol expedition, he writes: “The
prospect of public affairs is most gloomy. What a disgraceful and what
an expensive campaign have we made! Twenty-two thousand men, a large
proportion not soldiers, floating round the greater part of Europe the
scorn and laughing-stock of friends and foes.”

In the spring of 1801, Lord Cornwallis, replaced in Ireland by Lord
Hardwicke and Sir W. Medows, assumed the command of the eastern
district in England--invasion appearing imminent. His letters to his
friend Ross at this period are most desponding. Our best troops were
abroad upon expeditions. One barren success in Egypt, with which
ministers attempted to gild half-a-dozen failures, had cost us the
gallant Abercromby. The defence of the country was intrusted to the
militia. The Duke of York had actually proposed to introduce a Russian
force to coerce and civilize Ireland, and would have done so had not
the better sense and feeling of Cornwallis prevailed. “My disgrace
must be certain,” writes he to Ross, “should the enemy land. What
could I hope, with eight weak regiments of militia, making about 2,800
firelocks, and two regiments of dragoons?”... “In our wooden walls
alone must we place our trust; we should make a sad business of it on
shore.”... “If it is really intended that ---- should defend Kent and
Sussex, it is of very little consequence what army you place under
his command.”... “God send that we may have no occasion to decide
the matter on shore, where I have too much reason to apprehend that
the contest must terminate in the disgrace of the general and the
destruction of the country.”... “I confess that I see no prospect of
peace, or of anything good. We shall prepare for the land defence of
England by much wild and capricious expenditure of money, and if the
enemy should ever elude the vigilance of our wooden walls, we shall
after all make a bad figure.”[12]

Bad as matters had been at the time of Humbert’s invasion, it is clear
that Lord Cornwallis believed our military affairs to be in a much
worse condition in 1801.

In Ireland, in 1798, he had under him a few officers on whom he could
depend, and although his army, thanks to Lord Amherst and the Duke of
York, was in a deplorable state of discipline, he, a good and practised
general, was at its head, to make the best of it.

The Duke of Wellington has since taught us, on more than one occasion,
that there are some extraordinary workmen who can do good work with
any tools, and who can even make their own tools as they require
them.--But in England, in 1801, the military workmen in court employ
were all so execrably bad, that it mattered little what was the quality
of the tools supplied to them. The Duke of York, David Dundas, and
Lord Chatham had everything their own way: the most important posts,
the most costly expeditions, were intrusted, not to the officers most
formidable to the enemy, but to the friends and _protégés_ of the
military courtiers who stood best at Windsor and St. James’s. It is no
small proof of Cornwallis’s tact in judging of men, that whilst we find
him deprecating the employment in independent commands of such generals
as the Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland, Dundas, Burrard (of Cintra),
Coote (of Ostend), Pulteney (of Ferrol), Whitelock (of Buenos Ayres),
and Lord Chatham (of Walcheren), he had always a word of approval for
Lake and Abercromby, and in an introductory letter to Sir John Shore,
speaks of the lieutenant-colonel of his own regiment, the Hon. Arthur
Wesley, as a “sensible man and a good officer.”

Throughout the whole of _The Cornwallis Correspondence_, there is no
single hint of stinted means for the defence of the country, there is
no single doubt cast upon the personal bravery of our officers and our
men; but there are many out-spoken complaints of utter incompetence and
reckless extravagance on the part of those who had the chief conduct
of our military affairs. From 1795 to 1805--that time of fear--we have
now incontrovertible testimony that both England and Ireland were in
an indefensible condition, had an invader landed with a very moderate
body of such soldiers as Humbert led; and that that condition was owing
in no degree to any want of manliness or liberality on the part of the
British nation, but solely and entirely to the want of capacity of
the men whom it pleased the court, in spite of repeated disgrace and
defeat, perversely to maintain in the management and command of the
army.[13]

Mr. Pitt survived Lord Cornwallis but a few months, dying early in
1806, and Lord Grenville, when invited by George III. to succeed
him, positively declined to do so, unless the army was placed under
ministerial control. To this innovation the poor crazy king demurred.
It had been an amusement and an occupation to him in his lucid
intervals, “to transact military business with Frederick,” with what
deplorable results to the resources and credit of the nation we now
know.[14] His Majesty objected, that ever since the time of the first
Duke of Cumberland, the army had been considered as under the exclusive
control of the sovereign, without any right of interference on the
part of his ministers, save in matters relating to levying, clothing,
feeding, and paying it; and he expressed a strong disinclination to
make any concession which should fetter himself, and the Duke of York,
in doing as they pleased with their own.

Lord Grenville, however, remained firm; for, in the opinion of himself
and his friends, the safety of the kingdom required that he should be
so, and, ultimately, the king gave way, on condition that no changes
should be carried into effect at the Horse Guards without his knowledge
and approval.

But other and more complaisant advisers soon replaced Lord Grenville,
and circumstances, entirely corroborative of the estimate which
Grenville and Cornwallis had formed of his character, rendered it
advisable that the Duke of York should retire from public life.[15] Sir
David Dundas, notoriously one of the most incapable and unfit general
officers in the service, was selected by the court as H. R. H.’s
successor; and, about two years afterwards, George III. finally
disappeared from the scene, and the Regency commenced.[16] Then the
duke, in spite of all that had transpired, was instantly recalled by
his royal brother to Whitehall, where he remained until his death.
The Regent was not the man to waive one iota of what he held to be
his prerogative. During his reign, the right of the Crown to the
irresponsible direction of the British army was fully asserted; and, in
spite of five years of almost unvaried success in the Peninsula, and of
the crowning glory of Waterloo, a fantastically dressed, luxurious, and
unpopular body it became under the royal auspices. To the present day,
regimental officers, fond of their glass, bless his Majesty for what
is called “the Prince Regent’s allowance,” a boon which daily ensures
to them a cheap after-dinner bottle of wine, at a cost to their more
abstemious brother officers, and to taxpayers in general, of 27,000_l._
a year.

Happily for the present generation, matters have changed since those
corrupt times, in many--many respects for the better. The British army
is no longer looked upon by the people as a costly and not very useful
toy, chiefly maintained for the diversion of royalty; we now recognize
and respect in it an important national engine, for the proper
condition and conduct of which--as for that of the navy--a Secretary
of State is directly responsible to Parliament. But a change of such
magnitude has not been carried out without much peevish remonstrance
and factious opposition on the part of the many whose patronage it has
diminished, and whose power it has curtailed; and there are still not a
few who offer what opposition they dare to its harmonious consummation.

It is to be feared that a slight leaven of the same spirit which, sixty
years ago, wasted the resources and paralyzed the energies of this
powerful nation, may, perchance, still linger around the precincts of
Whitehall and St. James’s,--and it is not impossible that when the
SMITH AND ELDER of the twentieth century present to the public their
first editions of the _Panmure Papers_ and the _Herbert Memoirs_,
facts, bearing on the disasters of the Crimean war, and on the invasion
panic of 1859–60, may for the first time be made known--not entirely
different from those with which we have recently become acquainted
through _The Cornwallis Correspondence_.


FOOTNOTES:

[5] “The duke has very unwisely taken over three or four boys of the
Guards as his aides-de-camp: which will be of great disservice to him,
and can be of no use to them.”--_Lord Cornwallis to Lt.-Col. Ross,
1784._

[6] Three or four of the Prince of Wales’s letters are given at length.
They all prove “the first gentleman and scholar of his day” to have
been a very illiterate and unscrupulous jobber. In one of them he
proposed to the Governor-General to displace “a black, named Alii
Cann,” who was chief criminal judge of Benares, in order that a youth,
named Pellegrine Treves, the son of a notorious London money-lender,
might be appointed to that office.

Lord Cornwallis replied, that Ali Ibrahim Khan, though a native, was
one of the most able and respected public servants in India, and
that it would be a most difficult and unpopular step to remove him;
and that even if his post were vacant, the youth and inexperience of
the money-lender’s son rendered him utterly ineligible for such an
important trust. One of the causes of complaint which H. R. H. urged
against his royal parent was, that he, also, was not intrusted with
high military command.

[7] The sufferings of the British soldiers in Holland, in 1794–5,
from the incompetence and negligence of their superior officers, and
the waste of public money from the same causes, have scarcely been
exceeded during the Crimean war. In Lord Malmesbury’s Diary we find the
following entry on the 7th Dec. 1793: “Lord Herbert came to see me.
Complained much of the insubordination of the army; that it was greater
than could be believed, and that the Guards were so beyond measure.
Condemned the conduct of Gage, who had resigned on being refused leave
of absence.” On the 16th of Feb. 1794, the Duke of Portland writes to
Lord Malmesbury: “The Duke of York will return to the army the latter
end of next week. But I cannot help saying that unless the licentious,
not to say mutinous, spirit which prevails among our troops, and which
originated in, I am sorry to say, and is cultivated by the Guards, is
not subdued and extinguished, there is an end of the army.”

[8] His lordship’s country seat.

[9] The Duke.

[10] The following letter, addressed by a subaltern to his commanding
officer, is given by the editor of the _Cornwallis Papers_, as a
specimen of the habits, education and discipline of the British army
about the year 1800:--

                   “_To Lieut.-Col. ----, -- Foot._

    “SIR,--I _believe_ (I am a member of the ---- mess), if so, I
    will take the liberty to submit the following argument, viz.,
    every gentleman under the immediate propensity of liquor has
    different propensities; to prove which, I have only to mention
    the present instance with respect to myself and Lieut. ----. _My_
    propensity is noise and riot--_his_ sleep.

    “I ever conceived that in a public mess-room, three things were
    certain: first, that it was open to every officer who chose to
    pay the subscription; second, that he might indulge himself with
    liquor as much as he pleased; and third, that if a gentleman and
    a member of the mess chose to get intoxicated in the mess-room,
    that no other officer (however high his rank in the regiment)
    had a right, or dare order to restrain (not being president) his
    _momentary propensity_ in the mess-room.

    “As such, and this being the case, I must inform you that you
    have acted in a most unprecedented and unknown (not to say
    ungentlemanlike) way, in presuming to enter the mess-room as a
    commanding officer, and to bring a sentry at your back (which you
    asserted you had) to turn out the amusement (a hand organ) of
    the company (a stranger being present), and thereby prevent the
    harmony which it is supposed ought to exist in a mess-room.

    “I appeal to you as a gentleman, and if you will answer this
    letter _as such_, you at all times know how to direct to

                                       “---- ----,
                                             “_Lieut. ----, -- Foot_.”




[11] Mr. Tierney’s speech in the House of Commons.

[12] Lieut.-Col. Gordon (Sir Willoughby), Military Secretary to the
Duke of York, speaks of Lord Cornwallis as “an officer whose estimation
in the army could not be exceeded.”--_Lieut.-Col. Gordon to Sir A.
Wellesley, 1807._

[13] “The staff in Kent seems to be calculated solely for the purpose
of placing the defence of the country in the hands of Sir D. Dundas.
However he may succeed with other people, I think he cannot persuade
Mr. Pitt and Lord Melville that he is a clever fellow; and surely they
must have too much sense to believe that it is possible that a man
without talents, and who can neither write nor talk intelligibly, can
be a good general.”--_Lord C. to Lt.-Gen. Ross._

[14] “April 12, 1800. The king much improved. Saw the Duke of York for
two hours yesterday, on military matters.

“April 13. The king not so well. Over-excited himself
yesterday.”--_Diary of the Right Hon. Sir George Rose._

[15] “The Duke of York is certainly in a bad way. All that we can do
will be to acquit him of corruption; and indeed I doubt whether we
shall be able to carry him so far as to acquit him of suspecting Mrs.
Clarke’s practices and allowing them to go on. If we should succeed in
both these objects, the question will then turn upon the point whether
it is proper that a prince of the blood, who has manifested so much
weakness as he has, and has led such a life (for that is material in
these days), is a proper person to be intrusted with the duties of a
responsible office.

“We shall be beat upon this question, I think. If we should carry it
by a small majority, the duke will equally be obliged to resign his
office, and most probably the consequence of such a victory must be
that the government will be broken up.”--_Sir A. Wellesley to the Duke
of Richmond, 1809._

[16] “General Dundas is, I understand, appointed commander-in-chief, _I
should imagine much against the inclination of the king’s ministers_;
but I understand that it is expected that the Duke of York will be able
to resume his situation by the time Sir David is quite superannuated,
and it might not be so easy to get a younger or a better man out of
office at so early a period.”--_Sir A. W. to the Duke of R., 1809._




To Goldenhair.

(FROM HORACE.)


            Ah, Pyrrha--tell me, whose the happy lot
      To woo thee on a couch of lavish roses--
      Who, bathed in odorous dews, in his fond arms encloses
            Thee, in some happy grot?

            For whom those nets of golden-gloried hair
      Dost thou entwine in cunning carelessnesses?
      Alas, poor boy! Who thee, in fond belief, caresses
            Deeming thee wholly fair!

            How oft shall he thy fickleness bemoan,
      When fair to foul shall change--and he, unskilful
      In pilotage, beholds--with tempests wildly wilful--
            The happy calm o’erthrown!

            He, who now hopes that thou wilt ever prove
      All void of care, and full of fond endearing,
      Knows not that varies more, than Zephyrs ever-veering,
            The fickle breath of Love.

            Ah, hapless he, to whom, like seas untried,
      Thou seemest fair! That _my_ sea-going’s ended
      My votive tablet proves, to those dark Gods suspended,
            Who o’er the waves preside.

      THOMAS HOOD.




Framley Parsonage.


CHAPTER IV.

A MATTER OF CONSCIENCE.

It is no doubt very wrong to long after a naughty thing. But
nevertheless we all do so. One may say that hankering after naughty
things is the very essence of the evil into which we have been
precipitated by Adam’s fall. When we confess that we are all sinners,
we confess that we all long after naughty things.

And ambition is a great vice--as Mark Antony told us a long time ago--a
great vice, no doubt, if the ambition of the man be with reference to
his own advancement, and not to the advancement of others. But then,
how many of us are there who are not ambitious in this vicious manner?

And there is nothing viler than the desire to know great people--people
of great rank I should say; nothing worse than the hunting of titles
and worshipping of wealth. We all know this, and say it every day of
our lives. But presuming that a way into the society of Park Lane was
open to us, and a way also into that of Bedford Row, how many of us are
there who would prefer Bedford Row because it is so vile to worship
wealth and title?

I am led into these rather trite remarks by the necessity of putting
forward some sort of excuse for that frame of mind in which the Rev.
Mark Robarts awoke on the morning after his arrival at Chaldicotes. And
I trust that the fact of his being a clergyman will not be allowed to
press against him unfairly. Clergymen are subject to the same passions
as other men; and, as far as I can see, give way to them, in one
line or in another, almost as frequently. Every clergyman should, by
canonical rule, feel a personal disinclination to a bishopric; but yet
we do not believe that such personal disinclination is generally very
strong.

Mark’s first thoughts when he woke on that morning flew back to Mr.
Fothergill’s invitation. The duke had sent a special message to say how
peculiarly glad he, the duke, would be to make acquaintance with him,
the parson! How much of this message had been of Mr. Fothergill’s own
manufacture, that Mark Robarts did not consider.

He had obtained a living at an age when other young clergymen are
beginning to think of a curacy, and he had obtained such a living as
middle-aged parsons in their dreams regard as a possible Paradise for
their old years. Of course he thought that all these good things had
been the results of his own peculiar merits. Of course he felt that he
was different from other parsons,--more fitted by nature for intimacy
with great persons, more urbane, more polished, and more richly endowed
with modern clerical well-to-do aptitudes. He was grateful to Lady
Lufton for what she had done for him; but perhaps not so grateful as he
should have been.

At any rate he was not Lady Lufton’s servant, nor even her dependant.
So much he had repeated to himself on many occasions, and had gone
so far as to hint the same idea to his wife. In his career as parish
priest he must in most things be the judge of his own actions--and in
many also it was his duty to be the judge of those of his patroness.
The fact of Lady Lufton having placed him in the living, could by no
means make her the proper judge of his actions. This he often said
to himself; and he said as often that Lady Lufton certainly had a
hankering after such a judgment-seat.

Of whom generally did prime ministers and official bigwigs think it
expedient to make bishops and deans? Was it not, as a rule, of those
clergymen who had shown themselves able to perform their clerical
duties efficiently, and able also to take their place with ease in high
society? He was very well off certainly at Framley; but he could never
hope for anything beyond Framley, if he allowed himself to regard Lady
Lufton as a bugbear. Putting Lady Lufton and her prejudices out of the
question, was there any reason why he ought not to accept the duke’s
invitation? He could not see that there was any such reason. If any one
could be a better judge on such a subject than himself, it must be his
bishop. And it was clear that the bishop wished him to go to Gatherum
Castle.

The matter was still left open to him. Mr. Fothergill had especially
explained that; and therefore his ultimate decision was as yet within
his own power. Such a visit would cost him some money, for he knew
that a man does not stay at great houses without expense; and then, in
spite of his good income, he was not very flush of money. He had been
down this year with Lord Lufton in Scotland. Perhaps it might be more
prudent for him to return home.

But then an idea came to him that it behoved him as a man and a priest
to break through that Framley thraldom under which he felt that he did
to a certain extent exist. Was it not the fact that he was about to
decline this invitation from fear of Lady Lufton? and if so, was that a
motive by which he ought to be actuated? It was incumbent on him to rid
himself of that feeling. And in this spirit he got up and dressed.

There was hunting again on that day; and as the hounds were to meet
near Chaldicotes, and to draw some coverts lying on the verge of the
chase, the ladies were to go in carriages through the drives of the
forest, and Mr. Robarts was to escort them on horseback. Indeed it was
one of those hunting-days got up rather for the ladies than for the
sport. Great nuisances they are to steady, middle-aged hunting men; but
the young fellows like them because they have thereby an opportunity
of showing off their sporting finery, and of doing a little flirtation
on horseback. The bishop, also, had been minded to be of the party;
so, at least, he had said on the previous evening; and a place in one
of the carriages had been set apart for him: but since that, he and
Mrs. Proudie had discussed the matter in private, and at breakfast his
lordship declared that he had changed his mind.

Mr. Sowerby was one of those men who are known to be very poor--as poor
as debt can make a man--but who, nevertheless, enjoy all the luxuries
which money can give. It was believed that he could not live in
England out of jail but for his protection as a member of Parliament;
and yet it seemed that there was no end to his horses and carriages,
his servants and retinue. He had been at this work for a great many
years, and practice, they say, makes perfect. Such companions are very
dangerous. There is no cholera, no yellow-fever, no small-pox more
contagious than debt. If one lives habitually among embarrassed men,
one catches it to a certainty. No one had injured the community in this
way more fatally than Mr. Sowerby. But still he carried on the game
himself; and now on this morning carriages and horses thronged at his
gate, as though he were as substantially rich as his friend the Duke of
Omnium.

“Robarts, my dear fellow,” said Mr. Sowerby, when they were well
under way down one of the glades of the forest,--for the place
where the hounds met was some four or five miles from the house of
Chaldicotes,--“ride on with me a moment. I want to speak to you; and if
I stay behind we shall never get to the hounds.” So Mark, who had come
expressly to escort the ladies, rode on alongside of Mr. Sowerby in his
pink coat.

“My dear fellow, Fothergill tells me that you have some hesitation
about going to Gatherum Castle.”

“Well, I did decline, certainly. You know I am not a man of pleasure,
as you are. I have some duties to attend to.”

“Gammon!” said Mr. Sowerby; and as he said it he looked with a kind of
derisive smile into the clergyman’s face.

“It is easy enough to say that, Sowerby; and perhaps I have no right to
expect that you should understand me.”

“Ah, but I do understand you; and I say it is gammon. I would be the
last man in the world to ridicule your scruples about duty, if this
hesitation on your part arose from any such scruple. But answer me
honestly, do you not know that such is not the case?”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

“Ah, but I think you do. If you persist in refusing this invitation
will it not be because you are afraid of making Lady Lufton angry? I do
not know what there can be in that woman that she is able to hold both
you and Lufton in leading-strings.”

Robarts, of course, denied the charge and protested that he was not
to be taken back to his own parsonage by any fear of Lady Lufton.
But though he made such protest with warmth, he knew that he did so
ineffectually. Sowerby only smiled and said that the proof of the
pudding was in the eating.

“What is the good of a man keeping a curate if it be not to save him
from that sort of drudgery?” he asked.

“Drudgery! If I were a drudge how could I be here to-day?”

“Well, Robarts, look here. I am speaking now, perhaps, with more of the
energy of an old friend than circumstances fully warrant; but I am an
older man than you, and as I have a regard for you I do not like to see
you throw up a good game when it is in your hands.”

“Oh, as far as that goes, Sowerby, I need hardly tell you that I
appreciate your kindness.”

“If you are content,” continued the man of the world, “to live at
Framley all your life, and to warm yourself in the sunshine of the
dowager there, why, in such case, it may perhaps be useless for you to
extend the circle of your friends; but if you have higher ideas than
these, I think you will be very wrong to omit the present opportunity
of going to the duke’s. I never knew the duke go so much out of his way
to be civil to a clergyman as he has done in this instance.”

“I am sure I am very much obliged to him.”

“The fact is, that you may, if you please, make yourself popular in the
county; but you cannot do it by obeying all Lady Lufton’s behests. She
is a dear old woman, I am sure.”

“She is, Sowerby; and you would say so, if you knew her.”

“I don’t doubt it; but it would not do for you or me to live exactly
according to her ideas. Now, here, in this case, the bishop of the
diocese is to be one of the party, and he has, I believe, already
expressed a wish that you should be another.”

“He asked me if I were going.”

“Exactly; and Archdeacon Grantley will be there.”

“Will he?” asked Mark. Now, that would be a great point gained, for
Archdeacon Grantley was a close friend of Lady Lufton.

“So I understand from Fothergill. Indeed, it will be very wrong of you
not to go, and I tell you so plainly; and what is more, when you talk
about your duty--you having a curate as you have--why, it is gammon.”
These last words he spoke looking back over his shoulder as he stood
up in his stirrups, for he had caught the eye of the huntsman who was
surrounded by his hounds, and was now trotting on to join him.

During a great portion of the day, Mark found himself riding by the
side of Mrs. Proudie, as that lady leaned back in her carriage. And
Mrs. Proudie smiled on him graciously though her daughter would not do
so. Mrs. Proudie was fond of having an attendant clergyman; and as it
was evident that Mr. Robarts lived among nice people--titled dowagers,
members of parliament, and people of that sort--she was quite willing
to instal him as a sort of honorary chaplain _pro tem_.

“I’ll tell you what we have settled, Mrs. Harold Smith and I,” said
Mrs. Proudie to him. “This lecture at Barchester will be so late on
Saturday evening, that you had all better come and dine with us.”

Mark bowed and thanked her, and declared that he should be very happy
to make one of such a party. Even Lady Lufton could not object to this,
although she was not especially fond of Mrs. Proudie.

“And then they are to sleep at the hotel. It will really be too late
for ladies to think of going back so far at this time of the year. I
told Mrs. Harold Smith, and Miss Dunstable too, that we could manage
to make room at any rate for them. But they will not leave the other
ladies; so they go to the hotel for that night. But, Mr. Robarts, the
bishop will never allow you to stay at the inn, so of course you will
take a bed at the palace.”

It immediately occurred to Mark that as the lecture was to be given
on Saturday evening, the next morning would be Sunday; and, on that
Sunday, he would have to preach at Chaldicotes. “I thought they were
all going to return the same night,” said he.

“Well, they did intend it; but you see Mrs. Smith is afraid.”

“I should have to get back here on the Sunday morning, Mrs. Proudie.”

“Ah, yes, that is bad--very bad, indeed. No one dislikes any
interference with the Sabbath more than I do. Indeed, if I am
particular about anything it is about that. But some works are works
of necessity, Mr. Robarts; are they not? Now you must necessarily be
back at Chaldicotes on Sunday morning!” and so the matter was settled.
Mrs. Proudie was very firm in general in the matter of Sabbath-day
observances; but when she had to deal with such persons as Mrs. Harold
Smith, it was expedient that she should give way a little. “You can
start as soon as it’s daylight, you know, if you like it, Mr. Robarts,”
said Mrs. Proudie.

There was not much to boast of as to the hunting, but it was a very
pleasant day for the ladies. The men rode up and down the grass
roads through the chase, sometimes in the greatest possible hurry as
though they never could go quick enough; and then the coachmen would
drive very fast also though they did not know why, for a fast pace
of movement is another of those contagious diseases. And then again
the sportsmen would move at an undertaker’s pace, when the fox had
traversed and the hounds would be at a loss to know which was the hunt
and which was the heel; and then the carriage also would go slowly, and
the ladies would stand up and talk. And then the time for lunch came;
and altogether the day went by pleasantly enough.

“And so that’s hunting, is it?” said Miss Dunstable.

“Yes, that’s hunting,” said Mr. Sowerby.

“I did not see any gentleman do anything that I could not do myself,
except there was one young man slipped off into the mud; and I
shouldn’t like that.”

“But there was no breaking of bones, was there, my dear?” said Mrs.
Harold Smith.

“And nobody caught any foxes,” said Miss Dunstable. “The fact is, Mrs.
Smith, that I don’t think much more of their sport than I do of their
business. I shall take to hunting a pack of hounds myself after this.”

“Do, my dear, and I’ll be your whipper-in. I wonder whether Mrs.
Proudie would join us.”

“I shall be writing to the duke to-night,” said Mr. Fothergill to Mark,
as they were all riding up to the stable-yard together. “You will let
me tell his grace that you will accept his invitation--will you not?”

“Upon my word, the duke is very kind,” said Mark.

“He is very anxious to know you, I can assure you,” said Fothergill.

What could a young flattered fool of a parson do, but say that he would
go? Mark did say that he would go; and, in the course of the evening
his friend Mr. Sowerby congratulated him, and the bishop joked with him
and said that he knew that he would not give up good company so soon;
and Miss Dunstable said she would make him her chaplain as soon as
parliament would allow quack doctors to have such articles--an allusion
which Mark did not understand, till he learned that Miss Dunstable was
herself the proprietress of the celebrated Oil of Lebanon, invented
by her late respected father, and patented by him with such wonderful
results in the way of accumulated fortune; and Mrs. Proudie made him
quite one of their party, talking to him about all manner of church
subjects; and then at last, even Miss Proudie smiled on him, when she
learned that he had been thought worthy of a bed at a duke’s castle.
And all the world seemed to be open to him.

But he could not make himself happy that evening. On the next morning
he must write to his wife; and he could already see the look of painful
sorrow which would fall upon his Fanny’s brow when she learned that
her husband was going to be a guest at the Duke of Omnium’s. And he
must tell her to send him money, and money was scarce. And then, as
to Lady Lufton, should he send her some message, or should he not? In
either case he must declare war against her. And then did he not owe
everything to Lady Lufton? And thus in spite of all his triumphs he
could not get himself to bed in a happy frame of mind.

On the next day, which was Friday, he postponed the disagreeable task
of writing. Saturday would do as well; and on Saturday morning, before
they all started for Barchester, he did write. And his letter ran as
follows:--

                                       “Chaldicotes,--November, 185--.

    “DEAREST LOVE,--You will be astonished when I tell you how gay
    we all are here, and what further dissipations are in store for
    us. The Arabins, as you supposed, are not of our party; but the
    Proudies are,--as you supposed also. Your suppositions are always
    right. And what will you think when I tell you that I am to sleep
    at the palace on Saturday? You know that there is to be a lecture
    in Barchester on that day. Well; we must all go, of course, as
    Harold Smith, one of our set here, is to give it. And now it
    turns out that we cannot get back the same night because there is
    no moon; and Mrs. Bishop would not allow that my cloth should be
    contaminated by an hotel;--very kind and considerate, is it not?

    “But I have a more astounding piece of news for you than this.
    There is to be a great party at Gatherum Castle next week, and
    they have talked me over into accepting an invitation which the
    duke sent expressly to me. I refused at first; but everybody
    here said that my doing so would be so strange; and then they
    all wanted to know my reason. When I came to render it, I did
    not know what reason I had to give. The bishop is going, and he
    thought it very odd that I should not go also, seeing that I was
    asked.

    “I know what my own darling will think, and I know that she will
    not be pleased, and I must put off my defence till I return
    to her from this ogre-land,--if ever I do get back alive. But
    joking apart, Fanny, I think that I should have been wrong to
    stand out, when so much was said about it. I should have been
    seeming to take upon myself to sit in judgment upon the duke.
    I doubt if there be a single clergyman in the diocese, under
    fifty years of age, who would have refused the invitation under
    such circumstances,--unless it be Crawley, who is so mad on the
    subject that he thinks it almost wrong to take a walk out of his
    own parish.

    “I must stay at Gatherum Castle over Sunday week--indeed, we only
    go there on Friday. I have written to Jones about the duties. I
    can make it up to him, as I know he wishes to go into Wales at
    Christmas. My wanderings will all be over then, and he may go
    for a couple of months if he pleases. I suppose you will take my
    classes in the school on Sunday, as well as your own; but pray
    make them have a good fire. If this is too much for you, make
    Mrs. Podgens take the boys. Indeed I think that will be better.

    “Of course you will tell her ladyship of my whereabouts. Tell her
    from me, that as regards the bishop, as well as regarding another
    great personage, the colour has been laid on perhaps a little
    too thickly. Not that Lady Lufton would ever like him. Make her
    understand that my going to the duke’s has almost become a matter
    of conscience with me. I have not known how to make it appear
    that it would be right for me to refuse, without absolutely
    making a party matter of it. I saw that it would be said, that
    I, coming from Lady Lufton’s parish, could not go to the Duke of
    Omnium’s. This I did not choose.

    “I find that I shall want a little more money before I leave
    here, five or ten pounds--say ten pounds. If you cannot spare it,
    get it from Davis. He owes me more than that, a good deal.

    “And now, God bless and preserve you, my own love. Kiss my
    darling bairns for papa, and give them my blessing.

                                      “Always and ever your own,
                                                               “M. R.”


And then there was written, on an outside scrap which was folded round
the full-written sheet of paper, “Make it as smooth at Framley Court as
possible.”

However strong, and reasonable, and unanswerable the body of Mark’s
letter may have been, all his hesitation, weakness, doubt, and fear,
were expressed in this short postscript.


CHAPTER V.

AMANTIUM IRÆ AMORIS INTEGRATIO.

And now, with my reader’s consent, I will follow the postman with
that letter to Framley; not by its own circuitous route indeed, or by
the same mode of conveyance; for that letter went into Barchester by
the Courcy night mail-cart, which, on its road, passes through the
villages of Uffley and Chaldicotes, reaching Barchester in time for the
up mail-train to London. By that train, the letter was sent towards
the metropolis as far as the junction of the Barset branch line, but
there it was turned in its course, and came down again by the main line
as far as Silverbridge; at which place, between six and seven in the
morning, it was shouldered by the Framley footpost messenger, and in
due course delivered at the Framley Parsonage exactly as Mrs. Robarts
had finished reading prayers to the four servants. Or, I should say
rather, that such would in its usual course have been that letter’s
destiny. As it was, however, it reached Silverbridge on Sunday, and lay
there till the Monday, as the Framley people have declined their Sunday
post. And then again, when the letter was delivered at the parsonage,
on that wet Monday morning, Mrs. Robarts was not at home. As we are all
aware, she was staying with her ladyship at Framley Court.

“Oh, but it’s mortial wet,” said the shivering postman as he handed in
that and the vicar’s newspaper. The vicar was a man of the world, and
took the _Jupiter_.

“Come in, Robin postman, and warm theeself awhile,” said Jemima the
cook, pushing a stool a little to one side, but still well in front of
the big kitchen fire.

“Well, I dudna jist know how it’ll be. The wery ’edges ’as eyes
and tells on me in Silverbridge, if I so much as stops to pick a
blackberry.”

“There bain’t no hedges here, mon, nor yet no blackberries; so sit thee
down and warm theeself. That’s better nor blackberries I’m thinking,”
and she handed him a bowl of tea with a slice of buttered toast.

Robin postman took the proffered tea, put his dripping hat on the
ground, and thanked Jemima cook. “But I dudna jist know how it’ll be,”
said he; “only it do pour so tarnation heavy.” Which among us, O my
readers, could have withstood that temptation?

Such was the circuitous course of Mark’s letter; but as it left
Chaldicotes on Saturday evening, and reached Mrs. Robarts on the
following morning, or would have done, but for that intervening Sunday,
doing all its peregrinations during the night, it may be held that its
course of transport was not inconveniently arranged. We, however, will
travel by a much shorter route.

Robin, in the course of his daily travels, passed, first the
post-office at Framley, then the Framley Court back entrance, and then
the vicar’s house, so that on this wet morning Jemima cook was not able
to make use of his services in transporting this letter back to her
mistress; for Robin had got another village before him, expectant of
its letters.

“Why didn’t thee leave it, mon, with Mr. Applejohn at the Court?” Mr.
Applejohn was the butler who took the letter-bag. “Thee know’st as how
missus was there.”

And then Robin, mindful of the tea and toast, explained to her
courteously how the law made it imperative on him to bring the letter
to the very house that was indicated, let the owner of the letter be
where she might; and he laid down the law very satisfactorily with
sundry long-worded quotations. Not to much effect, however, for the
housemaid called him an oaf; and Robin would decidedly have had the
worst of it had not the gardener come in and taken his part. “They
women knows nothin’, and understands nothin’,” said the gardener.
“Give us hold of the letter. I’ll take it up to the house. It’s the
master’s fist.” And then Robin postman went on one way, and the
gardener, he went the other. The gardener never disliked an excuse for
going up to the Court gardens, even on so wet a day as this.

Mrs. Robarts was sitting over the drawing-room fire with Lady Meredith,
when her husband’s letter was brought to her. The Framley Court
letter-bag had been discussed at breakfast; but that was now nearly
an hour since, and Lady Lufton, as was her wont, was away in her own
room writing her own letters, and looking after her own matters; for
Lady Lufton was a person who dealt in figures herself, and understood
business almost as well as Harold Smith. And on that morning she also
had received a letter which had displeased her not a little. Whence
arose this displeasure neither Mrs. Robarts nor Lady Meredith knew; but
her ladyship’s brow had grown black at breakfast time; she had bundled
up an ominous-looking epistle into her bag without speaking of it, and
had left the room immediately that breakfast was over.

“There’s something wrong,” said Sir George.

“Mamma does fret herself so much about Ludovic’s money matters,” said
Lady Meredith. Ludovic was Lord Lufton,--Ludovic Lufton, Baron Lufton
of Lufton, in the county of Oxfordshire.

“And yet I don’t think Lufton gets much astray,” said Sir George, as he
sauntered out of the room. “Well, Justy; we’ll put off going then till
to-morrow; but remember, it must be the first train.” Lady Meredith
said she would remember, and then they went into the drawing-room, and
there Mrs. Robarts received her letter.

Fanny, when she read it, hardly at first realized to herself the idea
that her husband, the clergyman of Framley, the family clerical friend
of Lady Lufton’s establishment, was going to stay with the Duke of
Omnium. It was so thoroughly understood at Framley Court that the duke
and all belonging to him was noxious and damnable. He was a Whig, he
was a bachelor, he was a gambler, he was immoral in every way, he was a
man of no church principle, a corrupter of youth, a sworn foe of young
wives, a swallower up of small men’s patrimonies; a man whom mothers
feared for their sons, and sisters for their brothers; and worse again,
whom fathers had cause to fear for their daughters, and brothers for
their sisters;--a man who, with his belongings, dwelt, and must dwell,
poles asunder from Lady Lufton and her belongings!

And it must be remembered that all these evil things were fully
believed by Mrs. Robarts. Could it really be that her husband was going
to dwell in the halls of Apollyon, to shelter himself beneath the wings
of this very Lucifer? A cloud of sorrow settled upon her face, and
then she read the letter again very slowly, not omitting the tell-tale
postscript.

“Oh, Justinia!” at last she said.

“What, have you got bad news, too?”

“I hardly know how to tell you what has occurred. There; I suppose
you had better read it;” and she handed her husband’s epistle to Lady
Meredith,--keeping back, however, the postscript.

“What on earth will her ladyship say now?” said Lady Meredith, as she
folded the paper, and replaced it in the envelope.

“What had I better do, Justinia? how had I better tell her?” And then
the two ladies put their heads together, bethinking themselves how they
might best deprecate the wrath of Lady Lufton. It had been arranged
that Mrs. Robarts should go back to the parsonage after lunch, and
she had persisted in her intention after it had been settled that the
Merediths were to stay over that evening. Lady Meredith now advised her
friend to carry out this determination without saying anything about
her husband’s terrible iniquities, and then to send the letter up to
Lady Lufton as soon as she reached the parsonage. “Mamma will never
know that you received it here,” said Lady Meredith.

But Mrs. Robarts would not consent to this. Such a course seemed to her
to be cowardly. She knew that her husband was doing wrong; she felt
that he knew it himself; but still it was necessary that she should
defend him. However terrible might be the storm, it must break upon her
own head. So she at once went up and tapped at Lady Lufton’s private
door; and as she did so Lady Meredith followed her.

“Come in,” said Lady Lufton, and the voice did not sound soft and
pleasant. When they entered, they found her sitting at her little
writing table, with her head resting on her arm, and that letter which
she had received that morning was lying open on the table before her.
Indeed there were two letters now there, one from a London lawyer to
herself, and the other from her son to that London lawyer. It needs
only be explained that the subject of those letters was the immediate
sale of that outlying portion of the Lufton property in Oxfordshire, as
to which Mr. Sowerby once spoke. Lord Lufton had told the lawyer that
the thing must be done at once, adding that his friend Robarts would
have explained the whole affair to his mother. And then the lawyer had
written to Lady Lufton, as indeed was necessary; but unfortunately Lady
Lufton had not hitherto heard a word of the matter.

In her eyes, the sale of family property was horrible; the fact that a
young man with some fifteen or twenty thousand a year should require
subsidiary money was horrible; that her own son should have not written
to her himself was horrible; and it was also horrible that her own pet,
the clergyman whom she had brought there to be her son’s friend, should
be mixed up in the matter,--should be cognizant of it while she was not
cognizant,--should be employed in it as a go-between and agent in her
son’s bad courses. It was all horrible, and Lady Lufton was sitting
there with a black brow and an uneasy heart. As regarded our poor
parson, we may say that in this matter he was blameless, except that he
had hitherto lacked the courage to execute his friend’s commission.

“What is it, Fanny?” said Lady Lufton as soon as the door was opened;
“I should have been down in half-an-hour, if you wanted me, Justinia.”

“Fanny has received a letter which makes her wish to speak to you at
once,” said Lady Meredith.

“What letter, Fanny?”

Poor Fanny’s heart was in her mouth; she held it in her hand, but had
not yet quite made up her mind whether she would show it bodily to Lady
Lufton.

“From Mr. Robarts,” she said.

“Well; I suppose he is going to stay another week at Chaldicotes. For
my part I should be as well pleased;” and Lady Lufton’s voice was
not friendly, for she was thinking of that farm in Oxfordshire. The
imprudence of the young is very sore to the prudence of their elders.
No woman could be less covetous, less grasping than Lady Lufton; but
the sale of a portion of the old family property was to her as the loss
of her own heart’s blood.

“Here is the letter, Lady Lufton; perhaps you had better read it;” and
Fanny handed it to her, again keeping back the postscript. She had
read and re-read the letter downstairs, but could not make out whether
her husband had intended her to show it. From the line of the argument
she thought that he must have done so. At any rate he said for himself
more than she could say for him, and so, probably, it was best that her
ladyship should see it.

Lady Lufton took it, and read it, and her face grew blacker and
blacker. Her mind was set against the writer before she began it, and
every word in it tended to make her feel more estranged from him. “Oh,
he is going to the palace, is he--well; he must choose his own friends.
Harold Smith one of his party! It’s a pity, my dear, he did not see
Miss Proudie before he met you, he might have lived to be the bishop’s
chaplain. Gatherum Castle! You don’t mean to tell me that he is going
there? Then I tell you fairly, Fanny, that I have done with him.”

“Oh, Lady Lufton, don’t say that,” said Mrs. Robarts, with tears in her
eyes.

“Mamma, mamma, don’t speak in that way,” said Lady Meredith.

“But my dear, what am I to say? I must speak in that way. You would not
wish me to speak falsehoods, would you? A man must choose for himself,
but he can’t live with two different sets of people; at least, not if
I belong to one and the Duke of Omnium to the other. The bishop going
indeed! If there be anything that I hate it is hypocrisy.”

“There is no hypocrisy in that, Lady Lufton.”

“But I say there is, Fanny. Very strange, indeed! ‘Put off his
defence!’ Why should a man need any defence to his wife if he acts in
a straightforward way. His own language condemns him: ‘Wrong to stand
out!’ Now, will either of you tell me that Mr. Robarts would really
have thought it wrong to refuse that invitation? I say that that is
hypocrisy. There is no other word for it.”

By this time the poor wife, who had been in tears, was wiping them away
and preparing for action. Lady Lufton’s extreme severity gave her
courage. She knew that it behoved her to fight for her husband when he
was thus attacked. Had Lady Lufton been moderate in her remarks Mrs.
Robarts would not have had a word to say.

“My husband may have been ill-judged,” she said, “but he is no
hypocrite.”

“Very well, my dear, I dare say you know better than I; but to me it
looks extremely like hypocrisy: eh, Justinia?”

“Oh, mamma, do be moderate.”

“Moderate! That’s all very well. How is one to moderate one’s feelings
when one has been betrayed?”

“You do not mean that Mr. Robarts has betrayed you?” said the wife.

“Oh, no; of course not.” And then she went on reading the letter:
“‘Seem to have been standing in judgment upon the duke.’ Might he
not use the same argument as to going into any house in the kingdom,
however infamous? We must all stand in judgment one upon another in
that sense. ‘Crawley!’ Yes; if he were a little more like Mr. Crawley
it would be a good thing for me, and for the parish, and for you too,
my dear. God forgive me for bringing him here; that’s all.”

“Lady Lufton, I must say that you are very hard upon him--very hard. I
did not expect it from such a friend.”

“My dear, you ought to know me well enough to be sure that I shall
speak my mind. ‘Written to Jones’--yes; it is easy enough to write to
poor Jones. He had better write to Jones, and bid him do the whole
duty. Then he can go and be the duke’s domestic chaplain.”

“I believe my husband does as much of his own duty as any clergyman in
the whole diocese,” said Mrs. Robarts, now again in tears.

“And you are to take his work in the school; you and Mrs. Podgens.
What with his curate and his wife and Mrs. Podgens, I don’t see why he
should come back at all.”

“Oh, mamma,” said Justinia, “pray, pray don’t be so harsh to her.”

“Let me finish it, my dear,--oh, here I come. ‘Tell her ladyship my
whereabouts.’ He little thought you’d show me this letter.”

“Didn’t he?” said Mrs. Robarts, putting out her hand to get it back,
but in vain. “I thought it was for the best; I did indeed.”

“I had better finish it now, if you please. What is this? How does he
dare send his ribald jokes to me in such a matter? No, I do not suppose
I ever shall like Dr. Proudie; I have never expected it. A matter of
conscience with him! Well--well, well. Had I not read it myself, I
could not have believed it of him; I would not positively have believed
it. ‘Coming from my parish he could not go to the Duke of Omnium!’ And
it is what I would wish to have said. People fit for this parish should
not be fit for the Duke of Omnium’s house. And I had trusted that he
would have this feeling more strongly than any one else in it. I have
been deceived--that’s all.”

“He has done nothing to deceive you, Lady Lufton.”

“I hope he will not have deceived you, my dear. ‘More money;’ yes, it
is probable that he will want more money. There is your letter, Fanny.
I am very sorry for it. I can say nothing more.” And she folded up the
letter and gave it back to Mrs. Robarts.

“I thought it right to show it you,” said Mrs. Robarts.

“It did not much matter whether you did or no; of course I must have
been told.”

“He especially begs me to tell you.”

“Why, yes; he could not very well have kept me in the dark in such
a matter. He could not neglect his own work, and go and live with
gamblers and adulterers at the Duke of Omnium’s without my knowing it.”

And now Fanny Robarts’s cup was full, full to the overflowing. When
she heard these words she forgot all about Lady Lufton, all about Lady
Meredith, and remembered only her husband,--that he was her husband,
and, in spite of his faults, a good and loving husband;--and that other
fact also she remembered, that she was his wife.

“Lady Lufton,” she said, “you forget yourself in speaking in that way
of my husband.”

“What!” said her ladyship; “you are to show me such a letter as that,
and I am not to tell you what I think?”

“Not if you think such hard things as that. Even you are not justified
in speaking to me in that way, and I will not hear it.”

“Heighty-tighty,” said her ladyship.

“Whether or no he is right in going to the Duke of Omnium’s, I will not
pretend to judge. He is the judge of his own actions, and neither you
nor I.”

“And when he leaves you with the butcher’s bill unpaid and no money to
buy shoes for the children, who will be the judge then?”

“Not you, Lady Lufton. If such bad days should ever come--and neither
you nor I have a right to expect them--I will not come to you in my
troubles; not after this.”

“Very well, my dear. You may go to the Duke of Omnium if that suits you
better.”

“Fanny, come away,” said Lady Meredith. “Why should you try to anger my
mother?”

“I don’t want to anger her; but I won’t hear him abused in that way
without speaking up for him. If I don’t defend him, who will? Lady
Lufton has said terrible things about him; and they are not true.”

“Oh, Fanny!” said Justinia.

“Very well, very well!” said Lady Lufton. “This is the sort of return
that one gets.”

“I don’t know what you mean by return, Lady Lufton: but would you wish
me to stand by quietly and hear such things said of my husband? He
does not live with such people as you have named. He does not neglect
his duties. If every clergyman were as much in his parish, it would
be well for some of them. And in going to such a house as the Duke of
Omnium’s it does make a difference that he goes there in company with
the bishop. I can’t explain why, but I know that it does.”

“Especially when the bishop is coupled up with the devil, as Mr.
Robarts has done,” said Lady Lufton; “he can join the duke with them
and then they’ll stand for the three Graces, won’t they, Justinia?” And
Lady Lufton laughed a bitter little laugh at her own wit.

“I suppose I may go now, Lady Lufton.”

“Oh, yes, certainly, my dear.”

“I am sorry if I have made you angry with me; but I will not allow any
one to speak against Mr. Robarts without answering them. You have been
very unjust to him; and even though I do anger you, I must say so.”

“Come, Fanny; this is too bad,” said Lady Lufton. “You have been
scolding me for the last half-hour because I would not congratulate you
on this new friend that your husband has made, and now you are going
to begin it all over again. That is more than I can stand. If you have
nothing else particular to say, you might as well leave me.” And Lady
Lufton’s face as she spoke was unbending, severe, and harsh.

Mrs. Robarts had never before been so spoken to by her old friend;
indeed she had never been so spoken to by any one, and she hardly knew
how to bear herself.

“Very well, Lady Lufton,” she said; “then I will go. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye,” said Lady Lufton, and turning herself to her table she
began to arrange her papers. Fanny had never before left Framley Court
to go back to her own parsonage without a warm embrace. Now she was to
do so without even having her hand taken. Had it come to this, that
there was absolutely to be a quarrel between them,--a quarrel for ever?

“Fanny is going, you know, mamma,” said Lady Meredith. “She will be
home before you are down again.”

“I cannot help it, my dear. Fanny must do as she pleases. I am not to
be the judge of her actions. She has just told me so.”

Mrs. Robarts had said nothing of the kind, but she was far too proud to
point this out. So with a gentle step she retreated through the door,
and then Lady Meredith, having tried what a conciliatory whisper with
her mother would do, followed her. Alas, the conciliatory whisper was
altogether ineffectual!

The two ladies said nothing as they descended the stairs, but when they
had regained the drawing-room they looked with blank horror into each
other’s faces. What were they to do now? Of such a tragedy as this they
had had no remotest preconception. Was it absolutely the case that
Fanny Robarts was to walk out of Lady Lufton’s house as a declared
enemy,--she who, before her marriage as well as since, had been almost
treated as an adopted daughter of the family?

“Oh, Fanny, why did you answer my mother in that way?” said Lady
Meredith. “You saw that she was vexed. She had other things to vex her
besides this about Mr. Robarts.”

“And would not you answer any one who attacked Sir George?”

“No, not my own mother. I would let her say what she pleased, and leave
Sir George to fight his own battles.”

“Ah, but it is different with you. You are her daughter, and Sir
George----she would not dare to speak in that way as to Sir George’s
doings.”

“Indeed she would, if it pleased her. I am sorry I let you go up to
her.”

“It is as well that it should be over, Justinia. As those are her
thoughts about Mr. Roberts, it is quite as well that we should know
them. Even for all that I owe to her, and all the love I bear to you,
I will not come to this house if I am to hear my husband abused;--not
into any house.”

“My dearest Fanny, we all know what happens when two angry people get
together.”

“I was not angry when I went up to her; not in the least.”

“It is no good looking back. What are we to do now, Fanny?”

“I suppose I had better go home,” said Mrs. Robarts. “I will go and put
my things up, and then I will send James for them.”

“Wait till after lunch, and then you will be able to kiss my mother
before you leave us.”

“No, Justinia; I cannot wait. I must answer Mr. Robarts by this post,
and I must think what I have to say to him. I could not write that
letter here, and the post goes at four.” And Mrs. Robarts got up from
her chair, preparatory to her final departure.

“I shall come to you before dinner,” said Lady Meredith; “and if I can
bring you good tidings, I shall expect you to come back here with me.
It is out of the question that I should go away from Framley leaving
you and my mother at enmity with each other.”

To this Mrs. Robarts made no answer; and in a very few minutes
afterwards she was in her own nursery, kissing her children, and
teaching the elder one to say something about papa. But, even as she
taught him, the tears stood in her eyes, and the little fellow knew
that everything was not right.

And there she sat till about two, doing little odds and ends of things
for the children, and allowing that occupation to stand as an excuse
to her for not commencing her letter. But then there remained only two
hours to her, and it might be that the letter would be difficult in the
writing--would require thought and changes, and must needs be copied,
perhaps more than once. As to the money, that she had in the house--as
much, at least, as Mark now wanted, though the sending of it would
leave her nearly penniless. She could, however, in case of personal
need, resort to Davis as desired by him.

So she got out her desk in the drawing-room and sat down and wrote her
letter. It was difficult, though she found that it hardly took so long
as she expected. It was difficult, for she felt bound to tell him the
truth; and yet she was anxious not to spoil all his pleasure among
his friends. She told him, however, that Lady Lufton was very angry,
“unreasonably angry I must say,” she put in, in order to show that she
had not sided against him. “And indeed we have quite quarrelled, and
this has made me unhappy, as it will you, dearest; I know that. But we
both know how good she is at heart, and Justinia thinks that she had
other things to trouble her; and I hope it will all be made up before
you come home; only, dearest Mark, pray do not be longer than you said
in your last letter.” And then there were three or four paragraphs
about the babies and two about the schools, which I may as well omit.

She had just finished her letter, and was carefully folding it for its
envelope, with the two whole five-pound notes imprudently placed within
it, when she heard a footstep on the gravel path which led up from a
small wicket to the front door. The path ran near the drawing-room
window, and she was just in time to catch a glimpse of the last fold
of a passing cloak. “It is Justinia,” she said to herself; and her
heart became disturbed at the idea of again discussing the morning’s
adventure. “What am I to do,” she had said to herself before, “if she
wants me to beg her pardon? I will not own before her that he is in the
wrong.”

And then the door opened--for the visitor made her entrance without the
aid of any servant--and Lady Lufton herself stood before her. “Fanny,”
she said at once, “I have come to beg your pardon.”

“Oh, Lady Lufton!”

“I was very much harassed when you came to me just now;--by more things
than one, my dear, But, nevertheless, I should not have spoken to you
of your husband as I did, and so I have come to beg your pardon.”

Mrs. Robarts was past answering by the time that this was said,--past
answering at least in words; so she jumped up and, with her eyes full
of tears, threw herself into her old friend’s arms. “Oh, Lady Lufton!”
she sobbed forth again.

“You will forgive me, won’t you?” said her ladyship, as she returned
her young friend’s caress. “Well, that’s right. I have not been at all
happy since you left my den this morning, and I don’t suppose you have.
But, Fanny, dearest, we love each other too well and know each other
too thoroughly, to have a long quarrel, don’t we?”

“Oh, yes, Lady Lufton.”

“Of course we do. Friends are not to be picked up on the road-side
every day; nor are they to be thrown away lightly. And now sit down,
my love, and let us have a little talk. There, I must take my bonnet
off. You have pulled the strings so that you have almost choked me.”
And Lady Lufton deposited her bonnet on the table and seated herself
comfortably in the corner of the sofa.

“My dear,” she said, “there is no duty which any woman owes to any
other human being at all equal to that which she owes to her husband,
and, therefore, you were quite right to stand up for Mr. Robarts this
morning.”

Upon this Mrs. Robarts said nothing, but she got her hand within that
of her ladyship and gave it a slight squeeze.

“And I loved you for what you were doing all the time. I did, my dear;
though you were a little fierce, you know. Even Justinia admits that,
and she has been at me ever since you went away. And indeed, I did not
know that it was in you to look in that way out of those pretty eyes of
yours.”

“Oh, Lady Lufton!”

“But I looked fierce enough too myself, I dare say; so we’ll say
nothing more about that; will we? But now, about this good man of
yours?”

“Dear Lady Lufton, you must forgive him.”

“Well: as you ask me, I will. We’ll have nothing more said about the
duke, either now or when he comes back; not a word. Let me see--he’s to
be back;--when is it?”

“Wednesday week, I think.”

“Ah, Wednesday. Well, tell him to come and dine up at the house on
Wednesday. He’ll be in time, I suppose, and there shan’t be a word said
about this horrid duke.”

“I am so much obliged to you, Lady Lufton.”

“But look here, my dear; believe me, he’s better off without such
friends.”

“Oh, I know he is; much better off.”

“Well, I’m glad you admit that, for I thought you seemed to be in
favour of the duke.”

“Oh, no, Lady Lufton.”

“That’s right, then. And now, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll use your
influence, as a good, dear sweet wife as you are, to prevent his going
there any more. I’m an old woman and he is a young man, and it’s very
natural that he should think me behind the times. I’m not angry at
that. But he’ll find that it’s better for him, better for him in every
way, to stick to his old friends. It will be better for his peace of
mind, better for his character as a clergyman, better for his pocket,
better for his children and for you,--and better for his eternal
welfare. The duke is not such a companion as he should seek;--nor if he
is sought, should he allow himself to be led away.”

And then Lady Lufton ceased, and Fanny Robarts kneeling at her feet
sobbed, with her face hidden on her friend’s knees. She had not a word
now to say as to her husband’s capability of judging for himself.

“And now I must be going again; but Justinia has made me
promise,--promise, mind you, most solemnly, that I would have you back
to dinner to-night,--by force if necessary. It was the only way I could
make my peace with her; so you must not leave me in the lurch.” Of
course, Fanny said that she would go and dine at Framley Court.

“And you must not send that letter, by any means,” said her ladyship
as she was leaving the room, poking with her umbrella at the epistle
which lay directed on Mrs. Robarts’s desk. “I can understand very well
what it contains. You must alter it altogether, my dear.” And then Lady
Lufton went.

Mrs. Robarts instantly rushed to her desk and tore open her letter. She
looked at her watch and it was past four. She had hardly begun another
when the postman came. “Oh, Mary,” she said, “do make him wait. If
he’ll wait a quarter of an hour I’ll give him a shilling.”

“There’s no need of that, ma’am. Let him have a glass of beer.”

“Very well, Mary; but don’t give him too much, for fear he should drop
the letters about. I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”

And in five minutes she had scrawled a very different sort of a letter.
But he might want the money immediately, so she would not delay it for
a day.


CHAPTER VI.

MR. HAROLD SMITH’S LECTURE.

On the whole the party at Chaldicotes was very pleasant and the
time passed away quickly enough. Mr. Robarts’s chief friend there,
independently of Mr. Sowerby, was Miss Dunstable, who seemed to take
a great fancy to him, whereas she was not very accessible to the
blandishments of Mr. Supplehouse, nor more specially courteous even to
her host than good manners required of her. But then Mr. Supplehouse
and Mr. Sowerby were both bachelors, while Mark Robarts was a married
man.

With Mr. Sowerby Robarts had more than one communication respecting
Lord Lufton and his affairs, which he would willingly have avoided had
it been possible. Sowerby was one of those men who are always mixing up
business with pleasure, and who have usually some scheme in their mind
which requires forwarding. Men of this class have, as a rule, no daily
work, no regular routine of labour; but it may be doubted whether they
do not toil much more incessantly than those who have.

“Lufton is so dilatory,” Mr. Sowerby said. “Why did he not arrange this
at once, when he promised it? And then he is so afraid of that old
woman at Framley Court. Well, my dear fellow, say what you will; she is
an old woman and she’ll never be younger. But do write to Lufton and
tell him that this delay is inconvenient to me; he’ll do anything for
you, I know.”

Mark said that he would write, and, indeed, did do so; but he did not
at first like the tone of the conversation into which he was dragged.
It was very painful to him to hear Lady Lufton called an old woman, and
hardly less so to discuss the propriety of Lord Lufton’s parting with
his property. This was irksome to him, till habit made it easy. But by
degrees his feelings became less acute and he accustomed himself to his
friend Sowerby’s mode of talking.

And then on the Saturday afternoon they all went over to Barchester.
Harold Smith during the last forty-eight hours had become crammed to
overflowing with Sarawak, Labuan, New Guinea, and the Salomon Islands.
As is the case with all men labouring under temporary specialities,
he for the time had faith in nothing else, and was not content that
any one near him should have any other faith. They called him Viscount
Papua and Baron Borneo; and his wife, who headed the joke against him,
insisted on having her title. Miss Dunstable swore that she would wed
none but a South Sea islander; and to Mark was offered the income and
duties of Bishop of Spices. Nor did the Proudie family set themselves
against these little sarcastic quips with any overwhelming severity.
It is sweet to unbend oneself at the proper opportunity, and this was
the proper opportunity for Mrs. Proudie’s unbending. No mortal can be
seriously wise at all hours; and in these happy hours did that usually
wise mortal, the bishop, lay aside for awhile his serious wisdom.

“We think of dining at five to-morrow, my Lady Papua,” said the
facetious bishop; “will that suit his lordship and the affairs of
State? he! he! he!” And the good prelate laughed at the fun.

How pleasantly young men and women of fifty or thereabouts can joke
and flirt and poke their fun about, laughing and holding their sides,
dealing in little innuendoes and rejoicing in nicknames when they have
no Mentors of twenty-five or thirty near them to keep them in order.
The vicar of Framley might perhaps have been regarded as such a Mentor,
were it not for that capability of adapting himself to the company
immediately around him on which he so much piqued himself. He therefore
also talked to my Lady Papua, and was jocose about the Baron,--not
altogether to the satisfaction of Mr. Harold Smith himself.

For Mr. Harold Smith was in earnest and did not quite relish these
jocundities. He had an idea that he could in about three months talk
the British world into civilizing New Guinea, and that the world of
Barsetshire would be made to go with him by one night’s efforts. He did
not understand why others should be less serious, and was inclined to
resent somewhat stiffly the amenities of our friend Mark.

“We must not keep the Baron waiting,” said Mark, as they were preparing
to start for Barchester.

“I don’t know what you mean by the Baron, sir,” said Harold Smith. “But
perhaps the joke will be against you, when you are getting up into your
pulpit to-morrow and sending the hat round among the clodhoppers of
Chaldicotes.”

“Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones; eh, Baron?”
said Miss Dunstable. “Mr. Robarts’s sermon will be too near akin to
your lecture to allow of his laughing.”

“If we can do nothing towards instructing the outer world till it’s
done by the parsons,” said Harold Smith, “the outer world will have to
wait a long time, I fear.”

“Nobody can do anything of that kind short of a member of parliament
and a would-be minister,” whispered Mrs. Harold.

And so they were all very pleasant together, in spite of a little
fencing with edge tools; and at three o’clock the _cortége_ of
carriages started for Barchester, that of the bishop, of course,
leading the way. His lordship, however, was not in it.

“Mrs. Proudie, I’m sure you’ll let me go with you,” said Miss
Dunstable, at the last moment, as she came down the big stone steps. “I
want to hear the rest of that story about Mr. Slope.”

Now this upset everything. The bishop was to have gone with his wife,
Mrs. Smith, and Mark Robarts; and Mr. Sowerby had so arranged matters
that he could have accompanied Miss Dunstable in his phaeton. But no
one ever dreamed of denying Miss Dunstable anything. Of course Mark
gave way; but it ended in the bishop declaring that he had no special
predilection for his own carriage, which he did in compliance with a
glance from his wife’s eye. Then other changes of course followed, and,
at last, Mr. Sowerby and Harold Smith were the joint occupants of the
phaeton.

The poor lecturer, as he seated himself, made some remark such as those
he had been making for the last two days--for out of a full heart the
mouth speaketh. But he spoke to an impatient listener. “D---- the South
Sea islanders,” said Mr. Sowerby. “You’ll have it all your own way in
a few minutes, like a bull in a china-shop; but for Heaven’s sake let
us have a little peace till that time comes.” It appeared that Mr.
Sowerby’s little plan of having Miss Dunstable for his companion was
not quite insignificant; and, indeed, it may be said that but few of
his little plans were so. At the present moment he flung himself back
in the carriage and prepared for sleep. He could further no plan of his
by a _tête-à-tête_ conversation with his brother-in-law.

And then Mrs. Proudie began her story about Mr. Slope, or rather
recommenced it. She was very fond of talking about this gentleman, who
had once been her pet chaplain but was now her bitterest foe; and in
telling the story, she had sometimes to whisper to Miss Dunstable, for
there were one or two fie-fie little anecdotes about a married lady,
not altogether fit for young Mr. Robarts’s ears. But Mrs. Harold Smith
insisted on having them out loud, and Miss Dunstable would gratify that
lady in spite of Mrs. Proudie’s winks.

“What, kissing her hand, and he a clergyman!” said Miss Dunstable. “I
did not think they ever did such things, Mr. Robarts.”

“Still waters run deepest,” said Mrs. Harold Smith.

“Hush-h-h,” looked, rather than spoke, Mrs. Proudie. “The grief of
spirit which that bad man caused me nearly broke my heart, and all the
while, you know, he was courting--” and then Mrs. Proudie whispered a
name.

“What, the dean’s wife!” shouted Miss Dunstable, in a voice which made
the coachman of the next carriage give a chuck to his horses as he
overheard her.

“The archdeacon’s sister-in-law!” screamed Mrs. Harold Smith.

“What might he not have attempted next?” said Miss Dunstable.

“She wasn’t the dean’s wife then, you know,” said Mrs. Proudie,
explaining.

“Well, you’ve a gay set in the chapter, I must say,” said Miss
Dunstable. “You ought to make one of them in Barchester, Mr. Robarts.”

“Only perhaps Mrs. Robarts might not like it,” said Mrs. Harold Smith.

“And then the schemes which he tried on with the bishop!” said Mrs.
Proudie.

“It’s all fair in love and war, you know,” said Miss Dunstable.

“But he little knew whom he had to deal with when he began that,” said
Mrs. Proudie.

“The bishop was too many for him,” suggested Mrs. Harold Smith, very
maliciously.

“If the bishop was not, somebody else was; and he was obliged to leave
Barchester in utter disgrace. He has since married the wife of some
tallow chandler.”

“The wife!” said Miss Dunstable. “What a man!”

“Widow, I mean; but it’s all one to him.”

“The gentleman was clearly born when Venus was in the ascendant,”
said Mrs. Smith. “You clergymen usually are, I believe, Mr. Robarts.”
So that Mrs. Proudie’s carriage was by no means the dullest as they
drove into Barchester that day; and by degrees our friend Mark became
accustomed to his companions, and before they reached the palace he
acknowledged to himself that Miss Dunstable was very good fun.

We cannot linger over the bishop’s dinner, though it was very good of
its kind; and as Mr. Sowerby contrived to sit next to Miss Dunstable,
thereby overturning a little scheme made by Mr. Supplehouse, he again
shone forth in unclouded good humour. But Mr. Harold Smith became
impatient immediately on the withdrawal of the cloth. The lecture was
to begin at seven, and according to his watch that hour had already
come. He declared that Sowerby and Supplehouse were endeavouring to
delay matters in order that the Barchesterians might become vexed
and impatient; and so the bishop was not allowed to exercise his
hospitality in true episcopal fashion.

“You forget, Sowerby,” said Supplehouse, “that the world here for the
last fortnight has been looking forward to nothing else.”

“The world shall be gratified at once,” said Mrs. Harold, obeying a
little nod from Mrs. Proudie. “Come, my dear,” and she took hold of
Miss Dunstable’s arm, “don’t let us keep Barchester waiting. We shall
be ready in a quarter-of-an-hour, shall we not, Mrs. Proudie?” and so
they sailed off.

“And we shall have time for one glass of claret,” said the bishop.

“There; that’s seven by the cathedral,” said Harold Smith, jumping up
from his chair as he heard the clock. “If the people have come it would
not be right in me to keep them waiting, and I shall go.”

“Just one glass of claret, Mr. Smith; and we’ll be off,” said the
bishop.

“Those women will keep me an hour,” said Harold, filling his glass, and
drinking it standing. “They do it on purpose.” He was thinking of his
wife, but it seemed to the bishop as though his guest were actually
speaking of Mrs. Proudie!

It was rather late when they all found themselves in the big room
of the Mechanics’ Institute; but I do not know whether this on the
whole did them any harm. Most of Mr. Smith’s hearers, excepting the
party from the palace, were Barchester tradesmen with their wives and
families; and they waited, not impatiently, for the big people. And
then the lecture was gratis, a fact which is always borne in mind by an
Englishman when he comes to reckon up and calculate the way in which he
is treated. When he pays his money, then he takes his choice; he may be
impatient or not as he likes. His sense of justice teaches him so much,
and in accordance with that sense he usually acts.

So the people on the benches rose graciously when the palace party
entered the room. Seats for them had been kept in the front. There were
three arm-chairs, which were filled, after some little hesitation, by
the bishop, Mrs. Proudie, and Miss Dunstable--Mrs. Smith positively
declining to take one of them; though, as she admitted, her rank as
Lady Papua of the islands did give her some claim. And this remark, as
it was made quite out loud, reached Mr. Smith’s ears as he stood behind
a little table on a small raised dais, holding his white kid gloves;
and it annoyed him and rather put him out. He did not like that joke
about Lady Papua.

And then the others of the party sat upon a front bench covered
with red cloth. “We shall find this very hard and very narrow about
the second hour,” said Mr. Sowerby, and Mr. Smith on his dais again
overheard the words, and dashed his gloves down to the table. He felt
that all the room would hear it.

And there were one or two gentlemen on the second seat who shook
hands with some of our party. There was Mr. Thorne of Ullathorne,
a good-natured old bachelor, whose residence was near enough
to Barchester to allow of his coming in without much personal
inconvenience; and next to him was Mr. Harding, an old clergyman of the
chapter, with whom Mrs. Proudie shook hands very graciously, making way
for him to seat himself close behind her if he would so please. But
Mr. Harding did not so please. Having paid his respects to the bishop
he returned quietly to the side of his old friend Mr. Thorne, thereby
angering Mrs. Proudie, as might easily be seen by her face. And Mr.
Chadwick also was there, the episcopal man of business for the diocese;
but he also adhered to the two gentlemen above named.

And now that the bishop and the ladies had taken their places, Mr.
Harold Smith relifted his gloves and again laid them down, hummed three
times distinctly, and then began.

“It was,” he said, “the most peculiar characteristic of the present era
in the British islands that those who were high placed before the world
in rank, wealth, and education were willing to come forward and give
their time and knowledge without fee or reward, for the advantage and
amelioration of those who did not stand so high in the social scale.”
And then he paused for a moment, during which Mrs. Smith remarked to
Miss Dunstable that that was pretty well for a beginning; and Miss
Dunstable replied, “that as for herself she felt very grateful to
rank, wealth, and education.” Mr. Sowerby winked to Mr. Supplehouse,
who opened his eyes very wide and shrugged his shoulders. But the
Barchesterians took it all in good part and gave the lecturer the
applause of their hands and feet.

And then, well pleased, he recommenced--“I do not make these remarks
with reference to myself----”

“I hope he’s not going to be modest,” said Miss Dunstable.

“It will be quite new if he is,” replied Mrs. Smith.

“----so much as to many noble and talented lords and members of the
lower house who have lately from time to time devoted themselves to
this good work.” And then he went through a long list of peers and
members of parliament, beginning, of course, with Lord Boanerges, and
ending with Mr. Green Walker, a young gentleman who had lately been
returned by his uncle’s interest for the borough of Crew Junction, and
had immediately made his entrance into public life by giving a lecture
on the grammarians of the Latin language as exemplified at Eton school.

“On the present occasion,” Mr. Smith continued, “our object is to learn
something as to those grand and magnificent islands which lie far away,
beyond the Indies, in the Southern Ocean; the lands of which produce
rich spices and glorious fruits, and whose seas are imbedded with
pearls and corals, Papua and the Philippines, Borneo and the Moluccas.
My friends, you are familiar with your maps, and you know the track
which the equator makes for itself through those distant oceans.” And
then many heads were turned down, and there was a rustle of leaves;
for not a few of those “who stood not so high in the social scale” had
brought their maps with them, and refreshed their memories as to the
whereabouts of these wondrous islands.

And then Mr. Smith also, with a map in his hand, and pointing
occasionally to another large map which hung against the wall, went
into the geography of the matter. “We might have found that out from
our atlases, I think, without coming all the way to Barchester,”
said that unsympathizing helpmate Mrs. Harold, very cruelly--most
illogically too, for there be so many things which we could find out
ourselves by search, but which we never do find out unless they be
specially told us; and why should not the latitude and longitude of
Labuan be one--or rather two of these things?

And then, when he had duly marked the path of the line through Borneo,
Celebes, and Gilolo, through the Macassar strait and the Molucca
passage, Mr. Harold Smith rose to a higher flight. “But what,” said he,
“avails all that God can give to man, unless man will open his hand to
receive the gift? And what is this opening of the hand but the process
of civilization--yes, my friends, the process of civilization? These
South Sea islanders have all that a kind Providence can bestow on
them; but that all is as nothing without education. That education and
that civilization it is for you to bestow upon them--yes, my friends,
for you; for you, citizens of Barchester as you are.” And then he
paused again, in order that the feet and hands might go to work. The
feet and hands did go to work, during which Mr. Smith took a slight
drink of water.

He was now quite in his element and had got into the proper way of
punching the table with his fists. A few words dropping from Mr.
Sowerby did now and again find their way to his ears, but the sound of
his own voice had brought with it the accustomed charm, and he ran on
from platitude to truism, and from truism back to platitude, with an
eloquence that was charming to himself.

“Civilization,” he exclaimed, lifting up his eyes and hands to the
ceiling. “Oh, civilization----”

“There will not be a chance for us now for the next hour and a half,”
said Mr. Supplehouse groaning.

Harold Smith cast one eye down at him, but it immediately flew back to
the ceiling.

“Oh, civilization! thou that ennoblest mankind and makest him equal to
the gods, what is like unto thee?” Here Mrs. Proudie showed evident
signs of disapprobation, which no doubt would have been shared by
the bishop, had not that worthy prelate been asleep. But Mr. Smith
continued unobservant; or, at any rate, regardless.

“What is like unto thee? Thou art the irrigating stream which makest
fertile the barren plain. Till thou comest all is dark and dreary; but
at thy advent the noontide sun shines out, the earth gives forth her
increase; the deep bowels of the rocks render up their tribute. Forms
which were dull and hideous become endowed with grace and beauty, and
vegetable existence rises to the scale of celestial life. Then, too,
genius appears clad in a panoply of translucent armour, grasping in
his hand the whole terrestrial surface, and making every rood of earth
subservient to his purposes;--Genius, the child of civilization, the
mother of the Arts!”

The last little bit, taken from the Pedigree of Progress, had a great
success and all Barchester went to work with its hands and feet;--all
Barchester, except that ill-natured aristocratic front-row together
with the three arm-chairs at the corner of it. The aristocratic
front-row felt itself to be too intimate with civilization to care
much about it; and the three arm-chairs, or rather that special one
which contained Mrs. Proudie, considered that there was a certain
heathenness, a pagan sentimentality almost amounting to infidelity,
contained in the lecturer’s remarks, with which she, a pillar of the
church, could not put up, seated as she was now in public conclave.

“It is to civilization that we must look,” continued Mr. Harold Smith,
descending from poetry to prose as a lecturer well knows how, and
thereby showing the value of both--“for any material progress in these
islands; and----”

“And to Christianity,” shouted Mrs. Proudie, to the great amazement
of the assembled people and to the thorough wakening of the bishop,
who, jumping up in his chair at the sound of the well-known voice,
exclaimed, “Certainly, certainly.”

“Hear, hear, hear,” said those on the benches who particularly belonged
to Mrs. Proudie’s school of divinity in the city, and among the voices
was distinctly heard that of a new verger in whose behalf she had
greatly interested herself.

“Oh, yes, Christianity of course,” said Harold Smith, upon whom the
interruption did not seem to operate favourably.

“Christianity and Sabbath-day observance,” exclaimed Mrs. Proudie, who
now that she had obtained the ear of the public seemed well inclined to
keep it. “Let us never forget that these islanders can never prosper
unless they keep the Sabbath holy.”

Poor Mr. Smith, having been so rudely dragged from his high horse, was
never able to mount it again, and completed the lecture in a manner
not at all comfortable to himself. He had there, on the table before
him, a huge bundle of statistics with which he had meant to convince
the reason of his hearers after he had taken full possession of their
feelings. But they fell very dull and flat. And at the moment when he
was interrupted he was about to explain that that material progress to
which he had alluded could not be attained without money; and that it
behoved them, the people of Barchester before him, to come forward with
their purses like men and brothers. He did also attempt this; but from
the moment of that fatal onslaught from the arm-chair, it was clear to
him and to every one else, that Mrs. Proudie was now the hero of the
hour. His time had gone by, and the people of Barchester did not care a
straw for his appeal.

From these causes the lecture was over full twenty minutes earlier
than any one had expected, to the great delight of Messrs. Sowerby and
Supplehouse, who, on that evening, moved and carried a vote of thanks
to Mrs. Proudie. For they had gay doings yet before they went to their
beds.

“Robarts, here one moment,” Mr. Sowerby said, as they were standing
at the door of the Mechanics’ Institute. “Don’t you go off with Mr.
and Mrs. Bishop. We are going to have a little supper at the Dragon of
Wantly, and after what we have gone through upon my word we want it.
You can tell one of the palace servants to let you in.”

Mark considered the proposal wistfully. He would fain have joined the
supper-party had he dared; but he, like many others of his cloth, had
the fear of Mrs. Proudie before his eyes.

And a very merry supper they had; but poor Mr. Harold Smith was not the
merriest of the party.




Tithonus.


      Ay me! ay me! the woods decay and fall,
      The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
      Man comes and tills the earth and lies beneath,
      And after many a summer dies the swan.
      Me only cruel immortality
      Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,
      Here at the quiet limit of the world,
      A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream
      The ever silent spaces of the East,
      Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

        Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man--
      So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
      Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d
      To his great heart none other than a God!
      I ask’d thee, “Give me immortality.”
      Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
      Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
      But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
      And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
      And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d
      To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
      Immortal age beside immortal youth,
      And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,
      Thy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now,
      Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
      Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
      To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:
      Why should a man desire in any way
      To vary from the kindly race of men,
      Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
      Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?

        A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
      A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
      Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
      From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
      And bosom beating with a heart renew’d.
      Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,
      Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
      Ere yet they blind the stars, and that wild team
      Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
      And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,
      And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.

        Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
      In silence, then before thine answer given
      Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.

        Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
      And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,
      In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?
      “The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.”

        Ay me! ay me! with what another heart
      In days far-off, and with what other eyes
      I used to watch--if I be he that watch’d--
      The lucid outline forming round thee, saw
      The dim curls kindle into sunny rings,
      Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
      Glow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all
      Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,
      Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm
      With kisses balmier than half-opening buds
      Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d
      Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,
      Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing
      While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

        Yet hold me not for ever in thine East:
      How can my nature longer mix with thine?
      Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold
      Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet
      Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam
      Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
      Of happy men that have the power to die,
      And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
      Release me, and restore me to the ground;
      Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave:
      Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;
      I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
      And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

      ALFRED TENNYSON.




William Hogarth:

PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER.

_Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time._


I.--LITTLE BOY HOGARTH.

“The Life and Adventures of William Hogarth,”--that would be a taking
title, indeed! To do for the great painter of manners that which Mr.
Forster has done for their great describer, would be a captivating
task; and, successfully accomplished, might entitle a man to wear some
little sprig of laurel in his cap, and rest, thenceforth, on his oars.
It is not my fortune to have the means of writing such a book; and, for
many reasons, this performance must be limited to a series of Essays
upon the genius and character of the MAN Hogarth; upon the WORK he was
permitted, by a healthful, sanguine constitution and by great powers
of will and self-reliance backboning an unflagging industry, to get
through in his appointed span here below; and upon the curious quaint
TIME in which he lived and did his work. Hogarth’s life, away from
his works and times, would be but a barren theme. Those old Italian
painting men had strange adventures and vicissitudes. Rafaelle’s life
was one brief glorious romance. Leonardo had a king’s arms to die in.
Buonarotti lived amidst battles and sieges, and held flouting matches
with popes. Titian’s pencil was picked up by an emperor. The Germans
and Dutchmen, even, were picturesque and eventful in their careers. Was
not Rubens an ambassador? Are there not mysterious dealings between
Rembrandt and the Jews that have not yet been fathomed? Did not Peter
de Laar kill a monk? But in what manner is the historian to extract
exciting elements from the history of a chubby little man in a cocked
hat and scarlet roque-laure, who lived at the sign of the “Painter’s
Head” in Leicester Fields, and died in his bed there in competence and
honour; who was the son of a schoolmaster in the Old Bailey, and the
descendant of a long line of north country yeomen, of whom the prime
progenitor is presumed to have kept pigs and to have gone by the rude
name of “Hogherd”--whence Hogard and Hogart, at last liquefied into
Hogarth? Benvenuto Cellini worked for the silversmiths, but at least
he had poniarded his man and lain for his sins in the dungeons of St.
Angelo; our Hogarth was a plain silversmith’s apprentice, in Cranbourn
Alley. He kept a shop afterwards, and engraved tankards and salvers,
and never committed a graver act of violence than to throw a pewter
pot at the head of a ruffian who had insulted him during an outing to
Highgate. Honest man! they never sent him to Newgate or the Tower.
Only once he was clapped up for an hour or so in a Calais guardhouse,
and, coming home by the next packet-boat, took a stout revenge on the
frog-eaters with his etching needle upon copper. He was no great
traveller; and beyond the Calais ship just spoken of, does not appear
to have undertaken any journeys more important than the immortal
excursion to Rochester, of which the chronicle, illustrated by his
own sketches, is still extant, (those doughty setters-forth from the
Bedford Head were decidedly the first Pickwickians,) and a jaunt to St.
Alban’s after Culloden, to sketch the trapped fox Simon Fraser Lord
Lovat, as he sate in the inn-room under the barber’s hands, counting
the dispersed Highland clans and their available forces of caterans and
brae-men on his half-palsied, crooked, picking and stealing fingers.

William Hogarth did but one romantic thing in his life, and that was,
to run away with Sir James Thornhill’s pretty daughter; and even that
escapade soon resolved itself into a cheery, English, business-like,
house-keeping union. Papa-in-law--who painted cathedral cupolas at
forty shillings a yard--forgave William and Jane. William loved his
wife dearly--she had her tempers, and he was not a man of snow--took
a country house for her, and set up a coach when things were going
prosperously and he was Sergeant Painter to King George; and when
William (not quite a dotard, as the twin-scamps Wilkes and Churchill
called him) died, Jane made a comfortable living by selling impressions
of the plates he had engraved. These and the writing of the _Analysis
of Beauty_, the dispute concerning Sigismunda, the interest taken in
the welfare of the Foundling Hospital, the dedication [in a pique
against the king who hated “boets and bainters,”] of the _March to
Finchley_ to Frederick the Great, and the abortive picture auction
scheme, are very nearly all the notable events in the life of William
Hogarth. And yet the man left a name remembered now with affection and
applause, and which will be remembered, and honoured, and glorified
when, to quote the self-conscious Unknown who used the _Public
Advertiser_ as a fulcrum for that terrible lever of his, “kings and
ministers are forgotten, the force and direction of personal satire
are no longer understood, and measures are felt only in their remotest
consequences.”

By the announcement, then, that I do not contemplate, here, a complete
biography of Hogarth: that I do not know enough to complete a reliable
and authentic life: “_nec, si sciam, dicere ausim_:” these papers are
to be considered but as “_Mémoires pour servir_;” little photographs
and chalk studies of drapery, furniture, accessories of costume and
snuff-box, cocked hat and silver buckle detail, all useful enough in
their place and way, but quite subordinate and inferior to the grand
design and complete picture of the hero. I am aware that high critical
authorities have been inveighing lately against the employment of
the costumiers and _bric a brac_ shop-keepers and inventory takers’
attributes in biography; and writers are enjoined, under heavy
penalties, to be, all of them, Plutarchs, and limn their characters
in half a dozen broad vigorous dashes. It can conduce little, it has
been argued, towards our knowledge of the Seven Years’ War to be told
that Frederick the Great wore a pigtail, and that to his jackboots “Day
and Martin with their soot-pots were forbidden to approach;” and it
has been asked whether any likelihood exists of our knowing more of
the character of Napoleon Bonaparte from the sight of his cocked hat
and toothbrush at Madame Tussaud’s. Presuming to run counter to the
opinion of the high critical authorities, I would point out that the
very best biographies that have ever been written--those of Samuel
Johnson, Samuel Pepys [his diary being eminently biographical], Lord
Herbert of Cherbury, and Jean Jacques Rousseau [in the _Confessions_,
and bating the lies and madnesses with which that poor crazed wanderer
disfigures an otherwise limpid narrative]--are full of those little
scraps and fragments of minute cross-hatching, chronicles of “seven
livres three sols, parisis,” lamentable records of unpaid-for hose,
histories of joyous carouses, anecdotes of men and women’s meannesses
and generosities, and the like. On the other hand, how cold, pallid,
unhuman, is the half-dozen-line character, with all its broad vigorous
dashes! Certain Roman emperors might have come out far better fellows
from the historian’s alembic if their togas and sandals had been more
scrupulously dwelt upon. Is our awful veneration for St. Augustine
one whit diminished by the small deer he condescends to hunt in the
history of his youth? The heaviest blow and greatest discouragement
to the composition of admirable biographies, are in the fact that
strength and delicacy, vigour and finish, are seldom combined; and that
a Milton with a dash of the macaroni in him is a _rara avis_ indeed.
Now and then we find an elephant that can dance on the tight-rope
without being either awkward or grotesque; now and then we find a man
with a mind like a Nasmyth’s steam hammer, that can roll out huge
bars of iron, and anon knock a tin-tack into a deal board with gentle
accurate taps. These are the men who can describe a Revolution, and by
its side the corned beef and carrots which country parsons were once
glad to eat; who can tell us how the Bastille was stormed, and, a few
pages on, what manner of coat and small clothes wore Philip Egalité at
his guillotining. When we find such men we christen them Macaulay or
Carlyle.

The latitude, therefore, I take through incapacity for accuracy, saves
me from inflicting on you a long prolegomena; saves me from scoring the
basement of this page with foot-notes, or its margins with references;
saves me from denouncing the “British Dryasdust,” from whom I have
culled the scanty dates and facts, the mile and year stones in William
Hogarth’s life. Indeed, he has been very useful to me, this British
Dryasdust, and I should have made but a sorry figure without him. He or
they--Nichols, Steevens, Trusler, Rouquet, Ireland, Ducarel, Burn--have
but little to tell; but that which they know, they declare in a frank,
straightforward manner. Among commentators on Hogarth, Ireland is the
best; Trusler, the worst. T. Clerk and T. H. Horne also edited (1810)
a voluminous edition of Hogarth’s works, accompanied by a sufficiently
jejune _Life_. Allan Cunningham, in the _British Painters_, has given
a lively, agreeable adaptation of all who have come before him, spiced
and brightened by his own clear appreciation of, and love for, art
and its professors. Half a day’s reading, however, will tell you all
that these writers know. Horace Walpole for criticism on Hogarth is
admirable; lucid, elegant, and--a wonder with the dilettante friend
of Madame du Deffand--generous. The mere explicatory testimony as to
the principal Hogarthian series or engraved dramas by the Sire Rouquet
[he was a Swiss] cited above, is valuable; the more so, that he was
a friend of the painter, and, it is conjectured, took many of his
instructions viva voce from William Hogarth himself. The Germans have
not been indifferent to the merits of the great humoristic painter; and
a certain Herr Von Fürstenburg has found out some odd things connected
with suggestive objects in one of the most famous scenes of the first
series--the _Kate Hackabout_, _Mother Needham_, and _Colonel Charteris
epopœiœ_--never dreamt of previously in the good people of England’s
philosophy. Occasionally, too, in a French _Revue_, you meet with an
_Etude_ on _La vie et les ouvrages de Hogarth_, giving us little beyond
a fresh opportunity to be convinced that, if there exist on earth a
people of whose manners and customs the French know considerably less
than about those of the man in the moon, that people are the English.

By his own countrymen, William Hogarth has ever been justly and
honourably treated. He was an outspoken man, and his pencil and
graver were as unbridled as his tongue. His works have a taint of the
coarseness, but not of the vice of his age. Most at home would be many
of his works, perhaps, in low tap-rooms and skittle-alleys; but he was
no Boucher or Fragonard to paint alcoves or _dessus de portes_ for
the contemporary Cotillons I. and Cotillons II., for the Pompadours
and Dubarrys of Louis the well-beloved. He was vulgar and ignoble
frequently, but the next generation of his countrymen forgave him these
faults--forgave him for the sake of his honesty, his stern justice, his
unbending defence of right and denunciation of wrong. This philosopher
ever preached the sturdy English virtues that have made us what we
are. He taught us to fear God and honour the King; to shun idleness,
extravagance, and dissipation; to go to church, help the poor, and
treat dumb animals with kindness; to abhor knavery, hypocrisy, and
avarice. For this reason is it that Sectarianism itself (though he was
hard against tub-thumping) has raised but a very weak and bleating
voice against Hogarth’s “improprieties;” that cheap and popular
editions of his works have been multiplied, even in this fastidious
nineteenth century; that in hundreds of decorous family libraries a
plump copy of Hogarth complete may be found [yes: I have heard the
stateliest old ladies chat about the history of _Kate Hackabout_, and I
have seen age explaining to youth and beauty--that came in a carriage
to Marlborough House--the marvellous _Marriage à la Mode_ in the Vernon
collections]; that, finally--and which may be regarded as a good and
gratifying stamp of the man’s excellence and moral worth--the Church
of England have always been favourable to William Hogarth. An Anglican
bishop wrote the poetic legends to the _Rake’s Progress_; and Hogarth
has been patronized by the beneficed and dignified clergy ever since.

So come, then, William Hogarth, and let me in these essays strive to
glorify thy painting, thy engraving, and thy philosophy. Let me stand
over against thee, and walk round thee--yea, and sometimes wander for a
little while quite away from thee, endeavouring to explore the timeous
world as thou knew it. But be thou always near: the statue on the
pedestal, the picture on the wall, the genius of the place, to recall
me when I stray, to remind me when I am forgetful, to reprove me when I
err!

Born in the Old Bailey, and the ninth year of William the Dutchman,
that should properly be my starting point; but the reader must first
come away with me to Westmoreland, and into the Vale of Bampton--to
a village sixteen miles north of Kendal and Windermere Lake. In this
district had lived for centuries a family of yeomen, called Hogart
or Hogard: the founder of the family, as I have hinted, may have
been Hogherd, from his vocation--a guardian of swine. _His_ father,
perchance, was that Gurth, the son of Beowulph, erst thrall to Cedric
the Saxon, and who, after his emancipation by the worthy but irascible
Franklin for good suit and service rendered in the merry greenwood,
gave himself, or had given to him in pride and joy, that which he had
never had before--a surname; and so, emigrating northwards, became
progenitor of a free race of Hogherds. In this same Bampton Vale, the
Hogarts possessed a small freehold; and of this tenement, the other
rude elders being beyond my ken, the grandfather of the painter was
holder in the middle of the seventeenth century. To him were three
sons. The eldest succeeded to the freehold, and was no more heard
of, his name being written in clods. He tilled the earth, ate of
its fruits, and, his time being come, died. The two remaining sons,
as the custom of Borough English did not prevail in Bampton, had to
provide for themselves. Son intermediate--my William’s uncle--was a
genius. Adam Walker, writer on natural philosophy, and who was the
friend and correspondent of Nicholls of the _Anecdotes_, called him
a “mountain Theocritus;” his contemporaries, with less elegance but
more enthusiasm, dubbed him “Auld Hogart.” He was a poet, humorist,
satirist, and especially a dramatist; and coarse plays of his, full of
coarse fun, rough and ready action, and sarcastic hard hitting, yet
linger, more by oral tradition than by any manuscript remains of his,
among the Westmoreland fells. These were all written, too, in the very
hardest, thickest, and broadest Westmoreland dialect; a patois to which
Tim Bobbin’s Lancashire dialect is as mellifluous as the _langue d’oc_;
a patois which has been compared to the speech of Demosthenes before
his course of pebbles, but which, to my ears, offers more analogy to
that which may have proceeded from the famous Anti-Philippian orator
_during_ the pebble probation; and in order to speak which patois
fluently (after the pebbles), an admirable apprenticeship is to fill
your mouth as full as possible of the gritty oatcake, or “clapt bread,”
which is kept in the “cratch,” or rack suspended from the ceiling
in Westmoreland farmhouses. In this Scythian speech, however, “auld
Hogart” concocted a famous drama, quite in the Lope de Vega’s manner,
called _Troy Taken_. I do not compare the play unadvisedly with those
of the prolific Spanish playwright. You know how artfully Lope’s plays
begin: with what immediate action and seduction of its audience to a
foregone conclusion. The curtain draws up. A man in a cloak crosses the
stage. A masked cavalier rushes after him with a drawn sword. There is
a _rixe_ at once established; the audience begin to imagine all sorts
of terrible things, and the success of the piece is half assured. So
“auld Hogart’s” play of _Troy Taken_, begins with a _rixe_. Paris is
seen in the very act of running away with Helen; and Menelaus runs
after them, calling “Stop thief!” With such an auspicious commencement,
and plenty of good boisterous episodes throughout: Hector dragged about
by the heels; Thersites cudgelled within an inch of his life; Achilles
storming for half an hour at the loss of Patrocles, and a real wooden
horse to finish up with: the whole spiced with “auld Hogart’s” broadest
jokes: who can wonder that _Troy Taken_ achieved immense popularity,
and that years after the death of the facetious author, natural
philosopher Adam Walker saw the piece performed from recollection by
the Troutbeck rustics, the stage a greensward, the auditorium a grassy
knoll, the canopy, Heaven? The proceedings were inaugurated by a grand
cavalcade, headed by the minstrels of five parishes, and a lusty yeoman
mounted on a bull’s back and playing on the fiddle; and as a prologue
to _Troy Taken_, there was a pilgrimage of the visitors to a stone
dropped by the enemy of mankind in an unsuccessful attempt to build a
bridge across Windermere!

The brother of the “auld” dramatist of the _Iliad_, and third son of
the Bampton yeoman, was Richard Hogart. Without being dogmatical, I
trust that I am justified in the assumption that the “liquefaction”
of the patronymic into Hogarth was due partly to the more elegant
education of this yeoman’s son, partly to our painter’s formation of a
“genteel” connection, when he married Jane Thornhill. I have not seen
his indentures; and take the authority of Ireland for the registry of
his birth; but it is certain that he was at one period called,--ay, and
pretty well known--as Hogart: witness Swift, in his hideously clever
satire of the _Legion Club_:--

      “How I want thee, hum’rous Hogart,
       Thou, I hear, a pleasant rogue art”--

Now Swift wrote this in Ireland, at a distance from means of accuracy,
and the “pleasant rogue’s” name was not likely to be found in a
calendar of the nobility and gentry. If Bolingbroke or Pope had written
to the dean about the rogue and his pleasantries, it is very probable
that they might have spelt his name “Hogart,” “Hogard,” “Hoggert,” or
“Hogarth.” You must remember that scores of the most distinguished
characters of the eighteenth century were of my Lord Malmesbury’s
opinion concerning orthography, that neither the great Duke of
Marlborough, nay, nor his duchess, the terrible “old Sarah,” nay, nor
Mrs. Masham, nay, nor Queen Anne herself, could spell, and that the
young Pretender (in the Stuart papers) writes his father’s name thus:
“Gems” for “James.” Again, Swift may have suppressed the “_th_” for
mere rhythmical reasons; just as Pope, _aux abois_ between dactyls and
spondees, barbarized a name which undeniably before had been pronounced
“Saint John” into “Sinjin.” But, on the other hand, Jonathan Swift was
not so dizzy when he wrote the _Legion Club_ to have lost one pin’s
point of his marvellous memory; and he was too rich in rhymes to have
resorted to the pusillanimous expedient of cutting off a letter. If
ever a man lived who could have found an easy rhyme to “Hippopotamus,”
it was the Dean of St. Patrick’s. I opine, therefore, that when Swift
first heard of Hogarth--in the early days of George I.--he was really
called “Hogart;” that such a name was carried by the dean with him to
Dublin, and that the change to “Hogart” only took place when the great
Drapier was dying “in a rage, like a poisoned rat in a hole.”

Richard Hogart--whatever he called himself in the scholastic Latinity
that converted “Saumaise” into “Salmasius,” and a Dutch logician,
“Smygel” into “Smeglesius,”--was educated at St. Bees’ College, in
Westmoreland; was too poor, it is thought, after his college course
to take orders, and kept school for a time in his native county.
His classical accomplishments were considerable. In the manuscript
department of the British Museum are preserved some Latin letters by
him; and he wrote besides a Latin-English dictionary, and a school-book
entitled _Grammar Disputatations_, which has not attained the fame or
immortality of the works of Cocker and Walkingame. It is stated that
Richard Hogart was occasionally employed as a corrector of the press;
an office then frequently discharged by trustworthy scholars quite
extraneous to the recognized staff of the printing-office.

It is certain that, William and Mary reigning, Dominic Hogart came
to London, and established himself as a schoolmaster, in Ship Court,
Old Bailey. He had married, as it is the wont of poor schoolmasters
to do, and his wife bare him two daughters and one son. The girls
were Mary and Anne; and have only to be mentioned to pass out of this
record:--Who cares about Joseph Mallard Turner’s nephews and nieces?
The boy, WILLIAM HOGARTH, was born on the 10th of November, 1697, and
stands in the parish register of St. Bartholomew the Great, as having
been baptized, November the 28th.

You do not expect me to tell who nursed little chubby-baby Hogarth,
whether he took to his pap kindly, and at what age he first evinced an
affection for sweet-stuff? Making, however, a very early halt in his
nonage, I am compelled to shake my head at a very pretty legend about
him, and as prettily made into a picture, some years ago. According to
this, little boy Hogarth was sent to a dame’s school, where he much
vexed the good woman who boasted “unruly brats with birch to tame,”
by a persistence in drawing caricatures on his slate. The picture
represents him in sore disgrace, mounted on the stool of repentance,
crowned with the asinine tiara of tribulation, holding in one hand the
virgal rod of anguish, and in the other the slate which has brought
him to this evil estate: a slate much bechalked with libellous
representations of his dame. In the background is that Nemesis in a
mob-cap, inflexible; around, an amphitheatre of children-spectators;
the boys, as suits their boisterous character, jeering and exultant;
the girls, as beseems their softer nature, scared and terrified. A very
pretty, naïve picture, but apocryphal, I fear. There were no slates in
dame-schools in those days. The hornbook, _Pellucid_, with its Christ
Cross Row, was the beginning of knowledge, as the “baleful twig” that
“frayed” the brats was the end thereof. If little boy Hogarth had been
born at Kirby Thore, I would have admitted the dame-school theory in an
instant; but it is far more feasible that he learnt his hornbook at his
mother’s knee, and in due time was promoted to a bench in the school
his father taught, and an impartial share in the stripes which the good
pedagogue distributed. Nor need Dominie Hogart have been by any means
a cruel pedagogue. In none of his pictures does Hogarth display any
rancour against scholastic discipline (what school-scenes that pencil
might have drawn!), and it generally happens that he who has suffered
much in the flesh as a boy, will have a fling at the rod and the ferule
when he is a man; even if he have had Orbilius for his father. And
be it kept in mind, that, although the awful Busby, who called the
birch “his sieve,” through which the cleverest boys must pass, and
who of the Bench of Bishops taught sixteen mitred ones, was but just
dead. Mr. John Locke was then also publishing his admirable treatise
on _Education_, a treatise that enjoins and inculcates tenderness and
mercy to children.

Ship Court, Old Bailey, is on the west side of that ominous
thoroughfare, and a few doors from Ludgate Hill. By a very curious
coincidence, the house No. 67, Old Bailey, corner of Ship Court,
was occupied, about forty years ago, by a certain William Hone, an
odd, quaint, restless man, but marvellously bustling and energetic:
a man not to be “put down” by any magnates, civic, Westmonasterian,
or otherwise; and who, at 67, had a little shop, where he sold
prints and pamphlets, so very radical in their tendencies as to be
occasionally seditious, and open to some slight accusation of ribaldry
and scurrility. Here did Hone publish, in 1817, those ribald parodies
of the Litany and Catechism for which he stood three trials before
the then Lord Ellenborough, who vehemently assumed the part of public
prosecutor (staining his ermine by that act), and tried his utmost to
have Hone cast, but in vain. As to William Hone, the man drifted at
last, tired, and I hope ashamed, out of sedition and sculduddry, and,
so far as his literary undertakings went, made a good end of it. To
him we owe those capital table-books, every-day books, and year-books,
full of anecdote, quaint research, and folk-lore, which have amused
and instructed so many thousands, and have done such excellent service
to the book-making craft. Be you sure that I have Mr. Hone’s books for
the table, day and year, before me, as I write, and shall have them
these few months to come. Without such aids; without Mr. Cunningham’s
_Handbook_ and Mr. Timbs’ _Curiosities of London_; without Walpole,
Cibber, and “Rainy-day Smith;” without Ned Ward and Tom Brown;
without the Somers Tracts and the Sessions Papers; without King and
Nicholls’ anecdotes and the lives of Nollekens and Northcote; without
a set of the _British Essayists_, from Addison to Hawkesworth; without
the great _Grub-street Journal_ and the _Daily Courant_; without
Gay’s _Trivia_ and Garth’s _Dispensary_; without Aubrey, Evelyn, and
Luttrell’s diaries; without the _London Gazette_ and Defoe’s _Complete
English Tradesman_; without Swift’s _Journal to Stella_, and Vertue
and Faithorne’s maps, and Wilkinson, Strype, Maitland, Malcolm, Gwynn,
and the great Crowle Pennant; with plenty of small deer in the way
of tracts, broadsides, and selections from the bookstall-keepers’
sweepings and the cheesemongers’ rejected addresses; without these
modest materials, how is this humble picture to be painted?

After this little glance behind the scenes of a book-maker’s workshop,
you will be wondering, I dare say, as to what was the curious
coincidence I spoke of in connection with William Hone’s sojourn in
Ship Court, Old Bailey. Simply this. Three years after his Litany
escapades, the restless man went tooth and nail into the crapulous
controversy between George IV. and his unhappy wife; who, though
undoubtedly no better than she should be, was undoubtedly used much
worse than she or any other woman, not a Messalina or a Frédégonde,
should have been. From Hone’s shop issued those merry, rascally libels
against the fat potentate late of Carlton House, and which, under
the titles of “The Green Bag,” “Doctor Slop,” the “House that Jack
built,” and the like, brought such shame and ridicule upon the vain,
gross old man, that all Mr. Theodore Hook’s counter-scurrilities in
the high Tory _John Bull_ could not alleviate or wipe away the stains
thereof. Ah! it was a nice time--a jocund, Christian time. Reformers
calling their king “knave, tyrant, and debauchee;” loyalists screaming
“hussey,” and worse names, after their queen. That was in the time
of the Consul _Un_manlius I should think. Hone’s clever rascalities
sold enormously, especially among the aristocracy of the “Opposition.”
But Mr. Hone’s disloyal facetiæ from Ship Court were relieved and
atoned for by the illustrations, engraved from drawings executed
with quite an astonishing power of graphic delineation and acuteness
of humour, by a then very young artist named GEORGE CRUIKSHANK: a
gentleman whose earliest toys, I believe, had been a strip of copper
and an etching-needle; who has, since those wild days of ’21, achieved
hundreds of successes more brilliant, but not more notorious, than
those he won by working for restless Mr. Hone; and whom I am proud to
speak of here, with Hogarth’s name at the head of my sheet, now that
he, our George, is old, and honoured, and famous. Do I attach too much
importance to the works of these twin geniuses, I wonder, because I
love the style of art in which they have excelled with a secret craving
devotion, and because I have vainly striven to excel in it myself?
Am I stilted or turgid when I paraphrase that which Johnson said of
Homer and Milton _in re_ the _Iliad_ and the _Paradise Lost_, and say
of Hogarth and Cruikshank that George is not the greatest pictorial
humorist our country has seen only because he is not the first? At
any rate, you will grant the coincidence--won’t you?--between the lad
George Cruikshank and little boy Hogarth, toddling about Ship Court
and perchance scrawling caricatures on the walls, exaggerating in
rollicking chalk (I allow him as many brick walls as you like, but no
slates) the Slawkenbergian nose of William the Deliverer, or adding
abnormal curls to the vast wig of the detested clerical statesman,
Burnet.

Little boy Hogarth is yet too young to see these things; but he may be
at Gilbert Burnet’s turbulent funeral yet. First, we must get him out
of the Old Bailey, where he dwells for a good dozen years at least.
Dominie Hogarth has the school upstairs, where he drums _Lilly’s
Accidence_, or perhaps his own _Grammatical Disputations_ into his
scholars. Of what order may these scholars have been? The gentry had
long since left the Bailey; and you may start, perhaps, to be told
that British Brahmins had ever inhabited that lowering precinct of
the gallows, and parvyse of the press-room. Yet, in the Old Bailey
stood Sydney House, a stately mansion built for the Sydneys, Earls of
Leicester, and which they abandoned [circa 1660] for the genteeler
locality of Leicester Fields. I don’t know what Sydney House could have
been like, or by whom it was inhabited when Hogarth was a little boy;
but it was to all likelihood in a tumbledown, desolate condition. In
Pennant’s time it was a coachmaker’s shop. The keeper of Newgate may
have had children, too, for schooling, but his corporation connections
would probably have insured his boy’s admission to Christ’s Hospital,
or to Paul’s, or Merchant Taylors’ School, for the keeper of Newgate
was then a somebody; and it was by times his privilege to entertain
the sheriffs with sack and sugar. Dominie Hogarth’s pupils must have
been sons of substantial traders in the Bailey itself--where were
many noted booksellers’ shops--or from the adjacent Ludgate, whilom
Bowyers Hill, and from Fleet Street, or, perchance, Aldersgate Street;
which, not then purely commercial or shopkeeping, was the site of many
imposing mansions superbly decorated within, formerly the property of
the nobility, but then (1697) occupied by stately Turkey and Levant
merchants. And to the dominie’s may have come the offspring of the
wealthy butchers of Newgate Market, whose rubicund meat-wives are
libellously declared to have been in the habit of getting “over-taken
by burnt sherry” by eight o’clock in the morning; and while in that
jovial but prematurely matutinal condition, rivalling the flat-caps
of the Dark House, Billingsgate, and the pease-pottage sellers of
Baldwin’s Gardens--to say nothing of the cake and comfit purveyors to
the Finsbury archers--in voluble and abusive eloquence. Bonny dames
were these butchers’ wives; lusty, rotund, generous to the poor,
loud, but cheery with their apprentices and journeymen, great (as
now) in making fortunes for their beast-buying-and-killing husbands;
radiant in gold-chains, earrings, and laced aprons, and tremendous at
trades-feasts and civic junketings.

And I am yet in the year 1697, and in the Old Bailey with a child
in my arms. Were this an honest plain-sailing biography, now, what
would be easier for me than to skip the first twelve or thirteen
years of the boy’s life, assume that he got satisfactorily through
his teething, thrush, measles, and chicken-pox perils, and launch him
comfortably, a chubby lad, in the midst of the period of which the
ruthless Doctor Swift will write a history--the last four years of
the reign of Queen Anne--and make up his little bundle for him, ready
for his apprenticeship to Mr. Ellis Gamble, silver-plate engraver of
Cranbourne Alley, Leicester Fields. He may have been sent out to nurse
at Tottenham or Edmonton, or, may be, distant Ware, as children of his
degree were wont to be sent out (Mr. John Locke’s _Education_, and Mr.
Daniel Defoe’s _Family Instructor, passim_). But, in good sooth, I am
loth to turn over my William to the tender mercies of the eighteenth
century and the Augustan age. I fear great “Anna” and her era, and
for a double reason: first, that people know already so much about
the reign of Queen Anne. No kindly book a’ bosom but can follow Sir
Roger de Coverley and his tall silent friend the _Spectator_ in their
rambles; but has seen Swift walking across the park in mighty fear of
the Mohocks; but has taken a dish of coffee at Miss Vanhomrigh’s; but
has lounged in the elegant saloon, among the China monsters and the
black boys, with Belinda or Sir Plume; but has accompanied Steele from
coffee-house to coffee-house, and peeped over his shoulder while he
scribbled those charming little billets to his wife; but has seen Queen
Anne herself, the “stately lady in black velvet and diamonds,” who
touched little Sam Johnson for the evil, and hung round his neck that
broad piece of angel gold, which in its more earthly form of a guinea
the poor doctor wanted so often and so badly at a subsequent stage of
his career. The humorists and essayists of Queen Anne’s days have made
them as crystal-clear to us as Grammont and Pepys made those of the
Second Charles; and--there! bah! it is mock modesty to blink the truth
because my pen happens to be enlisted under such a banner. I could
have gone swaggeringly enough into all the minutiæ of Anne’s days, all
the glories and meannesses of John Churchill, all the humours, and
tyrannies, and quarrels of Pope, and Gay, and Harley, and St. John,
if a book called _Esmond_ had never been written. Yet finding myself
in this cleft stick, between the historian who wrote of the state of
manners at the close of the reign of Charles II., and the novelist,
who has made the men and women of Queen Anne’s court and city and army
live again, I feel slightly relieved. There is just one little niche
left for me. Just three years to dwell upon, while little boy Hogarth
is in his swaddling clothes, or is consorting with divers other little
brats as diminutive as he, on the doorsteps or the pavement of Ship
Court. Three years,--’97, ’98, ’99. _Ah! laissez-moi pleurer ces années
mortes._ Let me linger over these three ignored years. They were a
transition time. They are lost in the deeper shadow cast by the vicious
bonfire that Charles’s _roués_ and beauties lighted up--a shadow
shortly to be dispelled by the purer radiance of an Augustan era of
literature. Pepys and Evelyn are so minute, so lifelike, that between
their word-paintings, and those of the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_, there
seems a great black blank.

No seven-league boots are necessary for me to stride back to my
subject, and to the time when my little-boy-hero is forming his
earliest acquaintance with the Old Bailey stones. I said that I wanted
those last three dying years of the seventeenth century. Let me take
them, and endeavour to make the best of them, even when I compress some
of their characteristics within the compass of a single London day.

The century, then, is on its last legs. The town seems to have quite
done with the Stuarts, socially speaking, although politically another
Stuart will reign: a dethroned Stuart is actually at St. Germains,
maundering with his confessors, and conspiring with his shabby refugee
courtiers; thinking half of assassinating the abhorred Dutchman, and
making Père la Chaise Archbishop of Canterbury _in partibus_, and
half of slinking away to La Trappe, wearing a hair shirt, and doing
grave-digging on his own account for good and all. Politically, too,
this crooked-wayed, impracticable Stuart’s son and grandson will give
the world some trouble till the year 1788, when, a hundred years after
the Revolution, a worn-out, _blasé_ sensualist, called the Young
Pretender, dies at Rome, leaving a brother, the Cardinal of York,
who survived to be a pensioner of George the Third, and bequeathed
to him those Stuart papers, which, had their contents been known at
the Cockpit, Westminster, half a century before, would have caused
the fall of many a head as noble as Derwentwater’s, as chivalrous as
Charles Ratcliffe’s, and broken many a heart as loving and true as
Flora Macdonald’s or Lady Nithisdale’s. But with the Restoration-Stuart
period, London town has quite done. Rochester has died penitent,
Buckingham bankrupt and forlorn. Archbishop Tenison has preached Nelly
Gwynn’s funeral sermon; Portsmouth, Davies, are no more heard of; Will
Chiffinch can procure for kings no more: the rigid Dutchman scorns such
painted children of dirt; Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland, has married
one Fielding, a swindling caricature of a “beau;” Wycherly is old and
broken, and the iron of the Fleet has entered into his soul; and poor
noble old John Dryden, twitted as a renegade, neglected, unpensioned,
and maligned, is savagely writing the finest “copy” that has issued
yet from that grand fertile brain, writing it with a Spartan fortitude
and persistence, and ever and anon giving left-legged Jacob Tonson
a sound verbal trouncing, when the publisher would palm on the poet
clipped moidores for milled Jacobuses. Ah, little boy Hogarth, you
will see Johnson fifty years hence, listen to him behind the curtain
in the twilight room, as the Jacobite schoolman raves against the
cruelty of government in hanging Doctor Cameron; but you will never
behold John Dryden in the flesh, little boy, or hear him at Wills’s on
golden summer afternoons, the undisputed oracle of wits, and critics,
and poets. The horrible Chancellor Jeffries (however could the ruffian
have found patience and temper to deliver a decree in Chancery!) is
dead, but he has a son alive, a rake-hell, Mohock Lord Jeffries, who,
four years hence, will be implicated in a scandalous disturbance at
Dryden’s house, in Gerrard Street; the poet’s corpse lying there. There
are brave men hard at work for the nineteenth century. Isaac Newton is
working; in ’95 he was appointed Master of the Mint. Pope is beginning
to feel his poetic feet. Mr. Joseph Addison is at college. Swift has
had the run of Temple’s library. Lely has thrown down the pencil;
Knelier has taken it up; and James Thornhill is preparing for vast
sprawlings on ceilings, after the model of Verrio and Laguerre.

Away with Restoration reminiscences, for the more decent century that
is to come. By 8th and 9th William III., Alsatia is ruined, and its
privileges of sanctuary wholly taken away. A dreadful outpouring and
scattering of ragged rogues and ruffians, crying out in what huff-cap
cant and crambo they can command, that _delenda est Carthago_,
takes place. Foul reeking taverns disgorge knavish tatterdemalions,
soddened with usquebaugh and spiced Hollands, querulous or lachrymose
with potations of “mad dog,” “angel’s food,” “dragon’s milk,” and
“go-by-the-wall.” Stern catchpoles seize these inebriated and indebted
maltbugs, and drag them off to the Compters, or to Ludgate, “where
citizens lie in durance, surrounded by copies of their freedom.”
Alewives accustomed to mix beer with rosin and salt deplore the loss
of their best customers; for their creed was Pistol’s advice to Dame
Quickly, “Trust none;” and the debased vagabonds who crowded the
drinking-shops--if they drank till they were as red as cocks and little
wiser than their combs, if they occasionally cut one another’s throats
in front of the bar, or stabbed the drawer for refusing to deliver
strong waters without cash--could sometimes borrow, and sometimes
beg, and sometimes steal money, and then they drank and paid. No use
was there in passing bad money in Alsatia, when every sanctuary man
and woman knew how to coin and to clip it. You couldn’t run away from
your lodgings in Alsatia, for so soon as you showed your nose at the
Whitefriars’ gate, in Fleet Street, the Philistines were upon you.
Oh! for the ruffianly soldados, the copper captains, the curl’d-pate
braggarts, the poltroons who had lost their ears in the pillory,
and swore they had been carried off by the wind of a cannon-shot at
Sedgemoor! Oh! for the beauteous slatterns, the Phrynes and Aspasias
of this Fleet Street Athens, with their paint and their black visor
masques; their organ-pipe head-dresses, their low stomachers, and
their high-heeled shoes; the tresses of dead men’s hair they thatched
their poor bald crowns withal; the live fools’ rings and necklaces
they sported between taking out and pawning in! Beggars, cut-purses,
swindlers, tavern-bilks, broken life-guardsmen, foreign counts,
native highwaymen, and some poor honest unfortunates, the victims of
a Draconic law of debtor and creditor, all found their Patmos turn
out to be a mere shifting quicksand. The town does not long remain
troubled with these broken spars and timbers of the wrecked ship--once
a tall caravel--Humanity. Don’t you remember when the “Holy Land” of
St. Giles’s was pulled down to build New Oxford Street, what an outcry
arose as to where the dispossessed Gilesians were to find shelter? and
don’t you remember how quickly they found congenial holes and corners
into which to subside--dirt to dirt, disease to disease, squalor to
squalor, rags to rags? So with the Alsatians. A miserable compensation
is made to them for their lost sanctuary by the statute which quashes
all foregone executions for debts under fifty pounds; but they soon
get arrested again--often for sums not much more than fifty pence--and,
being laid up in hold, starve and rot miserably. There are debtors
in Newgate, there are debtors in Ludgate; in the Clink, the Borough,
Poultry, and Wood Street Compters, the Marshalsea, the King’s Bench,
and at Westminster Gate houses, besides innumerable spunging houses, or
“spider’s webs,” with signs like inns, such as the “Pied Bull” in the
Borough, and the “Angel” in Cursitor Street. Little boy Hogarth will
have much to observe about prisons and prisoners when he is grown to
be a man. Many Alsatians take refuge in the Southwark Mint, likewise,
and by the same statute deprived of its sanctuary; but which, in
some underhand manner--perhaps from there being only one bridge into
Southwark, and that rotten--contrives to evade it till late in the
reign of George I. Coining flourishes thenceforth more than ever in the
Mint; the science of Water Lane being added to the experience of St.
Mary Overy, and both being aided, perhaps, by the ancient numismatic
traditions of the place. More of the Alsatians are caught up by
alguazils of the criminal law, and, after a brief sojourn at Newgate,
“patibulate” at Justice Hall, and eventually make that sad journey up
Holborn Hill in a cart, stopping for a refresher at the Bowl House,
St. Giles’s Pound--alas! it is not always staying for his liquor that
will save the saddler of Bawtree from hanging--and so end at Tyburn.
Some, too, go a-begging in Lincoln’s Inn, and manufacture some highly
remunerative mutilations and ulcers. And some, a very few, tired of the
draff and husks in Alsatia, go back to their fathers, and are forgiven.
In this hard world, whose members only see the application of parables
that teach us love and mercy on Sundays, it is easier to find prodigals
to repent than fathers to forgive. But for our hope and comfort, _that_
parable has another and a higher meaning.

Alsatia was linked hand in glove with the Court of the Restoration.
’Twas often but a chapel of ease to the backstairs of Whitehall,
and many a great courtier, ruined at basset with the king and his
beauties the night before, found his level on the morrow in this vile
slum-playing butt, playing cards on a broken pair of bellows. But now,
1697, Whitehall itself is gone. The major part of the enormous pile
went by fire in ’91; now the rest, or all but Holbein’s Gate, and the
blood-stained Banqueting-house, has fallen a prey to the “devouring
element.”

Whitehall, then, has gone by the board. In vain now to look for Horn
Chamber, or Cabinet Room, or the stone gallery that flanked Privy
Garden, where the imperious, depraved Louise de la Quérouaille, Duchess
of Portsmouth, lived amid “French tapestry, Japan cabinets, screens,
pendule clocks, great vases of wrought plate, table stands, chimney
furniture, sconces, branches, braseners, all of massive silver, and out
of number.” All these things, worthy Master Evelyn, of Sayes Court,
Deptford (who about this time has let his said mansion and ground to
Peter Velikè, czar of Muscovy, and thinks him but an evil tenant, with
his uncouth, uncleanly Russian fashions, his driving of wheelbarrows
through neatly-trimmed hedges, and spitting over polished andirons,
and gorging himself with raw turnips sliced in brandy)--worthy,
sententious Evelyn shall see these things no more. Nay, nor that
“glorious gallery,” quoted from his description innumerable times,
where was the dissolute king “sitting toying with his concubines,
Portsmouth, Cleveland, and Mazarine, &c.; a French boy singing
love-songs, whilst about twenty of the great courtiers and others were
at basset round a large table, a bank of at least 2,000_l._ in gold
before them. Six days after, all was in the dust.” And worse.

Little boy Hogarth, you shall often pass by the banqueting-house--ay,
and admire Hans Holbein’s wondrous gate of red brick, tesselated in
quaint and beauteous design; of which the fragments, when the gate
was pulled down in 1760, were begged by William, Duke of Cumberland,
and the pieces numbered, with the project of having them transferred
to Windsor park and there re-erected as a royal ducal lodge. But
the project was never carried out, and the duke probably forgot all
about it, or found something more worth begging for than a lot of old
building materials. So exit Whitehall palace: buttery, bakehouse, wood
and coal yards, spicery, charcoal-house, king’s privy cellar, council
chamber, hearth-money office, and other fripperies in stone. It must
have been a grand place, even as the heterogeneous pile that existed
in William Dutchman’s time; but if James or Charles had possessed
the funds to rebuild it according to Inigo Jones’s magnificent plan,
of which the banqueting-house is but an instalment, the palace of
Whitehall would have put to the blush the Baths of Diocletian, the
golden house of Nero--yea, and the temple which Erostratus burnt, to
prove that all things were vanity, even to incendiarism.

Will it please you to walk into the city, now that we have done with
Westminster, any day in these three years of the moribund seventeenth
century. London is busy enough, noisy enough, dirty enough; but not so
smoky. There is little or no foot pavement; but there are plenty of
posts and plenty of kennels--three hundred and eleven, I think, between
Newgate and Charing Cross. When the humorous operation, resorted to
with ugly frequency about this time, of whipping a man at the cart’s
tail, takes place, the hangman gives the poor wretch a lash at every
kennel the near wheel of the cart grates against. Newgate to Ludgate,
Charing Cross to the “Cockpit” at Westminster, are considered the
mildest pilgrimages to be undergone by these poor flagellated knaves;
but Charing to Newgate is the real _via dolorosa_ of stripes. That
pilgrimage was reserved for the great objects of political hatred and
vengeance in James II.’s reign--for Titus Oates and Thomas Dangerfield.
The former abominable liar and perjurer, stripped of his ambrosial
periwig and rustling silk canonicals, turned out of his lodgings in
Whitehall, and reduced to the very last of the last, is tried and
sentenced, and is very nearly scourged to death. He is to pay an
enormous fine besides, and is to lie in Newgate for the remainder of
his life. I wonder that like “flagrant Tutchin,” when shuddering under
a sentence almost as frightful, he did not petition to be hanged:
yet there seems to be an indomitable bull-headed, bull-backed power
of endurance about this man Oates--this sham doctor of divinity, this
Judas spy of Douai and St. Omer, this broken chaplain of a man-of-war,
this living, breathing, incarnate Lie--that enables him to undergo
his punishment, and to get over its effects somehow. He has not lain
long in Newgate, getting his seared back healed as best he may, when
haply, in “pudding-time,” comes Dutch William the Deliverer. Oates’s
scourging was evidently alluded to when provision was made in the Bill
of Rights against “cruel and unusual punishments.” The heavy doors of
Newgate open wide for Titus, who once more dons his wig and canonicals.
Reflective persons do not believe in the perjured scoundrel any more,
and he is seldom sworn, I should opine, of the common jury or the
crowner’s quest. He has “taken the book in his right hand,” and kissed
it once too often. By a section of the serious world, who yet place
implicit faith in all Sir Edmondbury Godfrey’s wounds, and take the
inscription on the Monument of Fish Street Hill as law and gospel,
Titus Oates is regarded as a species of Protestant martyr--of a sorry,
slippery kind, may be, but, at all events, as one who has suffered
sorely for the good cause. The government repension him; he grows fat
and bloated, and if Tom Brown is to be believed (_Miscellanies_, 1697),
Doctor Oates, about the time of Hogarth’s birth, marries a rich city
widow of Jewin Street.

Different, and not so prosperous, is the end of the assistant
villain, Dangerfield. He, too, is whipped nearly out of his skin, and
within a tattered inch of his miserable life; but his sentence ends
before Newgate is reached, and he is being taken to that prison in a
hackney-coach, when the hangman’s assistants stop the vehicle at the
Gray’s Inn Coffee-house, to give the poor, tired, mangled wretch a
drink. Steps out of the coffee-house one Mr. Francis, a counsel learned
in the law of Gray’s Inn aforesaid, and who has probably been taking
a flask too much at the coffee-house. He is an ardent anti-plot man,
and in a railing tone and Newmarket phrase asks Dangerfield whether
he has “run his heat and how he likes it.” The bleeding object in the
coach, revived to pristine ruffianism by the liquor his gaolers have
given him, answers with a flood of ribald execrations--bad language
could surely be tolerated in one so evilly intreated as he had been
that morning--whereupon the barrister in a rage makes a lunge at
Dangerfield’s face, with a bamboo cane, and strikes one of his eyes
out. In the fevered state of the man’s blood, erysipelas sets in, and
Dangerfield shortly afterwards gives the world a good riddance (though
it were better the hangman had done it outright with a halter) and
dies. The most curious thing is, that Francis was tried and executed at
Tyburn for the murder of this wretched, scourged, blinded perjurer. He
was most likely tried by a strong Protestant jury, who (very justly)
found him guilty on the facts, but would very probably have found him
guilty against the facts, to show their Protestant feeling and belief
in the Popish plot; but I say the thing is curious, seeing that the
Crown did not exercise its prerogative of mercy and pardon to Francis,
who was a gentleman of good family, and manifestly of the court way
of thinking. The conclusion is: either that there was more impartial
justice in the reign of James II. than we have given that bad time
credit for, or that the court let Francis swing through fear of the
mob. You see that the mob in those days did not like to be baulked of
a show, and that the mob derived equal pleasure from seeing Francis
hanged as from seeing Dangerfield whipped. The moral of this apologue
is, that Oates and Dangerfield being very much alike in roguery,
especially Oates, one got not quite so much as he deserved, and the
other not quite enough; which has been the case in many other instances
that have occurred in society, both vulgar and polite, since the days
of William III.

There, I land you at Temple Bar, on whose gory spikes are the heads of
the last conspirators against William the Dutchman’s life. “_Forsitan
et nobis_,” whispered Goldsmith slyly to Johnson as they gazed up at
the heads which, late in the reign of George III., yet rotted on those
fatal spikes. We will not linger at Temple Bar now. Little boy Hogarth,
years hence, will take us backwards and forwards through it hundreds
of times. The three last years of century seventeen glide away from
me. Plumed hats, ye are henceforth to be cocked. Swords, ye shall be
worn diagonally, not horizontally. Puffed sleeves, ye must give place
to ruffles. Knickerbocker breeches, with rosettes at the knees, ye
must be superseded by smalls and rolled stockings. Shoe-bows, the
era of buckles is coming. Justaucorps, flapped waistcoats will drive
you from the field. Falling bands, your rivals are to be cravats of
Mechlin lace. Carlovingian periwigs, the Ramillies’ wig is imminent.
Elkanah Settles, greater city poets are to sing the praise of city
custards. Claude du Val and Colonel Jack, greater thieves will swing
in the greater reign that is to come. And wake up, little boy Hogarth,
for William the Dutchman has broken his collar-bone, and lies sick to
death at Kensington. The seventeenth century is gone and passed. In
1703 William dies, and the Princess of Denmark reigns in his stead. Up,
little boy Hogarth! grow stout and tall--you have to be bound ’prentice
and learn the mystery of the cross-hatch and the double cypher. Up,
baby Hogarth, there is glorious work for you to do!




Unspoken Dialogue.


      Above the trailing mignonette
          That deck’d the window-sill,
      A lady sat, with lips firm-set,
          And looks of earnest will:
      Four decades o’er her life had met,
          And left her lovely still.

      Not to the radiant firmament,
          Not to the garden’s grace,
      The courses of her mind were bent,
          But where, with sweetest face,
      Forth from the other window leant
          The daughter of the place.

      Thus ran her thoughts: “O wretched day!
          When She was born so fair:
      Well could I let my charms decay,
          If she were not their heir;
      I loathe the sunbeams as they play
          About her golden hair.

      “Yet why? she is too good, too mild,
          So madly to aspire;
      _He_ is no boy to be beguil’d
          By sparks of colour’d fire:
      I will not dream a pretty child
          Can mar my deep desire.

      “Her fatherless and lonely days
          Are sere before their time:
      In scenes of gaiety and praise
          She will regain her prime,
      And cease to haunt these wooded ways
          With sentimental rhyme.”

[Illustration:

  “Dear child! he comes.--Nay, blush not so
   To have your secret known:”]

      On to the conscious maiden pass’d
          Those words without the tongue;
      Half petulantly back she cast
          The glist’ning curls that hung
      About her neck, and answer’d fast:
          “Yes, I am young--too young:

      “Yet am I graver than my wont,
          Gravest when he is here;
      Beneath the glory of his front
          I tremble--not with fear:
      But as I read, Bethesda’s font
          Felt with the Angel near.

      “Must I mate only with my kind,
          With something as unwise
      As my poor self; and never find
          Affection I can prize
      At once with an adoring mind,
          And with admiring eyes?”

      “My mother trusts to drag me down
          To some low range of life,
      By pleasures of the clam’rous town,
          And vanity’s mean strife;
      And in such selfish tumult drown
          My hope to be _his_ wife.”

      Then darker round the lady grew
          The meditative cloud,--
      And stormy thoughts began to brew
          She dar’d not speak aloud;
      For then without disguise she knew
          That rivalry avow’d.

      “What is my being if I lose
          My love’s last stake? while she
      Has the fair future where to choose
          Her woman’s destiny--
      Free scope those means and powers to use,
          Which time denies to me.

      “Was it for this her baby arms
          About my neck were flung?
      Was it for this I found such charms
          In her uncertain tongue?
      Was it for this those vain alarms
          My mother-soul unstrung?

      “Oh, horrible! to wish my child--
          My sole one left--unborn,
      And, seeing her so meek and mild,
          To hold such gifts in scorn;
      My nature is grown waste and wild,
          My heart with fury torn!”

      Speechless--enchanted to the spot--
          The girl could scarce divine
      The whole disaster of her lot,--
          But without sound or sign
      She cried, “O Mother! love him not;--
          Oh! let his love be mine!

      “You have had years of full delight,
          Your girlhood’s passion-dream
      Was realized to touch and sight
          As bright as it could seem;--
      And now you interpose, like Night,
          Before my life’s first gleam.

      “Yet you were once what I am now,--
          You wore your maiden prize;
      You told me of my Father, how
          You lived but in his eyes;--
      You spoke of the perpetual vow,
          The troth that never dies.

      “Dear Mother! dearer, kinder far,
          If by my childhood’s bed
      Your care had never stood to bar
          Misfortune from my head;--
      But laid me where my brothers are,
          Among the quiet dead.

      “Ah! why not die? This cruel strife,
          Can thus--thus only--cease?
      Dear God! take home this erring life--
          This struggling soul release:
      From Heaven, perchance, upon _his_ wife
          I might look down in peace.”

      That prayer--like some electric flame,
          Struck with resistless force
      The lady’s agitated frame,--
          Nor halted in its course,
      Till her hard pride was turn’d to shame,
          Her passion to remorse.

      She spoke--her words were very low,
          But resolute in tone--
      “Dear child! he comes.--Nay, blush not so
          To have your secret known:
      ’Tis best, ’tis best, that I should go--
          And leave you here alone.”

      Then, as his steps grew near and fast,
          Her hand was on the door,
      Her heart by holy grace had cast
          The demon from its core,--
      And on the threshold calm she pass’d
          The man she loved no more.

                            R. MONCKTON MILNES.




Studies in Animal Life.

      “Authentic tidings of invisible things;--
       Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power,
       And central peace subsisting at the heart
       Of endless agitation.”--THE EXCURSION.


CHAPTER II.

  Ponds and rock-pools--Our necessary tackle--Wimbledon Common--Early
    memories--Gnat larvæ--Entomostraca and their paradoxes--Races
    of animals dispensing with the sterner sex--Insignificance of
    males--Volvox globator: is it an animal?--Plants swimming like
    animals--Animal retrogressions--The Dytiscus and its larva--The
    dragon-fly larva--Molluscs and their eggs--Polypes, and how
    to find them--A new polype, _Hydra rubra_--Nest-building
    fish--Contempt replaced by reverence.

The day is bright with a late autumn sun; the sky is clear with a keen
autumn wind, which lashes our blood into a canter as we press against
it, and the cantering blood sets the thoughts into hurrying excitement.
Wimbledon Common is not far off; its five thousand acres of undulating
heather, furze, and fern tempt us across it, health streaming in at
every step as we snuff the keen breeze. We are tempted also to bring
net and wide-mouthed jar, to ransack its many ponds for visible and
invisible wonders.

Ponds, indeed, are not so rich and lovely as rock-pools; the heath is
less alluring than the coast--our dear-loved coast, with its gleaming
mystery, the sea, and its sweeps of sand, its reefs, its dripping
boulders. I admit the comparative inferiority of ponds; but, you see,
we are not near the coast, and the heath is close at hand. Nay, if
the case were otherwise, I should object to dwarfing comparisons. It
argues a pitiful thinness of nature (and the majority in this respect
are lean) when present excellence is depreciated because some greater
excellence is to be found elsewhere. We are not elsewhere; we must do
the best we can with what is here. Because ours is not the Elizabethan
age, shall we express no reverence for our great men, but reserve it
for Shakspeare, Bacon, and Raleigh, whose traditional renown must
overshadow our contemporaries? Not so. To each age its honour. Let
us be thankful for all greatness, past or present, and never speak
slightingly of noble work, or honest endeavour, because it is not, or
we choose to say it is not, equal to something else. No comparisons
then, I beg. If I said ponds were finer than rock-pools, you might
demur; but I only say ponds are excellent things, let us dabble in
them; ponds are rich in wonders, let us enjoy them.

And first we must look to our tackle. It is extremely simple. A
landing-net, lined with muslin; a wide-mouthed glass jar, say a foot
high and six inches in diameter, but the size optional, with a bit of
string tied under the lip, and forming a loop over the top, to serve
as a handle which will let the jar swing without spilling the water;
a camel-hair brush; a quinine bottle, or any wide-mouthed phial, for
worms and tiny animals which you desire to keep separated from the
dangers and confusions of the larger jar; and when to these a pocket
lens is added, our equipment is complete.

As we emerge upon the common, and tread its springy heather, what
a wild wind dashes the hair into our eyes, and the blood into our
cheeks! and what a fine sweep of horizon lies before us! The lingering
splendours and the beautiful decays of autumn vary the scene, and
touch it with a certain pensive charm. The ferns mingle harmoniously
their rich browns with the dark green of the furze, now robbed of its
golden summer-glory, but still pleasant to the eye, and exquisite to
memory. The gaunt windmill on the rising ground is stretching its
stiff, starred arms into the silent air: a landmark for the wanderer,
a landmark, too, for the wandering mind, since it serves to recall the
dim early feelings and sweet broken associations of a childhood when we
gazed at it with awe, and listened to the rushing of its mighty arms.
Ah! well may the mind with the sweet insistance of sadness linger on
those scenes of the irrecoverable past, and try, by lingering there,
to feel that it is not wholly lost, wholly irrecoverable, vanished for
ever from the Life which, as these decays of autumn and these changing
trees too feelingly remind us, is gliding away, leaving our cherished
ambitions still unfulfilled, and our deeper affections still but half
expressed. The vanishing visions of elapsing life bring with them
thoughts which lie too deep for tears; and this windmill recalls such
visions by the subtle laws of association. Let us go towards it, and
stand once more under its shadow. See the intelligent and tailless
sheep-dog which bounds out at our approach, eager and minatory; now his
quick eye at once recognizes that we are neither tramps, nor thieves,
and he ceases barking to commence a lively interchange of sniffs and
amenities with our Pug, who seems also glad of a passing interchange of
commonplace remarks. While these dogs travel over each other’s minds,
let us sun ourselves upon this bench, and look down on the embrowned
valley, with its gipsy encampment,--or abroad on the purple Surrey
hills, or the varied-tinted trees of Combe Wood and Richmond Park.
There are not many such prospects so near London. But, in spite of the
sun, we must not linger here: the wind is much too analytical in its
remarks; and, moreover, we came out to hunt.

Here is a pond with a mantling surface of green promise. Dip the
jar into the water. Hold it now up to the light, and you will see
an immense variety of tiny animals swimming about. Some are large
enough to be recognized at once; others require a pocket-lens, unless
familiarity has already enabled you to _infer_ the forms you cannot
distinctly _see_. Here (Fig. 7) are two larvæ (or grubs) of the
common gnat. That large-headed fellow (A) bobbing about with such
grotesque movements, is very near the last stage of his metamorphosis;
and to-morrow, or the next day, you may see him cast aside this mask
(_larva_ means a mask), and emerge a perfect insect. The other (B) is
in a much less matured condition, but leads an active predatory life,
jerking through the water, and fastening to the stems of weed or sides
of the jar by means of the tiny hooks at the end of its tail. The
hairy appendage forming the angle is not another tail, but a breathing
apparatus.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.

LARVÆ OF THE GNAT in two different stages of development (Magnified).]

[Illustration: Fig. 8.

CYCLOPS

_a_ large antennæ; _b_ smaller do.; _c_ egg-sacs (Magnified).]

[Illustration: Fig. 9.

DAPHNIA: _a_ pulsatile sac, or heart; _b_ eggs; _c_ digestive tube
(Magnified).]

Observe, also, those grotesque _Entomostraca_,[17] popularly called
“water-fleas,” although, as you perceive, they have little resemblance
in form or manners to our familiar (somewhat _too_ familiar)
bedfellows. This (Fig. 8) is a _Cyclops_, with only one eye in the
centre of its forehead, and carrying two sacs, filled with eggs,
like panniers. You observe he has no legs; or, rather, legs and arms
are hoisted up to the head, and become antennæ (or feelers). Here
(Fig. 9) is a _Daphnia_, grotesque enough, throwing up his arms in
astonished awkwardness, and keeping his legs actively at work inside
the shell--as respirators, in fact. Here (Fig. 10) is an _Eurycercus_,
less grotesque, and with a much smaller eye. Talking of eyes, there is
one of these Entomostraca named _Polyphemus_, whose head is all eye;
and another, named _Caligus_, who has no head at all. Other paradoxes
and wonders are presented by this interesting group of animals;[18] but
they all sink into insignificance beside the paradox of the amazonian
entomostracon, the _Apus_--a race which dispenses with masculine
services altogether, a race of which there are no males!

[Illustration: Fig. 10.

EURYCERCUS: _a_ heart; _b_ eggs; _c_ digestive tube (Magnified).]

I well remember the pleasant evening on which I first made the personal
acquaintance of this amazing amazon. It was at Munich, and in the house
of a celebrated naturalist, in whose garden an agreeable assemblage
of poets, professors, and their wives, sauntered in the light of a
setting sun, breaking up into groups and _têtes-à-têtes_, to re-form
into larger groups. We had taken coffee under the branching coolness of
trees, and were now loitering through the brief interval till supper.
Our host had just returned from an expedition of some fifty miles to a
particular pond, known to be inhabited by the Apus. He had made this
journey because the race, although prolific, is rare, and is not to be
found in every spot. For three successive years had he gone to the same
pond, in quest of the male: but no male was to be found among thousands
of egg-bearing females, some of which he had brought away with him, and
was showing us. We were amused to see them swimming about, sometimes
on their backs, using their long oars, sometimes floating, but always
incessantly agitating the water with their ten pairs of breathing legs;
and the ladies, gathered round the jar, were hugely elated at the idea
of animals getting rid altogether of the sterner sex--clearly a useless
incumbrance in the scheme of things!

The fact that no male Apus has yet been found is not without precedent.
Léon Dufour, the celebrated entomologist, declares that he never found
the male of the gall insect (_Diplolepis gallæ tinctoriæ_), though he
has examined thousands: they were all females, and bore well-developed
eggs on emerging from the gall-nut in which their infancy had passed.
In two other species of gall insect--_Cynips divisa_ and _Cynips
folii_--Hartig says he was unable to find a male; and he examined
about thirteen thousand. Brogniart never found the male of another
entomostracon (_Limnadia gigas_), nor could Jurine find that of our
_Polyphemus_. These negatives prove, at least, that if the males
exist at all, they must be excessively rare, and their services can be
dispensed with; a conclusion which becomes acceptable when we learn
that bees, moths, plant-lice (_Aphides_), and our grotesque friend
_Daphnia_ (Fig. 9) lay eggs which may be reared apart, will develop
into females, and these will produce eggs which will in turn produce
other females, and so on, generation after generation, although each
animal be reared in a vessel apart from all others.

While on this subject, I cannot forbear making a reflection. It must be
confessed that our sex cuts but a poor figure in some great families.
If the male is in some families grander, fiercer, more splendid, and
more highly endowed than the female, this occasional superiority is
more than counterbalanced by the still greater inferiority of the sex
in other families. The male is often but a contemptible partner, puny
in size, insignificant in powers, stinted even of a due allowance of
organs. If the peacock and the pheasant swagger in greater splendour,
what a pitiful creature is the male falcon--no falconer will look at
him. And what is the drone compared with the queen bee, or even with
the workers? What figure does the male spider make beside his large
and irascible female,--who not unfrequently eats him? Nay, worse than
this, what can be said for the male Rotifer, the male Barnacle, the
male Lernæa--gentlemen who cannot even boast of a perfect digestive
apparatus, sometimes not of a digestive organ at all? Nor is this
meagreness confined to the digestive system only. In some cases, as
in some male Rotifers, the usual organs of sense and locomotion are
wanting;[19] and in a parasitic Lernæa, the degradation is moral as
well as physical: the female lives in the gills of a fish, sucking its
juices, and the ignoble husband lives as a parasite upon her!

[Illustration: Fig. 11.

VOLVOX GLOBATOR, with eight volvoces enclosed (Magnified).]

But this digression is becoming humiliating, and meanwhile our hands
are getting benumbed with cold. In spite of that, I hold the jar up
to the light, and make a background of my forefingers, to throw into
relief some of the transparent animals. Look at those light green
crystal spheres sailing along with slow revolving motion, like planets
revolving through space, except that their orbits are more eccentric.
Each of these spheres is a _Volvox globator_. Under the microscope
it looks like a crystalline sphere, studded with bright green specs,
from each of which arise two cilia (hairs), serving as oars to row the
animal through the water. The specs are united by a delicate network,
which is not always visible, however. Inside this sphere is a fluid,
in which several dark-green smaller spheres are seen revolving, as the
parent-sphere revolved in the water. Press this Volvox gently under
your compressorium, or between the two pieces of glass, and you will
see these internal spheres, when duly magnified, disclose themselves
as identical with their parent; and inside them, smaller Volvoces are
seen. This is one of the many illustrations of Life within Life, of
which something was said in the last chapter.

Nor is this all. Those bright green specs which stud the surface,
if examined with high powers, will turn out to be not specs, but
animals,[20] and as Ehrenberg believes (though the belief is little
shared), highly organized animals, possessing a mouth, many stomachs,
and an eye. It is right to add that not only are microscopists at
variance with Ehrenberg on the supposed organization of these specs,
but the majority deny that the Volvox itself is an animal. Von Siebold
in Germany, and Professor George Busk and Professor Williamson in
England, have argued with so much force against the animal nature of
the Volvox, which they call a plant, that in most modern works you will
find this opinion adopted. But the latest of the eminent authorities
on the subject of Infusoria, in his magnificent work just published,
returns to the old idea that the Volvox is an animal after all,
although of very simple organization.[21]

The dispute may perhaps excite your surprise. You are perplexed at the
idea of a plant (if plant it be) moving about, swimming with all the
vigour and dexterity of an animal, and swimming by means of animal
organs, the cilia. But this difficulty is one of our own creation.
We first employ the word Plant to designate a vast group of objects
which have no powers of locomotion, and then ask, with triumph,
How can a plant move? But we have only to enlarge our knowledge of
plant-life to see that locomotion is not absolutely excluded from it;
for many of the simpler plants--Confervæ and Algæ:--can, and do, move
spontaneously in the early stages of their existence: they escape from
their parents as free swimming rovers, and do not settle into solid
and sober respectability till later in life. In their roving condition
they are called, improperly enough, “zoospores,”[22] and once gave rise
to the opinion that they were animals in infancy, and became degraded
into plants as their growth went on. But locomotion is no true mark
of animal-nature, neither is fixture to one spot the true mark of
plant-nature. Many animals (Polypes, Polyzoa, Barnacles, Mussels, &c.),
after passing a vagabond youth, “settle” once and for ever in maturer
age, and then become as fixed as plants. Nay, human animals not
unfrequently exhibit a somewhat similar metempsychosis, and make up for
the fitful capriciousness of wandering youth, by the steady severity of
their application to business, when width of waistcoat and smoothness
of cranium suggest a sense of their responsibilities.

Whether this loss of locomotion is to be regarded as a retrogression
on the part of the plant, or animal, which becomes fixed, may be
questioned; but there are curious indications of positive retrogression
from a higher standard in the metamorphoses of some animals. Thus the
beautiful marine worm, _Terebella_, which secretes a tube for itself,
and lives in it, fixed to the rock, or oyster-shell, has in early
life a distinct head, eyes, and feelers; but in growing to maturity,
it loses all trace of head, eyes, and even of feelers, unless the
beautiful tuft of streaming threads which it waves in the water be
considered as replacing the feelers. There are the Barnacles, too,
which in the first stage of their existence have three pairs of legs, a
very simple single eye, and a mouth furnished with a proboscis. In the
second stage they have six pairs of legs, two compound eyes, complex in
structure, two feelers, but _no mouth_. In the third, or final stage,
their legs are transformed into prehensile organs, they have recovered
a mouth, but have lost their feelers, and their two complex eyes are
degraded to a single and very simple eye-spot.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.

WATER BEETLE and its larva.]

But to break up these digressions, let us try a sweep with our net. We
skim it along the surface, and draw up a quantity of duckweed, dead
leaves, bits of stick, and masses of green thread, of great fineness,
called Conferva by botanists. The water runs away, and we turn over
the mass. Here is a fine water-beetle, Dytiscus, and a larva of the
same beetle, called the “Water-tiger,” from its ferocity (Fig. 12). You
would hardly suspect that the slim, big-headed, long-tailed Water-tiger
would grow into the squat, small-headed, tailless beetle: nor would
you imagine that this Water-tiger would be so “high fantastical” as to
breathe by his tail. Yet he does both, as you will find if you watch
him in your aquarium.

[Illustration: Fig. 13.

DRAGON-FLY LARVÆ: A ordinary aspect; B with the huge nipper-like jaw
extended.]

[Illustration: Fig. 14.

A LIMNÆCA STAGNALIS, or water snail.

B PLANORBIS.]

[Illustration: Fig. 15.

PALUDINA VIVIPARA.]

Continuing our search, we light upon the fat, sluggish, ungraceful
larva of the graceful and brilliant Dragon-fly, the falcon of
insects (Fig. 13). He is useful for dissection, so pop him in. Among
the dead leaves you perceive several small leeches, and flat oval
_Planariæ_, white and brown; and here also is a jelly-like mass, of
pale yellow colour, which we know to be a mass of eggs deposited by
some shell-fish; and as there are few objects of greater interest
than an egg in course of development, we pop the mass in. Here (Fig.
14) are two molluscs, _Limnæus_ and _Planorbis_, one of which is
probably the parent of those eggs. And here is one which lays no
eggs, but brings forth its young alive: it is the _Paludina vivipara_
(Fig. 15), of which we learned some interesting details last month.
Scattered over the surface of the net and dead leaves, are little
dabs of dirty-looking jelly--some of them, instead of the dirty hue,
are almost blood-red. Experience makes me aware that these dirty
dabs are certainly Polypes--the _Hydra fusca_ of systematists. I
can’t tell how it is I know them, nor how you may know them again.
The power of recognition must be acquired by familiarity: and it is
because men can’t _begin_ with familiarity, and can’t recognize these
Polypes without it, that so few persons really ever see them. But the
familiarity may be acquired by a very simple method. Make it a rule to
pop every unknown object into your wide-mouthed phial. In the water
it will probably at once reveal its nature: if it be a Polype, it
will expand its tentacles; if not, you can identify it at leisure on
reaching home, by the aid of pictures and descriptions. See, as I drop
one of these into the water, it at once assumes the well-known shape
of the Polype. And now we will see what these blood-red dabs may be;
in spite of their unusual colour, I cannot help suspecting them to be
Polypes also. Give me the camel-hair brush. Gently the dab is removed,
and transferred to the phial. Shade of Trembley! it _is_ a Polype![23]
Is it possible that this discovery leaves you imperturbable, even when
I assure you it is of a species hitherto undescribed in text-books?
Now, don’t be provokingly indifferent! rouse yourself to a little
enthusiasm, and prove that you have something of the naturalist in
you by delighting in the detection of a new species. “You didn’t know
that it was new?” _That_ explains your calmness. There must be a basis
of knowledge before wonder can be felt--wonder being, as Bacon says,
“broken knowledge.” Learn, then, that hitherto only three species
of fresh-water Polypes have been described: _Hydra viridis_, _Hydra
fusca_, and _Hydra grisea_. We have now a fourth to swell the list; we
will christen it _Hydra rubra_, and be as modest in our glory as we
can. If any one puts it to us, whether we seriously attach importance
to such trivialities as specific distinctions resting solely upon
colour, or size, we can look profound, you know, and repudiate the
charge. But this is a public and official attitude. In private, we can
despise the distinctions established by others, but keep a corner of
favouritism for our own.[24]

I remember once showing a bottle containing Polypes to a philosopher,
who beheld them with great calmness. They appeared to him as
insignificant as so many stems of duckweed; and lest you should be
equally indifferent, I will at once inform you that these creatures
will interest you as much as any that can be found in ponds, if you
take the trouble of studying them. They can be cut into many pieces,
and each piece will grow into a perfect Polype; they may be pricked,
or irritated, and the irritated spot will bud a young Polype, as a
plant buds; they may be turned inside out, and their skin will become
a stomach, their stomach a skin. They have acute sensibility to light
(towards which they always move), and to the slightest touch; yet not
a trace of a nervous tissue is to be found in them. They have powers of
motion, and locomotion, yet their muscles are simply a network of large
contractile cells. If the water in which they are kept be not very
pure, they will be found infested with parasites; and quite recently I
have noticed an animal, or vegetal, parasite--I know not which--forming
an elegant sort of fringe to the tentacles: clusters of skittle-shaped
bodies, too entirely transparent for any structure whatever to be made
out, in active agitation, like leaves fluttering on a twig. Some day or
other we may have occasion to treat of the Polypes in detail, and to
narrate the amusing story of their discovery; but what has already been
said will serve to sharpen your attention and awaken some curiosity in
them.

Again and again the net sweeps among the weed, or dredges the
bottom of the pond, bringing up mud, stones, sticks, with a fish,
worms, molluscs, and tritons. The fish we must secure, for it is a
stickleback--a pretty and interesting inhabitant of an aquarium, on
account of its nest-building propensities. We are surprised at a fish
building a nest, and caring for its young, like the tenderest of birds
(and there are two other fishes, the Goramy and the Hassar, which have
this instinct); but why not a fish, as well as a bird? The cat-fish
swims about in company with her young, like a proud hen with her
chickens; and the sun-fish hovers for weeks over her eggs, protecting
them against danger.

The wind is so piercing, and _my_ fingers are so benumbed, I can
scarcely hold the brush. Moreover, continual stooping over the net
makes the muscles ache unpleasantly, and suggests that each cast shall
be the final one. But somehow I have made this resolution and broken
it twenty times: either the cast has been unsuccessful, and one is
provoked to try again, or it is so successful that, as _l’appétit
vient en mangeant_, one is seduced again. Very unintelligible this
would be to the passers-by, who generally cast contemptuous glances at
us, when they find we are not fishing, but are only removing Nothings
into a glass jar. One day an Irish labourer stopped and asked me if I
were fishing for salmon. I quietly answered, “Yes.” He drew near. I
continued turning over the weed, occasionally dropping an invisible
thing into the water. At last, a large yellow-bellied Triton was
dropped in. He begged to see it; and seeing at the same time how
alive the water was with tiny animals, became curious, and asked
many questions. I went on with my work; his interest and curiosity
increased; his questions multiplied; he volunteered assistance; and
remained beside me till I prepared to go away, when he said seriously:
“Och! then, and it’s a fine thing to be able to name all God’s
creatures.” Contempt had given place to reverence; and so it would be
with others, could they check the first rising of scorn at what they do
not understand, and patiently learn what even a roadside pond has of
Nature’s wonders.


FOOTNOTES:

[17] _Entomostraca_ (from _entomos_, an insect, and _ostracon_, a
shell) are not really insects, but belong to the same large group of
animals as the lobster, the crab, or the shrimp, _i.e._ crustaceans.

[18] The student will find ample information in BAIRD’S _British
Entomostraca_, published by the Ray Society.

[19] Compare GEGENBAUR: _Grundzüge der vergleichende Anatomie_, 1859,
pp. 229 _und_ 269; also LEYDIG _über Hydatina senta_, in _Müller’s
Archiv_, 1857, p. 411.

[20] To avoid the equivoque of calling the parts of an animal, which
are capable of independent existence, by the same term as the whole
mass, we may adopt HUXLEY’S suggestion, and call all such individual
parts _zöoids_, instead of animals. DUGE’S suggested _zöonites_ in the
same sense.--_Sur la Conformité Organigue_, p. 13.

[21] STEIN: _Der Organismus der Infusionsthiere_, 1859, pp. 36–38.

[22] Zoospores, from _zoon_, an animal, and _sporos_, a seed.

[23] TREMBLEY in his admirable work. _Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire
d’une genre de Polypes d’eau douce_, 1744, furnished science with the
fullest and most accurate account of fresh-water Polypes; but it is a
mistake to suppose that he was the original discoverer of this genus:
old LEUWENHOEK had been before him.

[24] The editors of the _Annals of Natural History_ append a note to
the account I sent them of this new Polype, from which it appears that
Dr. Gray found this very species and apparently in the same spot nearly
thirty years ago. But the latest work of authority, VAN DER HOEVEN’S
_Handbook of Zoology_, only enumerates the three species.




Curious, if True.

(EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, ESQ.)


You were formerly so much amused at my pride in my descent from that
sister of Calvin’s, who married a Whittingham, Dean of Durham, that I
doubt if you will be able to enter into the regard for my distinguished
relation, that has led me to France, in order to examine registers and
archives, which, I thought, might enable me to discover collateral
descendants of the great reformer, with whom I might call cousins. I
shall not tell you of my troubles and adventures in this research; you
are not worthy to hear of them; but something so curious befell me one
evening last August, that if I had not been perfectly certain I was
wide awake, I might have taken it for a dream.

For the purpose I have named it was necessary that I should make Tours
my head-quarters for a time. I had traced descendants of the Calvin
family out of Normandy into the centre of France; but I found it was
necessary to have a kind of permission from the bishop of the diocese
before I could see certain family papers, which had fallen into the
possession of the Church; and, as I had several English friends at
Tours, I awaited the answer to my request to Monseigneur de ----, at
that town. I was ready to accept any invitation; but I received very
few; and was sometimes a little at a loss what to do with my evenings.
The _table d’hôte_ was at five o’clock; I did not wish to go to the
expense of a private sitting-room, disliked the dinnery atmosphere
of the _salle à manger_, could not play either at pool or billiards,
and the aspect of my fellow guests was unprepossessing enough to make
me unwilling to enter into any _tête-à-tête_ gamblings with them.
So I usually rose from table early, and tried to make the most of
the remaining light of the August evenings in walking briskly off to
explore the surrounding country; the middle of the day was too hot
for this purpose, and better employed in lounging on a bench in the
Boulevards, lazily listening to the distant band, and noticing with
equal laziness the faces and figures of the women who passed by.

One Thursday evening, the 18th of August it was, I think, I had gone
farther than usual in my walk, and I found that it was later than I had
imagined when I paused to turn back. I fancied I could make a round;
I had enough notion of the direction in which I was, to see that by
turning up a narrow straight lane to my left I should shorten my way
back to Tours. And so I believe I should have done, could I have found
an outlet at the right place, but field-paths are almost unknown in
that part of France, and my lane, stiff and straight as any street,
and marked into terrible vanishing perspective by the regular row of
poplars on each side, seemed interminable. Of course night came on, and
I was in darkness. In England I might have had a chance of seeing a
light in some cottage only a field or two off, and asking my way from
the inhabitants; but here I could see no such welcome sight; indeed, I
believe French peasants go to bed with the summer daylight, so if there
were any habitations in the neighbourhood I never saw them. At last--I
believe I must have walked two hours in the darkness,--I saw the dusky
outline of a wood on one side of the weariful lane, and, impatiently
careless of all forest laws and penalties for trespassers, I made my
way to it, thinking that if the worst came to the worst, I could find
some covert--some shelter where I could lie down and rest, until the
morning light gave me a chance of finding my way back to Tours. But
the plantation, on the outskirts of what appeared to me a dense wood,
was of young trees, too closely planted to be more than slender stems
growing up to a good height, with scanty foliage on their summits.
On I went towards the thicker forest, and once there I slackened my
pace, and began to look about me for a good lair. I was as dainty as
Lochiel’s grandchild, who made his grandsire indignant at the luxury of
his pillow of snow: this brake was too full of brambles, that felt damp
with dew; there was no hurry, since I had given up all hope of passing
the night between four walls; and I went leisurely groping about, and
trusting that there were no wolves to be poked up out of their summer
drowsiness by my stick, when all at once I saw a château before me, not
a quarter of a mile off, at the end of what seemed to be an ancient
avenue (now overgrown and irregular), which I happened to be crossing,
when I looked to my right, and saw the welcome sight. Large, stately,
and dark was its outline against the dusky night-sky; there were
pepper-boxes and tourelles and what-not fantastically going up into the
dim starlight. And more to the purpose still, though I could not see
the details of the building that I was now facing, it was plain enough
that there were lights in many windows, as if some great entertainment
was going on.

“They are hospitable people at any rate,” thought I. “Perhaps they will
give me a bed. I don’t suppose French propriétaires have traps and
horses quite as plentiful as English gentlemen; but they are evidently
having a large party, and some of their guests may be from Tours, and
will give me a cast back to the Lion d’Or. I am not proud, and I am
dog-tired. I am not above hanging on behind, if need be.”

So, putting a little briskness and spirit into my walk, I went up to
the door, which was standing open, most hospitably, and showing a large
lighted hall, all hung round with spoils of the chase, armour, &c.,
the details of which I had not time to notice, for the instant I stood
on the threshold a huge porter appeared, in a strange, old-fashioned
dress, a kind of livery which well befitted the general appearance
of the house. He asked me, in French (so curiously pronounced that I
thought I had hit upon a new kind of _patois_), my name, and whence I
came. I thought he would not be much the wiser, still it was but civil
to give it before I made my request for assistance; so in reply I said--

“My name is Whittingham--Richard Whittingham, an English gentleman,
staying at ----.” To my infinite surprise a light of pleased
intelligence came over the giant’s face; he made me a low bow, and
said (still in the same curious dialect) that I was welcome, that I was
long expected.

“Long expected!” What could the fellow mean? Had I stumbled on a nest
of relations by John Calvin’s side, who had heard of my genealogical
inquiries, and were gratified and interested by them? But I was too
much pleased to be under shelter for the night to think it necessary to
account for my agreeable reception before I enjoyed it. Just as he was
opening the great heavy _battants_ of the door that led from the hall
to the interior, he turned round and said,--

“Apparently Monsieur le Géanquilleur is not come with you.”

“No! I am all alone; I have lost my way,”--and I was going on with my
explanation, when he, as if quite indifferent to it, led the way up
a great stone staircase, as wide as many rooms, and having on each
landing-place massive iron wickets, in a heavy framework; these the
porter unlocked with the solemn slowness of age. Indeed, a strange,
mysterious awe of the centuries that had passed away since this château
was built came over me as I waited for the turning of the ponderous
keys in the ancient locks. I could almost have fancied that I heard
a mighty rushing murmur (like the ceaseless sound of a distant sea,
ebbing and flowing for ever and for ever), coming forth from the great
vacant galleries that opened out on each side of the broad staircase,
and were to be dimly perceived in the darkness above us. It was as if
the voices of generations of men yet echoed and eddied in the silent
air. It was strange, too, that my friend the porter going before me,
ponderously infirm, with his feeble old hands striving in vain to keep
the tall flambeau he held steadily before him,--strange, I say, that he
was the only domestic I saw in the vast halls and passages, or met with
on the grand staircase. At length we stood before the gilded doors that
led into the saloon where the family--or it might be the company, so
great was the buzz of voices--was assembled. I would have remonstrated
when I found he was going to introduce me, dusty and travel-smeared, in
a morning costume that was not even my best, into this grand _salon_,
with nobody knew how many ladies and gentlemen assembled; but the
obstinate old man was evidently bent upon taking me straight to his
master, and paid no heed to my words.

The doors flew open, and I was ushered into a saloon curiously full of
pale light, which did not culminate on any spot, nor proceed from any
centre, nor flicker with any motion of the air, but filled every nook
and corner, making all things deliciously distinct; different from our
light of gas or candle, as is the difference between a clear southern
atmosphere and that of our misty England.

At the first moment my arrival excited no attention, the apartment
was so full of people, all intent on their own conversation. But my
friend the porter went up to a handsome lady of middle age, richly
attired in that antique manner which fashion has brought round again
of late years, and, waiting first in an attitude of deep respect till
her attention fell upon him, told her my name and something about me,
as far as I could guess from the gestures of the one and the sudden
glance of the eye of the other.

She immediately came towards me with the most friendly actions of
greeting, even before she had advanced near enough to speak. Then,--and
was it not strange?--her words and accent were that of the commonest
peasant of the country. Yet she herself looked high-bred, and would
have been dignified had she been a shade less restless, had her
countenance worn a little less lively and inquisitive expression. I
had been poking a good deal about the old parts of Tours, and had had
to understand the dialect of the people who dwelt in the Marché an
Vendredi and similar places, or I really should not have understood
my handsome hostess, as she offered to present me to her husband, a
henpecked, gentlemanly man, who was more quaintly attired than she in
the very extreme of that style of dress. I thought to myself that in
France, as in England, it is the provincials who carry fashion to such
an excess as to become ridiculous.

However, he spoke (still in the _patois_) of his pleasure in making
my acquaintance, and led me to a strange uneasy easy-chair, much of a
piece with the rest of the furniture, which might have taken its place
without any anachronism by the side of that in the Hôtel Cluny. Then
again began the clatter of French voices, which my arrival had for an
instant interrupted, and I had leisure to look about me. Opposite to
me sat a very sweet-looking lady, who must have been a great beauty in
her youth I should think, and would be charming in old age, from the
sweetness of her countenance. She was, however, extremely fat, and on
seeing her feet laid up before her on a cushion, I at once perceived
that they were so swollen as to render her incapable of walking, which
probably brought on her excessive _embonpoint_. Her hands were plump
and small, but rather coarse-grained in texture, not quite so clean as
they might have been, and altogether not so aristocratic-looking as the
charming face. Her dress was of superb black velvet, ermine-trimmed,
with diamonds thrown all abroad over it.

Not far from her stood the least little man I had ever seen; of such
admirable proportions no one could call him a dwarf, because with that
word we usually associate something of deformity; but yet with an
elfin look of shrewd, hard, worldly wisdom in his face that marred the
impression which his delicate regular little features would otherwise
have conveyed. Indeed, I do not think he was quite of equal rank
with the rest of the company, for his dress was inappropriate to the
occasion (and he apparently was an invited, while I was an involuntary
guest); and one or two of his gestures and actions were more like
the tricks of an uneducated rustic than anything else. To explain
what I mean: his boots had evidently seen much service, and had been
re-topped, re-heeled, re-soled to the extent of cobbler’s powers. Why
should he have come in them if they were not his best--his only pair?
And what can be more ungenteel than poverty? Then again he had an
uneasy trick of putting his hand up to his throat, as if he expected to
find something the matter with it; and he had the awkward habit--which
I do not think he could have copied from Dr. Johnson, because most
probably he had never heard of him--of trying always to retrace his
steps on the exact boards on which he had trodden to arrive at any
particular part of the room. Besides, to settle the question, I once
heard him addressed as Monsieur Poucet, without any aristocratic “de”
for a prefix; and nearly every one else in the room was a marquis at
any rate.

I say, “nearly every one;” for some strange people had the entrée;
unless indeed they were like me benighted. One of the guests I should
have taken for a servant, but for the extraordinary influence he
seemed to have over the man I took for his master, and who never did
anything without, apparently, being urged thereto by this follower.
The master, magnificently dressed, but ill at ease in his clothes, as
if they had been made for some one else, was a weak-looking, handsome
man, continually sauntering about, and I almost guessed an object of
suspicion to some of the gentlemen present, which, perhaps, drove him
on the companionship of his follower, who was dressed something in the
style of an ambassador’s chasseur; yet it was not a chasseur’s dress
after all; it was something more thoroughly old-world; boots half way
up his ridiculously small legs, which clattered as he walked along, as
if they were too large for his little feet; and a great quantity of
grey fur, as trimming to coat, court-mantle, boots, cap--everything.
You know the way in which certain countenances remind you perpetually
of some animal, be it bird or beast! Well, this chasseur (as I will
call him for want of a better name) was exceedingly like the great
Tom-cat that you have seen so often in my chambers, and laughed at
almost as often for his uncanny gravity of demeanour. Grey whiskers has
my Tom--grey whiskers had the chasseur: grey hair overshadows the upper
lip of my Tom--grey mustachios hid that of the chasseur. The pupils of
Tom’s eyes dilate and contract as I had thought cats’ pupils only could
do, until I saw those of the chasseur. To be sure, canny as Tom is,
the chasseur had the advantage in the more intelligent expression. He
seemed to have obtained most complete sway over his master or patron,
whose looks he watched, and whose steps he followed with a kind of
distrustful interest that puzzled me greatly.

There were several other groups in the more distant part of the saloon,
all of the stately old school, all grand and noble, I conjectured from
their bearing. They seemed perfectly well acquainted with each other,
as if they were in the habit of meeting. But I was interrupted in my
observations by the tiny little gentleman on the opposite side of the
room coming across to take a place beside me. It is no difficult matter
to a Frenchman to slide into conversation, and so gracefully did my
pigmy friend keep up the character of the nation, that we were almost
confidential before ten minutes had elapsed.

Now I was quite aware that the welcome which all had extended to me,
from the porter up to the vivacious lady and meek lord of the castle,
was intended for some other person. But it required either a degree
of moral courage, of which I cannot boast, or the self-reliance and
conversational powers of a bolder and cleverer man than I, to undeceive
people who had fallen into so fortunate a mistake for me. Yet the
little man by my side insinuated himself so much into my confidence,
that I had half a mind to tell him of my exact situation and to turn
him into a friend and an ally.

“Madame is perceptibly growing older,” said he, in the midst of my
perplexity, glancing at our hostess.

“Madame is still a very fine woman,” replied I.

“Now, is it not strange,” continued he, lowering his voice, “how
women almost invariably praise the absent, or departed, as if they
were angels of light, while as for the present, or the living”--here
he shrugged up his little shoulders, and made an expressive pause.
“Would you believe it! Madame is always praising her late husband to
monsieur’s face; till, in fact, we guests are quite perplexed how
to look: for you know, the late M. de Retz’s character was quite
notorious,--everybody has heard of him.” All the world of Touraine,
thought I, but I made an assenting noise.

At this instant, monsieur our host came up to me, and with a civil
look of tender interest (such as some people put on when they inquire
after your mother, about whom they do not care one straw) asked if I
had heard lately how my cat was? “How my cat was!” What could the man
mean? My cat! Could he mean the tailless Tom, born in the Isle of Man,
and now supposed to be keeping guard against the incursions of rats
and mice into my chambers in London? Tom is, as you know, on pretty
good terms with some of my friends, using their legs for rubbing-posts
without scruple, and highly esteemed by them for his gravity of
demeanour, and wise manner of winking his eyes. But could his fame have
reached across the Channel? However, an answer must be returned to the
inquiry, as monsieur’s face was bent down to mine with a look of polite
anxiety; so I, in my turn, assumed an expression of gratitude, and
assured him that, to the best of my belief, my cat was in remarkably
good health.

“And the climate agrees with her?”

“Perfectly,” said I, in a maze of wonder at this deep solicitude in a
tailless cat who had lost one foot and half an ear in some cruel trap.
My host smiled a sweet smile, and, addressing a few words to my little
neighbour, passed on.

“How wearisome these aristocrats are!” quoth my neighbour with a
slight sneer. “Monsieur’s conversation rarely extends to more than two
sentences to any one. By that time his faculties are exhausted, and he
needs the refreshment of silence. You and I, monsieur, are at any rate
indebted to our own wits for our rise in the world!”

Here again I was bewildered! As you know, I am rather proud of my
descent from families which, if not noble themselves, are allied to
nobility,--and as to my “rise in the world”--if I had risen, it would
have been rather for balloon-like qualities than for mother-wit, to
being unencumbered with heavy ballast either in my head or my pockets.
However, it was my cue to agree: so I smiled again.

“For my part,” said he, “if a man does not stick at trifles, if
he knows how to judiciously add to, or withhold facts, and is not
sentimental in his parade of humanity, he is sure to do well; sure to
affix a _de_ or _von_ to his name, and end his days in comfort. There
is an example of what I am saying”--and he glanced furtively at the
weak-looking master of the sharp, intelligent servant, whom I have
called the chasseur.

“Monsieur le Marquis would never have been anything but a miller’s son,
if it had not been for the talents of his servant. Of course you know
his antecedents?”

I was going to make some remarks on the changes in the order of the
peerage since the days of Louis XVI.--going, in fact, to be very
sensible and historical--when there was a slight commotion among the
people at the other end of the room. Lacqueys in quaint liveries
must have come in from behind the tapestry, I suppose (for I never
saw them enter, though I sate right opposite to the doors), and were
handing about the slight beverages and slighter viands which are
considered sufficient refreshments, but which looked rather meagre
to my hungry appetite. These footmen were standing solemnly opposite
to a lady,--beautiful, splendid as the dawn, but--sound asleep in a
magnificent settee. A gentleman who showed so much irritation at her
ill-timed slumbers, that I think he must have been her husband, was
trying to awaken her with actions not far removed from shakings. All
in vain; she was quite unconscious of his annoyance, or the smiles of
the company, or the automatic solemnity of the waiting footmen, or the
perplexed anxiety of monsieur and madame.

My little friend sat down with a sneer as if his curiosity was quenched
in contempt.

“Moralists would make an infinity of wise remarks on that scene,” said
he. “In the first place note the ridiculous position into which their
superstitious reverence for rank and title puts all these people.
Because monsieur is a reigning prince over some minute principality
the exact situation of which no one has as yet discovered, no one must
venture to take their glass of eau sucré till Madame la Princesse
awakens; and, judging from past experience, those poor lacqueys may
have to stand for a century before that happens. Next--always speaking
as a moralist, you will observe--note how difficult it is to break off
bad habits acquired in youth!”

Just then the prince succeeded, by what means I did not see, in awaking
the beautiful sleeper. But at first she did not remember where she was,
and looking up at her husband with loving eyes, she smiled and said:

“Is it you, my prince!”

But he was too conscious of the suppressed amusement of the spectators
and his own consequent annoyance, to be reciprocally tender, and
turned away with some little French expression best rendered into
English by “Pooh pooh, my dear!”

After I had had a glass of delicious wine of some unknown quality, my
courage was in rather better plight than before, and I told my cynical
little neighbour--whom I must say I was beginning to dislike--that I
had lost my way in the wood, and had arrived at the château quite by
mistake.

He seemed mightily amused at my story; said that the same thing had
happened to himself more than once; and told me that I had better luck
than he had had on one of these occasions, when, from his account,
he must have been in considerable danger of his life. He ended his
story by making me admire his boots, which he said he still wore,
patched though they were, and all their excellent quality lost by
patching,--because they were of such a first-rate make for long
pedestrian excursions. “Though indeed,” he wound up by saying, “the new
fashion of railroads would seem to supersede the necessity for this
description of boots.”

When I consulted him as to whether I ought to make myself known to
my host and hostess as a benighted traveller, instead of the guest
whom they had taken me for, he exclaimed, “By no means! I hate such
squeamish morality.” And he seemed much offended by my innocent
question, as if it seemed by implication to condemn something in
himself. He was offended and silent; and just at this moment I caught
the sweet, attractive eyes of the lady opposite,--that lady whom I
named at first as being no longer in the bloom of youth, but as being
somewhat infirm about the feet, which were supported on a raised
cushion before her. Her looks seemed to say, “Come here, and let us
have some conversation together;” and with a bow of silent excuse to my
little companion, I went across to the lame old lady. She acknowledged
my coming with the prettiest gesture of thanks possible; and half
apologetically said, “It is a little dull to be unable to move about
on such evenings as this; but it is a just punishment to me for my
early vanities. My poor feet, that were by nature so small, are now
taking their revenge for my cruelty in forcing them into such little
slippers.... Besides, monsieur,” with a pleasant smile, “I thought it
was possible you might be weary of the malicious sayings of your little
neighbour. He has not borne the best character in his youth, and such
men are sure to be cynical in their old age.”

“Who is he?” asked I, with English abruptness.

“His name is Poucet, and his father was, I believe, a wood-cutter, or
charcoal-burner, or something of the sort. They do tell sad stories
of connivance at murder, ingratitude, and obtaining money on false
pretences--but you will think me as bad as he if I go on with my
slanders. Rather let us admire the lovely lady coming up towards us,
with the roses in her hand--I never see her without roses, they are so
closely connected with her past history, as you are doubtless aware.
Ah beauty!” said my companion to the lady drawing near to us, “it is
like you to come to me, now that I can no longer go to you.” Then
turning to me, and gracefully drawing me into the conversation, she
said, “You must know that although we never met until we were both
married, we have been almost like sisters ever since. There have been
so many points of resemblance in our circumstances, and I think I may
say in our characters. We had each two elder sisters--mine were but
half-sisters, though--who were not so kind to us as they might have
been.”

“But have been sorry for it since,” put in the other lady.

“Since we have married princes,” continued the same lady, with an arch
smile that had nothing of unkindness in it, “for we both have married
far above our original stations in life; we are both unpunctual in our
habits, and in consequence of this failing of ours we have both had to
suffer mortification and pain.”

“And both are charming,” said a whisper close behind me. “My lord the
marquis, say it--say, ‘And both are charming.’”

“And both are charming,” was spoken aloud by another voice. I turned,
and saw the wily cat-like chasseur, prompting his master to make civil
speeches.

The ladies bowed with that kind of haughty acknowledgment which shows
that compliments from such a source are distasteful. But our trio of
conversation was broken up, and I was sorry for it. The marquis looked
as if he had been stirred up to make that one speech, and hoped that he
would not be expected to say more; while behind him stood the chasseur,
half impertinent and half servile in his ways and attitudes. The
ladies, who were real ladies, seemed to be sorry for the awkwardness
of the marquis, and addressed some trifling questions to him, adapting
themselves to the subjects on which he could have no trouble in
answering. The chasseur, meanwhile, was talking to himself in a
growling tone of voice. I had fallen a little into the background at
this interruption in a conversation which promised to be so pleasant,
and I could not help hearing his words.

“Really, De Carabas grows more stupid every day. I have a great mind to
throw off his boots, and leave him to his fate. I was intended for a
court, and to a court I will go, and make my own fortune as I have made
his. The emperor will appreciate my talents.”

And such are the habits of the French, or such his forgetfulness
of good manners in his anger, that he spat right and left on the
parquetted floor.

Just then a very ugly, very pleasant-looking man, came towards the
two ladies to whom I had lately been speaking, leading up to them a
delicate fair woman dressed all in the softest white, as if she were
_vouée au blanc_. I do not think there was a bit of colour about her.
I thought I heard her making, as she came along, a little noise of
pleasure, not exactly like the singing of a tea-kettle, nor yet like
the cooing of a dove, but reminding me of each sound.

“Madame de Mioumiou was anxious to see you,” said he, addressing
the lady with the roses, “so I have brought her across to give you
a pleasure!” What an honest good face! but oh! how ugly! And yet I
liked his ugliness better than most persons’ beauty. There was a look
of pathetic acknowledgment of his ugliness, and a deprecation of your
too hasty judgment, in his countenance that was positively winning.
The soft white lady kept glancing at my neighbour the chasseur, as if
they had had some former acquaintance, which puzzled me very much,
as they were of such different rank. However, their nerves were
evidently strung to the same tune, for at a sound behind the tapestry,
which was more like the scuttering of rats and mice than anything
else, both Madame de Mioumiou and the chasseur started with the most
eager look of anxiety on their countenances, and by their restless
movements--madame’s panting, and the fiery dilation of his eyes--one
might see that commonplace sounds affected them both in a manner very
different to the rest of the company. The ugly husband of the lovely
lady with the roses now addressed himself to me.

“We are much disappointed,” he said, “in finding that monsieur is not
accompanied by his countryman--le grand Jean d’Angleterre; I cannot
pronounce his name rightly”--and he looked at me to help him out.

“Le grand Jean d’Angleterre!” now who was le grand Jean d’Angleterre?
John Bull? John Russell? John Bright?

“Jean--Jean”--continued the gentleman, seeing my embarrassment. “Ah,
these terrible English names--‘Jean de Géanquilleur!’”

I was as wise as ever. And yet the name struck me as familiar, but
slightly disguised. I repeated it to myself. It was mighty like John
the Giant-killer, only his friends always call that worthy “Jack.” I
said the name aloud.

“Ah, that is it!” said he. “But why has he not accompanied you to our
little reunion to-night?”

I had been rather puzzled once or twice before, but this serious
question added considerably to my perplexity. Jack the Giant-killer had
once, it is true, been rather an intimate friend of mine, as far as
(printer’s) ink and paper can keep up a friendship, but I had not heard
his name mentioned for years; and for aught I knew he lay enchanted
with King Arthur’s knights, who lie entranced until the blast of the
trumpets of four mighty kings shall call them to help at England’s
need. But the question had been asked in serious earnest by that
gentleman, whom I more wished to think well of me than I did any other
person in the room. So I answered respectfully that it was long since I
had heard anything of my countryman; but that I was sure it would have
given him as much pleasure as it was doing myself to have been present
at such an agreeable gathering of friends. He bowed, and then the lame
lady took up the word.

“To-night is the night when, of all the year, this great old forest
surrounding the castle is said to be haunted by the phantom of a little
peasant girl who once lived hereabouts; the tradition is that she was
devoured by a wolf. In former days I have seen her on this night out
of yonder window at the end of the gallery. Will you, ma belle, take
monsieur to see the view outside by the moonlight (you may possibly see
the phantom-child); and leave me to a little _tête-à-tête_ with your
husband?”

With a gentle movement the lady with the roses complied with the
other’s request, and we went to a great window, looking down on the
forest, in which I had lost my way. The tops of the far-spreading and
leafy trees lay motionless beneath us in that pale, wan light, which
shows objects almost as distinct in form, though not in colour, as by
day. We looked down on the countless avenues, which seemed to converge
from all quarters to the great old castle; and suddenly across one,
quite near to us, there passed the figure of a little girl, with the
“capuchon” on, that takes the place of a peasant girl’s bonnet in
France. She had a basket on one arm, and by her, on the side to which
her head was turned, there went a wolf. I could almost have said it was
licking her hand, as if in penitent love, if either penitence or love
had ever been a quality of wolves,--but though not of living, perhaps
it may be of phantom wolves.

“There, we have seen her!” exclaimed my beautiful companion. “Though
so long dead, her simple story of household goodness and trustful
simplicity still lingers in the hearts of all who have ever heard
of her; and the country-people about here say that seeing that
phantom-child on this anniversary brings good luck for the year. Let us
hope that we shall share in the traditionary good fortune. Ah! here is
Madame de Retz--she retains the name of her first husband, you know, as
he was of higher rank than the present.” We were joined by our hostess.

“If monsieur is fond of the beauties of nature and art,” said she,
perceiving that I had been looking at the view from the great window,
“he will perhaps take pleasure in seeing the picture.” Here she sighed,
with a little affectation of grief. “You know the picture I allude
to,” addressing my companion, who bowed assent, and smiled a little
maliciously, as I followed the lead of madame.

I went after her to the other end of the saloon, noting by the way
with what keen curiosity she caught up what was passing either in
word or action on each side of her. When we stood opposite to the end
wall, I perceived a full-length picture of a handsome peculiar-looking
man, with--in spite of his good looks--a very fierce and scowling
expression. My hostess clasped her hands together as her arms hung down
in front, and sighed once more. Then, half in soliloquy, she said--

“He was the love of my youth; his stern yet manly character first
touched this heart of mine. When--when shall I cease to deplore his
loss!”

Not being acquainted with her enough to answer this question (if,
indeed, it were not sufficiently answered by the fact of her second
marriage), I felt awkward; and, by way of saying something, I
remarked,--

“The countenance strikes me as resembling something I have seen
before--in an engraving from an historical picture, I think; only, it
is there the principal figure in a group: he is holding a lady by her
hair, and threatening her with his scimitar, while two cavaliers are
rushing up the stairs, apparently only just in time to save her life.”

“Alas, alas!” said she, “you too accurately describe a miserable
passage in my life, which has often been represented in a false
light. The best of husbands”--here she sobbed, and became slightly
inarticulate with her grief--“will sometimes be displeased. I was young
and curious, he was justly angry with my disobedience--my brothers were
too hasty--the consequence is, I became a widow!”

After due respect for her tears, I ventured to suggest some commonplace
consolation. She turned round sharply:--

“No, monsieur: my only comfort is that I have never forgiven the
brothers who interfered so cruelly, in such an uncalled-for manner,
between my dear husband and myself. To quote my friend Monsieur
Sganarelle--‘Ce sont petites choses qui sont de temps en temps
nécessaires dans l’amitié; et cinq ou six coups d’épée entre gens
qui s’aiment ne font que ragaillardir l’affection.’ You observe the
colouring is not quite what it should be?”

“In this light the beard is of rather a peculiar tint,” said I.

“Yes: the painter did not do it justice. It was most lovely, and gave
him such a distinguished air, quite different from the common herd.
Stay, I will show you the exact colour, if you will come near this
flambeau!” And going near the light, she took off a bracelet of hair,
with a magnificent clasp of pearls. It was peculiar, certainly. I did
not know what to say. “His precious lovely beard!” said she. “And the
pearls go so well with the delicate blue!”

Her husband, who had come up to us, and waited till her eye fell upon
him before venturing to speak, now said, “It is strange Monsieur Ogre
is not yet arrived!”

“Not at all strange,” said she tartly. “He was always very stupid,
and constantly falls into mistakes, in which he comes worse off; and
it is very well he does, for he is a credulous and cowardly fellow.
Not at all strange! If you will”--turning to her husband, so that I
hardly heard her words, until I caught--“Then everybody would have
their rights, and we should have no more trouble. Is it not, monsieur?”
addressing me.

“If I were in England, I should imagine madame was speaking of the
reform bill, or the millennium,--but I am in ignorance.”

And just as I spoke, the great folding-doors were thrown open wide, and
every one started to their feet to greet a little old lady, leaning on
a thin black wand--and--

“Madame la Féemarraine,” was announced by a chorus of sweet shrill
voices.

And in a moment I was lying in the grass close by a hollow oak tree,
with the slanting glory of the dawning day shining full in my face, and
thousands of little birds and delicate insects piping and warbling out
their welcome to the ruddy splendour.




Life among the Lighthouses.


A minister of state, whose duties brought him into constant attendance
upon royalty, once made a memorandum in his diary to watch the king
into a good humour, _that he might ask him for a Lighthouse_. It is
probable that the wish of Lord Grenville (for it was he) was not to
learn what living in a lighthouse would be like, but rather to realize
the very considerable living to be got out of one.

Whether his lordship ever got what he desired, we do not know; but
could he have foreseen the serious penalties the nation would have
to pay for having the “well-beloved cousins and councillors” of its
kings quartered in this free and easy way upon its mercantile marine,
surely he would have been too generous to seek it. Henry VIII. and his
daughter Elizabeth were alive to the true policy in such matters, for
he put the custody of such things into the charge of a chartered body,
whose interests were made identical with the public welfare; and she,
making her Lord High Admiral Howard surrender his authority in regard
to beacons, buoys, marks and signs for the sea to their custody, gave
the Elder Brethren of the Trinity House their first Act of Parliament,
and set them forward upon an ever-widening career of usefulness, which
has resulted in our channels being almost as well lighted as our
streets.

Not but what among the proprietors of “private lights,” as those not
under the control of the Trinity House were called, there were men
of sagacity, energy, and self-devotion. Men who were proud of the
means whereby they lived, and took the same pleasure in having their
lighthouse a credit to them that an opulent manufacturer does in having
his mills up to the mark with all the most recent improvements. But
the same motive did not exist in the one case as does in the other. If
a manufacturer does not keep in the front rank as regards machinery,
the character of his goods is degraded in the market. He must choose
between spinning well or not at all. But with the private manufacturers
of light for bewildered sailors the case was different: they were
authorized to levy tolls on all vessels passing, using, or deriving
benefit from the light in question; a certain range of distance
appears to have been assumed within which the vessel was liable; and
although at one lighthouse the oil might be bad, at another the candles
unsnuffed, whilst at a third the coal fire would be reeking in its
embers, still so long as the light was there the dues were chargeable.

Things came to a crisis at last. In districts where at the time when
the king’s good-humour had been availed of vessels from fishing-village
to fishing-village crept round by twos and threes, the waters got
crowded daily and hourly with ships of mighty tonnage, and every
ton had to pay. It was difficult to tell what the recipients of the
royal benevolence were making; but from the style in which their mere
collectors throve, it was evidently something far too good to be
talked about. It must have been very hard to have been insulted with
an offer of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds for a barren rock
in the ocean, nothing like that number of feet square, subjecting the
proprietor to the necessity of making a pathetic rejoinder to the
effect “that if he must sell, it must be for five hundred and fifty
thousand pounds, and that would not pay him;” but a jury was appealed
to, and four hundred and forty-five thousand pounds was carried off as
the vested right in one lighthouse, with a heavy sigh that it was so
little. Another leviathan of the deep realized three hundred thousand
pounds; and if these were whales among the tritons, the tritons and the
minnows too, all plethoric of their kind, fared well. The scale was
freighted heavily with compulsory purchase-money before they were all
bought out, and the shipping interest had to pay surplus light dues for
many years before the official custodians of the lighthouse fund had
got quit of their huge debt.

Even on these terms it was the right thing to do. When the lighthouse
on the Smalls rock in the Bristol Channel was in private hands, the
annual consumption of oil, which is another way of stating the annual
amount of light produced, was as little as two hundred gallons; at this
present time fifteen hundred gallons are burnt within the year. The
dues payable in those days were twopence per ton, whilst now vessels
pay at the rate of one halfpenny per ton over-sea, and one-sixteenth
part of a penny per ton for coasting voyages, less an abatement in
the latter cases of thirty-five per cent. But bad lighting, private
proprietorship, public debt, and, to a great extent, even surplus light
dues, have gone for ever, and lighthouses have got back to what Queen
Elizabeth meant them to be--public trusts in public hands for public
uses.

And yet it was private enterprise that built and rebuilt, and again
rebuilt the Eddystone, and it was private courage that established
that which will soon be a thing of the past, the strange wooden-legged
Malay-looking barracoon of a lighthouse in the Bristol Channel, on a
rock called the “Smalls.”

The wooden structure at the Smalls was conceived originally by a Mr.
Phillips, of Liverpool, a member of the Society of Friends. He set
himself to establish “a great holy good to serve and save humanity,”
and even in this world he had his reward; for sixty years afterwards,
when his representatives had to surrender it to the Trinity House, they
got one hundred and seventy thousand pounds by way of compensation for
it.

Like most sagacious men, he knew how to choose his instruments. At that
time there resided in Liverpool a young man of the name of Whiteside,
a maker of “violins, spinettes, and upright harpsichords,” with a
strongly marked mechanical genius.

In the summer of 1772, this young fiddle-maker found himself at Solva,
twenty miles from the rock, with a gang of Cornish miners, who were to
quarry sockets into the stone, into which it was originally intended
that iron pillars should be soldered. The first essay was sufficiently
appalling. The surface of the rock is called twelve feet above the
level of high water, that is, in smooth weather; but in tempestuous
seas, and when the waves are rolling in from the south-west, it is as
many feet below it. The party had landed from their cutter, and had
got a long iron rod worked a few feet into the rock, when the weather
suddenly got “dirty.” The wind and the sea rose together, and the
cutter had to sheer off lest she should be wrecked. The men on the rock
clung, as best they might, to the half-fastened shaft, and a desperate
struggle ensued between brute nature and that passive fortitude which
is greater than brute nature,--all through the night into the morning,
all through the day into the night again, until the third day, when the
storm abated and they were saved.

Nothing daunted, it was agreed that it was just as well to know the
worst. One hint was immediately taken, and rings and holding bars
were let into various parts of the rock, to which the men could lash
themselves and each other on similar occasions. It was soon found that
iron pillars would not do, that they were not sufficiently elastic;
and great pains were taken to find heart of oak that would be equal to
resist the angry forces of the waters. That the present structure would
stand for ever, may be doubted, except by a process analogous to the
repair of the Irishman’s stocking,--first a new foot, and then a fresh
leg. Anyhow, it has been recently thought better to build a granite
tower, which, once well done, may be said, humanly speaking, to be done
for ever. The light will be exhibited at a greater elevation, which
gives it an extended range, and the size of the lantern will admit of a
larger and more powerful apparatus. The mode of procedure is of course
very different from that adopted by Mr. Whiteside. Where formerly there
was a poor fiddle-maker, with half-a-dozen Cornish miners, and a ship’s
carpenter or two, there is now a civil engineer, a clerk, thirty-eight
granite masons, four carpenters, eight smiths, thirteen seamen, four
bargemen, two miners and eight labourers; a commodious wharf, a steam
vessel, a tender, and some barges. There may be nothing so pathetic or
so heroic as that long cling of nine forlorn human creatures round the
first iron bar; it would be shame to the engineer if it should be so;
but there is real work to do, and it is being thoroughly well done.

The story of the present structure at the Eddystone has been told
with quaint simplicity by the man who raised it. Smeaton had this
advantage over Whiteside, that he had precursors in his work: but
then the work was harder, and was done more enduringly. Whiteside’s
work at the Smalls is coming away in the course of a season or two;
Smeaton’s, at the Eddystone, is to remain the pattern lighthouse
of the world for ever. The first Eddystone, built in 1696, was a
strange affair--something like a Chinese pagoda, or a belvedere in
some suburban tea-gardens, with open galleries and projecting cranes.
The architect was Henry Winstanley, and he has depicted himself
complacently fishing out of his kitchen window; but how he ever
expected his queer mansion to stand the winter storms is simply a
marvel. It was completed in 1699, and it was destroyed in 1703. The
necessity for repairs had taken him to the rock at the time, a dreadful
storm set in on the 26th November, and the next morning there was
nothing left of the lighthouse or its occupants but some of the large
irons whereby the work had been fixed in the rock. A narrative of
the occurrence, printed in the following year, states:--“It was very
remarkable that, as we are informed, at the same time the lighthouse
abovesaid was blown down, the model of it, in Mr. Winstanley’s house at
Littlebury, in Essex, above 200 miles from the lighthouse, fell down
and was broke to pieces.” Upon which, Smeaton shrewdly remarks: “This,
however, may not appear extraordinary, if we consider, that the same
general wind that blew down the lighthouse near Plymouth might blow
down the model at Littlebury.”

The next structure at the Eddystone, commenced in 1706, was a very
different thing. Mr. John Rudyerd was doomed by fortune to be a silk
mercer, and keep a shop on Ludgate Hill; but Nature had made him
an engineer. Smeaton speaks with great admiration of many of his
arrangements; and if the lighthouse had not been destroyed by fire,
about forty-six years after its erection, there appears no reason why
it should not have been standing to this day. While Winstanley’s was
all external ornament, with numberless nooks and angles for the wind
and sea to gripe it by, Rudyerd’s was a snug, smooth, solid cone,
round which the sea might rage, but on which it could hardly fasten.
But fire conquered what the water could not. Luckily for the keepers,
it broke out in the very top of the lantern, and burnt downwards, and
there was time to save the men, although one of them, looking upwards
at the burning mass, not only got burnt on the shoulders and head
with some molten lead, but while gazing upwards with his mouth open,
received some of the liquid metal down his throat, and yet survived, to
the incredulity of all Plymouth, for twelve days, when seven ounces of
lead, “of a flat, oval form,” was taken from his stomach.

The lessees of the Eddystone, in those days, seem to have been
liberal-minded people. The tolls ceased with the extinction of the
light, and could not be renewed until it was again exhibited. It was
their apparent interest, therefore, to get a structure run up on the
old model as quickly as possible. It was true it had been destroyed by
fire, but a little modification of the old arrangements would probably
have prevented such a calamity recurring, and it had proved itself
stable and seaworthy. Nevertheless, they not only consulted the ablest
engineer of the day, but submitted to the delay and extra cost involved
in the adoption of his advice to build of stone and granite.

The point of most enduring interest connected with the present
Eddystone is the peculiarity of its form, which is familiar, probably,
to everybody in the kingdom, from the child, who has seen it in a
magic-lantern, to the civil engineer who knows Smeaton’s stately folio
by heart. Until he built so, the form was almost unknown to us; and
since he built so, all the ocean lighthouses have been modifications of
it. It is interesting to contrast the reasoning of Mr. Alan Stevenson,
the builder of the “Skerryvore,” another of these deep-sea lamp-posts,
as they have been called, off the western coast of Scotland,--with
the _instincts_ of Smeaton, so to speak, on the same subject. It may
not be very edifying to the general reader to learn “that, as the
stability of a sea-tower depends, _cæteris paribus_, on the lowness
of its centre of gravity, the general notion of its form is that of a
cone; but that, as the forces to which its several horizontal sections
are opposed decrease towards its top in a rapid ratio, the solid should
be generated by the revolution of some curve line convex to the axis
of the tower, and gradually approaching to parallelism with it; and
that this, in fact, is a general description of the Eddystone Tower,
devised by Smeaton.” Neither is it a thing likely to be remembered,
without saying it over a good many times to oneself, that “the shaft
of the Skerryvore pillar is a solid, generated by the revolution of
a rectangular hyperbola about its asymptote as a vertical axis.”
But if we understand the respective narratives of the constructors
rightly, Smeaton worked from analogy, and Stevenson from mathematical
calculation. Smeaton tells us of his desire to make his lighthouse
resemble the trunk of a stately tree, and he gives drawings both of a
trunk and of a branch, to show how they start, the one from the ground,
and the other from the main stem. He is also constantly recurring to
the idea of the elasticity of stone, and he quotes a report from one of
the keepers, that on one occasion “the house did shake as if a man had
been up in a great tree.” Certainly, the effect to the eye in looking
at the Eddystone, corroborates the conception with which his mind was
evidently possessed; it emerges from the sea; the curve of the natural
rock is continued in a singularly felicitous manner; the Skerryvore is
a fine shaft, but one sees that it has been stuck in a hole, thoroughly
well fastened in, and (relying on its weight and coherence) likely to
remain there till doomsday; but the Eddystone is homogeneous to the
rock, as well as to itself; and gazing on it, one gets into the same
train of contemplation as Topsy did upon her wickedness, and supposes
it grew there. Nevertheless the Skerryvore is a noble structure, and
the memoir of its construction by Mr. Stevenson is almost exhaustive
of all that is at present known about lighthouses and lighthouse
illumination.

And if these be the lighthouses, and the mode of life among those by
whom they are builded, let us try to realize the daily work of those by
whom the structures are inhabited. “You are to light the lamps every
evening at sun-setting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and
clear, till sun-rising.” That is the first article of instructions to
light-keepers, as may be seen by any visitors to a station. Whatever
else happens, you are to do that. It may be you are isolated, through
the long night-watches, twenty miles from land, fifty or a hundred feet
above the level of the sea, with the winds and waves howling round you,
and the sea-birds dashing themselves to death against the gleaming
lantern, like giant-moths against a candle; or it may be a calm,
voluptuous, moonlight night, the soft landairs laden with the perfumes
of the highland heather or the Cornish gorse, tempting you to keep your
watch outside the lantern, in the open gallery, instead of in your
watch-room chair within; the Channel may be full of stately ships, each
guided by your light, or the horizon may be bare of all sign of life,
except, remote and far beneath you, the lantern of some fishing-boat at
sea,--but, whatever may be going on outside, there is within for you
the duty, simple and easy, by virtue of your moral method and orderly
training, “to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep
them constantly burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.” You shall
be helped to do this easily and well by abundant discipline, first,
on probation, at head-quarters, where you shall gain familiarity with
all your materials--lamps, oil, wicks, lighting apparatus, revolving
machinery, and cleaning stores; you shall be looked at, and over, and
through, by keen medical eyes, before you can be admitted to this
service, lest, under the exceptional nature of your future life, you,
not being a sound man, should break down, to the public detriment and
your own; you shall be enjoined “to the constant habit of cleanliness
and good order in your own person, and to the invariable exercise
of temperance and morality in your habits and proceedings, so that,
by your example, you may enforce, as far as lies in your power, the
observance of the same laudable conduct by your wife and family.” You
shall be well paid while you are hale and active, and well pensioned
when you are past work; you shall be ennobled, by compulsion, into
provident consideration for your helpmate and your children by an
insurance on your life; but when all this is done for you, and the
highest and completest satisfaction that can fall to the best of us
on this side the grave--the sense of being useful to our fellows--is
ordered for you in abundant measure, it all recurs to what, as regards
the specialty of your life, is the be-all and the end-all of your
existence, and this is the burden to the ballad of your story:--“You
are to light the lamps every evening at sun-setting, and keep them
constantly burning, bright and clear, till sun-rising.”

To do this implies a perpetual watch. “He whose watch is about to end
is to trim the lamps and leave them burning in perfect order before he
quits the lantern and calls the succeeding watch, and he who has the
watch at sun-rise, when he has extinguished the lamps, is to commence
all necessary preparations for the exhibition of the light at the
ensuing sunset;” and, moreover, “no bed, sofa, or other article on
which to recline, can be permitted, either in the lantern, or in the
apartment under the lantern, known as the watch-room.”

Thus far we have a common denominator to the life of every
light-keeper; but in other respects it varies much. At such stations
as the Forelands or Harwich, where there are gardens to cultivate and
plenty of land room for the men to stretch their legs and renovate
themselves after the night watches; where visitors from neighbouring
watering-places are constantly coming and going, to talk, to praise,
to listen, and, perhaps, to fee, it is all very well; but there are
also places “remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,” where the walk is
limited to the circle of the gallery-railing, or the diameter of the
lighthouse column; where the only incidents are the inspections of the
committee, the visits of the district superintendent, or the monthly
relief which takes the men back to shore. At these stations, when the
sea is making fun of them, it sweeps up clean over the roof, and makes
the lantern-glasses ring again, and in calmer weather the men may creep
carefully out upon the rock to solace themselves with a little fishing;
or if of more nervous temperament, may do it, as Winstanley did, with
greater security from the kitchen window.

Not but what some people like that sort of life. Smeaton tells a story
of a shoemaker who went out as light-keeper to the Eddystone because
he did not like confinement, having found himself in effect a greater
prisoner at his lapstone than he would be at the rock; but then Smeaton
confesses a few pages farther on that at times the keepers have been so
short of provisions as to be compelled to eat the candles.

In the old days of private proprietorship, when every owner had his
system of management, and when the desire to make a profit set the aims
of efficiency and economy into antagonism, exceptional cases of very
terrible tragic significance occasionally occurred. For instance, here
is a letter from the heroic fiddle-maker himself, dated “Smalls, 1st
February, 1777,” written in triplicate, put into a corked bottle, and
that into a cask inscribed, “Open this, and you will find a letter:”--

                           “TO MR. WILLIAMS.

                                        “_Smalls, February 1st, 1777._

    “SIR,--Being now in a most dangerous and distressed condition
    upon the Smalls, do hereby trust Providence will bring to your
    hand this, which prayeth for your immediate assistance to fetch
    us off the Smalls before the next spring, or we fear we shall
    perish; our water near all gone, our fire quite gone, and our
    house in a most melancholy manner. I doubt not but you will fetch
    us from here as fast as possible; we can be got off at some part
    of the tide almost any weather. I need say no more, but remain
    your distressed,

                                               “Humble servant,
                                                       “HY. WHITESIDE.

    “We were distressed in a gale of wind upon the 13th of January,
    since which have not been able to keep any light; but we could
    not have kept any light above sixteen nights longer for want of
    oil and candles, which make us murmur and think we are forgotten.

                                                        “ED. EDWARDES.
                                                        “GEO. ADAMS.
                                                        “JNO. PRICE.

    “We doubt not but that whoever takes up this will be so merciful
    as to cause it to be sent to Thos. Williams, Esq., Trelethin,
    near St. David’s, Wales.”

Again, a quarter of a century later, the watch was kept by two keepers;
and for four months the weather shut them off from all communication
with the land. The method of talking by signals was not developed
anywhere into the complete system it has now become, and does not
appear to have been in use at all among the lighthouse people; but in
the course of a week or two after the storm had set in, it was rumoured
at several of the western ports that something was wrong at the Smalls.
Passing vessels reported that a signal of distress was out, but that
was all they knew. Many attempts to approach the rock were made, but
fruitlessly. The boats could not get near enough to hail, they could
only return to make the bewildered agent and the anxious relatives of
the keepers more bewildered and more anxious by the statement that
there was always what seemed to be the dim figure of a man in one
corner of the outside gallery, but whether he spoke or moved, or not,
they could not tell. Night after night the light was watched for with
great misgiving whether it would ever show again. But the light failed
not. Punctually as the sun set it seemed to leave a fragment of its
fire gleaming in the lantern glasses, which burnt there till it rose
again, showing this much at least, that some one was alive at the
Smalls; but whether both the men, or which, no anxious mother or loving
wife could tell. Four months of this, and then, in calmer weather, a
Milford boat brought into the agency at Solva one light-keeper and one
dead man.

What the living man had suffered can never now be known. Whether, when
first he came distinctly to believe his comrade would die he stood in
blank despair, or whether he implored him on his knees, in an agony
of selfish terror, to live; whether when, perhaps for the first time
in his life, he stood face to face, and so very close, to death, he
thought of immediate burial, or whether he rushed at once to the
gallery to shout out to the nearest sail, perhaps a mile away;--at
what exact moment it was that the thought flashed across him that he
must not bury the body in the sea, lest those on shore should question
him as Cain was questioned for his brother, and he, failing to produce
him, should be branded with Cain’s curse and meet a speedier fate--is
unrecorded. What he did was to make a coffin. He had been a cooper by
trade, and by breaking up a bulk-head in the living room, he got the
dead man covered in; then, with infinite labour he took him to the
gallery and lashed him there. Perhaps with an instinctive wisdom he set
himself to work, cleaned and re-cleaned his lamps, unpacked and packed
his stores. Perhaps he made a point of walking resolutely up to the
coffin three or four times a day, perhaps he never went near it, and
even managed to look over it rather than at it, when he was scanning
the whole horizon for a sail. In his desperation it may have occurred
to him that as his light was a warning to keep vessels off, so its
absence would speedily betray some ship to a dangerous vicinity to his
forlornness, whose crew would be companions to him even though he had
caused them to be wrecked. But this he did not do. No lives were risked
to alleviate his desolation, but when he came on shore with his dead
companion he was a sad, reserved, emaciated man, so strangely worn that
his associates did not know him.

The immediate result of this sad occurrence was, that three men were
always kept at the lighthouse, and this wise rule pertains in the
public service.

Among the minor miseries of life at the Smalls would be such things
as a storm, in which the central flooring was entirely displaced, the
stove thrown from its position “into the boiling surf below, and the
time-piece hurled into a sleeping berth opposite the place it usually
hung.”

Midway between a rock lighthouse and a shore station, both as to
structure and as to the experiences of life in it, is that mongrel
breed amongst edifices, the Pile Lighthouse. There are many sands at
the mouths of tidal rivers where the water is not deep enough, nor are
the channels sufficiently wide to make a light-vessel suitable, and
which yet need marking, and marking, too, at a spot where not only
the ordinary foundations of masonry, but even the pile foundations
used for many purposes, would be at fault. Here it is that two very
ingenious plans have been of service. The one is to fit the lower
extremity of piles with broad-flanged screws, something like the screw
of a steam-vessel, and then setting them upright in the sand, screw
them down with capstans worked from the decks of dumb lighters. These
bottom piles once secured, the spider legs are bolted on to them, and
the spider bodies on the top; a ladder draws up, and a boat swings
ready to be lowered. The other mode of meeting the difficulty of mud or
loose silt and sand, is by hollow cylinders, which, placed upright on
the sand, have the air exhausted from the inside of them, and on the
principle that nature abhors a vacuum (at all events in cylinders),
the weight of the atmosphere on the sand outside forces it up into the
exhausted receiver, and the pile sinks at a rate which, until one gets
accustomed to it, is rather surprising. Here, as in the screw pile, the
foundation once established, the superstructure, whether of straight
shafts or spider legs, is only a matter of detail.

These, then, be the variations of lighthouse structure: rock
lighthouses, solitary giants rising from the ocean deeps; pile
lighthouses, stuck about the shallow estuaries on long red legs, like
so many flamingoes fishing; safer, but with less of dignity and more
of ague;--and lastly, the real _bonâ fide_ shore lighthouse, with its
broad sweep of down, its neat cottages, and trim inclosures. If my
Lord Grenville had had any thought of occupying the residence that he
calculated to eliminate from the king’s good-humour, we take it there
is very little doubt on which class in the foregoing category he would
have fixed his choice.

The remaining contribution to the complement of the lighting service is
the light-vessel. There are, unfortunately, too many outlying dangers
on our coasts where it is either impossible to fix a lighthouse, or
where, from the shifting character of the shoal, it is necessary to
move the light from time to time. Of these the most notable are the
Goodwin Sands. There are constantly propositions for lighthouses on the
Goodwin; and some men, mortified that dry lands once belonging to the
men of Kent should be water-wastes for ever, have proposed boldly to
reclaim them, believing that the scheme would pay, not merely by the
acreage added to the county, but by the buried treasures to be exhumed.
At present they are marked with three light-vessels, one at each end
and one in the middle. There are other floating stations still farther
remote from land; and at one--the Seven Stones, between the Scilly
Islands and the main--the vessel is in forty fathoms water. These
light-ships ride by chains of a peculiarly prepared and toughened iron;
and in heavy weather the strain on the moorings is relieved by paying
out fathom after fathom, until sometimes the whole cable (at the Seven
Stones, 315 fathoms) is in the water. These vessels, of course, are
manned by sailors, and the discipline is that of shipboard; but here,
as on shore, the burden of the main story meets us at the first clause
of the instructions--“You are to light the lamps every evening at
sun-setting, and keep them constantly burning, bright and clear, till
sun-rising,” unless you break adrift, and then, if you have shifted
your position before you could bring up with your spare anchor, you are
to put them out and wait till you can be replaced.

Among the curiosities of lighthouse experience are these two. The
one that it is an occupation in which the modern claim for feminine
participation has been forestalled. There is at this moment a woman
light-keeper, and as she retains her employment it may be inferred that
she does her duty properly. The other is an odd fact, namely, that so
far back as the last century the rationale of the cod-liver oil fashion
was foreshadowed at the “Smalls.” As in the wool-combing districts of
Yorkshire, where the wool is dressed with oil, consumption and strumous
affections of the like character are rare, so it is said that people
going out to the “Smalls” as keepers, thin, hectic and emaciated, have
returned plump, jocund, and robust, on account of living in an unctuous
atmosphere, where every breath was laden with whale oil, and every meal
might be enriched with fish.

The French, from economical reasons, early gave their attention to
the use of seed oils, and the first developments of the moderator
lamp of the drawing-room are exclusively French. There were many
difficulties in the way of applying it to lighthouses until it had
been greatly simplified, because the fact of the carcel lamp being a
somewhat complicated piece of machinery was against its use in places
where, if anything went wrong, it might be a month or two before the
weather would admit of the light-keepers being relieved, and give them
an opportunity of exchanging old lamps for new. The thing was done at
last by a simple but very beautiful adjustment of the argand reservoir,
under which the prime condition for all good combustion was attained,
namely, that the oil just about to be burnt, should be rarefied and
prepared for burning by the action of the heat of that which is at the
moment being consumed. And so great is the quantity of oil used in the
three kingdoms, that this change from sperm to rapeseed oil must have
made a saving of many thousands a year.

But if oil from its portability and comparative simplicity has become
the standard material for light in lighthouses, and has been the object
of a thousand and one nice adaptations in regard to its preparation and
the machinery by which it is consumed, the attention of very able men
has been given to other sources of illumination.

One of these was known as the Bude light, and consisted of jets of
oxygen introduced into the centre of oil wicks, producing an intense
combustion, which turned steel wire into fireworks, but requiring great
management to avoid smoking and charring. It was finally regarded as
unsuitable on account of the manufacture of the gas and its niceties of
chemical manipulation.

The Lime lights, of which there are several, are substantially the
same in this, that oxygen and hydrogen gases have to be made (in the
vicinity of gas-works, the common gas will do for the hydrogen) and are
burnt together upon lime or some analogous preparation; and there is
a magnificent adaptation of the Electric light at this moment at the
South Foreland.

The first electric lights were galvanic. The light, developed between
carbon points, was generated by a galvanic battery. Flickering,
intermittent, and uncertain, the light was yet sufficiently
astonishing, and when it came to be discovered that the residuum from
the decomposition was valuable for making costly colours, “The Electric
Power Light and Colour Company” offered to sell the mere light at a
very low rate; but the difficulties in the way were insuperable, the
manipulation of the batteries was somewhat nice and markedly unhealthy,
the flickering was objectionable, and the light, though intense,
was so extremely minute that the shadows of the framework of the
lantern-glasses widened outwards in a way that would have covered the
horizon seaward with broad bands of dark.

But the matter was not to stop here. In 1831 it had been discovered
by Faraday that when a piece of soft iron surrounded by a metallic
wire was passed by the poles of a magnet, an electric current was
produced in the wire, which could be exalted so as to give a spark;
and upon this hint an apparatus has been constructed, consisting of an
accumulation of powerful magnets and iron cores with surrounding coils.
This apparatus, driven by steam-engines, and fitted with a subtle
ingenuity of resource always tending to simplicity that seems a marked
feature in the mind of the patentee, is, as we have said, at this
moment at work, and very glorious it is to the eye of the observer; a
piece of sunlight poured out upon the night.

The chief point to be determined is its power over fogs. That any
light will penetrate through some fogs is out of the question. The Sun
himself can’t do it. But the artificial light that can hold out longest
and pierce the farthest is clearly the light at all costs for the
turning points in the great ocean highways.

A success of this kind would create something of a revolution in a
branch of lighthouse art on which a vast amount of ingenuity and even
genius has been expended; that is, the apparatus by which the light
should be exhibited. There may be divisions among scientific men as
to the abstract nature and action of light, but sufficient of its
secondary laws are known to make various arrangements in regard to the
management of a generated light most valuable.

The old plan known in scientific nomenclature as the Catoptric system
is by reflection.

Take a bowl of copper, something like a wash-hand basin, and having
shaped it carefully into a parabolic curve, and then silvered and
polished the interior, set it up on its side and introduce an argand
lamp into it, so that the flame of the lamp shall be in true focus, and
we have a reflecting apparatus. These may be multiplied in double and
triple rows, and may be either placed upon flat faces, or curved to the
circle, but a lamp in the centre of a reflector is the basis of the
arrangement.

If a light were put upon a rock in the ocean without a reflector,
it would be seen dimly, but all round. Dimly, because the light,
spreading in all directions, would be weak and diluted, but visible
all round because there would be nothing to obstruct it. But put this
light into a twenty-one inch reflector, and we have two distinct
consequences;--one that we obstruct the radiation of all the rays
except those that escape from the mouth of the reflector; the other,
that we reflect into the same direction as the rays that are escaping
all those we have obstructed from their natural radiation.

A twenty-one inch reflector allows the rays issuing from it to diverge
fifteen degrees. So that we have the light of the 360 degrees (the
whole of the circle) gathered into fifteen (a twenty-fourth part of
the circle). It does not quite follow that within that area the light
will be twenty-four times as strong as if allowed to dissipate itself
all round, because something must be allowed for absorption and waste;
but we believe this allowance has been greatly overstated, and that
where there are no mechanical difficulties in the way, the reflecting
system is decidedly the best. Of course where it is necessary to light
more than fifteen degrees of the circle, it will be necessary to use
more reflectors, placing them side by side round a shaft, and if these
are set into revolving motion, focus after focus of each reflector
comes before the eye of the mariner, and the effect is all that can be
desired.

The dioptric or refracting system of lighting is the reverse of this.
In the reflector the light is caught into a basin and thrown out again.
In the refracting system, in its passage through the glass prisms,
it is bent up or down and falls full upon the eye of the mariner,
instead of wasting itself among the stars or down among the rocks
at the lighthouse foot. For light, falling upon glass at a certain
angle, does not go straight on, but gets deflected and transmitted
in an altered line, as it does through water. And here comes the
weakness of the dioptric system, in close vicinity to its strength.
It is true that prisms and lenses send the light in the direction
which is desired, but they charge a toll for the transmission; the
glass is thick, and somewhat of the nature of a sponge. If we write on
blotting-paper the marks appear on the other side, but some of the ink
has soaked sideways, and there is very little doubt, that when light is
transmitted through glass, a good deal of it is absorbed and retained.

To those who have never seen a dioptric apparatus, or a diagram of
one, it would be very difficult to make any written description
intelligible. The reader must imagine a central lamp, with three or
four circular wicks, making up a core of light four inches across, and
as many high. Round this, and on a level with it, at a distance of
three feet from it, go belts of glass. From these belts, or panels,
the light goes straight out to sea, but as there is a great quantity
of light which goes up to the ceiling and down to the floor, rings of
prisms are put above and below the main panels, and these catch the
upper and lower light, and bend it out to sea, parallel to the main
central beam. When a revolving light has to be made by the dioptric
apparatus, the lenses are so constructed that the light, in going
through them, is gathered up into the exact similitude of a ray, as
it would leave the mouth of a reflector, and of course with the same
result; the central lamp remains stationary, and the lenses move
round it, and focus after focus, flash after flash, come upon the eye
of the mariner. Both the systems admit of peculiar adaptations, and
they have been occasionally combined into a hybrid apparatus, called
Cata-dioptric.

This, then, is, in brief, the history of the development of the
lighthouse system of the United Kingdom. We think it has fairly kept
pace with the development of the mercantile marine. When there were
coal fires at some lighthouses, and wax candles at others, the vessels
that passed them, and were guided by them, were not such as modern
shipwrights would look at with much complacency. But the age that has
produced the _Great Eastern_ can also point to the Skerryvore and the
Bishop Rock lighthouses, to the Electric light, and to a first-class
Lighting apparatus.

Whatever the future in store for the English lighthouse system, one
thing is certain, that it cannot, and was never meant to supersede
seamanship. No amount of lighting will dispense with the necessity for
eyes, no extent of warning is so good as the capacity for grappling
with a danger. The lighthouse authorities may cheer a sailor on his way
with leading lights and beacon warnings, but he must still be a sailor
to turn their warnings to account.

When Rudyerd’s Eddystone was building, Louis XIV. was at war with
England, and a French privateer took the men at work upon the rock,
and carried them to a French prison. When that monarch heard of it, he
immediately ordered them to be released, and the captors to be put in
their place; declaring that, though at enmity with England, he was not
at war with mankind. Extremes meet. The most gorgeous monarch in Europe
and the plain Quaker of Liverpool had one point in common;--they both
agreed that the erection of a Lighthouse was “a great holy good, to
serve and save humanity.”




[Illustration: BESSY’S SPECTACLES.]




Lovel the Widower.


CHAPTER II.

IN WHICH MISS PRIOR IS KEPT AT THE DOOR.

[Illustration]

Of course we all know who she was, the Miss Prior of Shrublands, whom
papa and grandmamma called to the unruly children. Years had passed
since I had shaken the Beak Street dust off my feet. The brass plate
of “Prior” was removed from the once familiar door, and screwed, for
what I can tell, on to the late reprobate owner’s coffin. A little
eruption of mushroom-formed brass knobs I saw on the door-post when
I passed by it last week, and CAFÉ DES AMBASSADEURS was thereon
inscribed, with three fly-blown blue teacups, a couple of coffee-pots
of the well-known Britannia metal, and two freckled copies of the
_Indépendance Belge_ hanging over the window blind. Were those their
Excellencies the Ambassadors at the door, smoking cheroots? Pool and
Billiards were written on their countenances, their hats, their elbows.
They may have been ambassadors down on their luck, as the phrase is.
They were in disgrace, no doubt, at the court of her imperial majesty
Queen Fortune. Men as shabby have retrieved their disgraces ere now,
washed their cloudy faces, strapped their dingy waistcoats with
cordons, and stepped into fine carriages from quarters not a whit more
reputable than the Café des Ambassadeurs. If I lived in the Leicester
Square neighbourhood, and kept a café, I would always treat foreigners
with respect. They may be billiard-markers now, or doing a little
shady police business; but why should they not afterwards be generals
and great officers of state? Suppose that gentleman is at present a
barber, with his tongs and stick of fixature for the mustachios, how
do you know he has not his epaulettes and his _bâton de maréchal_ in
the same pouch? I see engraven on the second-floor bell, on my rooms,
“Plugwell.” Who can Plugwell be, whose feet now warm at the fire where
I sate many a long evening? And this gentleman with the fur collar,
the straggling beard, the frank and engaging leer, the somewhat husky
voice, who is calling out on the door-step, “Step in, and ’ave it done.
Your correct likeness, only one shilling”--is he an ambassador, too?
Ah, no: he is only the _Chargé d’affaires_ of a photographer who lives
upstairs: no doubt where the little ones used to be. Law bless me!
Photography was an infant, and in the nursery, too, when _we_ lived in
Beak Street.

Shall I own that, for old time’s sake, I went upstairs, and “’ad it
done”--that correct likeness, price one shilling? Would Some One (I
have said, I think, that the party in question is well married in a
distant island) like to have the thing, I wonder, and be reminded of
a man whom she knew in life’s prime, with brown curly locks, as she
looked on the effigy of this elderly gentleman, with a forehead as bare
as a billiard ball? As I went up and down that darkling stair, the
ghosts of the Prior children peeped out from the banisters; the little
faces smiled in the twilight: it may be wounds (of the heart) throbbed
and bled again,--oh, how freshly and keenly! How infernally I have
suffered behind that door in that room--I mean that one where Plugwell
now lives. Confound Plugwell! I wonder what that woman thinks of me as
she sees me shaking my fist at the door? Do you think me mad, madam? I
don’t care if you do. Do you think when I spoke anon of the ghosts of
Prior’s children, I mean that any of them are dead? None are, that I
know of. A great hulking Bluecoat boy, with fluffy whiskers, spoke to
me not long since, in an awful bass voice, and announced his name as
“Gus Prior.” And “How’s Elizabeth?” he added, nodding his bullet head.
Elizabeth, indeed, you great vulgar boy! Elizabeth,--and, by the way,
how long we have been keeping her waiting!

You see, as I beheld her, a heap of memories struck upon me, and I
could not help chattering; when of course--and you are perfectly right,
only you might just as well have left the observation alone: for I knew
quite well what you were going to say--when I had much better have
held my tongue. Elizabeth means a history to me. She came to me at a
critical period of my life. Bleeding and wounded from the conduct of
that other individual (by her present name of Mrs. O’D--her present
_O’D_-ous name--I say, I will never--never call her)--desperately
wounded and miserable on my return from a neighbouring capital, I went
back to my lodgings in Beak Street, and there there grew up a strange
intimacy between me and my landlady’s young daughter. I told her my
story--indeed, I believe I told anybody who would listen. She seemed
to compassionate me. She would come wistfully into my rooms, bringing
me my gruel and things (I could scarcely bear to eat for awhile
after--after that affair to which I may have alluded before)--she used
to come to me, and she used to pity me, and I used to tell her all, and
to tell her over and over again. Days and days have I passed tearing
my heart out in that second-floor room which answers to the name of
Plugwell now. Afternoon after afternoon have I spent there, and poured
out my story of love and wrong to Elizabeth, showed her that waistcoat
I told you of--that glove (her hand wasn’t so very small either)--her
letters, those two or three vacuous, meaningless letters, with “My dear
sir, mamma hopes you will come to tea;” or, “If dear Mr. Batchelor
_should_ be riding in the Phœnix Park near the _Long Milestone_, about
2, my sister and I will be in the car, and,” &c.; or, “Oh, you kind
man! the tickets (she called it _tickuts_--by heaven! she did) were
too welcome, and the _bouquays_ too lovely” (this word, I saw, had
been operated on with a penknife. I found no faults, not even in her
spelling--then); or--never mind what more. But more of this _puling_,
of this _humbug_, of this _bad spelling_, of this infernal jilting,
swindling, heartless hypocrisy (all her mother’s doing, I own; for
until he _got his place_, my rival was not so well received as I
was)--more of this RUBBISH, I say, I showed Elizabeth, and she pitied
me!

She used to come to me day after day, and I used to talk to her. She
used not to say much. Perhaps she did not listen; but I did not care
for that. On--and on--and on I would go with my prate about my passion,
my wrongs, and despair; and untiring as my complaints were, still more
constant was my little hearer’s compassion. Mamma’s shrill voice would
come to put an end to our conversation, and she would rise up with an
“Oh, bother!” and go away: but the next day the good girl was sure to
come to me again, when we would have another repetition of our tragedy.

I daresay you are beginning to suppose (what, after all, is a very
common case, and certainly _no conjuror_ is wanted to make the guess)
that out of all this crying and sentimentality, which a soft-hearted
old fool of a man poured out to a young girl--out of all this
whimpering and pity, something which is said to be akin to pity might
arise. But in this, my good madam, you are utterly wrong. Some people
have the small-pox twice, _I do not_. In my case, if a heart is broke,
it’s broke: if a flower is withered, it’s withered. If I choose to
put my grief in a ridiculous light, why not? Why do you suppose I am
going to make a tragedy of such an old, used-up, battered, stale,
vulgar, trivial, every-day subject as a jilt who plays with a man’s
passion, and laughs at him, and leaves him? Tragedy indeed! Oh, yes!
poison--black-edged note-paper--Waterloo Bridge--one more unfortunate,
and so forth! No: if she goes, let her go!--_si celeres quatit pennas_,
I puff the what-d’ye-call away! But I’ll have no _tragedy_, mind you!

Well! it must be confessed that a man desperately in love (as I fear
I must own I then was, and a good deal cut up by Glorvina’s conduct)
is a most selfish being: whilst women are so soft and unselfish that
they can forget or disguise their own sorrows for awhile, whilst they
minister to a friend in affliction. I did not see, though I talked
with her daily, on my return from that accursed Dublin, that my little
Elizabeth was pale and _distraite_, and sad, and silent. She would sit
quite dumb whilst I chattered, her hands between her knees, or draw
one of them over her eyes. She would say, “Oh, yes! Poor fellow--poor
fellow!” now and again, as giving a melancholy confirmation of my
dismal stories; but mostly she remained quiet, her head drooping
towards the ground, a hand to her chin, her feet to the fender.

I was one day harping on the usual string. I was telling Elizabeth
how, after presents had been accepted, after letters had passed
between us (if her scrawl could be called letters, if my impassioned
song could be so construed), after everything but the actual word
had passed our lips--I was telling Elizabeth how, on one accursed
day, Glorvina’s mother greeted me on my arrival in M-rr-n Square, by
saying, “Dear--dear Mr. Batchelor, we look on you quite as one of the
family! Congratulate me--congratulate my child! Dear Tom has got his
appointment as Recorder of Tobago; and it is to be a match between him
and his cousin Glory.”

“His cousin _What!_” I shriek with a maniac laugh.

“My poor Glorvina! Sure the children have been fond of each other ever
since they could speak. I knew your kind heart would be the first to
rejoice in their happiness!”

And so, say I--ending the story--I, who thought myself loved, was
left without a pang of pity: I, who could mention a hundred reasons
why I thought Glorvina well disposed to me, was told she regarded me
as an _uncle_! Were her letters such as nieces write? Whoever heard
of an uncle walking round Merrion Square for hours of a rainy night,
and looking up to a bedroom window, because his _niece_, forsooth,
was behind it? I had set my whole heart on the cast, and this was the
return I got for it. For months she cajoles me--her eyes follow me, her
cursed smiles welcome and fascinate me, and at a moment, at the beck of
another--she laughs at me and leaves me!

At this, my little pale Elizabeth, still hanging down, cries, “Oh, the
villain! the villain!” and sobs so that you might have thought her
little heart would break.

“Nay,” said I, “my dear, Mr. O’Dowd is no villain. His uncle, Sir
Hector, was as gallant an old officer as any in the service. His aunt
was a Molloy, of Molloy’s Town, and they are of excellent family,
though, I believe, of embarrassed circumstances; and young Tom----”

“_Tom?_” cries Elizabeth, with a pale, bewildered look. “_His name
wasn’t Tom_, dear Mr. Batchelor; _his name was Woo-woo-illiam_!” and
the tears begin again.

Ah, my child! my child! my poor young creature! and you, too, have
felt the infernal stroke. You, too, have passed the tossing nights of
pain--have heard the dreary hours toll--have looked at the cheerless
sunrise with your blank sleepless eyes--have woke out of dreams, mayhap
in which the beloved was smiling on you, whispering love-words--oh!
how sweet and fondly remembered! What!--your heart has been robbed,
too, and your treasury is rifled and empty!--poor girl! And I looked
in that sad face, and saw no grief there! You could do your little
sweet endeavour to soothe my wounded heart, and I never saw yours was
bleeding! Did you suffer more than I did, my poor little maid? I hope
not. Are you so young, and is all the flower of life blighted for you?
the cup without savour, the sun blotted, or almost invisible over your
head? The truth came on me all at once: I felt ashamed that my own
selfish grief should have made me blind to hers.

“What!” said I, “my poor child. Was it...?” and I pointed with my
finger _downwards_.

She nodded her poor head.

I knew it was the lodger who had taken the first floor shortly after
Slumley’s departure. He was an officer in the Bombay Army. He had had
the lodgings for three months. He had sailed for India shortly before I
returned home from Dublin.

Elizabeth is waiting all this time--shall she come in? No, not yet. I
have still a little more to say about the Priors.

You understand that she was no longer Miss Prior of Beak Street, and
that mansion, even at the time of which I write, had been long handed
over to other tenants. The captain dead, his widow with many tears
pressed me to remain with her, and I did, never having been able to
resist that kind of appeal. Her statements regarding her affairs
were not strictly correct.--Are not women sometimes incorrect about
money matters?--A landlord (not unjustly indignant) quickly handed
over the mansion in Beak Street to other tenants. The Queen’s taxes
swooped down on poor Mrs. Prior’s scanty furniture--on hers?--on mine
likewise: on my neatly-bound college books, emblazoned with the effigy
of Bonifacius, our patron, and of Bishop Budgeon, our founder; on my
elegant Raphael Morghen prints, purchased in undergraduate days--(ye
Powers! what _did_ make us boys go tick for fifteen-guinea proofs of
Raphael, Dying Stags, Duke of Wellington Banquets, and the like?); my
harmonium, at which SOME ONE has warbled songs of my composition--(I
mean the words, artfully describing my passions, my hopes, or my
despair); on my rich set of Bohemian glass, bought on the Zeil,
Frankfort O. M.; on my picture of my father, the late Captain Batchelor
(Hopner), R.N., in white ducks, and a telescope, pointing, of course,
to a tempest, in the midst of which was a naval engagement; on my
poor mother’s miniature, by old Adam Buck, in pencil and pink, with
no waist to speak of at all; my tea and cream pots (bullion), with a
hundred such fond knicknacks as decorate the chamber of a lonely man.
I found all these household treasures in possession of the myrmidons
of the law, and had to pay the Priors’ taxes with this hand, before I
could be redintegrated in my own property. Mrs. Prior could only pay
me back with a widow’s tears and blessings (Prior had quitted ere this
time a world where he had long ceased to be of use or ornament). The
tears and blessings, I say, she offered me freely, and they were all
very well. But why go on tampering with the tea-box, madam? Why put
your finger--your finger?--your whole paw--in the jam-pot? And it is a
horrible fact that the wine and spirit bottles were just as leaky after
Prior’s decease as they had been during his disreputable lifetime. One
afternoon, having a sudden occasion to return to my lodgings, I found
my wretched landlady in the very act of marauding sherry. She gave an
hysterical laugh, and then burst into tears. She declared that since
her poor Prior’s death she hardly knew what she said or did. She may
have been incoherent; she was; but she certainly spoke truth on _this_
occasion.

I am speaking lightly--flippantly, if you please--about this old Mrs.
Prior, with her hard, eager smile, her weazened face, her frowning
look, her cruel voice; and yet, goodness knows, I could, if I liked, be
serious as a sermonizer. Why, this woman had once red cheeks, and was
well-looking enough, and told few lies, and stole no sherry, and felt
the tender passions of the heart, and I daresay kissed the weak old
beneficed clergyman her father very fondly and remorsefully that night
when she took leave of him to skip round to the back garden-gate and
run away with Mr. Prior. Maternal instinct she had, for she nursed her
young as best she could from her lean breast, and went about hungrily,
robbing and pilfering for them. On Sundays she furbished up that
threadbare black silk gown and bonnet, ironed the collar, and clung
desperately to church. She had a feeble pencil drawing of the vicarage
in Dorsetshire, and _silhouettes_ of her father and mother, which were
hung up in the lodgings wherever she went. She migrated much: wherever
she went she fastened on the gown of the clergyman of the parish; spoke
of her dear father the vicar, of her wealthy and gifted brother the
Master of Boniface, with a reticence which implied that Dr. Sargent
might do more for his poor sister and her family, if he would. She
plumed herself (oh! those poor moulting old plumes!) upon belonging to
the clergy; had read a good deal of good sound old-fashioned theology
in early life, and wrote a noble hand, in which she had been used to
copy her father’s sermons. She used to put cases of conscience, to
present her humble duty to the Rev. Mr. Green, and ask explanation of
such and such a passage of his admirable sermon, and bring the subject
round so as to be reminded of certain quotations of Hooker, Beveridge,
Jeremy Taylor. I think she had an old commonplace book with a score of
these extracts, and she worked them in very amusingly and dexterously
into her conversation. Green would be interested: perhaps pretty young
Mrs. Green would call, secretly rather shocked at the coldness of old
Dr. Brown, the rector, about Mrs. Prior. Between Green and Mrs. Prior
money transactions would ensue: Mrs. Green’s visits would cease: Mrs.
Prior was an expensive woman to know. I remember Pye of Maudlin, just
before he “went over,” was perpetually in Mrs. Prior’s back parlour
with little books, pictures, medals, &c. &c.--you know. They called
poor Jack a Jesuit at Oxbridge; but one year at Rome I met him (with a
half-crown shaved out of his head, and a hat as big as Don Basilio’s);
and he said, “My dear Batchelor, do you know that person at your
lodgings? I think she was an artful creature! She borrowed fourteen
pounds of me, and I forget how much of--seven, I think--of Barfoot,
of Corpus, just--just before we were received. And I believe she
absolutely got another loan from Pummel, to be able to get out of the
hands of us Jesuits. Are you going to hear the Cardinal? Do--do go and
hear him--everybody does: it’s the most fashionable thing in Rome.” And
from this I opine that there are slyboots in other communions besides
that of Rome.

Now Mamma Prior had not been unaware of the love passages between
her daughter and the fugitive Bombay captain. Like Elizabeth, she
called Captain Walkingham “villain” readily enough; but, if I know
woman’s nature in the least (and I don’t), the old schemer had thrown
her daughter only too frequently in the officer’s way, had done no
small portion of the flirting herself, had allowed poor Bessy to
receive presents from Captain Walkingham, and had been the manager
and directress of much of the mischief which ensued. You see, in this
humble class of life, unprincipled mothers _will_ coax and wheedle and
cajole gentlemen whom they suppose to be eligible, in order to procure
an establishment for their darling children! What the Prioress did was
done from the best motives of course. “Never--never did the monster see
Bessy without me, or one or two of her brothers and sisters, and Jack
and dear Ellen are as sharp children as any in England!” protested the
indignant Mrs. Prior to me; “and if one of my boys had been grown up,
Walkingham never would have dared to act as he did--the unprincipled
wretch! My poor husband would have punished the villain as he deserved;
but what could he do in his shattered state of health? Oh! you
men,--you men, Mr. Batchelor! how _unprincipled_ you are!”

“Why, my good Mrs. Prior,” said I, “you let Elizabeth come to my room
often enough.”

“To have the conversation of her uncle’s friend, of an educated man,
of a man so much older than herself! Of course, dear sir! Would not a
mother wish every advantage for her child? and whom could I trust, if
not you, who have ever been such a friend to me and mine?” asks Mrs.
Prior, wiping her dry eyes with the corner of her handkerchief, as
she stands by my fire, my monthly bills in hand,--written in her neat
old-fashioned writing, and calculated with that prodigal liberality
which she always exercised in compiling the little accounts between
us. “Why, bless me!” says my cousin, little Mrs. Skinner, coming to
see me once when I was unwell, and examining one of the just-mentioned
documents,--“bless me! Charles, you consume more tea than all my
family, though we are seven in the parlour, and as much sugar and
butter,--well, it’s no wonder you are bilious!”

“But then, my dear, I like my tea so _very_ strong,” says I; “and you
take yours uncommonly mild. I have remarked it at your parties.”

“It’s a shame that a man should be robbed so,” cried Mrs. S.

“How kind it is of you to cry thieves, Flora!” I reply.

“It’s my duty, Charles!” exclaims my cousin. “And I should like to know
who that great, tall, gawky red-haired girl in the passage is!”

Ah me! the name of the only woman who ever had possession of this heart
was not Elizabeth; though I own I did think at one time that my little
schemer of a landlady would not have objected if I had proposed to make
Miss Prior Mrs. Batchelor. And it is not only the poor and needy who
have this mania, but the rich, too. In the very highest circles, as
I am informed by the best authorities, this match-making goes on. Ah
woman--woman!--ah wedded wife!--ah fond mother of fair daughters! how
strange thy passion is to add to thy titles that of mother-in-law! I am
told, when you have got the title, it is often but a bitterness and a
disappointment. Very likely the son-in-law is rude to you, the coarse,
ungrateful brute! and very possibly the daughter rebels, the thankless
serpent! And yet you will go on scheming: and having met only with
disappointment from Louisa and her husband, you will try and get one
for Jemima, and Maria, and down even to little Toddles coming out of
the nursery in her red shoes! When you see her with little Tommy, your
neighbour’s child, fighting over the same Noah’s ark, or clambering
on the same rocking-horse, I make no doubt, in your fond silly head,
you are thinking, “Will those little people meet some twenty years
hence?” And you give Tommy a very large piece of cake, and have a fine
present for him on the Christmas tree--you know you do, though he is
but a rude, noisy child, and has already beaten Toddles, and taken her
doll away from her, and made her cry. I remember, when I myself was
suffering from the conduct of a young woman in--in a capital which
is distinguished by a viceregal court--and from _her_ heartlessness,
as well as that of her relative, who I once thought would be _my_
mother-in-law--shrieking out to a friend who happened to be spouting
some lines from Tennyson’s _Ulysses_:--“By George! Warrington, I
have no doubt that when the young syrens set their green caps at the
old Greek captain and his crew, waving and beckoning him with their
white arms and glancing smiles, and wheedling him with their sweetest
pipes--I make no doubt, sir, that _the mother syrens_ were behind the
rocks (with their dyed fronts and cheeks painted, so as to resist
water), and calling out--‘Now, Halcyone, my child, that air from the
Pirata! Now, Glaukopis, dear, look well at that old gentleman at the
helm! Bathykolpos, love, there’s a young sailor on the maintop, who
will tumble right down into your lap if you beckon him!’ And so on--and
so on.” And I laughed a wild shriek of despair. For I, too, have been
on the dangerous island, and come away thence, mad, furious, wanting a
strait-waistcoat.

And so, when a white-armed syren, named Glorvina, was bedevilling _me_
with her all too tempting ogling and singing, I did not see at the
time, but _now_ I know, that her artful mother was egging that artful
child on.

How when the captain died, bailiffs and executions took possession of
his premises, I have told in a previous page, nor do I care to enlarge
much upon the odious theme. I think the bailiffs were on the premises
before Prior’s exit: but he did not know of their presence. If I had
to buy them out, ’twas no great matter: only I say it _was_ hard of
Mrs. Prior to represent me in the character of Shylock to the Master of
Boniface. Well--well! I suppose there are other gentlemen besides Mr.
Charles Batchelor who have been misrepresented in this life. Sargent
and I made up matters afterwards, and Miss Bessy was the cause of our
coming together again. “Upon my word, my dear Batchelor,” says he one
Christmas, when I went up to the old college, “I did not know how much
my--ahem!--my family was obliged to you! My--ahem!--niece, Miss Prior,
has informed me of various acts of--ahem!--generosity which you showed
to my poor sister, and her still more wretched husband. You got my
second--ahem!--nephew--pardon me if I forget his Christian name--into
the what-d’you-call’em--Bluecoat school; you have been, on various
occasions, of considerable pecuniary service to my sister’s family. A
man need not take high university honours to have a good--ahem!--heart;
and, upon my word, Batchelor, I and my--ahem!--wife, are sincerely
obliged to you!”

“I tell you what, Master,” said I, “there _is_ a point upon which you
ought really to be obliged to me, and in which I have been the means of
putting money into your pocket too.”

“I confess I fail to comprehend you,” says the Master, with his
grandest air.

“I have got you and Mrs. Sargent a very good governess for your
children, at the very smallest remuneration,” says I.

“Do you know the charges that unhappy sister of mine and her family
have put me to already?” says the Master, turning as red as his hood.

“They have formed the frequent subject of your conversation,” I
replied. “You have had Bessy as a governess....”

“A nursery governess--she has learned Latin, and a great deal more,
since she has been in my house!” cries the Master.

“A nursery governess at the wages of a housemaid,” I continued, as bold
as Corinthian brass.

“Does my niece, does my--ahem!--children’s governess, complain of my
treatment in my college?” cries the Master.

“My dear Master,” I asked, “you don’t suppose I would have listened to
her complaints, or, at any rate, have repeated them, until now?”

“And why now, Batchelor, I should like to know?” says the Master,
pacing up and down his study in a fume, under the portraits of Holy
Bonifacius, Bishop Budgeon, and all the defunct bigwigs of the college.
“And why now, Batchelor, I should like to know?” says he.

“Because, though after staying with you for three years, and having
improved herself greatly, as every woman must in your society, my dear
Master, Miss Prior is worth at least fifty guineas a year more than you
give her, I would not have had her speak until she had found a better
place.”

“You mean to say she proposes to go away?”

“A wealthy friend of mine, who was a member of our college, by the way,
wants a nursery governess, and I have recommended Miss Prior to him, at
seventy guineas a year.”

“And pray who’s the member of my college who will give my niece seventy
guineas?” asks the Master, fiercely.

“You remember Lovel, the gentleman-pensioner?”

“The sugar-baking man--the man who took you out of ga...?”

“One good turn deserves another,” says I, hastily. “I have done as much
for some of your family, Sargent!”

The red Master, who had been rustling up and down his study in his
gown and bands, stopped in his walk as if I had struck him. He
looked at me. He turned redder than ever. He drew his hand over his
eyes. “Batchelor,” says he, “I ask your pardon. It was I who forgot
myself--may heaven forgive me!--forgot how good you have been to my
family, to my--ahem!--_humble_ family, and--and how devoutly thankful
I ought to be for the protection which they have found in you.” His
voice quite fell as he spoke; and of course any little wrath which I
might have felt was disarmed before his contrition. We parted the best
friends. He not only shook hands with me at the study door, but he
actually followed me to the hall door, and shook hands at his lodge
porch, _sub Jove_, in the quadrangle. Huckles, the tutor (Highlow
Huckles we used to call him in our time), and Botts (Trumperian
professor), who happened to be passing through the court at the time,
stood aghast as they witnessed the phenomenon.

“I say, Batchelor,” asks Huckles, “have you been made a marquis by any
chance?”

“Why a marquis, Huckles?” I ask.

“Sargent never comes to his lodge-door with any man under a marquis,”
says Huckles, in a low whisper.

“Or a pretty woman,” says that Botts (he _will_ have his joke).
“Batchelor, my elderly Tiresias, are you turned into a lovely young
lady _par hasard_?”

“Get along, you absurd Trumperian professor!” say I. But the
circumstance was the talk not only in Compotation Room that evening
over our wine, but of the whole college. And further, events happened
which made each man look at his neighbour with wonder. For that whole
term Sargent did not ask our nobleman Lord Sackville (Lord Wigmore’s
son) to the lodge. (Lord W.’s father, you know, Duff, was baker to
the college.) For that whole term he was rude but twice to Perks, the
junior tutor, and then only in a very mild way: and what is more, he
gave his niece a present of a gown, of his blessing, of a kiss, and a
high character, when she went down;--and promised to put one of her
young brothers to school--which promise, I need not say, he faithfully
kept: for he has good principles, Sargent has. He is rude: he is
ill-bred: he is _bumptious_ beyond almost any man I ever knew: he is
spoiled not a little by prosperity;--but he is magnanimous: he can own
that he has been in the wrong; and oh me! what a quantity of Greek he
knows!

Although my late friend the captain never seemed to do aught but spend
the family money, his disreputable presence somehow acted for good in
the household. “My dear husband kept our family together,” Mrs. Prior
said, shaking her lean head under her meagre widow’s cap. “Heaven
knows how I shall provide for these lambs now he is gone.” Indeed, it
was not until after the death of that tipsy shepherd that the wolves
of the law came down upon the lambs--myself included, who have passed
the age of lambhood and mint sauce a long time. They came down upon
our fold in Beak Street, I say, and ravaged it. What was I to do?
Could I leave that widow and children in their distress? I was not
ignorant of misfortune, and knew how to succour the miserable. Nay, I
think, the little excitement attendant upon the seizure of my goods,
&c., the insolent vulgarity of the low persons in possession--with
one of whom I was very near coming to a personal encounter--and other
incidents which occurred in the bereft household, served to rouse
me, and dissipate some of the languor and misery under which I was
suffering, in consequence of Miss Mulligan’s conduct to me. I know I
took the late captain to his final abode. My good friends the printers
of the _Museum_ took one of his boys into their counting-house. A blue
coat and a pair of yellow stockings were procured for Augustus; and
seeing the Master’s children walking about in Boniface gardens with
a glum-looking old wretch of a nurse, I bethought me of proposing to
him to take his niece Miss Prior--and, heaven be good to me! never
said one word to her uncle about Miss Bellenden and the Academy. I
daresay I drew a number of long bows about her. I managed about the
bad grammar pretty well, by lamenting that Elizabeth’s poor mother had
been forced to allow the girl to keep company with ill-educated people:
and added, that she could not fail to mend her English in the house
of one of the most distinguished scholars in Europe, and one of the
best-bred women. I did say so, upon my word, looking that half-bred
stuck-up Mrs. Sargent gravely in the face; and I humbly trust, if that
bouncer has been registered against me, the Recording Angel will be
pleased to consider that the motive was good, though the statement was
unjustifiable. But I don’t think it was the compliment: I think it was
the temptation of getting a governess for next to nothing that operated
upon Madam Sargent. And so Bessy went to her aunt, partook of the bread
of dependence, and drank of the cup of humiliation, and ate the pie of
humility, and brought up her odious little cousins to the best of her
small power, and bowed the head of hypocrisy before the don her uncle,
and the pompous little upstart her aunt. _She_ the best-bred woman in
England, indeed! She, the little vain skinflint!

Bessy’s mother was not a little loth to part with the fifty pounds a
year which the child brought home from the Academy; but her departure
thence was inevitable. Some quarrel had taken place there, about which
the girl did not care to talk. Some rudeness had been offered to Miss
Bellenden, to which Miss Prior was determined not to submit: or was it
that she wanted to go away from the scenes of her own misery, and to
try and forget that Indian captain? Come, fellow-sufferer! Come, child
of misfortune, come hither! Here is an old bachelor who will weep with
thee tear for tear!

I protest here is Miss Prior coming into the room at last. A pale face,
a tawny head of hair combed back, under a black cap: a pair of blue
spectacles, as I live! a tight mourning dress, buttoned up to her white
throat; a head hung meekly down: such is Miss Prior. She takes my hand
when I offer it. She drops me a demure little curtsey, and answers my
many questions with humble monosyllabic replies. She appeals constantly
to Lady Baker for instruction, or for confirmation of her statements.
What! have six years of slavery so changed the frank daring young girl
whom I remember in Beak Street? She is taller and stouter than she was.
She is awkward and high-shouldered, but surely she has a very fine
figure.

“Will Miss Cecy and Master Popham have their teas here or in the
schoolroom?” asks Bedford, the butler, of his master. Miss Prior looks
appealingly to Lady Baker.

“In the sch----” Lady Baker is beginning.

“Here--here!” bawl out the children. “Much better fun down here: and
you’ll send us out some fruit and things from dinner, papa!” cries Cecy.

“It’s time to dress for dinner,” says her ladyship.

“Has the first bell rung?” asks Lovel.

“Yes, the first bell has rung, and grandmamma must go, for it always
takes her a precious long time to dress for dinner!” cries Pop. And,
indeed, on looking at Lady Baker, the connoisseur might perceive that
her ladyship was a highly composite person, whose charms required very
much care and arrangement. There are some cracked old houses where the
painters and plumbers and puttyers are always at work.

“Have the goodness to ring the bell!” she says, in a majestic manner,
to Miss Prior, though I think Lady Baker herself was nearest.

I sprang towards the bell myself, and my hand meets Elizabeth’s there,
who was obeying her ladyship’s summons, and who retreats, making me the
demurest curtsey. At the summons, enter Bedford the butler (he was an
old friend of mine, too) and young Buttons, the page under that butler.

Lady Baker points to a heap of articles on a table, and says to
Bedford: “If you please, Bedford, tell my man to give those things to
Pinhorn, my maid, to be taken to my room.”

“Shall not I take them up, dear Lady Baker?” says Miss Prior.

But Bedford, looking at his subordinate, says: “Thomas! tell Bulkeley,
her ladyship’s man, to take her ladyship’s things, and give them to
her ladyship’s maid.” There was a tone of sarcasm, even of parody,
in Monsieur Bedford’s voice; but his manner was profoundly grave and
respectful. Drawing up her person, and making a motion, I don’t know
whether of politeness or defiance, exit Lady Baker, followed by page,
bearing bandboxes, shawls, paper parcels, parasols--I know not what.
Dear Popham stands on his head as grandmamma leaves the room. “Don’t be
vulgar!” cries little Cecy (the dear child is always acting as a little
Mentor to her brother). “I shall, if I like,” says Pop; and he makes
faces at her.

“You know your room, Batch?” asks the master of the house.

“Mr. Batchelor’s old room--always has the blue room,” says Bedford,
looking very kindly at me.

“Give us,” cries Lovel, “a bottle of that Sau....”

“... Terne, Mr. Batchelor used to like. Château Yquem. All right!”
says Mr. Bedford. “How will you have the turbot done you brought
down?--Dutch sauce?--Make lobster into salad? Mr. Bonnington likes
lobster salad,” says Bedford. Pop is winding up the butler’s back at
this time. It is evident Mr. Bedford is a privileged person in the
family. As he had entered it on my nomination several years ago, and
had been ever since the faithful valet, butler, and major-domo of
Lovel, Bedford and I were always good friends when we met.

“By the way, Bedford, why wasn’t the barouche sent for me to the
bridge?” cries Lovel. “I had to walk all the way home, with a bat and
stumps for Pop, with the basket of fish, and that bandbox with my
lady’s----”

“He--he!” grins Bedford.

“‘He--he!’ Confound you, why do you stand grinning there? Why didn’t I
have the carriage, I say?” bawls the master of the house.

“_You_ know, sir,” says Bedford. “_She_ had the carriage.” And he
indicated the door through which Lady Baker had just retreated.

“Then why didn’t I have the phaeton?” asks Bedford’s master.

“Your ma and Mr. Bonnington had the phaeton.”

“And why shouldn’t they, pray? Mr. Bonnington is lame: I’m at my
business all day. I should like to know why they _shouldn’t_ have the
phaeton?” says Lovel, appealing to me. As we had been sitting talking
together previous to Miss Prior’s appearance, Lady Baker had said
to Lovel, “Your mother and Mr. Bonnington are coming to dinner _of
course_, Frederick;” and Lovel had said, “Of course they are,” with a
peevish bluster, whereof I now began to understand the meaning. The
fact was, these two women were fighting for the possession of this
child; but who was the Solomon to say which should have him? Not I.
_Nenni._ I put my oar in no man’s boat. Give me an easy life, my dear
friends, and row me gently over.

“You had better go and dress,” says Bedford sternly, looking at his
master; “the first bell has rung this quarter of an hour. Will you have
some 34?”

Lovel started up; he looked at the clock. “You are all ready, Batch,
I see. I hope you are going to stay some time, ain’t you?” And he
disappeared to array himself in his sables and starch. I was thus alone
with Miss Prior, and her young charges, who resumed straightway their
infantine gambols and quarrels.

“My dear Bessy!” I cry, holding out both hands, “I am heartily glad
to----”

“_Ne m’appelez que de mon nom paternel devant tout ce monde s’il vous
plait, mon cher ami, mon bon protecteur!_” she says, hastily, in very
good French, folding her hands and making a curtsey.

“_Oui, oui, oui! Parlez-vous Français? J’aime, tu aimes, il aime!_”
cries out dear Master Popham. “What are you talking about? Here’s the
phaeton!” and the young innocent dashes through the open window on to
the lawn, whither he is followed by his sister, and where we see the
carriage containing Mr. and Mrs. Bonnington rolling over the smooth
walk.

Bessy advances towards me, and gives me readily enough now the hand she
had refused anon.

“I never thought you would have refused it, Bessy,” said I.

“Refuse it to the best friend I ever had!” she says, pressing my hand.
“Ah, dear Mr. Batchelor, what an ungrateful wretch I should be, if I
did!”

“Let me see your eyes. Why do you wear spectacles? You never wore them
in Beak Street,” I say. You see I was very fond of the child. She had
wound herself around me in a thousand fond ways. Owing to a certain
Person’s conduct my heart may be a ruin--a Persepolis, sir--a perfect
Tadmor. But what then? May not a traveller rest under its shattered
columns? May not an Arab maid repose there till the morning dawns and
the caravan passes on? Yes, my heart is a Palmyra, and once a queen
inhabited me (O Zenobia! Zenobia! to think thou shouldst have been
led away captive by an O’D.!) Now, I am alone, alone in the solitary
wilderness. Nevertheless, if a stranger comes to me I have a spring for
his weary feet, I will give him the shelter of my shade. Rest thy cheek
awhile, young maiden, on my marble--then go thy ways, and leave me.

This I thought, or something to this effect, as in reply to my remark,
“Let me see your eyes,” Bessy took off her spectacles, and I took
them up and looked at her. Why didn’t I say to her, “My dear brave
Elizabeth! as I look in your face, I see you have had an awful deal of
suffering. Your eyes are inscrutably sad. We who are initiated, know
the members of our Community of Sorrow. We have both been wrecked in
different ships, and been cast on this shore. Let us go hand-in-hand,
and find a cave and a shelter somewhere together.” I say, why didn’t I
say this to her? She would have come, I feel sure she would. We would
have been semi-attached as it were. We would have locked up that room
in either heart where the skeleton was, and said nothing about it, and
pulled down the party-wall and taken our mild tea in the garden. I live
in Pump Court now. It would have been better than this dingy loneliness
and a snuffy laundress who bullies me. But for Bessy? Well--well,
perhaps better for her too.

I remember these thoughts rushing through my mind whilst I held
the spectacles. What a number of other things too? I remember two
canaries making a tremendous concert in their cage. I remember the
voices of the two children quarrelling on the lawn, the sound of the
carriage-wheels grinding over the gravel; and then of a little old
familiar cracked voice in my ear, with a “La, Mr. Batchelor! are _you_
here?” And a sly face looks up at me from under an old bonnet.

“It is mamma,” says Bessy.

“And I’m come to tea with Elizabeth and the dear children; and
while you are at dinner, dear Mr. Batchelor, thankful--thankful for
all mercies! And, dear me! here is Mrs. Bonnington, I do declare!
Dear madam, how well you look--not twenty, I declare! And dear Mr.
Bonnington! Oh, sir! let me--let me, I _must_ press your hand. What a
sermon last Sunday! All Putney was in tears!”

And the little woman, flinging out her lean arms, seizes portly Mr.
Bonnington’s fat hand: as he and kind Mrs. Bonnington enter at the
open casement. The little woman seems inclined to do the honours of
the house. “And won’t you go upstairs, and put on your cap? Dear me,
what a lovely ribbon! How blue does become Mrs. Bonnington! I always
say so to Elizabeth,” she cries, peeping into a little packet which
Mrs. Bonnington bears in her hand. After exchanging friendly words and
greetings with me, that lady retires to put the lovely cap on, followed
by her little jackal of an aide-de-camp. The portly clergyman surveys
his pleased person in the spacious mirror. “Your things are in your
old room--like to go in, and brush up a bit?” whispers Bedford to me.
I am obliged to go, you see, though, for my part, I had thought, until
Bedford spoke, that the ride on the top of the Putney omnibus had left
me without any need of brushing; having aired my clothes, and given my
young cheek a fresh and agreeable bloom.

My old room, as Bedford calls it, was that snug apartment communicating
by double doors with the drawing-room, and whence you can walk on to
the lawn out of the windows.

“Here’s your books, here’s your writing-paper,” says Bedford, leading
the way into the chamber. “Does sore eyes good to see _you_ down here
again, sir. You may smoke now. Clarence Baker smokes when he comes.
Go and get some of that wine you like for dinner.” And the good
fellow’s eyes beam kindness upon me as he nods his head, and departs to
superintend the duties of his table. Of course you understand that this
Bedford was my young printer’s boy of former days. What a queer fellow!
I had not only been kind to him, but he was grateful.




An Essay without End.


To some reader, perhaps, an essay without end may appear odd, and
opposed to the regular order of things; but if he will kindly imagine
the line written on his gravestone--and it is an epitaph which my own
ghost would regard with particular satisfaction--he will at once see
that it is by no means singular. And whatever propriety there may be in
its application to human life, extends to any process of thought; for
thought, like life, is essential, without beginning and without end.

It is this which makes abstract reflection so unsatisfying. An
abstract thought is a sort of disembodied spirit; and when matched
with its kind, the result is generally a progeny of ghosts and
chimeras--numerous, but incapable. In fact, we do not often get so
much as that out of it. Abstract thought generally travels backward.
Childless itself, it goes upon its own pedigree; and as that becomes
mysterious in proportion as it is remote, we soon find ourselves in
a company of shadows, too vast to contemplate and too subtle for
apprehension.

Again it is with thought as it is with life (I should say “soul,” if
the word had not been hackneyed out of all endurance--but then the
poets have exhausted nature)--it must be married to something material
before you can hope to get good fruit from it--capable of continuing
the species. Luckily, anything will do. It seems to have been foreseen
from the creation that thought would scarcely prove prolific, unless
it might be kindled at every sense and by every object in the world.
Experience more than proves the justness of that foresight, and thus
we have sermons in stones. By a bountiful provision, the human mind is
capable of immediate and fruitful alliance with a bough, a brook, a
cloud--all that the eye may see or the ear echo. It may be observed,
too, that just as Sir Cassian Creme strengthens the blood of his
ancient and delicate house by an alliance with his dairy-woman, so a
cultivated mind may produce more vigorous progeny by intimacy with
an atom than with any long-descended speculation on the Soul, say.
Coleridge’s method of thinking is much to the purpose, and what came of
it as a whole?

For amusement’s sake, let us carry theory into practice. Let us try
what course of reflection we may get by contemplating the first
natural object that comes to hand. The field is wide enough: there is
Parnassus, and there is Holborn Hill. But there are too many squatters
on the former eminence already, perhaps; and besides, a kind of Bedlam
is said to have arisen about the base of it lately, beyond which few
adventurers are known to proceed. Our aspirations are humble--we may
choose the lesser hill.

“Alas, then!” says the dear reader, “we are to have some antiquarian
reflections. Better Parnassus and Bedlam!”--Fear not. Providence,
which has otherwise been very good to me, gave me a Protestant
mind; and while therein exists no disposition to adore St. Botolph’s
toes, or to worship St. Pancras’s well-preserved tibia, I am equally
unenthusiastic about Pope’s nightcap, I don’t care a fig for Queen
Anne’s farthings, and I would not go round the corner to behold the
site of the Chelsea bunhouse. There is little, after all, in bricks,
bones, and the coffins of men; but a glimpse into the lives of men, or
into the eyes of nature--that is another thing.

The one may always be had in London, the other never could be had, were
it not for Holborn Hill. Circumstances permitting, every city ought to
be built on a hill; for reasons of morality, and therefore for reasons
of state. No doubt, there is a certain agreeable monotony in levels,
gentle gradients, and a perspicuous network of streets; they may even
impose a wholesome contrast upon the minds of well-to-do citizens, who
go “out of town.” But what of the ill-to-do citizen, who never leaves
its walls? Not only do the bare hard streets present to him no natural
thing, but with strait lines of brick on every side, a stony plane at
his feet, and a flat dull roof over all, he gets no hint of a natural
thing; and all that is artificial in him is hardened and encouraged.
But suppose the city streets wind up and down and round about a hill?
Then by no devices of brick or stone can you keep out the country.
Then Nature defies your macadamization and your chimney stacks; it is
impossible to forget her, or to escape her religious gaze.

When did it occur to any ordinary person walking Bond Street, that once
there had been turf there, and a running about of beetles? On the other
hand, what man of any kind looks over the little Fleet valley to where
Holborn Hill rises on the other side, without wondering how the houses
came there--without feeling that they are only another sort of tents,
pitched upon the earth for a time? “They, too, have to be struck,” says
he, “and there is everywhere wandering away!”

The result is, then, that he hits upon a reflection, which is, I do not
say profound, but at the bottom of all profundity, so far as we have
plumbed it. This reflection is to be found in the sap, fibre, and fruit
of all morality, all law, philosophy, and religion. There is nothing
like it to move the hearts of men; the heart it _cannot_ move belongs
to an atheist (which creature, and not the ape, as some have supposed,
is the link between brutes and men), the heart which it _has not_
moved, to one quite unawakened. For instance, those who fill the gaols;
the society of thieves; the scum of the population, as it is termed,
fermenting in alleys and poisoning the state. We have reformatories
for the young of this breed, whom we endeavour to reclaim by reading,
writing, and arithmetic--attendance at chapel, and book-keeping by
double entry. But when you have put the young reprobate through all
these exercises, you have only succeeded in making gravel walks in a
wilderness; and though from those trim avenues you may scatter good
seed enough, it perishes on the soil, or withers in a tangle of weeds.
After all our labour and seed-scattering, we still complain that it
is so hard to reach the heart. Now here we have the best means of
touching it, perhaps. Let there be found some Professor of Time and
Eternity, skilled to show how the world goes--and _is going_: who
should exhibit, as in a wizard’s glass, the unending procession of
human life. The Roman in his pride, a hundred million Romans in their
pride--all perished; millions of elegant Greeks, with their elegant
wives and mistresses, all perished; Attila’s thundering hosts riding
off the scene--vanished: the clatter of their spears, the fury of their
eyes, the tossing of their shaggy hair, the cloud of thoughts that
moved upon their faces--they and all that belonged to them.

Not that these personages make the most affecting groups in the series
of dissolving views which illustrate the history of the world. I
would rather confine myself to Holborn Hill, were I professor, in a
penitentiary, of Time and Eternity; and between the period when it lay
solitary in the moonlight, clothed with grass, crowned with trees,
bitterns booming by the river below, while some wild mother lay under
the branches singing to her baby in a tongue dead as herself now--from
that time to the present there has been a very pretty striking of
tents and wandering away. Quite enough for any professor’s purpose.
Quite enough, if impressed upon an ignorant vicious heart, to prepare
it for a better--certainly for a more responsible life. Your young
reprobate will never perceive his relations to his Creator, till he
has discovered the relations of mankind to creation, and his own place
among mankind. You desire him to contemplate the Future: he cannot do
it till he is shown the Past.

There is a Scripture text apropos of this, which I have longed many a
day to sermonize upon, but we are far enough from Holborn Hill already;
and apart from moral and mental considerations, it is a sufficient
reason for building cities in hilly places, if the hard-worked, captive
people are thus kept in remembrance of the country, and its peace and
health. This is a luxury as well as a good; delight to the senses, as
well as medicine for the mind. Some of us love nature with a large
and personal love. I am sure I do, for one. Thinking of her, immured
in London as I am, I think also of that prisoner in the Bastille, who
prayed Monseigneur for “some tidings of my poor wife, were it only her
name upon a card.” Were I a prisoner long, I should pray not only for
that, but for some tidings of my mistress Nature, were it only her name
in a leaf. And whereas some of us who have sweethearts go prowling
about the dear one’s house, searching through the walls for her, so at
favourable opportunities I search for my mistress through the bricks
and stones of Holborn Hill. In the noon of a midsummer day, with the
roar of carts, waggons, Atlas and other omnibusses rattling in my ears,
with that little bill of Timmins’s on my mind, how have I seen it clad
in green, the stream running in the hollow, and white dandelion tufts
floating in the air. There a grasshopper chirped; a bee hummed, going
his way; and countless small creatures, burrowing in the grass, buzzed
and whirred like a company of small cotton-spinners with all their
looms at work. Practically, there is no standing timber within several
miles of the place; but if I have not seen trees where an alamode beef
business is supposed to be carried on, I am blind. I have seen trees,
and heard the blackbird whistle.

There is much significance, under the circumstances, in hearing the
blackbird whistle. It is a proof that to me there was perfect silence.
The peculiarity of this animal is, that he _makes_ silence. The more
he whistles, the more still is all nature beside. It is not difficult
to imagine him a sort of fugleman, herald, or black rod, going between
earth and heaven in the interest of either. Take a case: an evening in
autumn. About six o’clock there comes a shower of rain, a bountiful
shower, all in shilling drops. The earth drinks and drinks, holding its
breath; while the trees make a pleasant noise, their leaves kissing
each other for joy. Presently the rain ceases. Drops fall one by one,
lazily, from the satisfied boughs, and sink to the roots of the grass,
lying there in store. Then the blackbird, already on duty in his
favourite tree, sounds his bugle-note. “Attention!” sings he to the
winds big and little; “the earth will return thanks.” Whereupon there
is a stillness deep as--no, not as death, but a silence so profound
that it seems as if it were itself the secret of life, that profoundest
thing. This your own poor carcase appears to recognize. The little
life therein--not more than a quart pot full--knows the presence of
the great ocean from which it was taken, and yearns. It stirs in its
earthen vessel; you feel it moving in your very fingers; you may almost
hear your right hand calling to the left, “I live! I live!” Silence
proclaimed, thanksgiving begins. There is a sensation of the sound of
ten thousand voices, and the swinging of ten thousand censers; besides
the audible singing of birds, the humming of beetles, and the noise of
small things which praise the Lord by rubbing their legs together.

This bird seems to take another important part in the scheme of nature,
worth mentioning.

Everybody--everybody at least who has watched by a sick-bed--knows that
days have their appointed time, and die as well as men. There is one
awful minute in the twenty-four hours when the day palpably expires,
and then there is a reach of utter vacancy, of coldness and darkness;
and then a new day is born, and earth, reassured, throbs again. This
is not a fancy; or if so, is it from fancy that so many people die
in this awful hour (“between the night and the morning,” nurses call
it), or that sick men grow paler, fainter, more insensible? I think
not. To appearance they are plainly washed down by the ebbing night,
and plainly stranded so near the verge of death that its waters wash
over them. Now, in five minutes, the sick man is floated away and is
gone; or the new day comes, snatches him to its bosom, and bears him
back to us; and we know that he will live. I hope I shall die between
the night and the morning, so peacefully do we drift away then. But
ah! blessed Morning, I am not ungrateful. That long-legged daughter of
mine, aged eight at present, did you not bring her back to me in your
mysterious way? At half-past two, we said, “Gone!” and began to howl.
Three minutes afterward, a breath swept over her limbs; five minutes
afterward there was a blush like a reflected light upon her face;
seven minutes, and whose eyes but hers should open, bright and pure as
two blue stars? We had studied those stars; and read at a glance that
our little one had again entered the House of Life.

Our baby’s dying and her new birth is an exact type of the death and
birth of the day. One description serves for both. As she sank away,
fainting and cold, so night expires. This takes place at various
times, according to the season; but generally about two o’clock in the
morning in these latitudes. If you happen to be watching or working
within doors, you may note the time by a coldness and shuddering in
your limbs, and by the sudden waning of the fire, in spite of your
best efforts to keep it bright and cheerful. Then a wind--generally
not a very gentle one--sweeps through the streets--_once_: it does not
return, but hurries straight on, leaving all calm behind it: that is
the breath that passed over the child. Now a blush suffuses the East,
and then open the violet eyes of the day, bright and pure as if there
were no death in the world, nor sin. All which the blackbird seems to
announce to the natural world below. The wind we spoke of warns him;
whereupon he takes his head from under his wing, and keeps a steady
look-out toward the East. As soon as the glory of the morning appears,
he sings his soldierly song; as soon as he sings, smaller fowl wake and
listen, and peep about quietly; when--there comes the day overhead,
sailing in the topmost air, in the golden boat with the purple sails.
And the little winds that blow in the sails--here come they, swooping
over the meadows, scudding along hedgerows, bounding into the big
trees, and away to fill those purple sails again, not only with a
wind, but with a hundred perfumes, and airs heavy with the echoes of a
hundred songs.[25]

I wish I were a poet; you should have a description of all this in
verses, and welcome. But if I were a musician! Let us see what we
should do as musicians. First, you should hear the distant sound of
a bugle, which sound should float away: that is one of the heralds
of the morning, flying southward. Then another should issue from the
eastern gates; and now the grand _reveillé_ should grow, sweep past
your ears (like the wind aforesaid), and go on, dying as it goes.
When as it dies, my stringed instruments come in. These to the left
of the orchestra break into a soft slow movement, the music swaying
drowsily from side to side, as it were, with a noise like the rustling
of boughs. It must not be much of a noise, however, for my stringed
instruments to the right have begun the very song of the morning.
The bows tremble upon the strings, like the limbs of a dancer, who,
a-tiptoe, prepares to bound into her ecstacy of motion. Away! The song
soars into the air as if it had the wings of a kite. Here swooping,
there swooping, wheeling upward, falling suddenly, checked, poised
for a moment on quivering wings, and again away. It is waltz time,
and you hear the Hours dancing to it. Then the horns. Their melody
overflows into the air richly, like honey of Hybla; it wafts down in
lazy gusts, like the scent of the thyme from that hill. So my stringed
instruments to the left cease rustling, listen a little while, catch
the music of those others, and follow it. Now for the rising of the
lark! Henceforward it is a chorus, and he is the leader thereof. Heaven
and earth agree to follow him. I have a part for the brooks--their
notes drop, drop, drop, like his: for the woods--they sob like him.
At length, nothing remains but to blow the hautboys; and just as the
chorus arrives at its fulness, they come maundering in. They have a
sweet old blundering “cow-song” to themselves--a silly thing, made of
the echoes of all pastoral sounds. There’s a warbling waggoner in it,
and his team jingling their bells. There’s a shepherd driving his flock
from the fold, bleating; and the lowing of cattle.--Down falls the lark
like a stone: it is time he looked for grubs. Then the hautboys go
out, gradually; for the waggoner is far on his road to market; sheep
cease to bleat and cattle to low, one by one; they are on their grazing
ground, and the business of the day is begun. Last of all, the heavenly
music sweeps away to waken more westering lands, over the Atlantic and
its whitening sails.

And to think this goes on every day, and every day has been repeated
for a thousand years! Generally, though, we don’t like to think about
that, as Mr. Kingsley has remarked, among others; for when he wrote,
“Is it not a grand thought, the silence and permanence of nature amid
the perpetual noise and flux of human life!--a grand thought, that one
generation goeth and another cometh, and the earth abideth for ever?”
he also meant, “Isn’t it a melancholy thought?” For my part, I believe
this reflection to be the fount of all that melancholy which is in man.
I speak in the broadest sense, meaning that whereas whenever you find a
man you find a melancholy animal, this is the secret of his melancholy.
The thought is so common and so old; it has afflicted so many men in
so many generations with a sort of philosophical sadness, that it
comes down to us like an hereditary disease, of which we have lost the
origin, and almost the consciousness. It is an universal disposition
to melancholy madness, in short. Savages who run wild in woods are
not less liable to its influence than we who walk in civilized Pall
Mall. On the contrary, a savage of any brains at all is the most
melancholy creature in the world. Not Donizetti, nor Mendelssohn,
nor Beethoven himself ever composed such sad songs as are drummed
on tom-toms, or piped through reeds, or chanted on the prairies and
lagoons of savage land. No music was ever conceived within the walls of
a city so profoundly touching as that which Irish pipers and British
harpers made before an arch was built in England. Now this bears out
our supposition; for the savage with the tom-tom, the piper with his
pipe, the harper with his harp, lived always in sight of nature. Their
little fussy lives and noisy works were ever in contrast with its
silence and permanence; change and decay with the constant seasons and
the everlasting hills. Who cannot understand the red man’s reverence
for inanimate nature read by this light--especially his reverence for
the setting sun? For the night cometh, reminding him of his own little
candle of an existence, while he knows that the great orb has risen
upon a hundred generations of hunters, and will rise upon a hundred
more. As for him and his works, his knife will be buried with him, and
there an end of him and his works.

And we Europeans to-day are in the same case with regard to the
silence and permanence of Nature, contrasted with the perpetual flux
and noise of human life. Who thinks of his death without thinking of
it? who thinks of it without thinking of his death? Mother, whose
thoughts dwell about her baby in churchyard lying; Mary, of sister
Margaret who died last year, or of John who was lost at sea, say first
and last--“There the sea rolls, ever as ever; and rages and smiles,
and surges and sighs just the same; and were you and I and the whole
world to be drowned to-day, and all the brave ships to go down with
standing sails, to-morrow there would not be a drop the more in the
ocean, nor on its surface a smile the less. Doesn’t the rain rain upon
my baby’s grave, and the sun shine upon it, as indifferent as if there
were neither babies nor mothers in the world?” Why, this strain is to
be found in all the poetry that ever was written. Walter Mapes may be
quoted, with his, “I propose to end my days in a tavern drinking,” but
his and all such songs merely result from a wild effort to divorce this
“grand thought” from the mind.

But we need not go to America for a red Indian, nor afield to the
hills for illustration; that is to be found in the impression produced
on many thoughtful minds by the contemplation of social life in any
two periods. We behold Sir Richard Steele boozing unto maudlinness in
purple velvet and a laced hat; Captain Mohock raging through Fleet
Street with a drawn rapier; reprobate old duchesses and the damsels who
were to be our grandmothers sitting in the same pew, and then looking
about us, say--“Here we are again!--the duchess on the settee, Mohock
lounging against the mantelpiece, Dick Steele hiccuping on the stairs
in a white neckcloth. There they go through the little comedy of life,
in ruffles and paste buckles; here go we in swallow-tails and patent
leathers. Mohock married, and was henpecked: young Sanglant is to be
married to-morrow. The duchess being dead, one of those demure little
damsels takes up the tradition, and certain changes of costume having
been accomplished, becomes another wicked old woman; and so it goes
on. They die, and we die; and meanwhile the world goes steadily round.
There is sowing and reaping, and there are select parties, and green
peas in their season, and oh! this twopenny life!”

Mind you, I have other ideas. What is all this melancholy, at bottom,
but stupidity and ingratitude? Are we miserable because He who made
all beautiful things preserves them to us for ever? True, He has set
bounds to intellect, and to aspirations which, when they are most
largely achieved, do not always work for pure and useful ends; true,
He does not permit us to become too impious in our pride by giving
eternity to the Parthenons and telegraphs that we make such a noise
about; _but_, all that is really good, and beautiful, and profitable
for man, is everlastingly his. The lovely world that Adam beheld is
not only the same to-day, it is created and given to us anew every
day. What have we said about morning, which is born again (for _us_,
for little ones, the ignorant, the blind, who could not see at all
yesterday) three hundred and sixty-five times in a year--every time
as fresh, and new, and innocent as that which first dawned over Eden?
Now, considering how much iniquity and blindness all the _nights_ have
fallen upon, I must think this a bountiful arrangement, and one which
need not make us unhappy. I love to think the air I breathe through
my open window is the same that wandered through Paradise before our
first mother breathed; that the primroses which grow to-day in our dear
old woods are such as decked the bank on which she slept before sin
and death came into the world; and that our children shall find them,
neither better nor worse, when our names are clean forgotten. And is
it nothing that if we have all death, we have all youth?--brand-new
affections and emotions--a mind itself a new and separate creation, as
much as is any one star among the rest? In the heavens there is a tract
of light called the Milky Way, which to the common eye appears no more
than a luminous cloud. But astronomers tell us that this vast river
of light is a universe, in which individual stars are so many that
they are like the sands on the shore. We cannot see each grain of sand
here on Brighton beach, we cannot see the separate stars of the Milky
Way, nor its suns and great planets, with all our appliances; and yet
each of those orbs has its path, rolling along on its own business--a
world. On learning which we are bewildered with astonishment and awe.
But here below is another shifting cloud, called “the human race.”
Thousands of years it has swept over the earth in great tracts, coming
and going. And this vast quicksand is made up of millions and millions
of individual _I_’s, each a man, a separate, distinct creation; each
travelling its path, which none other can travel; each bearing its own
life, which is no other’s--a world. I think this ought to strike us
with as much awe as that other creation. I think we ought to be filled
with as much gratitude for our own planetary being as astonishment at
the spectacle of any Milky Way whatever. And I only wish that we, the
human race, shone in the eyes of heaven with the light of virtue like
another Milky Way.

Created, then, so purely of ourselves, this is the result with
regard to the natural world about us: that with our own feelings and
affections, we _discover_, each for himself, all the glory of the
universe. And therefore is nature eternal, unchangeable--that all men
may know the whole goodness of God. Whose eyes but mine first saw the
sun set? Some old Chaldean, some dweller in drowned Atlantis, imagined
the feelings of Adam when _he_ first saw the sun go down; ever
since when, this poetical imagining has been going about the world,
and people have envied Adam that one grandest chance of getting a
“sensation.” Why, the Chaldean was Adam! I’m Adam! The sun was created
with me, with you; and by and by, when we had got over the morning of
infancy, we sat on a wall, in a field, on a hill, at our own little
bedroom window, and our childish eyes being by that time opened, we saw
the sun go down for the first time.

Nor are these pleasures and advantages confined to the external world,
to the sensations it inspires, or the influence it exerts upon us. No
human passion, no emotion, the fiercest or the tenderest, comes to us
at second hand. The experience and observation of a thousand years,
all the metaphysical, and poetical, and dramatic books that ever were
written, cannot add a jot to the duration or intensity of any emotion
of ours. They may exercise it, but they cannot form it, nor instruct
it; nor, were they fifty times as many and as profound, could they
dwarf it. It lies in our hearts an original creation, complete, alone:
like my life and yours. Now see how this arrangement works. When, dear
madam, your little Billy was born, all that wondering delight, that
awful tremor of joy, which possessed the heart of the first mother,
was _yours_. You may have seen a piece of sculpture called the First
Cradle. There sits Eve, brooding over her two boys, rocking them
backward and forward in her arms and on her knees--wondering, awe-full,
breathless with joy, drowned in a new flood of love. “Ah!” says the
tender, child-loving female spectator, “what would not one give to
have been that first mother, to have made with one’s arms the first
cradle!” Ignorant soul! One would think, to hear her talk, that the
gifts of heaven grow threadbare by course of time, and that in 1860
we have only the rags thereof! Don’t believe it, for there is another
side to the question! If the gifts and rewards of heaven are paid in
new coin, minted for you, with your effigies stamped upon it, so are
the punishments. The flight of Cain when Abel was killed--Bill Sykes’s
was every way as terrible; and any incipient poisoner who may happen to
read this page may assure himself, that his new and improved process
of murder--whatever advantages it may otherwise offer--is not specific
against the torments of him who first shed blood: no, nor against any
one of them.


FOOTNOTES:

[25] This paper was written a year ago. Mr. Mattieu Williams, in his
book _Through Norway with a Knapsack_, has since confirmed my fancy
that every day dies a natural death. In Scandinavia, there is a
midnight sun; and Mr. Williams says that although the altitude of the
sun is the same ten minutes before twelve as ten minutes after, there
is a perceptible difference in atmospheric tone and colour--“the usual
difference between evening and morning, sunset and sunrise; the light
having a warmer tint before than after midnight.”




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed. This magazine uses colons in places where modern text
uses semi-colons.

Possible spelling and typographical errors were not changed; unbalanced
quotation marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and
otherwise left unbalanced.

Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs.

Footnotes, originally at the bottoms of pages, have been renumbered and
placed at the ends of the articles that reference them.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68175 ***