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129
BLACKWOOD’S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.
No. CCCCLIV. AUGUST, 1853. Vol. LXXIV.
When a distinguished man sinks
into his grave, from the midst of
many rivals in a common race, the
strife of opinions in reference to him
is instantaneously allayed; personal
feelings, if not quenched, are repressed
and hushed; and, like the heroism of
the triumphant warrior, when he is
caught by the anxious eye emerging unscathed
from the battle and the smoke,
his merits appear now unclouded and
confessed. Such, we believe, is the
general feeling among the members of
his own profession in regard to the
author of the valuable work now before
us. Snatched suddenly from the
midst of his labours, before the third
edition of his Materia Medica was
completed, there are few in any way
familiar with the subject who will
not regret the sudden extinction of so
much learning, and, apart from all
private considerations, that the world
should have so prematurely lost the
benefits of his ripening judgment and
experience, and the results of his
extended reading and research. Yet
how many precious cabinets of collected
knowledge do we see thus
hurriedly sealed up for ever! How
often, when a man appears to have
reached that condition of mental culture
and accumulated information, in
which he is fitted to do the most for
the advancement of learning, or for
promoting the material comfort of his
fellows, how often does the cold hand
suddenly and mysteriously paralyse
and stop him! He has been permitted
to add only a small burden of
earth to the rising mound of intellectual
elevation, scarcely enough to
signify to after-comers that his hand has
laboured at the work. Nevertheless,
he may have shown a new way of
advancing, in some sense, so that to
others the toil is easier and the progress
faster, because he has gone before.
The more, however, the true-hearted
worker in the cause of progressive
science becomes familiar with its
actual condition and its great future,
the more he becomes satisfied also of
the vanity of attempting to associate
with an individual name the merit of
this or that advance—the more earnestly
he trains himself to find the
best reward for individual attempts in
the growing conquests and dimensions
of the field he cultivates, and in the
consciousness that he has not been
unhelpful in widening its domain.
Such a consciousness Dr Pereira
might well entertain, and we trust he
found in it something to alleviate the
regrets the best of us naturally feel,
when compelled to leave a favourite
task unfinished.
We should be forsaking widely the
field we usually occupy, were we to
attempt to lay before our readers any
analysis of a work so elaborate and
so purely professional as this of Dr
Pereira. We propose, however, to
take it as our text-book, in considering
a subject of great general interest—one
scarcely of more importance to
the professional physician than it is to
the physiologist, the psychologist, and
the economical statist. The book is replete
with scattered information on the
subject of the Narcotics we Indulge in,
and some of this we propose to bring
together in the present article. And
among other sources from which we
mean to draw the materials necessary
to our purpose, are the Confessions of
an English Opium-Eater, long, long
ago noticed in our pages, but, to us
who have been reading it to-day, as
fresh and new as ever—as full of interest,
as suggestive of profound reflection.
We who are ourselves somewhat
scientific, can scarce restrain a
selfish sigh when we think how fresh
and new, how sure of human sympathy
this actual burning experience
of a living man will continue to be
when the heavy and toilsome tomes
of Pereira shall have become mere records
of the progress of science, and
be turned up only to illustrate the ignorance
of the most learned or trusted
in their professions about the middle
of the nineteenth century.
In ministering fully to his natural
wants, man passes through three successive
stages. First, the necessities
of his material existence are provided
for; next, his cares are assuaged and
for the time banished; and lastly, his
enjoyments, intellectual and animal, are
multiplied and for the time exalted.
Beef and bread represent the means
by which, in every country, the first
end is attained; fermented liquors help
us to the second; and the third we
reach by the aid of narcotics.
When we examine, in a chemical
sense, the animal and vegetable productions
which in a thousand varied
forms, among various nations, take the
place of the beef and pudding of the
Englishman in supplying the first necessities
of our nature, we are struck
with the remarkable general similarity
which prevails among them naturally,
or which they are made to assume by
the artifices of cookery, before they
are conveyed into the stomach. And
we exclaim, in irrepressible wonder,
“by what universal instinct is it that,
under so many varied conditions of
climate and of natural vegetation, the
experience of man has led him everywhere
so nicely to adjust the chemical
constitution of the staple forms of his
diet to the chemical wants of his living
body?”
Nor is the lightening of care less
widely and extensively attained.
Savage and civilised tribes, near and
remote—the houseless barbarian wanderer,
the settled peasant, and the
skilled citizen—all have found, without
intercommunion, through some common
and instinctive process, the art
of preparing fermented drinks, and of
procuring for themselves the enjoyments
and miseries of intoxication.
The juice of the cocoa-nut tree yields
its toddy wherever this valuable palm
can be made to grow. Another palm
affords a fermented wine on the Andean
slopes of Chili—the sugar palm
intoxicates in the Indian Archipelago,
and among the Moluccas and Philippines—while
the best palm wine of all
is prepared from the sap of the oilpalms
of the African coast. In Mexico
the American aloe (Agave Americana)
gave its much-loved pulque, and probably
also its ardent brandy, long
before Cortez invaded the ancient
monarchy of the Aztecs. Fruits supply
the cider, the perry and the wine,
of many civilised regions—barley and
the cereal grains the beer and brandy
of others; while the milk of their
breeding mares supplies at will to
the wandering Tartar, either a mild
exhilarating drink, or an ardently intoxicating
spirit. And to our wonder
at the wide prevalence of this taste,
and our surprise at the success with
which, in so many different ways,
mankind has been able to gratify it,
the chemist adds a new wonder and
surprise when he tells us, that as in
the case of his food, so in preparing
his intoxicating drinks, man has
everywhere come to the same result.
His fermented liquors, wherever and
from whatever substances prepared,
all contain the same exciting alcohol,
producing everywhere, upon every
human being, the same exhilarating
effects!
It is somewhat different as regards
the next stage of human wants—the
exalted stage which we arrive at by
the aid of narcotics. Of these narcotics,
it is remarkable that almost every
country or tribe has its own—either
aboriginal or imported—so that the
universal instinct has led somehow or
other to the universal supply of this
want also.
The aborigines of Central America
rolled up the tobacco leaf, and dreamed
away their lives in smoky reveries,
ages before Columbus was born, or
the colonists of Sir Walter Raleigh
brought it within the chaste precincts
of the Elizabethan court. The coca
leaf, now the comfort and strength of
the Peruvian muletero, was chewed
as he does it, in far remote times,
and among the same mountains, by
the Indian natives whose blood he
inherits. The use of opium and hemp,
and the betel nut, among eastern
Asiatics, mounts up to the times of
most fabulous antiquity, as probably
does that of the pepper tribe in the
South Sea Islands and the Indian
archipelago; while in northern Europe
the hop, and in Tartary the
narcotic fungus, have been in use
from time immemorial. In all these
countries the wished-for end has been
attained, as in the case of intoxicating
drinks, by different means; but
the precise effect upon the system, by
the use of each substance, has not,
in this case, been the same. On
the contrary, tobacco, and coca, and
opium, and hemp, and the hop, and
Cocculus indicus, and the toadstool,
each exercise an influence upon the
human frame, which is peculiar to itself,
and which in many respects is
full of interest, and deserving of profound
study. These differences we
so far know to arise from the active
substances they severally contain being
chemically different.
I. Tobacco.—Of all the narcotics
we have mentioned, tobacco is in use
over the largest area, and by the
greatest number of people. Opium
comes next to it; and the hemp plant
occupies the third place.
The tobacco plant is indigenous to
tropical America, whence it was introduced
into Spain and France in the
beginning of the sixteenth century by
the Spaniards, and into England half
a century later (1586) by Sir Francis
Drake. Since that time, both the use
and the cultivation of the plant have
spread over a large portion of the
globe. Besides the different parts of
America, including Canada, New
Brunswick, the United States, Mexico,
the Western coast, the Spanish
main, Brazil, Cuba, St Domingo, Trinidad,
&c., it has spread in the East
into Turkey, Persia, India, China,
Australia, the Philippine Islands, and
Japan. It has been raised with success
also in nearly every country of
Europe; while in Africa it is cultivated
in Egypt, Algeria, in the Canaries,
on the Western coast, and at
the Cape of Good Hope. It is, indeed,
among narcotics, what the potato is
among food-plants—the most extensively
cultivated, the most hardy, and
the most tolerant of changes in temperature,
altitude, and general climate.
We need scarcely remark, that the
use of the plant has become not less
universal than its cultivation. In
America it is met with everywhere,
and the consumption is enormous. In
Europe, from the plains of sunny Castile
to the frozen Archangel, the pipe
and the cigar are a common solace
among all ranks and conditions. In
vain was the use of it prohibited in
Russia, and the knout threatened for
the first offence, and death for the
second. In vain Pope Urban VIII.
thundered out his bull against it. In
vain our own James I. wrote his
“Counterblaste to Tobacco.” Opposition
only excited more general attention
to the plant, awakened curiosity
regarding it, and promoted its consumption.
So in the East—the priests and sultans
of Turkey and Persia declared
smoking a sin against their holy religion,
yet nevertheless the Turks and
Persians became the greatest smokers
in the world. In Turkey the pipe is
perpetually in the mouth; in India
all classes and both sexes smoke; in
China the practice is so universal
that “every female, from the age of
eight or nine years, wears as an appendage
to her dress a small silken
pocket, to hold tobacco and a pipe.”
It is even argued by Pallas that the
extensive prevalence of the practice
in Asia, and especially in China,
proves the use of tobacco for smoking
to be more ancient than the discovery
of the New World. “Amongst the
Chinese,” he says, “and amongst the
Mongol tribes who had the most intercourse
with them, the custom of
smoking is so general, so frequent,
and has become so indispensable a
luxury; the tobacco purse affixed to
their belt so necessary an article of
dress; the form of the pipes, from
which the Dutch seem to have taken
the model of theirs, so original; and,
lastly, the preparation of the yellow
leaves, which are merely rubbed to
pieces and then put into the pipe, so
peculiar—that they could not possibly
derive all this from America by way
of Europe, especially as India, where
the practice of smoking is not so general,
intervenes between Persia and
China.”[3]
Leaving this question of its origin,
the reader will not be surprised, when
he considers how widely the practice
of smoking prevails, that the total
produce of tobacco grown on the face
of the globe has been calculated by
Mr Crawford to amount to the enormous
quantity of two millions of tons.
The comparative magnitude of this
quantity will strike the reader more
forcibly, when we state that the whole
of the wheat consumed by the inhabitants
of Great Britain—estimating it
at a quarter a-head, or in round numbers
at twenty millions of quarters—weighs
only four and one-third millions
of tons; so that the tobacco
yearly raised for the gratification of
this one form of the narcotic appetite
weighs as much as the wheat consumed
by ten millions of Englishmen.
And reckoning it at only double the
market value of wheat, or twopence
and a fraction per pound, it is worth
in money as much as all the wheat
eaten in Great Britain.
The largest producers, and probably
the largest consumers, of tobacco,
are the United States of America.
The annual production, at the
last two decennial periods of their census
returns, was estimated at
1840,
219,163,319
lb.
1850,
199,752,646
„
being about one-twentieth part of the
whole supposed produce of the globe.
One of the remarkable circumstances
connected with the history of
tobacco is, the rapidity with which
its growth and consumption have increased,
in almost every country,
since the discovery of America. In
1662, the quantity raised in Virginia—the
chief producer of tobacco on
the American shores of the Atlantic—was
only 60,000 lb.; and the quantity
exported from that colony in
1689, only 120,000 lb. In two hundred
and thirty years, the produce
has risen to nearly twice as many
millions. And the extension of its use
in our own country may be inferred
from the facts that, in the above year
of 1689, the total importation was
120,000 lb. of Virginian tobacco, part
of which was probably re-exported;
while, in 1852, the quantity entered
for home consumption amounted to
28,558,753 lb.
being something over a pound per
head of the whole population; and to
this must be added the large quantity
of contraband tobacco, which the
heavy duty of 3s. per lb. tempts the
smuggler to introduce. The whole
duty levied on the above quantity in
1852, was £4,560,741, which is equal
to a poll-tax of 3s. a head.
Tobacco, as every child among us
now knows, is used for smoking, for
chewing, and for snuffing. The second
of these practices is, in many
respects, the most disgusting, and is
now rarely seen in this country, except
among seafaring men. On shipboard,
smoking is always dangerous,
and often forbidden; while snuffing is
expensive and inconvenient; so that,
if the weed must be used, the practice
of chewing it can alone be resorted
to.
For the smoker and chewer it is
prepared in various forms, and sold
under different names. The dried
leaves, coarsely broken, are sold as
canaster or knaster. When moistened,
compressed, and cut into fine
threads, they form cut or shag tobacco.
Moistened with molasses or
with syrup, and pressed into cakes,
they are called cavendish and negrohead,
and are used indifferently either
for chewing or smoking. Moistened
in the same way, and beaten until
they are soft, and then twisted into a
thick string, they form the pigtail or
twist of the chewer. Cigars are
formed of the dried leaves, deprived
of their midribs, and rolled up into a
short spindle. When cut straight, or
truncated at each end, as is the custom
at Manilla, they are distinguished
as cheroots.
For the snuff-taker, the dried leaves
are sprinkled with water, laid in
heaps, and allowed to ferment. They
are then dried again, reduced to powder,
and baked or roasted. The dry
snuffs, like the Scotch and Irish, are
usually prepared from the midribs—the
rappees, or moist snuffs, from the
soft part of the leaves. The latter
are also variously scented, to suit the
taste of the customer.
Extensively as it is used, it is surprising
how very few can state distinctly
the effects which tobacco produces—can
explain the kind of pleasure
the use of it gives them—why
they began, and for what reason they
continue the indulgence. In truth,
few have thought of these points—have
cared to analyse their sensations
when under the narcotic influence of
tobacco—or, if they have analysed
them, would care to tell truly what
kind of relief it is which they seek in
the use of it. “In habitual smokers,”
says Dr Pereira, “the practice, when
employed moderately, provokes thirst,
increases the secretion of saliva, and
produces a remarkably soothing and
tranquillising effect on the mind,
which has made it so much admired
and adopted by all classes of society,
and by all nations, civilised and barbarous.”
Taken in excess in any
form, and especially by persons unaccustomed
to it, it produces nausea,
vomiting, in some cases purging, universal
trembling, staggering, convulsive
movements, paralysis, torpor,
and death. Cases are on record of
persons killing themselves by smoking
seventeen or eighteen pipes at a
sitting. With some constitutions it
never agrees; but both our author
and Dr Christison of Edinburgh agree
that “no well-ascertained ill effects
have been shown to result from the
habitual practice of smoking.” The
effects of chewing are of a similar
kind. Those of snuffing are only less
in degree; and the influence which tobacco
exercises in the mouth, in promoting
the flow of saliva, &c., manifests
itself when used as snuff in
producing sneezing, and in increasing
the discharge of mucus from the nose.
The excessive use of snuff, however,
blunts the sense of smell, alters the
tone of voice, and occasionally produces
dyspepsia and loss of appetite.
In rarer cases it ultimately induces
apoplexy and delirium.
But it is the soothing and tranquillising
effect it has on the mind for
which tobacco is chiefly indulged in.
And amid the teasing paltry cares, as
well as the more poignant griefs of
life, what a blessing that a mere material
soother and tranquilliser can be
found, accessible alike to all—to the
desolate and the outcast, equally with
him who is rich in a happy home and
the felicity of sympathising friends!
Is there any one so sunk in happiness
himself, as to wonder that millions of
the world-chafed should flee to it for
solace? Yet the question still remains
which is to bring out the peculiar
characteristic of tobacco. We
may take for granted that it acts in
some way upon the nervous system;
but what is the special effect of tobacco
on the brain and nerves, to
which the pleasing reverie it produces
is to be ascribed? “The pleasure of
the reverie consequent on the indulgence
of the pipe consists,” according
to Dr Madden, “in a temporary annihilation
of thought. People really
cease to think when they have been
long smoking. I have asked Turks
repeatedly what they have been thinking
of during their long smoking reveries,
and they replied, ‘Of nothing.’
I could not remind them of a single
idea having occupied their minds;
and in the consideration of the Turkish
character there is no more curious
circumstance connected with their
moral condition. The opinion of
Locke, that the soul of a waking man
is never without thought, because it
is the condition of being awake, is, in
my mind, contradicted by the waking
somnambulism, if I may so express myself,
of a Moslem.”[4]
We concede that Dr Madden might
find in England, in Germany, and in
Holland, many good smokers, who
would make excellent Moslems in his
sense, and who at the close of long
tobacco reveries are utterly unconscious
and innocent of a single thought.
Yet we restrict our faith in his opinion
to the simple belief, that tobacco,
with a haze such as its smoke creates,
tends to soften down and assuage the
intensity of all inner thoughts or external
impressions which affect the
feelings, and thus to create a still and
peaceful repose—such a quiet rest as
one fancies might be found in the
hazy distance of Turner’s landscapes.
We deny that, in Europeans in general,
smoking puts an end to intellectual
exertion. In moderation, our
own experience is, that it sharpens
and strengthens it; and we doubt
very much if those learned Teutonic
Professors, who smoke all day, whose
studies are perpetually obscured by
the fumes of the weed, and who are
even said to smoke during sleep,
would willingly, or with good temper,
concede that the heavy tomes which
in yearly thousands appear at the
Leipsic book fair, have all been written
after their authors had “really ceased
to think.” Still it is probably true,
and may be received as the characteristic
of tobacco among narcotics, that
its major and first effect is to assuage,
and allay, and soothe the system in
general; its minor, and second, or
after effect, to excite and invigorate,
and, at the same time, give steadiness
and fixity to the powers of thought.
The active substances, or chemical
ingredients of tobacco or tobacco
smoke, by which these effects upon
the system are produced, are three in
number. The first is a volatile oil,
of which about two grains can be obtained
from a pound of leaves, by distilling
them with water. This oil or
fat “is solid, has the odour of tobacco,
and a bitter taste. It excites in the
tongue and throat a sensation similar
to that of tobacco smoke; and, when
swallowed, gives rise to giddiness,
nausea, and an inclination to vomit.”
Small as the quantity is, therefore,
which is present in the leaf, this substance
must be regarded as one of the
ingredients upon which the effects of
tobacco depend.
The second is a volatile alkali, as it
is called by chemists, which is also
obtained by a form of distillation.
The substance is liquid, has the odour
of tobacco, an acrid burning taste,
and is possessed of narcotic and highly
poisonous qualities. In this latter
quality it is scarcely inferior to Prussic
acid. The proportion of this substance
contained in the leaf varies
from 3 to 8 per cent, so that he who
smokes a hundred grains of tobacco
may draw into his mouth from three
to eight grains of one of the most
subtle of all known poisons. It will
not be doubted, therefore, that some
of the effects of tobacco are to be ascribed
to this peculiar substance.
The third is an oil—an empyreumatic
oil, it is called—which does not
exist ready formed in the natural leaf,
but is produced along with other substances
during the burning. This is
supposed to be “the juice of cursed
hebenon,” described by Shakspeare as
a distilment.[5] It is acrid, disagreeable
to the taste, narcotic, and so poisonous
that a single drop on the tongue
of a cat causes immediate convulsions,
and in two minutes death.
Of these three active ingredients
contained in tobacco smoke, the Turkish
and Indian pipes, in which the
smoke is made to pass slowly through
water, arrest a large proportion, and
therefore convey the air to the mouth
in a milder form. The reservoir of the
German meerschaums retains the
grosser portions of the oils, &c., produced
by burning; and the long stem
of the Russian pipe has a similar effect.
The Dutch and English pipes
retain less; while the cigar, especially
when smoked to the end, discharges
everything into the mouth of the
smoker, and, when he retains the saliva,
gives him the benefit of the united
action of all the three narcotic substances
together. It is not surprising,
therefore, that those who have been
accustomed to smoke cigars, especially
such as are made of strong tobacco,
should find any other pipe both tame
and tasteless, except the short black
cutty, which has lately come into favour
again among inveterate smokers.
The chewer of tobacco, it will be
understood from the above description
of its active ingredients, is not exposed
to the effects of the oil which is produced
during the burning. The
natural oil and the volatile alkali are
the substances which act upon him.
The taker of snuff is in the same condition.
But his drug is still milder
than that of the chewer, inasmuch as
the artificial drying or roasting to
which the tobacco is subjected in the
preparation of snuff, drives off a portion
of the natural volatile oil, and a
large part of the volatile alkali, and
thus renders it considerably less active
than the natural leaf.
In all the properties by which tobacco
is characterised, the produce of
different countries and districts is
found to exhibit very sensible differences.
At least eight or ten species,
and numerous varieties, of the plant
are cultivated; and the leaf of each
of these, even where they are all grown
in the same locality, is found to exhibit
sensible peculiarities. To these
climate and soil add each its special
effects; while the period of growth at
which the leaves are gathered, and the
way in which they are dried or cured,
exercise a well-known influence on the
quality of the crop. To these causes
of diversity is owing, for the most
part, the unlike estimation in which
Virginian, Cuban, Brazilian, Peruvian,
East Indian, Persian, and Turkish
tobaccos are held in the market.
The chemist explains all the known
and well-marked diversities of quality
and flavour in the unadulterated leaf,
by showing that each recognised variety
of tobacco contains the active
ingredients of the leaf in a peculiar
form or proportion; and it is interesting
to find science in his hands first
rendering satisfactory reasons for the
decisions of taste. Thus, he has shown
that the natural volatile oil does not
exist in the green leaf, but is formed
during the drying, and hence the reason
why the mode of curing affects the
strength and quality of the dried leaf.
He has also shown that the proportion
of the poisonous alkali (nicotin)
is smallest (2 per cent) in the best
Havannah, and largest (7 per cent)
in the Virginian tobacco, and hence a
natural and sound reason for the preference
given to the former by the
smokers of cigars.
As to the lesser niceties of flavour,
this probably depends upon other
odoriferous ingredients not so active
in their nature, or so essential to the
leaf as those already mentioned. The
leaves of plants, in this respect, are
easily affected by a variety of circumstances,
and especially by the nature
of the soil they grow in, and of the
manure applied to them. Even to the
grosser senses of us Europeans, it is
known, for example, that pigs’ dung
carries its gout into the tobacco raised
by its means. But the more refined
organs of the Druses and Maronites
of Mount Lebanon readily recognise,
by the flavour of their tobacco, the
kind of manure employed in its cultivation,
and esteem, above all others,
that which has been aided in its
growth by the droppings of the goat.
But in countries where high duties
upon tobacco hold out a temptation
to fraud, artificial flavours are given
by various forms of adulteration.
“Saccharine matter (molasses, sugar,
honey, &c.), which is the principal
adulterating ingredient, is said to be
used both for the purpose of adding
to the weight of the tobacco, and of
rendering it more agreeable. Vegetable
leaves (as those of rhubarb and
the beech), mosses, bran, the sproutings
of malt, beet-root dregs, liquorice,
terra japonica, rosin, yellow ochre,
fullers’ earth, sand, saltpetre, common
salt, sal-ammoniac”[6]—such is a
list of the substances which have been
detected in adulterated tobacco. How
many more may be in daily use for
the purpose, who can tell? Is it surprising,
therefore, that we should
meet with manufactured tobacco possessing
a thousand different flavours
for which the chemistry of the natural
leaf can in no way account?
There are two other circumstances
in connection with the history of tobacco,
which, because of their economical
and social bearings, are possessed
of much interest.
First, Every smoker must have observed
the quantity of ash he has occasion
to empty out of his pipe, or the
large nozzle he knocks off from time
to time from the burning end of his
cigar. This incombustible part is
equal to one-fourth or one-fifth of the
whole weight of the dried leaf, and
consists of earthy or mineral matter
which the tobacco plant has drawn
from the soil on which it has grown.
Every ton, when dried, of the tobacco
leaf which is gathered, carries off,
therefore, from four to five hundredweight
of this mineral matter from the
soil. And as the substances of which
the mineral matter consists are among
those which are at once most necessary
to vegetation, and least abundant even
in fertile soils, it will readily be understood
that the frequent growth and
removal of tobacco from the same field
must gradually affect its fertility, and
sooner or later exhaust it.
It has been, and still is, to a great
extent, the misfortune of many tobacco-growing
regions, that this simple
deduction was unknown and unheeded.
The culture has been continued
year after year upon virgin
soils, till the best and richest were
at last wearied and worn out, and
patches of deserted wilderness are at
length seen where tobacco plantations
formerly extended and flourished.
Upon the Atlantic borders
of the United States of America, the
best known modern instances of such
exhausting culture are to be found.
It is one of the triumphs of the
chemistry of this century, that it has
ascertained what the land loses by
such imprudent treatment—what is
the cause, therefore, of the barrenness
that befalls it, and by what new
management its ancient fertility may
be again restored.
Second, It is melancholy to think
that the gratification of this narcotic
instinct of man should in some countries—and
especially in North America,
Cuba, and Brazil—have become
a source of human misery in its most
aggravated forms. It was long ago
remarked of the tobacco culture by
President Jefferson, in his Notes on
Virginia, that “it is a culture productive
of infinite wretchedness. Those
employed in it are in a continued state
of exertion beyond the powers of
nature to support. Little food of any
kind is raised by them, so that the
men and animals on these farms are
badly fed, and the earth is rapidly impoverished.”[7]
But these words do
not convey to the English reader a
complete idea of the misery they allude
to. The men employed in the culture,
who suffer the “infinite wretchedness,”
are the slaves on the plantations.
And it is melancholy, as we
have said, to think that the gratification
of the passion for tobacco should
not only have been an early stimulus
to the extension of slavery in the
United States, but should continue
still to be one of the props by which
it is sustained. The exports of tobacco
from the United States in the year
ending June 1850, were valued at ten
millions of dollars. This sum European
smokers pay for the maintenance
of slavery in these states, besides what
they contribute for the same purpose
to Cuba and Brazil. The practice of
smoking is in itself, we believe, neither
a moral nor a social evil; it is merely
the gratification of a natural and universal,
as it is an innocent instinct.
Pity that such evils should be permitted
to flow from what is in itself
so harmless!
II. The Hop, which may now
be called the English narcotic, was
brought from the Low Countries, and
is not known to have been used in
malt liquor in this country till after
the year 1524, in the reign of Henry
VIII. In 1850 the quantity of hops
grown in England was 21,668 tons,
paying a duty of £270,000. This is
supposed to be a larger quantity than
is grown in all the world besides.
Only 98 tons were exported in that
year; while, on the other hand, 320
tons were imported, so that the home
consumption amounted to 21,886
tons, or 49 millions of pounds; being
two-thirds more than the weight of
the tobacco which we yearly consume.
It is the narcotic substance, therefore,
of which England not only grows
more and consumes more than all the
world besides, but of which Englishmen
consume more than they do of
any other substance of the same
class.
And who that has visited the hop
grounds of Kent and Surrey in the
flowering season, will ever forget the
beauty and grace of this charming
plant? Climbing the tall poles, and
circling them with its clasping tendrils,
it hides the formality and stiffness of
the tree that supports it among the
exuberant profusion of its clustering
flowers. Waving and drooping in
easy motion with every tiny breath
that stirs them, and hanging in curved
wreaths from pole to pole, the hopbines
dance and glitter beneath the
bright English sun—the picture of a
true English vineyard, which neither
the Rhine nor the Rhone can equal,
and only Italy, where her vines climb
the freest, can surpass.
The hop “joyeth in a fat and fruitful
ground,” as old Gerard hath it
(1596). “It prospereth the better by
manuring.” And few spots surpass,
either in natural fertility or in artificial
richness, the hop lands of Surrey,
which lie along the out-crop of the
green sand measures in the neighbourhood
of Farnham. Naturally rich to
an extraordinary degree in the mineral
food of plants, the soils in this locality
have been famed for centuries
for the growth of hops; and with a
view to this culture alone, at the present
day, the best portions sell as high
as £500 an acre. And the highest
Scotch farmer—the most liberal of
manure—will find himself outdone by
the hop-growers of Kent and Surrey.
An average of ten pounds an acre for
manure over a hundred acres of hops,
makes this branch of farming the most
liberal, the most remarkable, and the
most expensive of any in England.
This mode of managing the hop,
and the peculiar value and rarity of
hop land, were known very early.
They form parts of its history which
were probably imported with the plant
itself. Tusser, who lived in Henry
VIII.’s time, and in the reigns of his
three children, in his Points of Husbandry
thus speaks of the hop:—
The hops of commerce consist of the
female flowers and seeds of the humulus
lupulus, or common hop plant.
Their principal consumption is in the
manufacture of beer, to which they
give a pleasant, bitter, aromatic flavour,
and tonic properties. Part of the
soporific quality of beer also is ascribed
to the hops, and they are supposed by
their chemical properties to check the
tendency to become sour. The active
principles in the hop consist of a volatile
oil, and a peculiar bitter principle
to which the name of lupulin is given.
When the hop flowers are distilled
with water, they yield as much as
eight per cent of their weight of a
volatile oil, which has a brownish
yellow colour, a strong smell of hops,
and a slightly bitter taste. In this
“oil of hops” it has hitherto been
supposed that a portion of the narcotic
influence of the flowers resided, but
recent experiments render this opinion
doubtful. It is probable that in the
case both of tobacco and of the hop, a
volatile substance distils over in small
quantity along with the oil, which
has not hitherto been examined separately,
and in which the narcotic virtue
resides. This is rendered probable by
the fact that the rectified hop oil is
not possessed of narcotic properties.
The hop has long been celebrated
for its sleep-giving qualities. To the
weary and wakeful, the hop-pillow
has often given refreshing rest, when
every other sleep-producer had failed.
It is to the escape, in minute quantity,
of the volatile narcotic substance we
have spoken of, that this soporific
effect of the flowers is most probably
to be ascribed.
Besides the oil and other volatile
matter which distil from them, the hop
flowers, and especially the fine powdery
grains or dust which, by rubbing,
can be separated from them, yield to
alcohol a bitter principle (lupulin)
and a resinous substance, both in considerable
proportion. In a common
tincture of hops these substances are
contained. They are aromatic and
tonic, and impart their own qualities
to our beer. They are also soothing,
tranquillising, and in a slight degree
sedative and soporific, in which properties
well-hopped beer also resembles
them. It is certain that hops
possess a narcotic virtue which beer
derives from them;[9] but in what part
of the female flower, or in what peculiar
chemical compound this narcotic
property chiefly resides, is still a matter
of doubt.
To the general reader it may appear
remarkable, that the chemistry of a
vegetable production, in such extensive
use as the hop, should still be so
imperfect—our knowledge of its nature
and composition so unsatisfactory.
But the well-read chemist, who knows
how wide the field of chemical research
is, and how rapidly our knowledge
of it, as a whole, is progressing,
will feel no surprise. He may wish
to see all such obscurities and difficulties
cleared away, but he will feel
inclined rather to thank and praise
the many ardent and devoted men,
now labouring in this department, for
what they are doing, than to blame
them for being obliged to leave a part
of the extensive field for the present
uncultivated.
Among largely used narcotics, therefore,
especially in England, the hop is
to be placed. It differs, however, from
all the others we have mentioned, in
being rarely employed alone except
medicinally. It is added to infusions
like that of malt, to impart flavour,
taste, and narcotic virtues. Used in
this way, it is unquestionably one of
the sources of that pleasing excitement,
gentle intoxication, and healthy tonic
action, which well-hopped beer is
known to produce upon those who
drink it. Other common vegetable
productions will give the bitter flavour
to malt liquor. Horehound and wormwood,
and gentian and quassia and
strychnia, and the grains of paradise,
and chicory, and various other plants,
have been used to replace or supplant
the hop. But none are known to approach
it in imparting those peculiar
qualities which have given the bitter
beer of the present day so well-merited
a reputation.
Among our working classes, it is
true, in the porters and humbler beers
they consume and prefer, the Cocculus
indicus finds a degree of favour which
has caused it, to a considerable degree,
to take the place of the hop. This
singular berry possesses an intoxicating
property, and not only replaces
the hop by its bitterness, but to a
certain extent also supplies the deficiency
of malt. To weak extracts of
malt it gives a richness and fulness in
the mouth, which usually imply the
presence of much malt, with a bitterness
which enables the brewer to
withhold one-third of his hops, and a
colour which aids him in the darkening
of his porter. The middle classes
in England prefer the thin wine-like
bitter beer. The skilled labourers in
the manufacturing districts prefer
what is rich, full, and substantial in
the mouth. With a view to their
taste, it is too often drugged with
the Cocculus indicus by disreputable
brewers; and much of the very
beastly intoxication which the consumption
of malt liquor in England
produces, is probably due to this pernicious
admixture. So powerful is
the effect of this berry on the apparent
richness of beer, that a single pound
produces an equal effect with a bag
of malt. The temptation to use it,
therefore, is very strong. The quantity
imported in 1850 was 2359 cwt.,
equal to a hundred and twelve times
as many bags of malt; and although
we cannot strictly class it among the
narcotics we voluntarily indulge in, it
may certainly be described as one
in which thousands of the humbler
classes are compelled to indulge.
It is interesting to observe how men
carry with them their early tastes to
whatever new climate or region they
go. The love of beer and hops has
been planted by Englishmen in America.
It has accompanied them to
their new empires in Australia, New
Zealand, and the Cape. In the hot
East their home taste remains unquenched,
and the pale ale of England
follows them to remotest India. Who
can tell to what extent the use of the hop
may become naturalised, through their
means, in these far-off regions? Who
can predict that, inoculated into its
milder influence, the devotees of opium
and the intoxicating hemp may not
hereafter be induced to abandon their
hereditary drugs, and to substitute the
foreign hop in their place? From such
a change in one article of consumption,
how great a change in the character
of the people might we not anticipate?
This leads us to remark, that we
cannot as yet very well explain in
what way and to what extent the use
of prevailing narcotics is connected,
as cause or effect, with peculiarities in
national character. But there can
no longer be any doubt that the soothers
and exciters we indulge in, in
some measure as the luxuries of life,
though sought for at first merely to
gratify a natural craving, do afterwards
gradually but sensibly modify
the individual character. And where
the use is general and extended, the
influence of course affects in time the
whole people. It is a problem of interest
to the legislator, not less than
to the physiologist and psychologist,
to ascertain how far and in what direction
such a reaction can go—how
much of the actual tastes, habits, and
character of existing nations has been
created by the prolonged consumption
of the fashionable and prevailing forms
of narcotics in use among them respectively,
and how far tastes and habits
have been modified by the changes in
these forms which have been introduced
and adopted within historic times. The
reader will readily perceive that this
inquiry has in it a valid importance
quite distinct from that which attaches
itself to the supposed influence of the
different varieties of intoxicating fermented
drinks in use in different countries.
The latter, as we have said,
all contain the same intoxicating principle,
and so far, therefore, exercise a
common influence upon all who consume
them. But the narcotics now in
use owe their effects to substances
which in each, so far as is known, are
chemically different from those which
are contained in every one of the
others. They must exercise, therefore,
each a different physiological effect
upon the system, and, if their influence,
as we suppose, extend so far,
must each in a special way modify also
the constitution, the habits, and the
character.
Our space does not permit us, in
the present Number, to speak of the use
of opium and hemp; we shall return
to these extensively consumed drugs
on a future occasion.
SOUTH AMERICAN TRAVEL AND ADVENTURE. [10]
140
We here associate two books which
have little in common beyond their
relation to the same region and races
of men; the one is chiefly scientific
and statistical, the other deals largely
in the characteristic and romantic.
Dr Weddell, physician and naturalist,
and member of various scientific societies
and commissions, who had
previously travelled in and written
of certain districts in South America,
was induced, two years ago, once
more to cross the Line, bound for
Bolivia. His former journey had had
a purely botanical object: he had
gone to make acquaintance with the
trees which produce the Peruvian
bark. His researches were crowned
with success; but he was attacked with
fever and dysentery, and quitted the
unwholesome shores, vowing never
to revisit them. A handful of sand
which he carried away with him
caused him to break through his resolution.
Deposited in the Museum of
Natural History at Paris, it attracted
attention by the beauty of the golden
spangles it contained. Dr Weddell
again sailed for America, this time
with a double mission. The administrators
of the Garden of Plants confided
to him certain scientific researches;
and a number of persons,
whose objects were more material,
commissioned him to examine and
obtain concessions of tracts of land
upon the Tipuani—a stream which,
rising amongst the snows of the Cordilleras,
flows over golden sands to
its junction with one of the chief tributaries
of the mighty Amazon.
Mr Theodore Pavie has been a
great traveller. In the volume before
us we find him alternately in India,
Africa, America, on the banks of the
Nile, on the Coromandel coast, in the
forests that fringe the Sabine. His
book includes even a Chinese legend;
but that he confesses to have derived
from a missionary, the companion of
one of his voyages. His most interesting
chapters are a series of South
American sketches—in the Pampas,
Chili, and Peru. He makes half an
apology for having mingled fiction
with facts he himself witnessed. The
system he has pursued is perfectly
allowable, and has been adopted by
many travellers of wider fame. We
may instance Sealsfield, Ruxton, and
a host of other precedents. Like
them, he has brought home from his
distant wanderings a portfolio of
rough sketches, which he has filled
up, coloured, and completed by his
own fireside. The landscape, the
character, the figures, even some of
the incidents, are true to nature; but
he has thrown in a little artificial
action, rendering the picture more
attractive.
From the Peruvian port of Arica,
which he reached, viâ Southampton
and Panama, in the spring of 1851,
Dr Weddell started at once for the
Bolivian town of La Paz. After
passing Tacna, where they were detained
for some days by purchase of
mules and travelling stores, the doctor
and his two companions, Mr Borniche
and Mr Herrypon (the latter a civil
engineer), soon found themselves in
the mountains, and suffering from the
painful sensations produced by the
great rarefaction of the air. This
effect of the sensible diminution of
the atmospheric pressure upon the
circulation and respiration is there
called the soroche, and is ignorantly
attributed by the natives to metallic
emanations from the soil. At the
height of about 12,000 feet above the
level of the sea, the travellers came
to the first apacheta. In former days
the Peruvian Indians, upon attaining,
with a burden, the summit of a mountain,
were accustomed to offer to their
god Pachacamac the first object that
met their view. The custom was not
costly, for the object was usually a
stone. They accompanied the offering
by several repetitions of the word
apachecta, which was a sort of prayer.
In time, this word, slightly altered,
was applied to the heaps of stones
which the superstition accumulated,
and then to the mountain-peaks which
these heaps surmounted. Apachetas
are found upon all elevated points of
Peruvian roads. Around one of them,
at the summit of the Pass of Gualillos—estimated
by Dr Weddell, and by
the English traveller Pentland, to be
nearly 15,000 feet above the sea—were
numerous skeletons of asses,
mules, and lamas, which had perished
of fatigue on attaining that prodigious
elevation. The three Frenchmen
felt almost as much inclined to lay
their own bones beside those of the defunct
brutes as to push on further; but
they managed to continue their route
over one of those vast mountain platforms
known as puñas, of which the
German doctor Tschudi has given so
striking an account. They passed the
night in the village of Tacora, and had
regained their wonted courage and activity
when aroused next morning by
their muleteer with intelligence that
four vicuñas were grazing close at
hand. Stealing up to them under
cover of a wall, Dr Weddell and Mr
Herrypon got within fair shot, fired,
and missed. Three of the animals
took to flight; the fourth stood its
ground, and gazed boldly at its enemies.
The doctor, supposing that a
wound was the cause of its immobility,
quitted his cover and approached
the vicuña. When he got
within a certain distance, the animal
ran. It was too late. The doctor
fired his second barrel, and the ball
broke its spine. It was not, as Dr
Weddell had supposed, a wound that
had delayed its flight. “When a
herd of vicuñas is pursued,” he says,
“the most vigorous of the males,
who act as chiefs, invariably remain
the last upon the place of danger, as
if to cover the retreat of the others.
This is a fact of which we were more
than once witnesses during our journey,
and hence it is much easier to
obtain male than female vicuñas. I
have been twenty times within shot
of males, but not once of females.
The vicuña (Camelus vicogna Gmel.)
is the most numerous species (it and
the guanaco) of the camel tribe in the
New World. It is met with in all
the elevated regions of the Andes,
from the equator to Magellan’s Straits.
The places it best loves to haunt are
those where man and the condor alone
can follow it. The condor, that
mighty bird of prey, which is to the
Andes what the eagle is to the Alps,
prefers carrion to a living prey, and
seldom makes war upon it; and man,
until our own days, has rather encouraged
its multiplication than aided
in its destruction. This explains the
abundance of the vicuña at the period
of the conquest of Peru.” The old
Spanish chroniclers relate that the
vicuñas, although wild, were regarded
as the exclusive property of the
Incas, and any who hunted them incurred
severe penalties. At fixed
seasons—about once a-year—a general
hunt took place, under the personal
superintendence of the Inca and his
chief officers; but only once in every
four years was this monster battue
allowed in the same district. The
chase was on a prodigious scale. Fifty
or sixty thousand hunters—even
more, if some writers are to be believed—armed
themselves with poles
and lances, traced an immense circle,
and drove to a common centre all the
animals it enclosed. A selection then
took place. Roebuck, guanacos, and
other inferior animals, were killed,
especially the males; their skins
were used for various purposes, and
their flesh was divided amongst the
hunters. This meat, cut in thin
slices and dried, was called charqui,
and composed the sole animal food of
the lower classes of Peruvians. The
vicuñas, of which thirty or forty thousand
were often thus collected, were
more gently treated. They were
carefully shorn, and then set at liberty.
The wool was stored in the
royal warehouses, and issued as required—the
inferior qualities to the
people, the better ones to the nobles,
who alone had a right to wear fine
cloth. The tissues then manufactured
from the best vicuña wool are
said to have been as brilliant as the
finest silks, and to have excited, by
the delicacy of their tints, the envy of
European manufacturers. At the
present day, no salutary law protects
the graceful and useful vicuñas; they
lose their life with their fleece, and
have greatly diminished in numbers.
The Indians drive them into enclosures,
knock them on the head with
cudgels, or break their necks across
their knees, strip off the skin, and
sell it for half a dollar. The wool
sells as high as a dollar a pound upon
the coast of Peru. It is chiefly consumed
in the country, to make hats
and gloves. Only two or three thousand
dollars’ worth is annually exported
from Peru.
Dr Weddell makes numerous interesting
zoological observations during
his journey up the country. Whilst
traversing the frozen puña, he was
greatly surprised to find a ruin—in
which his party slept, with snow
for a counterpane—infested with
mice, whose sole nourishment, in
that barren and inhospitable district,
must have been grass. The next
halt was at the farm of Chulunguiani,
the highest point upon the
road from Tacna to La Paz. Here
the party slept under a roof, and
found a pulperia or little shop, where
they were able to obtain sardines in
oil, sheep’s-milk cheese, and bad Bordeaux
wine. A day was passed here
in duck-shooting, and in hunting the
viscacha, a small animal of the chinchilla
tribe, having a dark grey fur,
very soft, but less esteemed by furriers
than that of the chinchilla. It is
about the size of a rabbit, burrows
amongst rocks, and is found only at
a very great elevation, equal to that
habitually preferred by the vicuña.
Dr Weddell and his host shot two
specimens. When the doctor went
indoors to skin them, he found that the
animals had lost the tips of their tails.
The farm-steward, who had carried
them in, explained that he had thus
docked them to preserve them from
decomposition, the extremity of the
tail having the singular property of
producing the corruption of the whole
animal, if not cut off almost immediately
after death. Dr Weddell was
not very well satisfied with this explanation,
but, to his astonishment,
he afterwards found it everywhere the
custom to sever the end of the viscacha’s
tail.
Whilst at the farm (it was a sheep-farm—oxen
live but do not thrive at
that altitude) Dr Weddell did his
utmost to get an alpaca, knowing that
there were some in the neighbourhood.
He was unsuccessful; and as to buying
one, it is a most difficult matter
in that country, where the Indians
have an extraordinary dislike to parting
with their domesticated animals,
except sheep. During his stay in
Bolivia, he repeatedly offered five or
six times its value for an alpaca, and
was refused. The alpaca wool, which
constitutes one of the most important
branches of Peruvian commerce, and
is consumed chiefly in England, varies
greatly in price, the pure white selling
for thirty or thirty-five dollars a hundredweight;
other colours at an average
of twenty-two dollars. The
weight of the fleeces ranges from three
to seven pounds. “I have seen some
of these animals,” says Dr Weddell,
“whose virgin fleece almost swept
the earth; when they attain that
state, their faces are hidden in the
wool that surrounds them.” From a
priest, who afforded hospitality to the
travellers at their second halt after
they quitted the farm, they obtained
some instructive details concerning the
country, and a most marvellous story
of a natural phenomenon observed by
him during his rambles in the province
of Yungas. “This was nothing
less than a bird-plant—that is to say,
a bird which, having alighted upon
the ground, had there taken root.
More than a hundred persons, the
cura said, had seen this wonder, and
verified its reality. The person who
had discovered the bird, unfortunately
forgot one day to take it food, and it
died. We were not informed how it
had lived before it found a master.”
It is odd to be able to trace a coincidence
between the wild tale of the
Peruvian puña and a tradition of
Asiatic-Russian steppes. Edward
Jerrmann, in his Pictures from St
Petersburg,[11] tells of the baranken
or sheep-plant, supposed to produce
the fine silky fleece that was in reality
obtained by ripping unborn lambs
from the mother’s belly.
At La Paz, which the little caravan
reached after much fatigue, some
severe hardship, and a few misadventures,
but without serious disaster,
one of the first things the travellers
did was to avail of a letter of introduction
from the Bolivian minister at
Paris, to obtain an audience of the
president of the republic, General
Belzu, who had just recovered from
wounds inflicted by assassins. One
ball had struck him full in the face,
and his visitors looked curiously for
the trace. A scarcely perceptible
scar, at the angle of the nose, was all
they could discern. The bullet remained
in the head, but occasioned
no inconvenience; and the general
said that his health was even better
than before the occurrence. Some
time afterwards he consulted Dr
Weddell about his wounds, and the
doctor learned, from the best source,
the particulars of the attempt upon
his life, which he briefly recapitulates.
“Raised to the presidency after the
battle of Yamparaës, in which he discomfited
the adherents of Velasco,
General Belzu had not only to struggle
against the remains of that party, but
to defend himself against the secret
and much more formidable attacks of
General Ballivian, Velasco’s predecessor.
It is said to have been at
the instigation of Ballivian that the
plot I have spoken of was formed;
and, in support of this assertion, the
remarkable fact is adduced that, upon
the very day on which the crime was
committed at Chuquisaca, Ballivian
and one of his intimates quitted Copiapo
(in Chili), where they were staying,
and rode in great haste towards
the frontiers of Bolivia.
“The day selected for the crime
was the 6th September 1850. In
the afternoon the president left his
palace, accompanied by an aide-de-camp,
and by Colonel Laguna, one
of the principal members of the senate,
and betook himself to the public walk.
Scarcely had he reached it, when four
men assailed him. He stood upon
his defence, but at that moment a
bullet struck him in the face, and he
fell to the ground. The shot had been
fired so near that his beard was
burnt, and his cheeks were speckled
with grains of powder. A second
shot was fired, but without effect.
When the assassins saw him stretched
upon the earth, they fired three other
shots at him, but, strange to relate,
each time the weapons flashed in the
pan. The chief of the brigands—a
mulatto named Moralès, who was
mounted—then tried to trample him
under his horse’s feet, but without
success. After several efforts, he at
last urged his horse close up to his
victim, and, leaning over him, put a
pistol to his head and fired a last shot.
‘The tyrant is dead!’ he cried, and,
spurring his horse, he galloped through
the streets to the barracks, to excite
the garrison to revolt. Meanwhile
Laguna, the senator, stood by with
folded arms, and when the crime
seemed fully consummated, he walked
away with its perpetrators, thus affording
good grounds for suspicion of his
complicity. He was shot a few days
afterwards.
“As to the president, whose existence,
with two bullets in his head,
seemed almost impossible, he had not
even, he himself assured me, lost consciousness
for a moment; and when
Moralès and his band left him, he
got up unaided, and reached, bathed
in his blood, a neighbouring hut, inhabited
by a poor Indian. The news
quickly spread that the chief of the
state still lived, and the projected
revolution was stifled in its birth.”
The preservation of the president’s
life was little short of a miracle. One
of the bullets had glanced off the skull
without doing material damage beyond
occasioning complete loss of
hearing with the left ear; but the
other had gone so deep into the head
that it could not be extracted. Dr
Weddell probed the wound, and satisfied
himself of the course and position
of the ball. A few hairs’-breadths
farther, or a copper bullet instead of
a leaden one, and all was over with
General Belzu.
The travellers made some stay at
La Paz, where they soon became acquainted
with the principal people in
the place. They passed their time in
paying visits, in seeking useful information
relative to the objects of their
expedition, and in getting dreadfully
out of breath by the ascent of steep
streets in an atmosphere so rarified
that a newly-arrived European can
hardly take ten steps without a pause.
English housewives will read with interest
Dr Weddell’s account of Bolivian
edibles, with disgust his sketch
of the filthy horrors of a Bolivian
kitchen, with wonderment and incredulity
the recipes he gives for the
manufacture of certain Bolivian dishes
and delicacies. The mode of using
potatoes is very original. As it freezes
nearly every night of the year in the
upper regions of the Andes, and the
people have no means of preserving
potatoes from frost, they anticipate
its action, in order to regulate it.
“They spread the potatoes on a thin
layer of straw in the open air; they
water them slightly, and expose them
to the frost for three successive nights.
When the vegetables subsequently
thaw in the sun, they acquire a
spongy consistency; in that state they
are trodden under naked feet, in order
to get rid of the skin and squeeze out
the juice; then they are left in the
air until perfectly dry.” This delectable
preparation is known as the
black chuño; and when wanted for
food, requires soaking in water for six
or eight days. White chuño is prepared
in another way, but one description
of the sort will probably
satisfy everybody of the untempting
nature of the diet. Besides the animal
and vegetable kingdoms, the
mineral reign contributes to the gratification
of South American epicures.
An important section of the market
at La Paz is occupied by sellers of a
species of light-grey clay, very greasy
to the touch, and called pahsa. The
Indians alone consume it, mixing it
with water to the consistency of thin
gruel, and eating it with salt. At
Chuquisaca, Dr Weddell was informed,
a sort of earth called chaco,
similar to the pahsa of La Paz, was
sold and eaten in little cups, like
custard or chocolate; and he heard of
a señorita who thus ate dirt till she
killed herself. The moderate use of
this queer article of food is not injurious,
but neither does it afford the
slightest nourishment.
The beefsteak was long in making
its appearance one day at Don Adolfo’s
gargotte, where Dr Weddell and his
companions usually took their meals,
and an impatient Frenchman started
from his seat to visit the kitchen and
inquire into the delay. “Do not so!”
cried a more experienced customer;
“if you see how it is done, you will
not eat for a week.” Dr Weddell had
opportunity of inspecting more than
one Pazeña kitchen. Besides the
cooks—which we take to be something
indescribably abominable, since he
describes them merely as a degree or
two more disgusting than the scene of
their operations—those kitchens contain
three things,—shapeless earthen
pots, black and greasy; heaps of dried
lama-dung, used as fuel; guinea-pigs
ad libitum. Guinea-pigs are the
rabbits of Bolivia, where European
rabbits are curiosities, called Castilian
conies, and kept in cages like some
outlandish monkey. The guinea-pig
has the run of the kitchen, where he
thrives and fattens, and is ultimately
slaughtered and cooked.
Dr Weddell went to a ball, given
in celebration of the birthday of a
young and amiable Peruvian lady, recently
allied with one of the best
families of La Paz. His account of
it gives a curious notion of the degree
of civilisation of the best Bolivian society.
No illuminated portals, liveried
lackeys, or crowd of carriages indicated
to the doctor (who had not yet
been at the house) the scene of the
festival, when he issued forth, at eight
in the evening, white-waistcoated, and
draped in his cloak. The street was
dark and deserted. By inquiring at
shops, he at last found the door he
sought; it stood open. A little
Indian girl, whom he encountered in
the court, pointed to the staircase, up
which he groped his way. At the
end of a passage, upon the first floor,
he discovered a faint light. Following
this beacon, and passing through
two doors that stood ajar, he reached
a small room, where several of the
guests were smoking cigars round a
table, on which stood half-emptied
cups and glasses. In a corner two
señoras were squatted, making ice;
and a little farther off an old negress
was putting sugar into a caldron of
punch. The ice-makers were the
mother and sister of the heroine of
the day; the master of the house was
amongst the smokers. Dr Weddell
paid his respects, got rid of his cloak,
and passed on into antechamber No.
2. This was in darkness, save for the
glimmering rays of light that shot in
from the adjacent rooms; and the
doctor, seeing nothing, and advancing
quickly, ran up against a soft substance,
which he presently made out
to be another señora, enveloped, even
to the crown of her head, in a vast
shawl. The room was half full of
shawled ladies, seated on either side
of the passage left open for the guests,
some on chairs, others on trunks, and
two or three upon a bed. These
señoras, the doctor learned, were
mothers, friends, or relatives of the
guests. Not being sufficiently smart
to show themselves in the foreground
of the festival, they yet would have a
view of it. They came as mosqueteras.
Antechamber No. 2 contained what is
called, in that country, the mosqueteria.[12]
Another step took the doctor
into the ball-room. Thence shawls
and cigars were banished, and replaced
by silks and lace, white gloves and
black patent leather. Dr Weddell
looked down with some shame at his
boots, which he had himself blacked
before leaving home. Silence reigned
in the saloon. The ladies were on
one side, the men upon the other,
waiting for the military band, which
was behind time. The first tap of the
drum electrified the mute assemblage.
Smiles and animation beamed upon
every face. At the same time were
distributed the fragrant contents of
the caldron which the black Hecate
had brewed in anteroom No. 1. Cups
of punch circulated, and were not disdained
by the ladies. Dancing began.
The doctor, who, whilst climbing
mountains, three days previously, in
quest of flowers and simples, had suffered
terribly from the soroche, and
had counted a hundred and sixty
throbs of his pulse in a minute, was
feverish and ill at ease, and did not
intend to dance. But he was borne
away by the torrent. After the
quadrille came another distribution of
punch, and a proportionate rise in the
ladies’ spirits; then came the ices
which mamma and sister had so industriously
manufactured, and which
were, of course, pronounced excellent;
then (Bolivia seems a very thirsty
country) bottles of champagne and
sherry made their appearance, every
gentleman seized as many glasses as
he could carry, and challenged the
señoritas, who were not allowed to
refuse. The fun now grew fast and
furious. A new phase of the ball
commenced. For formal quadrilles
were substituted national dances.
These, Dr Weddell acutely remarks,
have little merit unless danced as soup
is eaten—hot. The military orchestra
played the airs of the bailesitos with
infinite spirit, one of the musicians
accompanying them with words, in
which there was some license and
much wit. The zapateado was danced
amidst vehement applause. The good-humour
of the evening was at its
height. Farther they could not go,
thought Dr Weddell. He was mistaken.
In an interval of the dancing,
it was decided that a colonel there
present, who, in the doctor’s opinion,
was abundantly gay, was not sufficiently
so, and he was condemned to
be shot. The sentence was forthwith
carried into execution. The victim
was placed upon a chair in the middle
of the room, the band played a funeral
march, and the unhappy (or happy)
colonel was compelled to swallow, one
after the other, as many glasses of
champagne or sherry as there were
young ladies present. This done, the
dead-march ceased, and the culprit
was released. The German students
have a custom somewhat similar to
this, Der Fürst der Thoren, when one
sits astride upon a barrel, and imbibes
all the beer, schnaps, and Rhenish
presented to him by his boon-companions.
But with the exception of
Lola Montes, who smoked her cigar
and drank her chopine in a Heidelberg
studenten-kneipe, the fair sex in
Europe do not generally mingle in
orgies of this kind. After a substantial
supper, Dr Weddell was condemned
to be shot, and shot accordingly.
Other executions followed,
and the jollity reached its climax by
the men voting the execution en masse
of the whole of the ladies—a sentence
which was resisted, but at last carried
out. The Bolivian señoritas must
have strong heads, for we read that
dancing recommenced and continued
vigorously until five in the morning,
when the band and the majority of
the guests beat a retreat. A guitar
was then procured, and the lady of
the house and two or three of her
friends, with half-a-dozen of the most
active of the caballeros, danced on, and
kept up the ball until one in the afternoon!
After which, all we have to
say is, Brava, Bolivia!
Dr Weddell, who had been unwell
before the ball, was very ill after it,
and lay in bed for six weeks. When
his strength returned, he made an excursion
to La Lancha, a point about
four leagues from La Paz. The steps
he and his companions had taken to
obtain concessions of land on the
Tipuani had not led to the results
they anticipated; so they temporarily
directed their attention to the
river Chuquiaguillo, upon which La
Lancha is situated. In the opinion of
the natives, this place is un pozo de
oro—a well of gold. Early one morning
in May the three Frenchmen set
out for it, upon mule-back, passing
along a road enlivened, during its
early portion, with various kinds of
shrubs, bearing flowers of brilliant
colours. At this part of the doctor’s
book we come to a good deal of scientific
detail, accompanied by woodcuts,
all very interesting to miners and intending
gold-seekers, but on which we
shall not dwell. The gold of the
Chuquiaguillo is found in the form of
pépites, or nuggets, very various in
shape and size. One of them, sent
to Spain by the Conde de Moncloa,
is said to have weighed more than
twenty kilogrammes—forty-four English
pounds. At various periods, and
much more recently, nuggets of several
pounds’ weight have been found.
“During the presidency of General
Ballivian, an Indian came from time
to time to La Paz, to sell pieces of
gold, which had the appearance of
being cut with a chisel from a considerable
mass of the metal, and many
persons judged, from the colour, that
the mass in question must proceed
from the river Chuquiaguillo. No
bribe or promise could induce the Indian
to reveal his secret. The affair
got to the ears of the president, who
expected to obtain without difficulty
the information refused to others; but
the Indian held out, and would say
nothing. Finding gentle means ineffectual,
the general tried threats,
imprisonment, &c., but all in vain.
Finally, the poor man was condemned
to life-long service in the army, as
guilty of disobedience and disrespect
to the chief of the state! From that
day forward nothing more was heard
either of him or of his treasure. Some
persons in La Paz told me that he
perished under the lash.”
La Lancha (the word signifies a
boat) is neither town nor village, but
a marsh. On approaching it, up a
ravine, the travellers came to an immense
dike or barrier of rock, through
one extremity of which the river had
wrought itself a narrow passage. This
dike had evidently long been an immense
obstacle to the waters that
flowed down the ravine of Chuquiaguillo,
and it was a rational enough
conclusion that, since those waters
washed down gold, a good deal of the
metal must still remain behind that
natural barrier. But it seemed more
probable that the river gathered its
gold after than before passing the
rocky wall. It struck Dr Weddell as
pretty certain that Count Moncloa’s
nugget would have remained behind
the dike instead of being washed over
it. The conclusion was reasonable
enough. Behind the dike La Lancha
begins, terminating a quarter of a
league above it, at the foot of another
rock, which rises vertically to a height
of thirty feet. Over this rock the
river dashes, covering its surface with
great stalactites of ice, and then winds
along the right side of the marsh,
where it has made itself a channel.
“At one point of its surface the
Lancha contracts, and thus presents
the form of the figure 8. Perhaps
one should seek the figure of a boat,
to which the site has been compared,
in the combination of the marsh and
of the mountains of bluish schist that
rise abruptly around it. According
to this manner of viewing it, the surface
of the marsh would represent the
deck of the vessel, and the gold would
be in the hold—that is to say, on the
rock which is supposed to form the
bottom of the basin. Several attempts
have been made to ascertain the existence
of the precious metal, and we
were told a multitude of attractive
tales—much too attractive to be credible.
The upshot, however, which
could not be concealed, was, that all
attempts had ultimately failed, owing
to the infiltration of water into the
wells sunk in the attempt to reach the
veneros (strata of argillaceous sand) in
which the gold is found.”
Nevertheless, the doctor thought
the place worthy deliberate examination,
and to that end established
himself, with Mr Herrypon the engineer,
and with Franck, their carpenter,
under a tent, within which, during the
night, the thermometer rarely stood
at less than three degrees below zero.
When the sun shone, the climate was
genial and agreeable; but at three
o’clock it dipped behind the mountains,
which was the signal for the
wanderers to creep under canvass,
wrap themselves in blankets, and
feast upon the hot stew their Indian
cook had passed the morning in preparing.
They had neighbours: several
Indians had built huts on the
ledges of the mountains, and daily
drove their sheep and alpacas to graze
upon the herbage of the marsh. From
one of them Dr Weddell subsequently
obtained an alpaca for his collection.
Vicuñas occasionally strayed near the
camp, and Franck managed to shoot
one, which, with viscachas and a few
wild ducks, improved the campaigning
fare.
“Of the feathered inhabitants of
the district, the most curious, unquestionably,
is a species of variegated
woodpecker (Picus rupicola), which,
notwithstanding its name of carpintero
(carpenter), has all the habits of
a mason. Instead of working at trees,
as do its congeners, it finds nothing
in that graminaceous region but rock
and earth upon which to exercise its
beak. These birds are invariably met
with in isolated pairs; they skim the
ground in flying, and settle, after a
few moments’ flight, upon a sod or
rock, uttering a long, shrill, cooing
sound. If one is killed, it is rare that
its mate does not come and place itself
beside the dead body, as if imploring
a similar fate—a request which the
sportsman is not slow to comply with,
for the carpintero of the Cordilleras is
a dainty morsel.”
Whilst Dr Weddell herborised,
adding nearly a hundred species of
plants to his collection, the engineer
studied the Lancha with other views,
and at last resolved to sound it. Mr
Borniche, who had remained at La
Paz, obtained authorisation from the
Government—el derecho de cateo, or
right of search, in the whole of the
Lancha, during a fixed time, at the
end of which he might, if he thought
proper, purchase the ground at its
rough value, fixed without reference
to any mineral wealth it might contain.
All this in accordance with the
Mining Code. But poor Herrypon
knew not what he undertook. He
had no idea of mining difficulties in
Bolivia. In this single operation he
took the measure of the country’s
capabilities. A month and a half
passed in hammering out, in a forge at
La Paz, a common and very clumsy
Artesian screw, such as would have
been got ready in three days in a
European city, and at a cost considerably
less than that of the coal consumed
in the Bolivian smithy. The
mere hire of the forge and bellows-blower
was four dollars (sixteen shillings)
a-day. When at last the instrument
was ready and applied, layers
of solid rock and a thick bed of diffluent
clay long frustrated all the miners’
attempts. Finally, a deep well was
sunk, but no gold was found, nor signs
of any, and the miners quitted the
place, where nothing less than the
certainty of ultimately reaching a rich
vein would have justified them in continuing
their costly and laborious researches.
A second illness, by which he was
attacked before he had fully recovered
from the debilitating effects of the
first, determined Dr Weddell to seek
change of air. Whilst his engineering
ally was still sinking wells and unprofitably
probing the Lancha, he set out
with Mr Borniche for Tipuani. Passing
the magnificent Mount Illampŭ,
which is upwards of seven thousand
English yards high, and the great lake
of Titicaca, they reached the town of
Sorata, after an easy journey of thirty
leagues. A toilsome one of forty remained
to be accomplished before they
should reach Tipuani. The roads were
difficult, their muleteers fell ill, their
mules were stubborn and restive, and
mal-pasos (dangerous places to pass)
were numerous; but after a few small
accidents and much fatigue they
reached the village, which derives its
name from tipa, the name of a tree
that produces a gum known in that
country as sangre de drago—dragon’s
blood. This tree, it is said, was formerly
very abundant in the valley of
Tipuani. In the aymara, or Indian
tongue, the particle ni, added to a
word, implies possession. The village
consists of fifty or sixty houses, built
chiefly of palm trunks, placed side by
side, thatched with leaves of the same
tree, and partitioned, when partitions
there are, with bamboos. “I found
the place somewhat increased in size
since my visit in 1847, but no way
improved with respect to healthiness
and cleanliness. At its entrance,
stagnant water, covered with a green
scum, filled old excavations, or diggings,
and told that there, as in California,
gold and fever are inseparable.
It sufficed, moreover, to behold the
pallid countenances of the inhabitants,
to judge of the atmosphere we
breathed.” This was hardly the place
for an invalid to recruit his health
and strength in, and, after visiting the
mines, Dr Weddell set out for the
Mission of Guanay, boating it down
the rapid and rocky Tipuani—a rather
dangerous mode of travelling.
The priest of the Mission was an aymara
Indian, a native of La Paz; his
parishioners were Lecos Indians, considerable
savages—although they had
abjured paint, or only secretly used it—and
very skilful with gun and bow,
as well as in the capture of several
large species of fish found in the river
Mapiri, hard by which they dwelt.
Some of these fish attain the weight
of nearly a hundred pounds. They
are taken with strong hooks, shot with
arrows, or hocussed and taken by
hand. This last practice prevails
amongst some other South American
tribes.
“The substance employed for this
purpose by the Guanay Indians is the
milky juice of one of the largest trees
of their forests, known by them under
the name of Soliman. It is the Hura
crepitans of the botanist. To obtain
this venomous milk, they cut numerous
notches in the bark of the tree,
and the sap which exudes runs down
and soaks the earth at its foot. This
earth, enclosed in a large sack, is
thrown into the river, and as soon as
the water becomes impregnated with
it, the fish within the circle of its influence
float inanimate upon the surface,
and are collected without trouble.
A creek or small branch of the river
is usually selected for this operation.
In other parts of Bolivia, and especially
in the province of Yungas, they
use, to poison the water, the green
stalk of a small liana called Pepko or
Sacha, of which they crush, upon a
stone, a fathom’s length or two, in
that part of the river they wish to infect.
Its effect is said to be as speedy
as that of the Soliman sap, and I was
assured that the fish thus taken could
be eaten with impunity. It is not to
be thence inferred that the sap, like
the poison used for their arrows by the
Indians of Guiana and on the Amazon,
may be taken by man without injury;
it is to the extreme smallness of
the dose swallowed with the fish that
its apparent harmlessness is to be attributed.
The sap of the Soliman has,
in fact, such caustic qualities, that its
mere emanations cause violent irritation
of the organs which receive them.
We saw at the Mission a person who
had lost his sight in consequence of a
few drops of this juice having accidentally
spirted into his eyes; and Messrs
Boussingault and Rivero related that,
having subjected the sap of the Soliman
to evaporation, with a view to
analyse it, the person who superintended
the operation had his face
swollen and his eyes and ears ulcerated,
and was cured only after several
days’ medical treatment.”
Bolivia is evidently a fine field for
the botanist. Dr Weddell mentions
a number of vegetables unknown, or
little known, in Europe, but interesting
and valuable by reason of their
medical properties or economical uses.
When in the province of Yungas, he
briefly refers to two or three of the
principal of these: “The Matico, a
shrub of the pepper tribe, whose leaves,
which resemble those of sage, have remarkable
vulnerary properties; the
Vejuco, a curious species of Aristolochia,
whose crushed leaves are said to
be an infallible cure for the bites of
serpents; and a sort of Myrica, or
wax-tree, whose berries, soaked in
boiling water, yield in abundance a
green wax, used to make candles.”
Concerning the Quinquina, or Peruvian bark
tree, and the Coca shrub,
whose leaves the Indians chew, the
doctor gives many interesting particulars.
When descending the river
Coroico in a balsa or Indian canoe, he
frequently encountered his old acquaintances
the cascarilleros, or bark-gatherers,
who pursue their wild and
solitary calling in the interior of the
forests, dwelling under sheds of palm-leaves,
and exposed to many dangers
and hardships. Whilst seeking, one
evening, a good place to bivouac, the
doctor, and the padre from the Guanay
Mission, who was then his fellow-traveller,
came upon a cascarillero’s
hut, in front of which they beheld a
horrible spectacle. A man lay upon
the ground in the agonies of death.
He was almost naked; and, whilst yet
alive, he was preyed upon by thousands
of insects, whose stings and bites
doubtless accelerated his end. “His
face, especially, was so much swollen
that its features could not be distinguished;
and his limbs, the only portion
of this corpse which still moved,
were in an equally hideous state.
Under the roof of leaves was the remainder
of the poor wretch’s clothes,
consisting of a straw hat and a ragged
blanket; beside them lay a flint and
steel, and an old knife. A small
earthen pot contained the remains of
his last meal—a little maize, and two
or three frozen potatoes. For a few
seconds the missionary contemplated
this piteous object, then made a step
towards the unfortunate man, and was
about, I thought, to offer him some
assistance, at least of a spiritual nature,
but his courage failed him; and,
suddenly turning away, he walked
hastily to his balsa, and had himself
rowed to a place some hundred yards
farther, upon the opposite bank of the
river.” In fact, the tortured bark-gatherer
was beyond human aid, and
on the brink of death. Dr Weddell
covered him with his blanket, and returned
to the boats.
We have dipped but into a few
chapters of this compendious volume
of nearly six hundred pages. A large
portion of its contents are more interesting
to naturalists and miners than
to the general reader. Dr Weddell’s
investigations are of a comprehensive
nature, including the animal, vegetable,
and mineral kingdoms, extending
to an analysis of the various Indian
languages of the country, and even
to Bolivian music, of which he furnishes
specimens. A map, some useful
illustrations, an excellent table of
contents, and headings to the chapters,
give the work a completeness not so
common in French as in English publications
of this nature. Having
adopted it for examination as a book
of travel, and not of scientific and
mining research, we recommend the numerous
chapters we have not touched
upon to those classes of readers to
which they especially address themselves,
and turn to Mr Pavie’s sketches
of countries adjacent to those in which
Dr Weddell has more recently wandered.
It does not appear, from the
former gentleman’s book, that his
rambles had any more serious motive
than love of locomotion, and a curiosity
to view strange lands. The form
he has adopted, and the modest pretensions
announced in his preface, relieving
him of most of the responsibility
to which writers of travel usually
hold themselves subject, he gives
no account of himself, is very desultory,
and does not take the trouble to
supply dates. We collect, however,
from his volume and preface, that
some years have elapsed since his
travels were performed, and that he
was then a young man, eager for adventure,
and enthusiastic for local peculiarities
and national characteristics.
It is with a view to variety, he tells
us, that he has jumbled the sections
of his book, and irregularly distributed
those of them which have a natural
order and sequence of their own. It
was about twenty years ago—as we
gather from the internal evidence of
the chapters—that Mr Pavie left
Buenos Ayres for Valparaiso, by the
route across the Pampas. The moment
was not particularly well chosen
for such a journey. Anarchy was at
its height in South America, and especially
in the country of the Argentine
republic. There was strife between
federalists and unitarians. The
Indians, resuming the offensive, had
committed many depredations, and
defeated the volunteers of the province
of Cordova. The roads were far from
safe; impediments and stoppages were
numerous, and two months were consumed
by the journey from La Plata
to the Cordillera, a distance of three
hundred leagues. When at only four
days’ march from the Andes, snow
fell, and a halt was called in the poor
little town of Mendoza. The mountains
were white from foot to summit;
there was no possibility of crossing
them; patience must be cultivated,
and spring waited for. In these
dull winter-quarters Mr Pavie had
abundant leisure to note down the
incidents of his two months’ journey,
to gather characteristic traits of
the people, and striking anecdotes of
the war. We shall take him up, however,
at an earlier period of his expedition,
when he was but a week out
from Buenos Ayres. He had traversed
the province of the same name and
that of Santa Fé, and hoped to reach
the town of Cordova upon the following
night. A forest succeeded to bare
and monotonous plains. The horses
trotted briskly over a light sandy soil,
refreshed by numerous streams; the
country was smiling, the vegetation
rich. It still wanted two hours of
sunset, and another league would
bring the travellers to the post-house
of the esquina—the Corner—situated
at the junction of the two high-roads
which connect the Pacific and the Atlantic—one
leading northwards, to
Bolivia and Peru, the other south-west,
to Chili, passing through St Luis
and Mendoza. Mr Pavie would have
availed himself of the remaining daylight
to push on a stage farther, but a
young Cordovan, who accompanied
him, and who was a lively and pleasant
fellow, urged him to pass the
night at the esquina. It was kept by
a widow, he said, a certain Doña Ventura,
whose eggs with tomata sauce
were quite beyond praise, and whose
daughter Pepa sang like a nightingale.
It was a long road from that to Santiago
de Chili—three hundred leagues,
besides the Andes to cross, and the
season was advanced, but Mr Pavie
was unwilling to disoblige his friend.
“An old gaucho, the widow’s managing
man, came out to receive us.
Whilst the horses were unharnessed,
a lad of twelve or thirteen, beautiful
as one of Murillo’s shepherds—who
was hurling stones at the wild pigeons
perched upon the fig-trees—threw
his sling across his shoulder, and ran
into the house, crying out—‘Mother!
mother! here is Don Mateo with
some foreign señores.’ Don Mateo,
our Cordovan friend, went to see
after dinner, and to inform the post-mistress
that we should not need
horses before the next morning.
The travellers’ room was tolerably
clean, and very large. Its sole furniture
consisted of a small lamp burning
before an image of the Virgin,
and of a guitar suspended from a nail.
When dinner was ready, Doña Ventura
brought in immense arm-chairs,
covered with leather and gilt nails,
and evidently made at Granada in
the time of the Catholic kings. Some
very brisk peasant girls (cholas), who
said nothing, but looked a great deal,
laid the table, and placed upon it the
promised eggs and tomatas, and large
salad-bowls containing lumps of roast
meat swimming in gravy. Pimento
had not been spared. The soup was
brought to us, according to the custom
of the country, at the end of the
repast. The post-mistress, seated
upon the estrade or platform that
extended completely round the room,
triumphed in our famous appetites,
and proudly drew herself up whenever
one of us paid her a more or less
exaggerated compliment on the excellence
of her dinner. Pepa, a handsome
girl, with a remarkably white
skin and fresh complexion, stood near
her, smoking a cigarrito, and gazing
about with her great blue eyes, which
were shaded by long dark lashes.
Juancito, the boy with the sling,
rambled round the table, and unceremoniously
tasted the Bordeaux wine
in our glasses. Dinner cleared away,
Mateo took down the guitar and presented
it to Pepa: ‘Señorita,’ he said,
‘these gentlemen would be enchanted
to hear you sing; favour them with
a ballad, and they will consider you
the most amiable girl—la mas preciosa
niña—in the entire province.’
We were about to add our entreaties
to those of Mateo, but the young girl
had already tuned the instrument;
and, without coughing, complaining
of a cold, or waiting to be asked
again, she sang half-a-dozen very
long songs. At the end of every
verse Mateo applauded. Pepa certainly
had a charming voice, which
she did not badly manage. Gradually
her countenance grew animated.
From time to time she stopped
and exclaimed—‘Ay, Jesus! I am
dead!’ and then went on again.
Doña Ventura at last began to accompany
her daughter’s song. At
every chorus we slapped the table
with the palms of our hands; and
Mateo, imitating castanets with his
fingers, danced like a madman in the
middle of the hall.”
This thoroughly Spanish-American
scene was interrupted by the arrival
of fifteen waggons, each drawn by six
oxen, and laden with dried fruits,
cotton, and bales of horse-hair. They
drew up in line upon the open space
in whose centre stood the post-house.
The oxen, unharnessed, joined the
reserve drove which followed the convoy,
in charge of a dozen horsemen;
and from the innermost recesses of
the vehicles there emerged bullock-drivers,
women, children, passengers
of all ages and of motley aspect, who
had joined the caravan in order to
get over three hundred leagues at
small expense. Some ran to cut
wood, others to fetch water. Fires
were lighted, and enormous slices of
meat set to roast before them upon
spits stuck in the ground. Every
convoy of this kind is under the orders
of a capataz or chief. This one
was commanded by a certain Gil
Perez, whose arrival seemed of strong
interest to Doña Ventura and her
daughter. Pepa hastened to adorn
herself with a silk shawl, the gaudy
product of a Lyons loom, and with a
fashionable Buenos Ayres comb, a
foot high. His camp established, Gil
Perez entered the house with a beaming
countenance. He had brought
presents for everybody;—a scarf and
satin shoes for Pepa, a Peruvian gold
chain for her mother, a dirk for Juancito.
In Spanish countries acquaintance
is soon made. His gifts distributed,
Perez sat down and chatted
with Don Mateo and the other travellers;
whilst the bullock-drivers,
the cholas, and the postilions of the
esquina, were dancing outside. By
and by, Perez, who had been out to
look after his people, announced the
approach of more travellers, indicated
by a cloud of dust in the south-east.
Juancito went out to reconnoitre, and
reported that the muleteers from San
Juan were close at hand. Pepa and
her mother exchanged a rapid glance.
The muleteers halted at some distance
from the posting-house, and
unloaded their beasts, each of which
carried two barrels of brandy. Their
chief dismounted and walked towards
the house, his saddle-bags over his
shoulder. Walking rapidly and on
tiptoe, on account of the long steel
spurs which he dragged at his heels,
he knocked at Doña Ventura’s door.
Juancito answered.
“Gil Perez looked at the muleteer
pretty much as an admiral might look
at the humble master of a merchantman.
The muleteer, disconcerted at
finding the room full of strange faces,
to say nothing of that of the capataz,
which seemed greatly to incommode
him, paused near the door for some
seconds.
“‘Come in, Fernando,’ said Doña
Ventura; ‘you are surprised to see
my Pepita in full dress, eh, my lad?
We have had an arrival of gentlemen.
Will you sup? I have some puchero
at hand.’
“‘Thanks, señora,’ replied Fernando;
‘I want nothing. You know
that I never pass this way without
calling to see Pepita. I have brought
you a little barrel of the best brandy
that has been tasted at San Juan for
many a year.’
“‘Is the brandy for Pepa?’ said
Gil Perez.
“‘Don Gil,’ replied the muleteer,
‘every one gives what he has, and
according to his means.’ Then, turning
to the young girl—‘Pepita,’ he
said, ‘when you were a child you
liked the tarts made in our mountains;
I have brought you some, and
of the best peaches.’
“Whilst speaking, he drew from
his saddle-bags the little barrel of
brandy, and a dozen square cakes
filled with a thick marmalade, which
seemed particularly grateful to the
gums of Juancito. Then he sat himself
down near Pepa, and looked
proudly at the captain of the waggons.
“‘How many beasts have you?’
said the latter.
“‘Fifteen, besides saddle-horses.’
“‘Just as many as I have carts.
Not so bad, really. You carry thirty
casks—half a load for one of my waggons.
Pshaw! what can you earn?
A poor trade is yours, my lad, and
you will follow it long before you
grow rich.’
“‘When I am tired of it,’ replied
Fernando, ‘I will try another.’ The
muleteer spoke these words in a singular
tone.
“‘Fernando is stout-hearted,’ said
Doña Ventura, ‘and he will do well
yet; and he will find, somewhere in
his own province, a pretty girl with
a good dowry. Eh, Fernando?’
“Fernando made no reply, but
pulled down his little pointed hat
over his forehead;—his eyes glittered
like those of a cat. Seizing the guitar,
which lay upon the bench beside
Pepa, he strummed it with an absent
air, like one absorbed by his thoughts.
Juancito, who stood before him, waiting
doubtless for the end of the prelude,
and for the commencement of
some lively mountain ditty, pushed
his arm, and said—‘Fernando, have
you seen the fine presents Gil Perez
has brought us?’ Without raising
his eyes, the muleteer sang, in a low
voice, this verse of an old ballad:—
Then suddenly throwing down the
guitar, he jumped upon the estrade,
extinguished the lamp that burned
before the Madonna, and clapped his
hand to his knife. Pepa took refuge
close to her mother. At the cry she
uttered, Gil Perez stood upon his
guard; but Fernando passed close by
him without looking at him, and
reached the door. ‘Ah, Pepita!’
muttered he as he went out, ‘you
will drive me to harm!’ And he disappeared.”
This stormy episode broke up the
party. Agitated and alarmed, Doña
Ventura and her daughter betook
themselves to their bedchambers.
The travellers wrapped themselves in
their blankets—Mr Pavie establishing
himself, according to his custom,
in their coche-galera, or travelling-carriage,
where he slept but little,
owing to the songs and dancing of
the waggon-drivers, and the screaming
of innumerable parrots. The
night passed without incident, and
at daybreak he was roused by Mateo.
The horses were ready; the San Juan
muleteers were already on their road;
Gil Perez, foot in stirrup, was directing
the departure of his convoy.
That evening the travellers reached
Cordova.
Several months had elapsed since
the scene at the esquina, and Mr
Pavie, after rambling through Chili
and Pern, returned to Santiago, the
capital of the former country. Looking
on, one night, at a dance in a
public garden, he fell in with his old
acquaintance, Don Mateo, somewhat
threadbare, but still a passionate
lover of song and dance. One of the
political changes so common in South
America had driven him across the
Andes. He was an exile, proscribed
in his own country. His party had
fallen, his patrimony had been swallowed
up by fines, and he deemed
himself fortunate to have saved his
neck.
“Do you remember,” said Mateo,
as he leaned beside his French friend
upon the parapet bordering the Tajamar,
and gazed at the summits of the
Cordillera, which still reflected a last
gleam of sun—“do you recollect one
evening at the esquina? Well, of all
the persons then assembled under
Doña Ventura’s hospitable roof, and
including her and her daughter, how
many, do you suppose, still live?
Two, you and I! The first scene of
the drama passed before your eyes.
I will narrate those that ensued. You
have not forgotten our merry supper
at the posting-house, Gil Perez and
his waggons, and Fernando, the little
muleteer with the long spurs?”
Mr Pavie perfectly remembered all
that had passed at the esquina. Mateo
took up the tale from the moment of
their departure. Although Fernando
and Gil Perez started nearly at the
same moment, they met no more until
they reached Buenos Ayres. The
aria (string of mules) trotted briskly
over the plain, whilst the heavy waggons
lingered in the ruts. Four days
had elapsed since Fernando’s arrival,
when Perez reached his usual halting-ground
near the hill of the Retiro,
and, after turning out his cattle to
graze, rode into the city. As soon as
he was gone, the bullock-drivers, a vagabond
and insubordinate race, gathered
round the camp-fires to discuss
the news that had reached them of
insurrections in the inland provinces.
Most of these wild gauchos felt sorely
tempted to exchange goad for lance,
and join the armed bands then scouring
the country. To gallop in boundless
plains, to pillage isolated farms,
and attack hamlets—such was the
fascinating perspective that offered
itself to their imagination. Whilst
they were debating the probable
course of events in the tierra adentro,
Fernando came by. He was on foot;
his long spurs were still at his heels.
“‘Ha!’ cried the bullock-drivers,
‘here is the little muleteer, the
brandy-merchant from San Juan!
Give us a barrel, Fernando, and we
will drink your health.’
“‘Give me something to eat,’ replied
the muleteer, ‘I am fasting since
yesterday.’
“And cutting a slice off a great
piece of beef that roasted at the fire,
he took one end of it in his fingers,
put the other into his mouth, and
swallowed it at a single gulp, as a
lazzarone swallows an ell of macaroni.
Then he wiped his knife on his
cowskin boot and lay down under a
cart to sleep. When Gil Perez returned
and walked round his camp,
he saw the muleteer, who was snoring
on the grass.
“‘Hallo, Fernando!’ he cried,
‘what do you there, my man?’
“‘Resting myself,’ replied Fernando,
rubbing his eyes, ‘I have
passed four days and nights playing
at cards.’
“‘Have you won?’
“‘Lost everything—my load of
brandy, my mules, all I had in the
world. Lend me twenty dollars, Gil
Perez?’
“‘To gamble them?’
“‘Perhaps. See, I was a steady
man; I never played, and you are cause
that I am perhaps about to become a
robber. I have known Pepa from
her childhood; her mother received
me well, saw that I loved her daughter,
and encouraged me to work and
increase my little trade. Every trip
I made I never missed calling at the
esquina, and every trip I found Pepa
prettier than before. She received
me joyfully, and I was happy. But
since two years that you have gone
that road, all is changed. With your
gold chains and silk shawls you have
turned their heads. Lend me twenty
dollars, that I may make them presents
and regain their favour. You
are rich, Gil Perez—you will find a
wife in the towns, at Salta, Cordova,
where you please; I am poor, but I
love Pepita, the only girl who would
not refuse me, ruined though I be.’”
Surprised at the muleteer’s frank explanation
and request, Gil Perez offered
him the twenty dollars, but laughed
at the idea of abandoning his pretensions
to Pepita. Fernando refused
the money, and departed with a muttered
threat. That night he took to
the plain, mounted on a fine horse and
bearing gold in his girdle—the spoils
of a traveller he had waylaid and murdered.
The die was cast; the honest
muleteer had become a gaucho malo.
A few days after this, Fernando
rode up to the esquina. Little Juancito
ran to kiss him. Torribio, the
steward, surprised to see him come
alone, riding a valuable horse and
without his usual retinue of mules and
muleteers, hurried out to meet him.
“Amigo!” he cried, “whence come
you, thus finely equipped? It seems
the San Juan brandy fetches a good
price in the market!” Without replying,
Fernando abruptly opened the
door and addressed the two women,
astonished at his sudden appearance.
“The gauchada is about to take
the field,” he said, “and I greatly fear
that one of its earliest visits will be
for you. I have friends in its ranks;
give me your daughter, Doña Ventura,
and I answer for her safety and yours.’
“‘Since when are you allied with
the brigands, Fernando?’ indignantly
demanded Doña Ventura.
“‘Pepita,’ said the muleteer, evading
reply, ‘will you have me?—You
tremble—you turn away your head!—Are
you afraid of me, Pepita? Do
you take me for a bandit?’
“There was something terrible in
the sound of Fernando’s voice, which
even the passionate love he still felt
for Pepa was insufficient to soften.
The young girl in vain endeavoured
to speak.
“‘Fernando,’ cried Doña Ventura,
‘when last you were here, you left my
house like a madman, your hand on
the haft of your knife; you enter it
to-day like a bandit, with threats upon
your lips. Begone, and return no
more; I need not your protection.’
“‘Ha! you mean to say that Gil
Perez will protect you. Reckon upon
that! There are times when fine
shawls and gold chains are not worth
sabre and carbine. After all, I too
have gold! See here. Once more,
Pepita, will you follow me? I am no
longer a muleteer; it was too base a
trade, was it not? Shall I carry you
off on my horse’s crupper into the
sierra of Cordova and to Chili?’”
Pepa, frightened at the gaucho’s
fierce voice and vehement manner,
burst into tears and fainted in her
mother’s arms. Fernando hastily left
the house, his love—the last good sentiment
his heart retained—exchanged
for bitter hate.
It was not long after this incident,
early upon a winter’s morning, that
Gil Perez, riding ahead of his waggons,
which had camped on the banks
of the Rio Salado, discerned at the
horizon a dozen black specks that rapidly
approached him. Soon he made
them out to be horsemen, armed some
with lances, others with rifles. Deeming
them suspicious, he rode back and
formed his caravan in order of battle.
The waggons were arranged in a circle,
the bullocks inwards; arms were distributed
to the men, and from between
the waggons the muzzles of pistols
and blunderbusses menaced those who
should assail the fortress. These arrangements
were scarcely made when
the party of horsemen slackened speed,
and one of them rode forward alone.
At twenty paces from the waggons he
drew rein and removed the handkerchief,
which partly concealed his face.
“‘Don Gil,’ cried the horseman,
‘confess that the little muleteer Fernando
has given you a famous fright.’
“‘It is you,’ replied Perez, ‘what
do you here? what do you want of
us?’
“‘I have changed my trade, amigo;
did I not once tell you that when I
should be tired of mule-driving, I had
another trade in view? I am now an
ostrich hunter. A fine flock escaped
from us this morning. Have you not
met it?’
“‘Another poor trade that you have
taken to,’ replied Perez. ‘If that be
all you have to say to me, there was no
need to charge down upon us with
your comrades like a band of robbers.
When you first came in sight there
were some ostriches about a mile in
front of me; if those are what you
seek, continue your hunt and leave
us to continue our journey.’
“During this parley, the bullock-drivers,
believing danger past, ceased
to stand upon the defensive; Fernando’s
comrades slowly approached and
carelessly mingled with them, rolling
their cigarritos and entering into conversation.
Although suspecting no
treachery, Perez hesitated to resume
his march so long as Fernando and
his band were there. Thus the halt
was prolonged, and the ostriches, no
longer frightened by the creaking of
wheels, reappeared upon a rising
ground behind which they had taken
refuge.
“‘Don Gil,’ exclaimed Fernando,
‘I will wager that my horse, which
has already done ten leagues to-day,
will overtake one of those birds sooner
than yours, fresh though he be.’
“‘I have no time to try,’ replied
Perez, annoyed at the delay; ‘the
place is not safe, and I am in haste to
see the houses of Cordova.’
“‘Pshaw! a five minutes’ ride,’
said the muleteer; ‘come, one gallop,
and I will rid you of my company,
and of that of my friends, with which
you do not seem over and above
pleased.’
“‘So be it then,’ answered Perez,
‘and then I must be off;’ and he
set spurs to his horse. Fernando
rode so close to him that their knees
touched. The gauchos and drivers
shouted to excite the two horses,
which seemed to fly over the plain;
and the ostriches, finding themselves
pursued, fled their fastest, stretching
out their necks, beating the air
with their short wings, and furrowing
the ocean of tall herbage by rapid
zigzags right and left. The two
horsemen gained upon them. The
furious race had lasted at least ten
minutes, when Fernando fell into the
rear. Gil Perez, looking back to calculate
the distance that separated
them, saw him brandishing a set of
balls as big as his fist.[14] ‘Amigo,’
cried he, without stopping, ‘those
balls are big enough to catch a wild
horse.’ Whilst he sought, in his
girdle, the small leaden balls he proposed
throwing round the ostrich’s
neck, his horse fell, his fore-legs entangled
in the ropes that had just
quitted the muleteer’s hands. The
violence of the fall was in proportion
to the rapidity of the ride. On beholding
his rival roll in the dust,
Fernando uttered a triumphant shout.
Perez, who had fallen upon his left
side, sought to extricate his sabre in
order to cut the terrible cord which
shackled his horse’s legs. The poor
brute, panting and covered with foam,
struggled violently for release. Before
Gil Perez could draw his weapon,
the muleteer was on foot and held him
by the throat.
“‘You are a traitor and a coward!’
cried the unfortunate Perez, giddy
from his fall, and trying to shake his
enemy off. ‘You have led me into
a snare to murder me!’
“‘That is not all,’ coolly replied the
muleteer. ‘Look yonder; you see
that smoke, it proceeds from your
waggons. The plain is on fire. ’Tis
you whom I was hunting, carretero
(waggoner); but for you I should
still be a muleteer. I have become
a brigand. I have seen Pepa; she
rejects me. The traitor, I say, is
you, who have ruined all my hopes.’
“Perez was active and vigorous: on
equal terms his enemy would not have
dared contend with him; but surprise
and terror paralysed his strength.
After deliberately stabbing him, Fernando
passed a rope round his neck,
and, as he still breathed, dragged him
to a neighbouring stream and threw
him into the water.”
Gil Perez dead, most of his men,
who had arms and were more than a
match for the banditti, joined the latter,
plundered the waggons, killed the
oxen, and departed with their new
comrades, those who had no horses
riding double. Fernando promised
to take them to a place where they
could mount themselves well. He
kept his word. One night, old Torribio,
who, ever since Fernando’s
visit and the commencement of the
civil war, had kept vigilant watch,
and frequently patrolled the neighbourhood
of the esquina, thought he
heard voices in the forest. He bridled
up the horses, which he always had
ready-saddled in the stable, and entreated
his mistress and her daughter
to escape by the Cordova road. The
two women got upon the same horse;
Torribio, armed with sabre and carbine,
mounted another, to escort them;
Juancito, not understanding the danger,
leaped, light and laughing, into
his saddle, whip in hand, and his sling
over his shoulder. The little party
set out. They would have escaped
an enemy to whom the locality was
not familiar. But Fernando had
placed spies round the posting-house,
and lay in ambush upon the road to
Cordova. A bullet from Torribio’s
carbine grazed the brigand’s cheek;
the next moment the faithful old servant
lay in the road, his skull cleft
by a sabre-cut. Juancito escaped
into the forest. His mother and
sister did the same, but were captured
and taken back to the posting-house,
which was pillaged and afterwards
burnt. The outlaws then departed.
Doña Ventura had supplied them
plentifully with brandy, hoping to
escape during their intoxication, but
Fernando drank nothing. When the
moment came for departure, he lifted
Pepa upon his horse, repulsed with
his foot her despairing mother—who
in vain struggled and clung to her
child—and rode off. Pepita, more
dead than alive, uttered lamentable
cries. The muleteer heeded them
not, but sang the lines he had sung
upon the memorable night when he
found Gil Perez at the posting-house,
and left it with a sombre prediction
that Pepa would drive him to evil.
“No estès tan contenta, Juana,
En ver me penar por ti;
Que lo que hoy fuere de mi,
Podrá ser de ti mañana.”
Doña Ventura’s fate is not upon
record; she is believed to have perished
of hunger, misery, and cold.
Juancito lost his way in the pampas.
Although bred in the desert, the poor
boy had not sufficient experience to
guide himself by sun and stars. It
was never known how long he held
out. Not many days after his flight,
there was found, upon the frontier of
the Indian country, a child’s corpse,
which was supposed to be his. A
whip hung from the wrist, and a sling
was over the shoulder. The birds of
prey had made a skeleton of the body.
The fate of poor Pepita was far
worse even than that of her mother
and brother. Forced to follow the
fortunes of the gaucho malo and his
band, she was compelled to enliven
their bivouacs by song and dance.
At first, even the rude desperados
amongst whom she had fallen, were
inclined to pity her sufferings, but
soon they imitated the contempt with
which Fernando treated her. Elegantly
dressed, she accompanied them
everywhere; she was their ballet-dancer
and opera-singer. Her duty
was to amuse those who rarely addressed
but to insult her. She was
known in the country as the wife of
the gaucho malo. Sometimes, in the
night, when the robbers, overcome by
fatigue, slept to the last man, she
might have escaped; but whither
could she fly? Their halts were
generally in places remote from all
habitations; and even had she reached
a farm or village, what sort of welcome
would there have been for the
supposed wife of the gaucho malo and
accomplice of his misdeeds?
“After several months,” Mateo continued,
“passed in rambling about
the plains, Fernando, emboldened by
impunity and success, approached the
villages. Other bands, better organised
and more numerous than his own,
spread terror through the province of
Cordova. He profited by the general
confusion to take share in the fight,
like a privateer who spreads his sails
in the wake of friendly frigates. The
militia, called out to oppose the insurgents
who threatened the town of
Cordova, were beaten. The town
remained in the power of the horsemen
of the plain, and the militia
could not return to their homes, of
which the enemy had taken possession.
They were forced to fly, exchanging
a few parting shots with
roving corps that sought to impede
their escape. I was of the number
of the fugitives. The company to
which I belonged daily diminished.
Every man secretly betook himself to
the place where he hoped an asylum.
Only twenty of us remained together,
resolved to make for the western provinces,
and to cross the Andes into
Chili: we had two hundred leagues
to get over before putting the frontier
between us and the enemy.
“One evening, as we were riding
through the sierra of Cordova, we
noticed a bivouac amongst the rocks.
‘Shall we reconnoitre that camp?’ I
asked of the officer who commanded
us. ‘They are gauchos,’ he replied;
‘it is almost dark, we can pass them
unperceived: the robbers are not fond
of fighting when there is no chance
of booty;’ and we silently continued
our march. By the light of the bivouac
fires, we made out a dozen
horsemen seated on the ground upon
their saddles. Their lances were piled
in a sheaf in the middle of the camp;
before them a woman was dancing,
her figure and movements clearly defined
against the bright fire-light.
They did not hear us; we marched
at a walk, pistol in bridle, hand and
carbine on thigh. We had already
passed the bivouac unperceived, and
were closing up our files preparatory to
starting off at a gallop—it was no use
fighting, the game was already lost—when
a young man in the rearguard
imprudently fired at the group. In
an instant, the gauchos were armed
and on horseback. Then they paused
for a moment to see whence the danger
came. We set up a loud shout,
which the echoes repeated. The gauchos
were terrified. Whilst they hesitated
to assume the offensive, we
turned their camp. They fired half-a-dozen
carbines at us, but hit nobody.
Those who had no firearms went about
and ran, and their example was quickly
followed by the rest of the band.
Their flight was accelerated by the
shots we sent after them. A few fell,
but we did not stop to count the dead.
This useless victory might betray our
flight; our best plan was now to hasten
on through the ravines, and avoid for
the future all similar encounters.
“During the skirmish, the woman
who had been dancing before the fire
had disappeared. We thought no
more of her. Suddenly, as we formed
up, a shadow passed before the head of
the column. ‘Who goes there?’ cried
the officer, and we quickly reloaded.
‘Who goes there?’ he repeated, probing
with his sabre the bushes that bordered
the path. We listened, and presently
we heard a plaintive moan, followed
by sobs. ‘It is a wounded man,’
said the officer: ‘so much the worse for
him, the devil a doctor have we here!’
“‘Señores caballeros,’ cried the
mysterious being that was thus hid
in the darkness, ‘have pity upon me—save
me! He is dead! I am free!
Ah! mother, mother!’...
“The officer had dismounted; a
young girl threw her arms round his
neck, repeating the words: ‘Save me—he
is dead!’ We had all halted.
‘It is the dancing-girl,’ said the men;
‘she detains us here to give time to
her friends to return. It is the wife
of the gaucho malo.’
“‘I am Pepa Flores,’ she vehemently
replied, ‘the daughter of Doña
Ventura of the esquina! Ah, señores,
you are honest people, you are!
Never, never have I been Fernando’s
wife. Is there none here who knows
Doña Ventura?’
“I at once recognised Pepa’s voice.
‘She speaks the truth,’ I cried; ‘I will
answer for her. Come, Pepita, you
have nothing to fear with us.’
“Fernando had perished in the
skirmish. It was perhaps my hand
that had terminated the career of the
formidable bandit, and liberated Pepita.
When she learned that her mother
was dead—I myself was obliged
to impart to her the mournful fact,
which everybody else knew—she shed
a flood of tears, and begged me to
take her with me. A proscribed fugitive,
I had enough to do to take care
of myself; but how could I resist
the entreaties of an orphan, who had
neither friend nor relative in the
world?”
All the fugitives pitied the poor girl,
and were kind to her. Her character
had been changed, as well it might
be, by her abode with the gaucho malo
and his band. She was no longer the
timid, indolent creature whom Mateo
had known at the posting-house; she
was quick, alert, courageous, and gave
little trouble to anybody. At halts
she made herself useful, and was particularly
grateful and attentive to
Mateo, whom she called her saviour
and liberator. At the town of San
Luis, he would have left her in
charge of a respectable family, but
she wept bitterly, and begged to follow
his fortunes, disastrous though
they were. He was then for the first
time convinced that she had never
loved either Fernando or Gil Perez.
The poor girl had attached herself to
the man who had delivered her from
dreadful captivity, and shown her disinterested
kindness. At Mendoza he
again attempted to prevail on her to
accept of an asylum under a friendly
roof, but with no better success than
at San Luis. The season was far advanced,
snow rendered the passage of
the Andes dangerous and very painful.
Mateo’s companions urged her to wait
till spring, when she might rejoin them
at Santiago. She would not hear of
delay. Her vision was fixed upon
Chili and its Paradise Valley, Valparaiso.
Providing themselves with
sheepskins for protection against the
cold, and abandoning their arms, now
a useless encumbrance, the party commenced
the toilsome ascent. They got
on pretty well until they reached the
region of snow. There they were
obliged to quit their horses, and to
climb on foot the steep and frozen
acclivities, bearing on their shoulders
heavy loads of provisions and fuel,
their legs wrapped in fur, and handkerchiefs
tied over their ears. Pepita,
her head and neck enveloped in a large
shawl, marched stoutly along, and often
led the way, bounding like a mountain
goat. Three days passed thus.
There were frequent falls upon the
frozen snow, many narrow escapes
from death in a torrent, or over a
precipice. The enormous condor hovered
over the heads of the weary pilgrims,
as if hoping a repast at their
expense. At last they reached the
foot of the Cumbre, the last steep
they had to climb before commencing
their descent into a milder climate,
and a land of refuge. An icy wind
blew, a driving snow fell: it was
doubtful whether the Cumbre could
be ascended upon the morrow. The
wanderers halted early, in a hut
known by the ominous name of Casucha
de Calavera (the Cabin of the Skull).
They had still a little wine in their
ox-horns, which they heated and
drank, and then wrapped themselves
in their blankets and lay down to
sleep. At midnight the wind was
still high, but the snow had ceased,
and they determined to proceed. The
reflection of the sun from the snow
had so fatigued their eyes, that they
travelled in the night as often as they
could safely do so. Their next stage
was almost perpendicular, but it was
unbroken by precipices, and they
thought they might risk progress.
They would have done more prudently
to await daylight, but they were eager
to cross the frontier—to reach the summit
of the Cumbre, the boundary-line
between Chili and the Argentine provinces.
They began to ascend. Poor
Pepa’s feet were swollen, and she suffered
in walking, but she was as courageous
as ever, and made light of
hardship. Soon the travellers entered
a dense fog: they no longer saw the
stars; all around them was white as
a shroud. The fog became sleet; they
plodded wearily on, supporting themselves
with their sticks, sometimes on
hands and knees.
“I was so weary,” said Mateo,
“that I thought I was in a dream.
I had no sensation in my body, but
my head was very painful. A few
paces off, I heard the frozen snow
crack gently under Pepa’s feet, and
I discerned her form accompanying
me like my shadow. Snow succeeded
the sleet; it fell in heavy flakes,
and accumulated so rapidly as to
threaten burial to laggards. The
path—or rather the track—was invisible;
in spite of all my efforts to
follow it, I felt that I was deviating.
I called to Pepa, but neither her
voice nor the voices of my comrades
replied; we were scattered. I walked
on at random, I know not for how
long. When daylight came, I found
myself in a deep ravine, amidst snowdrifts
and glaciers. Right and left,
as far as I could see, was a vista of
similar valleys. Not a vestige of Pepa
or of my comrades. My strength
failed me. With great difficulty I
crept into a sort of cave amongst the
rocks. There I fell asleep.”
He would have perished but for
Pepa, who, on discovering his absence,
spurred his comrades, by her
reproaches, to a search for the friend
whom their own terrible sufferings
and fatigues would have induced
them to abandon. There was, indeed,
little chance of finding and
saving him, and the men would have
been fully justified in consulting their
own safety, and pushing forwards.
But a woman’s courage shamed them.
Pepa, esperaba desesperada—despairing,
she still hoped. She nobly paid
her debt of gratitude to her deliverer.
His life was saved, but hers
was lost. Her hands and face cut
and bleeding from the cold, her legs
scarcely able to support her, she
traced him out. It was still in time;
friction restored him to consciousness.
But the sunlight had scarcely
greeted his eyes, when a cry of distress
reached his ears. A treacherous
crust of snow, covering a crevice
of incalculable depth, gave way beneath
Pepa’s feet, and she disappeared
for ever.
The whole of this sketch—of which
we have given but a bare outline,
omitting many incidents—is full of
life, interest, and character, although
it is to be remarked and regretted
that Mr Pavie’s style is deficient in
that terseness and vigour which enhance
the fascination of narratives of
adventure. He is too diffuse and
explicit, dwells too lovingly upon
details, distrusts his readers’ intelligence,
and is rather sentimental than
energetic. “Pepita” is decidedly the
best of his South American sketches.
That entitled “The Pinchegras” has
interest. For several years after the
battle of Ayacucho had finally overthrown
Spanish dominion in Chili,
an armed band, known as the Pinchegras,
from the name of their chief,
still upheld the banner of Castile.
Pablo Pinchegra began his singular
career with his brothers and a few
vagabonds for sole followers. They
formed a mere gang of robbers. Presently
he was joined by several
Indian caciques and their warriors,
and then by a Spaniard named Zinozain
and five-and-twenty men, who
carried arms in the names of Ferdinand
and Spain. Thenceforward Pinchegra
adopted the same rallying
cry; at the end of 1825 the “royalist
army” numbered eight hundred men,
including Indians, and gained an important
advantage over the Chilian
troops at Longabi, where a squadron
of cavalry was annihilated by the
long lances of the Indians. The
Spanish faction in Chili, encouraged
by this unexpected success, recognised
Pinchegra as their champion,
and supplied him with arms and
munitions of war. Deserters from
the army of the Republic, adventurers
of all kinds, flocked to his standard,
beneath which a thousand men were
soon ranged. With these and his
Indian allies to support him, he found
himself master of a large track of
country, attacked and pillaged towns,
carried off cattle and women to his
camp in the Andes, and made his
name everywhere dreaded. It was
found necessary to send large bodies
of troops against him. These accomplished
little; and it was not until
1832 that his band was completely
defeated and broken up—or rather,
cut to pieces—he himself having previously
been betrayed to his enemies,
and shot. No quarter was given to
the fugitives, and the victor’s bulletin
(but Spanish bulletins are proverbially
mendacious) stated that only
four men of the army—for it then
really was a small army—escaped
the slaughter. The Indian auxiliaries
had run at the beginning of the
action. With one of the four survivors,
a caudillo, or chief of some
mark, named Don Vicente, Mr Pavie
fell in at Mendoza, during the winter
he passed there. The Pinchegra was
silent and mysterious enough; but a
young French physician, settled in
the place, told his countryman the
history of the last body of men that
maintained with arms the right of
Spain to her South American colonies.
It is an interesting narrative, comprising
much personal adventure, and
numerous romantic episodes. The
story of Batallion, an Indian foundling,
adopted by a cavalry regiment,
in whose ranks he serves and is
slain, and that of Rosita, a lovely
Limeña who loved and was abandoned
by an English naval officer, and
whom Mr Pavie saw in the madhouse
at Lima, where she inquired of every
foreign visitor whether the frigate
had returned, complete the South
American portion of a very interesting
book.
NAPOLEON AND SIR HUDSON LOWE. [15]
159
One of the most distinguishing features
of public life in England is the
judgment exercised upon the character
of its public men. In other countries
the public man is generally seen
through a haze of opinion. The minister
of a foreign monarchy stands
in the clouded light of the throne.
If eminent, his fame is the result of
secret councils, unknown circumstances,
and personal influences almost
purposely hidden from the national
mind. If unsuccessful, his
failures are sheltered under his partnership
with the higher powers. He
is hidden in the curtains of the Cabinet.
At all events, he divides this
responsibility with the monarch whose
choice has placed him in office, and
whose influence retains him in power.
There are no publications of private
correspondence, no despatches, except
garbled ones; no secret instructions,
hereafter to be developed. All the
materials for forming a true estimate
of the minister are withheld, by suppressing
all the materials for forming
a true estimate of the man. Even if
a biography of the individual is written,
either by a friend or an enemy,
it is generally greatly destitute of that
evidence from which alone posterity
can come to a rational conclusion.
But in England—and it is to the honour
of England—the career of the
public man is almost incapable of misconception.
He has seldom been chosen
by the caprice of power. He must have
given pledges as to character. Parliament
has been the point from which
he has launched into the navigation
of public life; his principles must have
undergone a probation before his possession
of office, and the whole course
of his after life is registered by correspondences,
despatches, and authentic
memorials, which may be made
public at the requisition of any member
of the Legislature. The twofold
advantage of this publicity is, that
public justice is sure to be done to
character, and that every man acts
under a sense of that enlarged responsibility
which is the safest guardian
of public honour. If even to this feeling
there may be exceptions, this view
is the true theory of Ministerial life;
and, among the imperfect motives of
all human virtue, it is not the least
that the documents are in existence,
hourly accumulating, and sure to be
brought forward, which shall testify
to the nation and the world against
every act of individual shame.
The record to which we now advert
is a collection of letters, despatches,
and orders, on a subject which formed
some years ago the chief topic of
Europe—the detention of Napoleon at
St Helena. The treatment by the
British officer to whom he was given
in charge, the commands of Government,
and the character of his captivity,
are now, for the first time, laid
before the world on the testimony of
unanswerable documents; and an authentic
form is now given to the narrative
of that melancholy period which
closed on the most eventful, disturbing,
changeful, and dazzling era of
Europe for a thousand years; the fifth
act of the most magnificent drama of
the modern world; the thunderstorm
which, combining all the influences of
a world long reeking with iniquity,
the feculence of earth with the fires of
heaven, at last burst down, perhaps
to purify the moral atmosphere, or
perhaps to warn nations of the still
deeper vengeance to come, and startle
them into regeneration.
We now give a brief sketch of the
governor of St Helena. Sir Hudson
Lowe was born in Ireland, in Galway,
in July 1769. His father was
an Englishman, who had served as a
medical officer with the British troops
in the Seven Years’ War, and whose
last service was as head of the medical
department in the garrison of Gibraltar,
where he died in 1801.
Shortly after the birth of Sir Hudson
Lowe, his father’s regiment, the
50th, being ordered to the West Indies,
he was taken out with it, and thus
underwent the first hazard of a life
of soldiership. On his return to England
he was made an ensign in the
East Devon Militia—probably the
youngest in the service, for he was
but twelve years old. In 1787 he
was appointed to an ensigncy in the
50th regiment, then at Gibraltar—arriving
while the place was still in
ruinous confusion from the memorable
siege. “The whole rock was
covered with fragments of broken
shells and shot; and there was not a
house in the town, nor a building
within the batteries, which did not
bear the marks of its devastation.”
O’Hara succeeded to Elliot as the
governor, and seemed resolved to signalise
himself by his discipline. “I
was once,” says Sir Hudson, “proceeding
with the escort, in order to reach
the barrier-gate by daybreak, with
my head down, to stem, as well as I
was able, the tremendous gusts of rain
and wind, when I heard myself very
sharply spoken to by a mounted officer,
who desired me to ‘hold up my head
and look what I was about, for it was
not as a mere matter of form I was
ordered on that duty.’” This officer
was General O’Hara. “This,” says
the narrator, “is the only real rebuke
I ever experienced from a superior
officer during the whole course of my
military life.” He approves of the
rebuke. On another occasion, on
parade, when the late Duke of Kent
happened to have done something
which displeased the General—on a
rebuke, in the presence of the officers,
the Prince said, “I hope, sir,
I shall always do my duty.” The
General’s reply was, “And if you
don’t, I shall make you do it.” It,
however, happened that this man
of fierce tongue showed himself at
least unlucky in the field; for, having
been sent to take the command of
Toulon, then in possession of the
Allies, he was taken prisoner in an
unsuccessful sortie, and carried off by
the besiegers.
On leave of absence, after four
years’ duty in the garrison, Lowe,
then a lieutenant, travelled into
France and Italy, and made himself
master of the languages of both; an
accomplishment of prime value to a
soldier, and which was the pivot of
his fortunes. On his return to Gibraltar,
the war having broken out, the
50th was ordered to Corsica, and
garrisoned Ajaccio—the residence of
that family who were afterwards to
enjoy such splendid fortune.
In a memorandum he says, “We
were all delighted with our change of
quarters to Ajaccio. The town was
well laid out, spacious, well built,
and the citadel had excellent accommodations,
but not sufficient for all
the officers. One of the best houses
was occupied by the mother and sisters
of Bonaparte. An officer of the
50th, of the name of Ford, was, for a
short time, quartered in the house,
and spoke with much satisfaction of
the kind manner in which the family
acted towards him. The young girls—for
such they were at that time—ran
slipshod about the house, but hardly
any notice was taken of them. There
were several balls and parties given
after our arrival there, but Madame
Bonaparte was not invited to them,
on account of the situation of her two
sons (in France). She shortly after
removed to Cargese, originally a
Greek colony, to a house which had
been built or occupied by Count Marbœuf
while in the administration of
that part of the island. It is not
from my own recollection I mention
those circumstances, because, strange
as it may appear, I was not aware
of the residence of any of the Bonaparte
family at Ajaccio during nearly
two years when we were in garrison
in that town. I used frequently to
hear Napoleon spoken of, but not as
connected with the exploits generally
mentioned as giving the first celebrity
to his name—his share in the expulsion
of the British from Toulon.”
The 50th subsequently served in
Elba, Lisbon, and Minorca. To this
last place flocked a large body of Corsican
emigrants, who were formed into
a corps called the Corsican Rangers,
the charge of which was intrusted to
Lowe, then a captain. In 1800 they
were attached to the Egyptian Expedition
under Abercromby, Lowe having
the temporary rank of major. In the
famous landing at Aboukir, on the
8th of March 1801—one of the most
brilliant exploits ever performed by
an army—the Corsican Rangers fought
on the right of the Guards, and were
warmly engaged; they were present
also at the battle of Alexandria (March
21, 1801), when the dashing attack of
the French on the English lines was
most gallantly defeated;—an action
which, in fact, involved the conquest of
Egypt, for the French fought no more,
the rest of the campaign being a succession
of marches and capitulations.
In this campaign the Major had the
good fortune to save Sir Sydney
Smith’s life; for a picket, mistaking
Sir Sydney for a French officer, from
his wearing a cocked hat (the English
wearing round hats), levelled
their muskets at him, when Lowe
struck up their pieces and saved him.
His activity in command of the outposts
received the flattering expression
from General Moore—“Lowe,
when you are at the outposts, I always
feel sure of a good night’s rest.”
Moore, in writing to Lowe’s father,
said—“In Sir Ralph Abercromby he
lost, in common with many others, a
good friend; but his conduct has
been so conspicuously good, that I
hope he will meet with the reward
he merits.” In Sir Robert Wilson’s
history of the campaign, Lowe is mentioned
as “having always gained the
highest approbation,” and his Corsican
Rangers as exciting, from their
conduct and appearance, “the general
admiration.”
On the Peace of Amiens they were
disbanded, but Lowe was confirmed
in his rank of Major-Commandant;
and after being placed on half-pay,
was appointed to the 7th or Royal
Fusileers, on Moore’s recommendation;
adding, “It is nothing more
than you deserve; and if I have been
at all instrumental in bringing it about,
I shall think the better of myself for
it.” This generous testimony continued
to influence Lowe’s fortunes;
for on his arrival in England, in 1802,
he was appointed one of the permanent
Assistants Quartermaster-General.
“I have known you,” said
Moore, “a long time; and I am
confident your conduct, in whatever
situation you may be placed, will be
such as to do honour to those who
have recommended you.” He soon
obtained a mark of still higher confidence.
Before he had been many
weeks in England, he was sent on a
secret mission to Portugal, for the
purpose of ascertaining the state of
Oporto and the neighbouring cities.
On this occasion he expressed his
opinion of the practicability of defending
the country by united British
and Portuguese. Thus he gave an
opinion contradictory to that of Europe,
but subsequently realised with
the most admirable success by Wellington.
He then proceeded to the Mediterranean,
with an order to raise another
regiment of Corsican Rangers. In
the course of service with this corps,
he commanded at Capri, in the Bay
of Naples; and as the loss of this
place formed one of the chief themes
of foreign obloquy on this officer, we
enter into a slight statement of the
facts, less for the clearance of his character,
than for the more important
purpose of showing how truth may be
mutilated, partly by negligence in the
general narrative, and partly by exaggeration
in the personal enemy.
The island of Capri, in May 1806,
had surrendered to a British squadron.
Its possession was of value as blocking
up the Bay of Naples. Colonel
Lowe, with five companies of his regiment,
and a small detachment of
artillery, were sent in May to garrison
the island. The whole regiment
was subsequently sent. In August,
Murat took possession of the kingdom
of Naples, and his first expedition was
to Capri, whose possession by a British
force, seen from the windows of his
palace, continually molested him. Accordingly,
on the 4th of October, an embarkation
under General Lamarque
attempted a landing near the town
of Capri. Lowe with his Rangers
hastened to the spot, and drove the
enemy back to their ships. The island
is three miles long, and about two
miles across, and had 4000 inhabitants.
Lowe had demanded a force
of 2190 men for its defence. The
whole number under his command
were 1400, of whom 800 were a regiment
of Maltese, of a miscellaneous
description, and but imperfectly disciplined,
though commanded by a gallant
officer, Major Hammill. Lowe
placed this regiment in Ana-Capri, an
elevated district, on a platform of rock,
to be ascended only by 500 steps of
stone. The French landed 2000 men
there. The Maltese regiment dispersed
themselves, notwithstanding
the utmost efforts of Major Hammill,
who, disdaining to follow their flight,
was killed; finally, the whole of the
Maltese regiment were taken prisoners.
Thus the 1400 men were
reduced to 600, in the presence of a
French force of 3000! Lowe’s object
was now necessarily confined to defending
the town of Capri, which he
did vigorously, for ten days of frequent
attacks, in the hope of being
succoured by the English squadron,
which would have turned the tables
on the besiegers, and caught the
French General in a trap. But, from
some cause not easily accountable,
the fleet did not appear, and the Corsican
Rangers were left to the rotten
and unprepared ramparts of the town.
On the 15th the French cannon had
made a practicable breach. Lowe
still held out, and attempted to erect
new defences under the fire of the
French guns; but the walls were crumbling,
and the cannon of the town
were rendered nearly unserviceable by
the enemy’s fire. The French flotilla
also approached. In the evening Lamarque
sent in a flag of truce, demanding
the surrender of the garrison
as prisoners of war, with the exception
of Lowe and five or six of his
officers. Lowe would permit no distinction
between his officers and soldiers,
nor suffer the words “prisoner
of war,” positively refusing to accept
of any other terms than “to evacuate
his post with his arms and baggage.”
On these terms alone the town was
surrendered, and on the 20th the garrison
embarked at the Marina, “with
all the honours of war.” In addition,
it deserves to be remembered that, on
Lamarque’s demanding that several
of the foreigners, who had enlisted in
the British service while prisoners,
should be given up to him, Lowe’s
spirited answer was, “You may shoot
me, but I will never give up a single
man.”
On this occasion he received many
flattering letters on his defence of the
island under such difficulties; and
among the rest, one from Major-General
Lord Forbes, expressing the sense
which must be entertained by his superior,
Sir John Stuart, “of the unremitting
zeal, ability, and judgment
which his conduct had displayed, under
the trying circumstances of Capri.”
After various services on the Italian
coast, Colonel Lowe with his
regiment was ordered on an expedition
against the Ionian Islands, then
garrisoned by the French. On their
conquest, he was appointed governor
of Cephalonia and Ithaca, with a recommendatory
circular from General
Oswald, commanding the expedition,
and congratulating the people on the
government of an officer “who had
shown himself the common father of
all ranks and classes of their communities.”
In 1812 he obtained the
rank of full Colonel, and returned on
leave to England. “I was then,”
he says, “in my twenty-fourth year
of service, and had never been absent
a single day from my public duty
since the commencement of the war
in 1793. I had been in England only
once during that time.” His services
were still required by Government in
matters of importance; in inspecting
foreign regiments to be taken into
English pay; in attendance on the negotiations
for the accession of Sweden
to the Grand Alliance, &c. &c. At
the Swedish Court he met the “Queen
of the Blues,” the celebrated Madame
de Stael, talking politics as usual. She
had begun her performances in Sweden
with writing a letter of thirty pages
to Bernadotte, instructing him how to
govern the Swedes; but she was not
always guilty of this extravagance of
presumption. Silly in her political
ambition, she was hospitable in her
home. A little theatre was formed
in her house—for the French, even in
exile, cannot live without the follies
of the theatre—where she and her
daughter exhibited scenes from the
Iphigenie of Racine. How her physiognomy
might have agreed with the
requisitions of the stage, it is difficult
to conjecture, for Nature never clothed
a female with a more startling exterior.
She afterwards performed in a
farce of her own, in which her daughter
exhibited as a dancer! And those
were the entertainments for ambassadors
and princes!—for Bernadotte,
then Prince-Royal, came in, but soon
disappeared. We should by no means
wish to see the manners of foreign life
adopted by the pliancy of Englishwomen.
The prince is thus described: “I
have never seen so remarkable a
countenance as that of Bernadotte;
an aquiline nose of most extraordinary
dimensions—eyes full of fire—a
penetrating look—with a countenance
darker than that of any Spaniard—and
hair so black that the portrait-painters
can find no tint dark enough to
give its right hue: it forms a vast
bushy protuberance round his head,
and he takes great pains, I understand,
to have it arranged in proper
form.” When we had the honour of
seeing the prince, which we did in
Pomerania, when he was about to
march his army to the camp of the
Allies, every lock of his hair was
curled like a Brutus bust displayed
in the window of a Parisian perruquier.
From Sweden Colonel Lowe
was summoned by Lord Cathcart,
then ambassador to Russia, to join
him at the Imperial headquarters in
Poland. After an interview with the
Czar, he joined the Allied troops, and
was present at the hard-fought battle
of Bautzen on the 20th and 21st of
May. Here he first saw that extraordinary
man, whom he afterwards was to
see under such extraordinary circumstances
of change. In his correspondence
with Lord Bathurst, the Colonel
says—“Between the town of
Bautzen and the position of the Allies
is a long elevated ridge....
In the morning a body of the enemy’s
troops was observed to be formed on
its crest. In their front a small group
was collected, which by our spyglasses
we discovered to be persons
of consequence in their army. Among
them was most clearly distinguishable
Napoleon himself. He advanced
about forty or fifty paces, accompanied
only by one of his marshals
(conjectured to have been Beauharnais),
with whom he remained in conversation,
walking backwards and
forwards (having dismounted) for
nearly an hour.
“I was on an advanced battery
in front of our position, and had
a most distinct view of him. He
was dressed in a plain uniform
coat, and a star, with a plain hat,
different from that of his marshals
and generals (which were feathered);
his air and manner so perfectly
resembling the portraits that
there was no possibility of mistake.
He appeared to me conversing on
some indifferent subject; very rarely
looking towards our position, of which,
however, the situation in which he
stood commanded a most comprehensive
and distinct view.”
In October, through Sir C. Stewart
(now Marquis of Londonderry), he
was attached to the army under that
great and bold soldier, Marshal
Blucher, and was with him in every
battle from Leipsic to Paris. His
description of the horrors of the
French retreat, after the battle of
Leipsic, unfolds a dreadful picture of
the sufferings of war. “For an extent
of fifty miles, on the French route,
there were carcasses of dead and
dying horses without number; bodies
of men, who had been either killed, or
died of hunger, sickness, and fatigue,
lying in the roads and ditches; parties
of prisoners and stragglers brought
in by the Cossacks; blown-up ammunition
waggons, in such numbers as
absolutely to obstruct the road....
Pillaged and burning towns and villages
marked, at the same time, the
ferocity with which the enemy had
conducted himself.”
In the close of this memorable
year, Colonel Lowe was ordered to
Holland on a commission for organising
the Dutch troops who were to
join Sir Thomas Graham’s army; but
(as it appears), at his own request,
his destination was changed for the
Prussian army, under Blucher, then
crossing the Rhine. He was present
at all the battles fought by that army
on their march through France, forming,
with its four German actions, no
less than thirteen—of which eleven
were fought against Napoleon in
person.
In all those campaigns he gallantly
took the soldier’s share, being constantly
at the Marshal’s side; being
present, on one occasion, when he
was wounded; on another, when the
Cossack orderly was shot beside him;
and on two others, when he narrowly
escaped being made prisoner, being
obliged to make a run of it, with the
whole of his retinue, through a party
of the enemy; Bonaparte also having
been nearly taken by him in the same
way, on the same day. He was present
at the conferences of Chatillon,
where he strongly joined those opinions
which were in favour of the
“March to Paris;” and he had the
honour of bearing the despatch to
England announcing the abdication
of Napoleon; which was instantly
published from the Foreign Office, in
a “Gazette Extraordinary.” Colonel
Lowe was received with great distinction.
The Prince-Regent immediately
knighted him; and the Prussian
order of Military Merit was conferred
on him, with the order of St George
from the Emperor of Russia.
In 1814 Sir Hudson Lowe was
promoted to the rank of major-general,
and appointed quartermaster-general
to the British troops in the
Netherlands, commanded by the
Prince of Orange. In that capacity
he visited the fortresses on the frontier,
and drew up reports on their restoration.
It is remarkable that among
his plans was the recommendation of
building a Work at Mont St Jean, as
the commanding point at the junction
of the two principal roads from the
French frontier, on the side of Namur
and Charleroi, to Brussels, and the
direction in which an army must move
for the invasion of Belgium. How
much earlier the battle of Waterloo
would have terminated, and how
many gallant lives might have been
saved by the possession of a fortress
in the very key of the position, we
may conjecture from the defence of
Hougomont, where the walls of a
mere farmyard, defended by brave
men, were sufficient to resist the
entire left wing of the enemy during
that whole hard-fought, decisive, and
illustrious day.
The news of Napoleon’s escape from
Elba roused all Europe. It was at
once the most dexterous performance,
and the most unwise act, of the great
charlatan of empire. He ought to
have delayed it, at least for a year.
The negotiators at Vienna were already
on the verge of discontents
which might have broken up the
general alliance; the troops were on
the point of marching to their homes:
thus Europe was about to be left without
defence, or even to a renewal of
hostilities. But the escape of Napoleon
sobered all. The universal peril
produced the universal reconciliation.
And the Manifesto was issued in the
shape of a universal declaration, proclaiming
Napoleon Bonaparte the
enemy of mankind.
The position of Sir Hudson Lowe
at Brussels made his advice of importance.
The question was, where
the Allied armies should expect the
attack? The Prussian generals were
of opinion that they should be prepared
on the side of Switzerland and
Mayence. Sir Hudson Lowe, more
sagaciously, affirmed that Brussels
would be the object. Count Gneisenau,
the Prussian quartermaster-general,
finally decided to wait for
the opinion of the Duke of Wellington
on his arrival in the Netherlands.
At this period, while matters remained
in a state of uncertainty as to the
movements of France, Sir Hudson
Lowe was offered the command of the
British troops at Genoa, intended to
act with the Austro-Sardinian army,
and the squadron under Lord Exmouth,
against the south of France.
Unwilling to quit the great Duke, he
waited on him for his opinion. As
all recollections of Wellington are
dear to his country, we give his few
words, in which, after saying that Sir
W. Delancy (as his successor) might
not at once be au fait at the business
of the Office, and as Sir G. Murray,
“who had been with him for six
years, was only on his return from
Canada, still he did a good deal of
his own business, and could do business
with any one.” In short, “it was a
case that must be left to himself.”
Accordingly, he remained with the
Duke until the beginning of June, and
then went to take his command. On
his way through Germany, he met at
the Imperial headquarters Blucher,
Schwartzenberg, and the Czar. With
the last he had the honour of a conversation.
The Czar received him in
his cabinet, quite alone; took him by
the hand; said that he was glad to
see him, but that it was an unfortunate
circumstance which compelled
him (the Czar) to come forward; that
oceans of blood might be again spilt;
but that, while that man (Napoleon)
lived, there would be no hope of repose
for Europe; that armies must be
kept up by every nation on a war
footing; and that, in short, there
appeared no other alternative than
carrying on the war with vigour, and
thus bringing it to the speedier close.
The Czar spoke in English. He asked
many other questions; but seemed
most gratified by knowing that the
force under the Duke of Wellington,
instead of being 60,000 men, was,
with the Allied forces of the Netherlands,
not less than 100,000.
On reaching Genoa, the expedition
sailed to the south of France; but all
the cities having suddenly hoisted the
white flag, the war was at an end.
Now began the only portion of his
prosperous and active career, which
could be called trying and vexatious.
On the 1st of August 1815 he received
an order to return immediately
to London, for the purpose of taking
charge of Napoleon Bonaparte.
On his arrival in Paris he had
communications with all the Cabinet.
Lord Castlereagh asked him his opinion
of the possibility of Napoleon’s
escape. He answered that he could
see none, except in case of a mutiny,
of which there had been two instances
at St Helena. But on being informed
of the nature of the intended garrison,
he answered that its chance would be
proportionably diminished. This was
the only conversation which he ever
had with Lord Castlereagh. On reaching
London, he received the Ministerial
orders for the charge of his memorable
prisoner. By Lord Liverpool’s
authority, he was told that if
he remained in charge for three years,
the royal confidence, and, we presume,
the royal reward, “should not
stop there.” Lord Ellenborough,
Chief-Justice, assured him, “that in
the execution of the duty the law
would give him every support.” On
the 23d of August, the Directors of
the East India Company appointed
him governor of St Helena; the command
of the troops, with the local
rank of lieutenant-general, was given
to him; and his salary was fixed at
£12,000 a-year.
The regulations for the safe keeping
of Napoleon, adopted by the
Secretary of War and Colonies, Lord
Bathurst, and delivered to Sir George
Cockburn, were (in outline) as follows:—
1. When General Bonaparte shall
be removed from the Bellerophon to
the Northumberland, there shall be
an examination of the effects which
the General shall have brought with
him.
2. All articles of furniture, books,
and wine, which the General shall
have brought, shall be transhipped to
the Northumberland.
3. Under the head of furniture is
the plate, provided it be not to such
an amount as to bespeak it rather an
article of convertible property than
for domestic use.
4. His money, diamonds, and negotiable
bills of exchange, are to be
given up. The admiral will explain
to him that it is by no means the intention
of Government to confiscate
his property, but simply to prevent its
being converted into an instrument
of escape.
The remainder consists of details.
In the event of his death, the disposition
of his property was to be determined
by his will, which would be
strictly attended to.
Bonaparte was to be always attended
by a military officer; and if he
was permitted to pass the boundaries
allotted to him, the officer was to be
attended by an Orderly. No individual
of his suite was to be carried to
St Helena but with his own consent,
it being explained to him that he must
be subject to the restraints necessary
for the security of Bonaparte’s person.
All letters addressed to him
were to be delivered to the admiral,
or governor, and read by them. Bonaparte
must be informed, that any
representation addressed to Government
would be received and transmitted,
but must be transmitted open
to the governor and admiral’s inspection,
that they might be enabled to
transmit answers to any objections.
If Bonaparte were to be attacked
with serious illness, the governor and
admiral were each to direct a medical
person, in addition to his own physician,
to attend him, and desire them to
report daily on the state of his health.
Finally, in the event of his death, the
admiral was to give orders for the
conveyance of his body to England.
It would be difficult to conceive
arrangements less severe, consistently
with the urgent necessity of preventing
another war.
On the embarkation on board the
Northumberland, the arms were to be
taken from the French officers on
board; but to be packed carefully,
and put into the charge of the captain.
Napoleon’s sword was not taken
from him, and the swords of the officers
were restored on their arrival at
St Helena. Of this order, Count
Montholon made a handsome melodramatic
story, in the following
style: “His lordship (Lord Keith)
said to him, in a voice suppressed
(assourdie) by vivid emotion, ‘England
demands your sword.’ The Emperor,
with a convulsive movement,
dropped his hand on that sword,
which an Englishman dared to demand.
The expression of his look
was his sole answer. It had never
been more powerful, more superhuman
(sur-humaine). The old admiral felt
thunderstruck (foudroyé). His tall
figure shrank; his head, whitened by
age, fell upon his bosom, like that of
a criminal humbled before his condemnation.”
This theatric affair Mr Forsyth
declares to be pure fiction. The
story is contradicted even by Las
Cases, who says, in his journal—“I
asked, whether it was possible that
they would go so far as to deprive the
Emperor of his sword? The admiral
replied that it would be respected;
but that Napoleon was the only person
excepted, as all the rest would be
disarmed.” The perpetual habit of
frequenting the theatre spoils all the
taste of France. The simplest action
of life must be told in rhodomontade,
and even the gravest facts must be
dressed up in the frippery of fiction.
On the 7th of August 1815, Bonaparte
was removed on board of the
Northumberland, with a suite of
twenty-five persons, including Count
and Countess Bertrand, with their
three children; Count and Countess
Montholon, with one child; and Count
de Las Cases, with his son, a boy of
fourteen. As Mengeaud, the surgeon
who had accompanied him from
Rochefort was unwilling to go to St
Helena; O’Meara, the surgeon of the
Bellerophon, was chosen by Bonaparte,
and allowed by Lord Keith to
attend him.
They hove to at Madeira for refreshments,
and landed at St Helena
on the 15th of October.
A letter of O’Meara to a Mr Finlayson
at the Admiralty, gives a characteristic
detail of the voyage. “During
the passage the ladies were either
ill the whole time, or fancied themselves
to be so; in either of which
cases, it was necessary to give them
medicine, in the choice of which it
was extremely difficult to meet their
tastes or humours, or their ever-unceasing
caprice. What was most
extraordinary, they never complained
of loss of appetite. They generally
ate of every dish at a profusely supplied
table, of different meats, twice
every day, besides occasional tiffins,
bowls of soup, &c. They mostly
hate each other, and I am the depositary
of their complaints—especially
Madame Bertrand’s, who is like a
tigress deprived of her young, when
she perceives me doing any service
for Madame Montholon. The latter,
to tell the truth, is not so whimsical,
nor subject to so many fits of rage as
the other.
“Bonaparte was nearly the entire of
the time in perfect health. During
the passage, Napoleon almost invariably
did not appear out in the after-cabin,
before twelve; breakfasted
either in bed or in his own cabin
about eleven; dined with the admiral
about five; stayed about half an
hour at dinner, then left the table
and proceeded to the quarter-deck,
where he generally spent a couple of
hours, either in walking, or else leaning
against the breech of one of the
guns, talking to De las Cases. He
generally spoke a few words to every
officer who could understand him;
and, according to his custom, was
very inquisitive relative to various
objects. His suite, until the day before
we landed (three days after our
arrival), invariably kept their hats off
while speaking to him, and then, by
his directions, remained covered. He
professes his intention, I am informed,
to drop the name of Bonaparte, and
to assume that of a colonel he was
very partial to, and who was killed
in Italy.
“He is to proceed in a few days to
Longwood, the present seat of the
Lieutenant-governor, where there is
a plain of above a mile and a half in
length, with trees (a great rarity
here) on it. He is to have a captain
constantly in the house with him, and
he is also to be accompanied by one
whenever he goes out. None of his
staff are to go out, unless accompanied
by an English officer or soldier.
“I had a long conversation with
him the day before yesterday. Among
other remarks he observed, ‘Why,
your Government have not taken the
most economical method of providing
for me. They send me to a place
where every necessary of life is four
times as dear as in any other part of
the globe; and not content with that,
they send a regiment here, to a place
where there are already four times as
many inhabitants as it can furnish
subsistence to, and where there are a
superabundance of troops. This is
the way,’ continued he, ‘that you
have contracted your national debt—not
by the actual necessary expenses
of war, but by the unnecessary expenses
of colonies.’”
Napoleon was in the habit of predicting
the ruin of England, and
pointing out, we may presume, with
no intention of warning, the blunders
of that policy which, however, had
rescued Europe from the French yoke,
and sent himself to moralise in a
dungeon. “This island,” said he,
“costs, or will cost, two millions
a-year, which is so much money
thrown in the sea. Your East India
Company, if their affairs were
narrowly scrutinised, would be found
to lose instead of gaining, and in a few
years must become bankrupt. Your
manufactures, in consequence of the
dearness of necessaries in England, will
be undersold by those of France and
Germany, and your manufacturers
will be ruined.” All this train of
ill omen is profitable, if it were only
to show how little we are to depend
upon the foresight of politicians.
Here was unquestionably one of the
most sagacious of human beings delivering
his ideas on the future, and
that not a remote future, not a future
of centuries, but a future within the
life of a generation; and yet what
one of these predictions has not been
completely baffled? The East Indian
territories of England have been constantly
aggrandising for nearly forty
years of that period which was to have
seen their bankruptcy. The manufactures
of England, instead of total failure,
have been growing to a magnitude
unequalled in the annals of national
industry, and are rapidly spreading
over the globe. England, instead of
struggling with exclusion from foreign
commerce, and domestic disaffection,
has possessed a peace, the longest in
its duration, and the most productive
in its increase of opulence, invention,
and power, that Europe has ever seen.
But if the malignant spirit of her prisoner
may be presumed to have perverted
his sagacity, his opinions were
the opinions of the Continent; and
every statesman, from Calais to Constantinople,
occupied himself by counting
on his fingers the number of years
that lay between England and destruction.
Yet England still stands, the
envy of all nations; and will stand,
while she retains her loyalty, her principle,
and her honour; or, rather,
while she retains her religion, which
includes them all.
The exterior of St Helena is unpromising.
“Masses of volcanic rock,
sharp and jagged, tower up round the
coast, and form an iron girdle. The
few points where a landing can be
effected are bristling with cannon.”
The whole has the evidence of the
agency of fire; and from the gigantic
size of the strata, so disproportioned
to its circuit, it has been supposed the
wreck of a vast submerged continent.
But the narrow valleys, radiating from
the basaltic ridge forming the backbone
of the island, have scenes of
beauty. A writer on the “Geognosy”
of the island, even describes
those valleys as exhibiting an alternation
of hill and dale, and luxuriant
and constant verdure. Even Napoleon,
in all his discontent, admitted
that it had “good air.” Or, as in some
more detailed remarks transmitted by
Las Cases—“After all, as a place of
exile, perhaps St Helena was the best.
In high latitudes we should have
suffered greatly from cold; and in any
other island of the tropics we should
have expired miserably, under the
scorching rays of the sun. The rock
is wild and barren, no doubt; the
climate is monstrous and unwholesome;
but the temperature, it must
be confessed, is mild (douce).”
It is of some importance to the
national character to touch on those
matters, as they show that Napoleon
was not sent for any other purpose
than security of detention. A West
Indian island might have unduly
hastened the catastrophe. A letter
from Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson gives
even a more favourable testimony
than has been generally conceived.
He had been a resident for several
years.
“Lying within the influence of the
south-east trade-wind, which is usually
a strong breeze between the Cape
and St Helena, the tropical heat is
moderated thereby to a delightful
temperature, and perhaps there is no
finer climate to be found than in certain
parts of St Helena. In the town,
I rarely saw the thermometer above
80°, while the general height may
have been about 75°. But I write
from memory, having lost my register
of the temperature. Between Longwood
and Jamestown there is a difference
of eight or ten degrees. A
fire is rarely necessary, unless perhaps
as a corrective of the dampness
produced by fog, to which the elevated
portions of the island are occasionally
liable. I believe the average
duration of life to be much as in England.”
Mr Henry, who was stationed in
the island as assistant-surgeon during
Napoleon’s residence, gives even a
more decided testimony. “For a tropical
climate, only 15° from the line,
St Helena is certainly a healthy island,
if not the most healthy of the description
in the world. During one period
of twelve months, we did not lose one
man by disease out of five hundred
of the 66th quartered at Deadwood.
In 1817, 1818, and 1819, Fahrenheit’s
thermometer, kept at the hospital,
ranged from fifty-five to seventy degrees;
with the exception of calm days,
when it rose to eighty. In Jamestown,
from the peculiar radiation of
heat to which it was exposed, the
temperature was sometimes upwards
of ninety.... There is no
endemic in the island....
The upper parts of St Helena, including
the residence of Bonaparte, are decidedly
the most healthy, and we often
moved our regimental convalescents
from Jamestown to Deadwood for
cooler and better air. The clouds
moved so steadily and regularly with
the trade-wind that there appeared
to be no time for atmospherical accumulations
of electricity, and we never
had any thunder or lightning. No
instance of hydrophobia, in man or any
inferior animal, had ever been known
in St Helena.”
We shall limit ourselves to an outline
of the transactions referring to
Napoleon. He landed at Jamestown
on the evening of the 17th of October,
where he remained for the night, and on
the next day removed to the “Briars,”
the country house of Mr Balcombe, who
afterwards became purveyor to the residence
at Longwood. Two proclamations
were immediately issued by
the governor, Colonel Wilkes, one
cautioning the inhabitants of the island
against any attempt to aid the escape
of “General Napoleon Bonaparte;”
and the other, prohibiting all persons
from passing through any part of the
island (except in the immediate vicinity
of the town) from nine at night
until daylight, without having the
parole of the night; and a third,
placing all the coasts, and vessels or
boats, under the control of the Admiral.
A despatch from the Admiral, to
the Secretary of the Admiralty, explained
the choice of Longwood for
the residence of the prisoner. “I
have not hesitated on fixing on it.
Longwood is detached from the general
inhabited parts of the island, therefore
none of the inhabitants have occasion,
or are at all likely, to be met
with in its neighbourhood; it is the
most distant from the parts of the coast
always accessible to boats.” He then
mentions it as having an extent of
level ground, perfectly adapted for
horse-exercise, carriage-driving, and
pleasant walking. The house was
small, but it was better than any other
in the island (out of the town) except
the governor’s; and by the help of
the ships’ carpenters and others, was
capable of convenient additions. Repairs
were accordingly made, and
everything was done that could fit it
for a comfortable residence.
The system of discontent, remonstrance,
and, we must add, misrepresentation,
was begun. A letter from
the “Grand Marshal, Count Bertrand,”
led the way. It protested
against everything, and frequently
applied the term “Emperor” to Napoleon.
The Admiral’s reply was fair
and manly. It expressed regret for
the necessary inconveniences, and a
desire to consult the wishes of General
Bonaparte; but said that he was
authorised to apply no title which had
not been given by his Government.
This refusal was perfectly justifiable,
though it made one of the clamours of
the time. The custom of European
diplomacy is never to acknowledge a
new title but by treaty, and in return,
if possible, for some concession on the
part of the claimant. The embarrassments
connected with the opposite
practice are obvious. Where is the
line to be drawn? If every ruler,
however trifling his territory, or however
recent his usurpation, were to fix
his own title, all the relations of public
life might be outraged. The creature
of every revolution might be authenticated
the legitimate possessor
of sovereignty—an upstart received
into the family of kings, become a
living encouragement to political convulsion.
All the declamation which
was lavished on the denial of the Imperial
title to Bonaparte, amounted to
the maxim, that success justifies usurpation.
If, in general life, no man
can bear a title without the sanction
of the laws—to avoid the disturbance
of the Civil order, why should not the
same sanction be demanded where the
result of concession without cause
might influence the highest interests of
public life? There can be no question
that the Imperial title, continued to
Napoleon by the credulity of Alexander,
laid the foundation of the renewed
disturbances of France and
Europe. It had placed him within
sight of power again; it had fixed the
eye of French conspiracy on him; it
had conveyed to all his partisanship
the idea that he still was an object of
fear to Europe, and it thus revived
the hope of his restoration. This dangerous
concession made him, while at
Elba, the virtual Emperor of France—prompted
him to contemplate the resumption
of the sceptre—pointed him
out as a rallying point for disaffection—connected
his mock crown with his
former sovereignty—and left the peace
of the world to the hazard of the die
which was thrown at Waterloo.
If it be said that the concession
which was dangerous at Elba was
trifling at St Helena, we have no
hesitation in accounting for the sudden
forgetfulness of Napoleon exhibited
by France to the refusal of
the title. “General” Bonaparte lived
only in the recollection of a broken
army; the “Emperor” lived in the
pride and passions of the people. It
was essential to dissolve this combination;
to show that the prestige of
his name existed no longer; that he
was an object of fear no more; and
especially, that his connection with
title-loving France was to be cut
asunder for the remainder of his existence.
All this was done, and could
alone be done, by refusing to continue
that title to the prisoner, which England
had loftily refused to him in the
height of his power.
Even Napoleon himself was so fully
convinced of the contradiction between
his present state and his former, that
he subsequently wrote a Memorial
addressed to the Governor, containing
this declaration: “Seven or eight
months ago Count Montholon proposed,
as a means of removing the
little inconveniences which were ever
recurring, the adoption of an ordinary
name.... I am quite ready
to take any ordinary name; and I
repeat that, when it may be deemed
proper to remove me from this cruel
abode, I am resolved to remain a
stranger to politics, whatever may be
passing in the world. Such is my resolve;
and anything which may have
been said different from this would not
be the fact.”
Unfortunately, it was wholly impossible
to rely on any declaration of
this kind, and it would have been absolute
folly to have hazarded the peace
of Europe on the contingency of Napoleon’s
keeping his word. He had
gone to Elba with the same protest
against politics, he had publicly declared
that his political life was ended;
and the weakness of giving credit to
that declaration cost the lives of perhaps
fifty thousand men, and might
have cost a universal war.
If the strictness of the regulations
at St Helena have been matter of
charge against this country, it is to be
remembered that the highest interests
might have been endangered by his
escape; that no royal captive was
ever so indulged before; and that
England was but a trustee for the
tranquillity of the world. The instructions
were the most lenient possible,
consistently with his safe keeping.
A captain was to ascertain
his presence twice in the twenty-four
hours. Whenever Napoleon rode or
walked beyond the boundaries where
the sentinels were placed, he was to
be attended by an officer. Napoleon
and his attendants were to be within
his house at nine o’clock every night.
If these restrictions might be considered
severe, it is to be remembered
that they were only severities against
the necessity of a second Waterloo.
It is to be observed, also, that these
regulations all took place before the
arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe. The
English mind revolts against confinement
of any kind; but the limits of
Napoleon’s grounds, within which he
might take exercise unattended by
any officer, embraced a circuit of
twelve miles! The ground was nearly
flat, and well covered with turf. On
the plain of Deadwood, adjoining, was
an excellent race-course, a mile and
a half long, of which one mile was in
a straight line. The house at Longwood
had been used by the former
governor as a villa; but it was small,
consisting only of five rooms. To
these, however, additions were made;
the whole being merely a temporary
residence until the completion of a
house on a larger scale, which was
preparing in England.
It became the peevish custom of
the French, on the arrival of Sir Hudson
Lowe, to contrast his conduct
with that of Sir George Cockburn, and
speak of their satisfaction with the
latter; but they quarrelled equally
with both. A letter from O’Meara
to his correspondent Finlayson (not
printed in his volumes), says: “Napoleon
inveighs most bitterly against
the English Ministry for sending him
here. He has been for sometime back
at Longwood, where he is tolerably
well lodged, considering the island.”
As to his displeasure at being sent
to the island, he should have regarded
himself as peculiarly well treated; for
what must have been his condition
in the custody of any other government?
He must have been sent to
a fortress with no other liberty of exercise
than within the space of the
ramparts; he must have had sentinels
everywhere on his steps, and
have been subjected to all the rigid
regulations of a garrison, and perhaps
altogether separated from his
attendants and general society. The
greater probability of escape in Europe
would have required the greater strictness;
and the necessity of the case
must have made his confinement little
better than that of the dungeon. What
liberty was allotted to Louis Napoleon
in Ham for six years? What liberty
was allotted to Toussaint Louverture
by Napoleon himself?—a damp dungeon
until he died. What liberty
was allotted to the State prisoners
under the Empire?—or what liberty
was allotted to the English officers
confined in the casemates of Biche?
Instead of such restrictions, he had a
large space of a healthy island in
which he might move, without watch
or ward, with a crowd of attendants
of his own choice round him, with
such society as he chose to receive,
with a sumptuous table kept for him,
and every deference paid to his fame
and rank, compatible with that essential
point, the prevention of his
escape, which he appears to have been
constantly meditating.
An order prohibiting the general
access of the population to Longwood
was now issued. Napoleon at this
was in great indignation. He said to
O’Meara, “It was absurd to prohibit
people from visiting him, while he was
at liberty to go out and call upon them....
I will never receive any person
coming with a pass from the Admiral,
as I will immediately set down
the person receiving it as being like the
donor, and a spy upon me.”...
Then becoming more warm, he said,
“Who is the Admiral? I have never
heard his name as the conqueror in a
battle, either singly or in general action....
It is true, he has rendered
his name infamous in America;
and so he will now render it here, on
this desolate rock.”
Stopping then with much agitation,
and looking at me earnestly—“Next
to your Government exiling me here,
the worst thing they could have done,
and the most insufferable to my feelings,
is sending me with such a man asHE. I shall make my treatment known
to all Europe. It will be a reflection
and a stain on his posterity for centuries.
What! does he want to introduce
Turkish laws into the Rock?
Other prisoners under sentence of
death are allowed to communicate, by
the laws of England and all other civilised
nations.”
The fact was, that Napoleon wished
to accomplish an object incompatible
with the purpose of his being sent to
the island; he demanded all the conveniences
of perfect freedom—of course
for the purpose of escape. However,
to avoid all shadow of cruelty, the
passports were finally left to the distribution
of Bertrand.
O’Meara further says, “He has since
discovered that the Admiral’s conduct
has been most grossly and shamefully
misrepresented and blackened to him.
The people he is surrounded by at
present give me some faint idea of
what the court of St Cloud must have
been during his omnipotent sway.
Everything here is disguised and
mutilated.”
Napoleon’s theatrical rants were
sometimes amusing. Foreigners can
rail fluently enough at misfortune, but
they always forget the share which
they had in bringing it on themselves.
“Behold the English Government!”
said he one day, gazing round on the
stupendous rocks which encompassed
him; “this is their liberality to the
unfortunate, who, confiding in what is
called their national character, in an
evil hour gave himself up to them!
But your Ministers laugh at your laws.
I thought once that the English were
a free nation; but I now see that you
are the greatest slaves in the world. You
all tremble at the sight of that man.”
“Another time, talking to me
(O’Meara) about the island, he said,
‘In fact, I expect nothing less from your
Government than that they will send
out an executioner to despatch me. They
send me here to a horrible rock, where
even the water is not good. They
send out a sailor with me, who does not
know how to treat a man like me, and
who puts a camp under my nose, so
that I cannot put my head out without
seeing my jailors. Here we are treated
like felons: a proclamation is issued
for nobody to come near and touch us,
as if we were lepers.’”
O’Meara’s description of the officers
in attendance on Napoleon is sufficiently
contemptuous. Of Montholon
he speaks most offensively. He admits
Bertrand to be a “good man;”
but he thus characterises Gourgaud,
whose quarrel with Sir Walter Scott
once made some noise: “Gourgaud is
now recovering from dysentery. During
his illness, I never saw a man betray
so much fear of dying as he did
on various occasions. One night a
large black beetle got into the bed,
and crawled up alongside of him. His
imagination immediately magnified the
insect into a devil, or some other formidable
apparition, armed with talons,
long teeth, and ready to tear away his
lingering soul from its mortal abode. He
shrieked, became terribly agitated and
convulsed; a cold sweat bedewed his
pallid face; and when I entered he
presented all the appearance of a man
about to expire, with the most terrific
ideas of what would be his future lot;
and it was not till after a considerable
time that he could be restored to some
degree of composure.” Gourgaud had
in some degree provoked this description
by his previous fanfaronades.
When he arrived in the island he had
produced a sword to the daughters of
Mr Balcombe, on which he had himself
represented in the act of killing a
Cossack who was about to take Bonaparte
prisoner, with a pompous inscription
narrating the feat. At the
end of the blade he made them observe
a spot, as if stained with the blood of
two Englishmen, slain by him at Waterloo.
He gave the last finish to this
“passage of arms,” by saying, that in
the same battle he might have made
the Duke prisoner! “but that he saw
the business was decided, and he was
unwilling to produce any further effusion
of human blood!” (“Credit—believe
it who will,” says O’Meara.)
During Gourgaud’s illness, however,
he seemed to have forgotten all his
chivalry—as, one day, “whining and
lamenting over his state, he said, with
many tears, ‘He did not know for
what he was exiled, for he had never
done harm to mortal man.’”
O’Meara’s own history was a varied
one. He had begun his course as an
assistant-surgeon in the 18th, in 1804;
but a duel happening in the regiment,
in which he acted as second, a courtmartial
was the consequence, and he
retired from the army. He then
served as a naval surgeon, for many
years, in the Mediterranean and the
West Indies, with Maitland (captain
of the Bellerophon), who gave him
an advantageous character. He was
then selected as the surgeon in attendance
on Napoleon. The quick
observation of that sagacious personage
saw instantly that O’Meara might
be useful in more capacities than those
of his profession; he flattered him with
his confidence, and converted him
into partisanship.
Nothing but the extraordinary selfishness
of Napoleon’s character could
have stooped to those perpetual complaints.
A man who had sat upon
the first throne of the Continent ought
to have felt that nothing, after such a
catastrophe, could be worth a care.
A man of true grandeur of mind, after
having seen all the diadems of the
Continent under his feet, ought to
have scorned any inferior degree of
power—been utterly indifferent to
title, wealth, or the homage of dependents.
A philosopher would have
despised the mockery of ex-emperorship;
rejected the affectation of a
power which he was to possess no
more; and, having been once forced to
submit to a change of fortune which
displaced him from the summit of
society for ever, would have been contemptuous
of living on the fragments
of his feast of supremacy. But Napoleon
had no sense of this generous and
lofty disdain—he clung to the wrecks
of his royalty. He was as anxious
to sustain the paltry ceremonial of
kissing a hand, as when he saw kings
crowding to his palace; and showed
as much fretfulness at the loss of the
most pitiful mark of respect, as he
could at an insult to a throne which
threw its shadow across the civilised
world. This anomaly is easily explained.
The spirit of selfishness belongs
to all foreign life. Its habits,
its amusements, its perpetual passion
for frivolous excitement, its pursuit
of personal indulgence in every shape,
high or low, utterly extinguish all the
nobler attributes of mind—substitute
fierceness for fortitude, rashness for
decision—and feeble repinings against
fate, for the dignity which makes defeat
but another occasion of showing
the superiority of man to fortune.
Napoleon was selfishness embodied,
and was as important to himself at
St Helena as in the Tuileries.
On the 10th of January 1816, Sir
Hudson Lowe received a despatch
from Earl Bathurst, stating that, on
his arrival at St Helena, he should
notify to all the attendants of Napoleon
that they were at perfect
liberty to leave the island for Europe
or America; but that those who remained
should declare, in writing,
that they were prepared to submit to
the necessary restrictions. To Sir
Hudson the orders were—“You are
to continue to treat Napoleon Bonaparte
as a prisoner of war, until further
orders.”
The governor reached St Helena on
the 14th of April, and on the 16th he
visited Bonaparte, having given him
previous notice of his intention. The
visit was unlucky, for even the hour
was constituted into an offence. Las
Cases thus mentions the visit: “The
new governor arrived at Longwood
about ten o’clock, notwithstanding
the rain, which still continued. He
was accompanied by the admiral, who
was to introduce him, and who had,
no doubt, told him that this was the
most suitable hour for his visit. The
emperor did not receive him—he was
indisposed; and even had he been
well, he would not have seen him.
The governor, by this abrupt visit,
neglected the usual forms of decorum.
It was easy to perceive that this was
a trick of the admiral. The governor,
who probably had no intention to
render himself at all disagreeable, appeared
very much disconcerted. We
laughed in our sleeves. As to the admiral,
he was quite triumphant. The
governor, after long hesitation, and
very evident marks of ill-humour, took
his leave rather abruptly. We doubted
not that this visit had been planned
by the admiral, with the view of prepossessing
us against each other at
the very outset.”
The English reader of this incident
will find in it the key to the whole
conduct of Napoleon and his attendants;
he was determined to turn
everything into an offence, and they
were equally determined to turn everything
into an intrigue. The narrative
foolishly and malignantly represents
the conduct of a naval officer of high
character in the light of a paltry ruse,
and for no imaginable purpose but ill-will.
“They laughed in their sleeves”
at the success of this ruse. The admiral
was triumphant, because the
governor was vexed; and Napoleon
was, of course, conqueror on the occasion.
This is the most pitiful of all
gossip, and is unworthy of even the
nursery. Let this be contrasted with
the manly account by the governor
himself of the first interview which
took place next day at four. “I was
accompanied by Sir G. Cockburn.
General Bertrand received us in the
dining-room serving as an antechamber,
and instantly ushered me into an
inner room, where I found him (Napoleon)
standing, having his hat in his
hand. Not addressing me when I
came in, but apparently waiting for
me to speak to him, I broke silence
by saying, ‘I am come, sir, to present
my respects to you.’ ‘You speak
French, sir, I perceive; but you also
speak Italian. You once commanded
a regiment of Corsicans.’ I replied,
‘the language was alike to me.’ ‘We
will speak, then, in Italian;’ and immediately
commenced a conversation
which lasted about half an hour—the
purport of which was principally as
follows. He first asked me, ‘where
I had served?—how I liked the Corsicans?
They carry the stiletto; are
they not a bad people?’ (looking at
me very significantly for an answer.)
My reply was—‘They do not carry
the stiletto, having abandoned that
custom in our service. They have
always conducted themselves with
propriety; I was very well satisfied
with them.’
“He asked me if I had not been
in Egypt with them; and on my replying
in the affirmative, he entered
into a long discussion respecting that
country. ‘Menou was an imbecile.
If Kleber had been there, you would
have been all made prisoners.’” To this
ungracious remark the governor seems
to have abstained from any reply.
How easily might he have reminded
Napoleon of Acre! and the difficulty
which he found then of taking prisoners
even the crews of two English
ships, who drove him from the walls
at the head of his army, and virtually,
after hunting him from Syria, drove
him into the desertion of Egypt. In
the French narratives of war, the
general who has been beaten is always
an imbecile. It is an extraordinary
trait of character in Napoleon to have
ventured on the subject at all. Yet
he expatiated on it, as if he had never
known defeat on its shores. “He
blamed Abercromby for not having
landed sooner, or for not proceeding
to another point. Moore, with his six
thousand men, ought to have been all
destroyed.” He admitted, however,
the bravery of the generals. “He
asked me if I knew Hutchinson, and
whether he was the same who had
been arrested at Paris” (for the escape
of Lavalette). “His question on this
point betrayed great interest.” The
subject of Egypt was resumed. “It
was the most important geographical
point in the world, and had always
been considered so. He had reconnoitered
the line of the Canal across
the Isthmus of Suez; he had calculated
the expense at ten or twelve
millions of livres (half a million sterling,
he said, to make me understand
more clearly the probable cost of it);
that a powerful colony being established
there, it would have been impossible
for us to have preserved our
empire in India.”
This remark is an example of the
dashing way in which foreigners settle
all the affairs of the world. If Napoleon
had been asked to show how a
French colony in Egypt could have
overthrown an Indian empire, he must
have been profoundly puzzled. A
French colony would, doubtless, have
prevented the overland passage. Yet,
without that passage, India had been
ours, or in the direct progress to be
ours, for a hundred years! What
could a colony in Egypt have done
while the Red Sea was blocked up by
English ships? How could it transport
an army over the Desert—through
Arabia, Persia, and the passes of the
Himalaya?—and without an army,
what could they do in India? The
much greater chance was, that a
French colony would have been starved
or slaughtered, as the French army in
Egypt would have been, but for its
capitulation. The same absurdity is
common to other services. The Russians,
from the peasant to the throne,
think that India is at their mercy,
from the instant of a battalion’s appearing
on the verge of Tartary,
while they are forced to acknowledge
that the Desert is impassable by any
army in summer; and General Perowsky,
in an expedition which decimated
his army, half way to Thibet,
has proved it to be equally impassable
in winter. Or, may we not ask, if
this mighty conquest is so much a
matter of calculation, why have not
the poor and feeble tribes of the
Caucasus been conquered in a war of
twenty years, within a stone’s throw
of the Russian frontier?—while in
India, after a march across swamps,
sands, and mountains, they would
have to meet an army of two hundred
thousand men (easily increased to
half a million), led by British officers?
The people of the United States are
equally absurd in their speculations
on the conquest of Canada. They
pronounce it ready to drop into their
hands, like fruit from the tree. Yet,
every attempt at the invasion of
Canada has resulted only in ridiculous
defeat!
Napoleon again railed at Menou,
and concluded with the remark, which
he pronounced in a very serious manner:
“‘In war, the gain is always
with him who commits the fewest
faults.’ It struck me as if he was reproaching
himself with some great
error.”
In this curious interview, Sir G.
Cockburn’s having been shut out
by a mere accident was made the
most of, as a charge of incivility
against the governor. We give Sir
Hudson Lowe’s own version. He had
been accompanied by the admiral to
Longwood. “In order that there
might be no mistake respecting the
appointment being for Sir George
Cockburn as well as myself, I distinctly
specified to Bertrand that we
should go together. We went, and
were received in the outer room by
Bertrand, who almost immediately
ushered me into Bonaparte’s presence.
I had been conversing with him for
nearly half an hour, when, on his
asking me if I had brought with me
the Regent’s speech, I turned round
to ask Sir George Cockburn if I had
not given it to him? and observed, to
my surprise, that he had not followed
me into the room. On going out, I
found him in the antechamber much
irritated. He told me that Bertrand
had almost shut the door in his face
as he was following me into the room,
and that a servant had put his arm
across him. He said he would have
forced his way, but that he was expecting
I would have turned round to
see that he was following me, when
he supposed I would have insisted on
our entering the room together. I
told him I knew nothing of his not
being in the same room till Bonaparte
asked me for the Regent’s speech....
Bonaparte was ready to receive him
after I had left the room; but he would
not go in. Bertrand and Montholon
have been with him since, making
apologies. But the admiral, I believe,
is still not quite satisfied about it.”
Napoleon’s conversation was essentially
rough, a circumstance to be
accounted for, partly by his birth,
and partly by his camp education.
O’Meara mentions that Montholon,
having brought a translation of the
paper which the domestics who desired
to remain with him were to
sign, Napoleon, looking at it, said—“This
is not French—it is not sense.”
“Sire,” said the other, “it is a literal
translation of the English.” “However,”
said Napoleon, “it is neither
French nor German (tearing it in
two)—you are a fool.” Then, looking
it over, he said—“He makes a
translation into stuff, which is not
French, and is nonsense to any Frenchman.”
As we are not the defenders of the
governor, and the subject of mere defence
is now past by, we shall chiefly
give abstracts of the conversation of
his memorable prisoner. He asked
O’Meara if he had been at Alexandria.
“Yes, in a line-of-battle ship.”
“But I suppose you could not enter
the harbour?” O’Meara told him,
“that we soon found a passage
through which any vessel might go.
This he would not believe for some
time, until I told him that I saw the
Tigre and the Canopus, of eighty
guns each, enter with ease. ‘Why!’
said he, with astonishment, ‘that
Commodore Barré, whom you took
in the Rivoli, was ordered by me to
sound for a passage when I was there,
and he reported to me that there was
not a possibility of a line-of-battle
ship’s entering the harbour.’ He observed,
then, ‘that the fleet might
have been saved if he had done his
duty.’ I told him, then, that we had
blocked up the passage by sinking
two vessels laden with stone in it;
to which he replied, ‘that it was
easy to remove such obstacles.’”
The expenses of Napoleon’s household
were heavy. On the voyage
out, between the 8th of August and
the 17th of November, they had consumed
a hundred dozens of wine, besides
some casks of an inferior kind
for the servants. In one of the governor’s
despatches to Lord Bathurst,
two fortnights’ accounts are given
from Mr Balcombe, purveyor to Longwood.
The amount of one fortnight
is an expenditure of £683, 5s. 4d.;
and of the other, £567, 10s. 4d.; the
annual expense, at the former rate,
thus amounting to above £16,000, and
at the latter to £13,000—nine persons,
with four children, being the
family; the rest, with the exception
of the two officers in attendance, being
servants—the whole number amounting
to 59.
One day, on hearing that Napoleon
had not been seen by the attendant
officer, the governor visited Longwood.
“I passed,” said he, “through
his dining-room, drawing-room, and
another room, in which were displayed
a great number of maps and plans
laid out on a table, and several
quires of writing, and was then introduced
into an inner room, with a
small bed in it, and a couch, on which
Bonaparte was reclining, having only
his dressing-gown on, and without
his shoes.” On the governor’s
expressing regret for his indisposition,
and offering him medical advice, “I
want no doctor,” said he. On his
asking “whether Lady Bingham had
arrived, and being answered that her
non-arrival was owing to the delay
of the Adamant transport, which was
also bringing wines, furniture, &c.,
for Longwood, he said—‘It was all
owing to the want of a chronometer;
that it was a miserable saving of the
Admiralty not to give every vessel of
above two hundred tons one; and that
he had done it in France.’ After a pause,
he asked—‘What was the situation
of affairs in France when I left Europe?’
I said, ‘Everything, I believe,
was settled there.’ Beauchamp’s
Campaign of 1814 was lying
on the floor near him. He asked me
if I had written the letters referred
to in the appendix to this work. I
answered, ‘Yes.’ ‘I recollect Marshal
Blucher at Lubeck,’ said he; ‘is
he not very old?’ ‘Seventy-five
years,’ I replied, ‘but still vigorous—supporting
himself on horseback
for sixteen hours a-day, when circumstances
render it necessary.’”
Napoleon then, after a pause, returned
to the usual observations on
his captivity. “I should have surrendered
myself,” said he, to the Emperor
of Russia, who was my friend,
or to the Emperor of Austria, who
was related to me. “There is courage
in putting a man to death, but it is
an act of cowardice to let him languish,
and to poison him in so horrid
an island, and so detestable a climate.”
To the governor’s remark
that St Helena was not unhealthy,
and that the object of the British
Government was, to make his residence
on the island as satisfactory to
himself as possible, he said—“Let
them send me a coffin—a couple of
balls in the head is all that is necessary.
What does it signify to me
whether I lie on a velvet couch or on
fustian? I am a soldier, and accustomed
to everything.”
As to his repeated expression, that
he might have put himself into the
hands of others, and that he voluntarily
gave himself up to England,
there can be no doubt of his conscious
falsehood on both points. The French
provisional government would not
have suffered him to pass the frontier;
nor would he have given himself
up to Captain Maitland if he
could have escaped to America. He
also dreaded the sentence of the
Bourbons, who would probably have
imprisoned, or even put him to death,
as they did Ney and Labédoyère, and
as Murat was shot by order of the
Neapolitan government. If he had
fallen into Blucher’s hands, that officer
proposed to have him shot in the ditch
of Vincennes, on the very spot where
the Duc d’Enghien was murdered; a
proposal which was ineffectual only
through the generous objections of the
Duke of Wellington. The proclamation
of the Allied sovereigns had already
put him in a state of outlawry with
Europe. Napoleon knew all this:
he had been a prisoner at Malmaison;
and though spared for the moment,
he might be convinced that, on the
withdrawal of the Allied troops, his
life would have been demanded by
the tribunals. Thus his declarations
of confidence in England amounted
simply to the belief that he would not
be put to death in its hands. He was
too sagacious to suppose that he could
have been let loose again, to be the firebrand
of the Continent, or to play once
more the farce of royalty in Elba.
The inveteracy of Napoleon in his
hatred of the governor almost amounted
to frenzy. After one of these
interviews, he said, “I never saw
such a horrid countenance. He
(Sir H. Lowe) sat in a chair opposite
to my sofa, and on the little
table between us was a cup of coffee.
His physiognomy made such an unfavourable
impression on me that
I thought his looks had poisoned it.
I ordered Marchand to throw it out
of the window. I could not have
swallowed it for the world.” Part of
this “horror” was probably “acting;”
but as everything reached Sir Hudson,
it belonged to the system of insult.
Napoleon’s ideas of religion were
sometimes regarded as decent, compared
with the general tone of the
Continent. On his deathbed he said,
“Je ne suis ni physicien ni philosophe.”
(I am neither a materialist
nor an infidel.) But an anecdote
given in Sir Hudson’s correspondence
shows the unfortunate conception
of his creed: “Dr O’Meara
related to me yesterday a very
characteristic observation of this remarkable
personage. He asked him,
on seeing that he had taken his oath
to the authenticity of the paper he had
brought to me, in what manner he had
sworn to it. Dr O’Meara replied, ‘On
the New Testament.’ ‘Then, you are
such a fool!’ was his reply.” His
attendants were obviously much of
the same order of thinking: “Cipriani
came out one day from Bonaparte’s
room, to Dr O’Meara, saying,
in a manner indicative of great surprise,
‘My master is certainly beginning
to lose his head. He believes
in God. You may think; he said to
the servant who was shutting the
windows, Why do you take from us
the light which God gives us?’ Oh,
certainly he loses his head. He
began at Waterloo, but now it is
certain.” His following remark was
curious, as an evidence of the actual
feeling of these people with respect to
the man whom they professed to
adore. Cipriani added—“I do not
believe in God; because, if there were
one, he would not have allowed a man,
who has done so much harm, to live
so long. And he does not believe;
because, if he believed, he would not
have caused so many millions of men
to be killed in this world, for fear of
meeting them in the other.” This is
absurd, but it is perhaps the average
of Italian belief. Cipriani was maître
d’hotel, and a man of intelligence.
He died on the island in 1818.
One of the conversations transmitted
by O’Meara related to Waterloo.
“The worst thing,” said Napoleon,
“that England ever did, was
that of endeavouring to make herself
a great military nation. In doing
that, she must always be the slave of
Russia, Prussia, or Austria, or at
least in some degree subservient to
them, because she has not enough of
men to combat on the Continent either
France or any of the others, and consequently
must hire men from some
of them; whereas, at sea, you are so
superior, your sailors so much better,
that you will always be superior to
us. Your soldiers, too, have not the
qualities for a military nation; they are
not equal in agility, address, or intelligence
to the French; and when they
meet with a reverse, their discipline is
very bad.... I saw myself the
retreat of Moore, and I never in my
life witnessed anything so bad as the
conduct of the soldiers; it was impossible
to collect them or make them do
anything; nearly all were drunk.”
This is a calumny. The army under
General Moore offered battle to the
army under Napoleon, who declined it;
and when he saw the steadiness of
the British, on their retreat through
an exhausted country, and especially
saw that his troops could make no
impression on the fifteen thousand
men commanded by Moore, and saw
(as we understood) the utter defeat of
the cavalry of his guard by the British
hussars, under the command of
the present Marquis of Londonderry,
he wisely drew rein, and returned to
Paris, leaving it to Soult “to drive
the leopards into the sea,” who, instead
of performing this exploit, was
himself beaten on the shore, and
forced to see the British embark at
their ease. It is true that the rapidity
and exhaustion of the British
march left many stragglers on the
road; but the rapidity resulted from
the error of having supposed that
there were parallel roads to the highroad,
by which a French force might
have intercepted their march. But,
in every attack on that march, the
French were repulsed; and such was
the nature of their defeat in the battle
of Corunna, that they were wholly
driven off their ground, and another
hour of daylight must have seen their
retreat converted into a rout.
The sneer at England, as not being
a military nation, is at once answered
by the fact, that its whole regular
force is an army of volunteers, while
all the other armies of Europe are
raised by a conscription; that in the
French war England had an army of
200,000 men, raised by the military
spirit of the country, besides 500,000
militia and yeomanry! The answer
to the “want of soldierly qualification”
in the British troops, is given in
the fact, that in the whole war the
British army never lost a pitched
battle.
Napoleon’s account of Waterloo, as
given in those pages, is, simply, that
Wellington did everything wrong, but
with the good fortune of everything
turning out right; that he ought, in all
propriety, to have been beaten, though
he beat; that the battle was a series
of blunders, which by the power of
destiny, or something else, turned into
victory; and that he himself ought, by
all the rules of war, to have been
marching in triumph into Brussels,
while he was running away to Paris,
leaving 40,000 Frenchmen slain, prisoners,
or fugitives, instead of the
40,000 Englishmen, who ought to have
fallen. In the same spirit, Napoleon
ought to have been sitting on the
throne of France, while he was talking
fustian at St Helena. “What,”
said Napoleon, “must have been the
consequence of my victory?” The
indignation against the Ministry for
having caused the loss of 40,000 of
the flower of the English army, of the
sons of the first families, and others,
who would have perished there, would
have excited such a popular commotion,
that—“they would have been
turned out.” (A rather lame and impotent
conclusion.) “The English would
then have made peace, and withdrawn
from the Coalition.”
This is one of the perpetual absurdities
of foreigners. England has
never been compelled to an ignominious
peace, by losses in war. She has
never seen an enemy in her capital.
Loving peace, she willingly makes
peace; but she has never surrendered
her sword to make it.
He persevered in this verbiage.
“I had succeeded; before twelve
o’clock everything was mine, I might
almost say. But destiny and accident
decided it otherwise.” The curious
combination of the most fixed, and
the most casual, of all things, was
alone adequate to account for the defeat
of Napoleon! and with this folly
the prisoner nursed his self-delusion to
the end.
One of the chief charges against
the English Government was its stinting
the French tables. But one of
O’Meara’s private letters gives a fair
account of the matter. “With respect
to the allowance within which
all the expenses were directed to be
comprised—viz., £8000 sterling a-year,
to which Sir Hudson Lowe has,
on his own responsibility, since added
£4000 yearly (!) in my opinion a due
regard has not been paid to circumstances,
and I do not think even this
latter sum will be sufficient....
You perhaps are not aware of the
French mode of living and their cookery.
They have, in fact, two dinners
every day—one at eleven or twelve
o’clock, to which joints, roast and
boiled, with all their various hashes,
ragouts, fricassees, &c., &c., are served
up, with wine and liqueurs; and another
at eight o’clock, which differs
from the former only in being supplied
with more dishes. Besides these two
meals, they all have (except Bonaparte
himself, who eats only twice
a-day, certainly very heartily) something
like an English breakfast, in
bed, between eight and nine in the
morning; and a luncheon, with wine,
at four or five in the afternoon.
“The common notion of the English
eating more animal food than the
French is most incorrect. I am convinced
that between their two dinners
and luncheon they consume three or
four times as much as any English
family of a similar number. Those
two dinners, then, the first of which
they have separately in their respective
rooms, cause a great consumption
of meat and wine, which, together
with their mode of cookery, require a
great quantity of either oil or butter,
both of which are excessively dear in
this place (and you may as well attempt
to deprive an Irishman of potatoes
as a Frenchman of his oil, or
some substitute for it). Their soupes
consommés (for they are, with one or
two exceptions, the greatest gluttons
and epicures I ever saw), producing
great waste of meat in a place where
the necessaries of life are so dear, altogether
render necessary a great expenditure
of money.”
Among the cunning attempts to
throw the conduct of the governor into
abhorrence, was the charge of refusing
Napoleon the bust of his son, and
even intending to destroy it. O’Meara
says, that it had been “landed fourteen
days, and some of those in the
governor’s hands.” This is another
instance of the language perpetually
used; the fact being, “that the bust
was landed on the 10th or 11th of
June, and sent to Longwood the next
day.”
The true narrative was this: In the
summer of 1816, the ex-empress Maria
Louisa having visited the baths of
Leghorn, two marble busts of her son
were executed. One of those was
purchased by Messrs Beaggini in London,
in hopes of an opportunity of
sending it to St Helena. A store-ship,
the Baring, being about to sail there
in January 1817, a foreign gunner on
board, named Radavich, was intrusted
with the bust, with instructions to
give it to Count Bertrand, for Napoleon,
leaving it to his generosity “to refund
their expenses.” If, however, he
wished to know the price, it was to be
a hundred louis. The captain of the
ship (a half-pay lieutenant) knew
nothing of its being on board till
shortly before, or immediately after,
his arrival at St Helena; at that time
Radavich was ill of apoplexy, followed
by delirium, so that for several
days it was impossible to speak to him
on the subject. When Sir Thomas
Reade was informed that it was on
board, he immediately acquainted
the governor with the circumstance.
Sir Hudson Lowe, considering the
clandestine manner in which it was
brought, was at first inclined to retain
it until he had communicated
with Lord Bathurst. But, Sir T.
Reade suggesting that as the bust
was not plaster, it could not contain
letters, advised its being forwarded at
once, and the governor assented. Before,
however, ordering it on shore, he
himself went to Longwood, to ascertain
Napoleon’s wish through Bertrand.
Major Gorrequer accompanied
him, and in his notes gives an account
of the interview. The governor mentioned
the arrival of the bust to Bertrand,
and said that he would take
upon himself the responsibility of
landing it, if such was the wish of
Napoleon. Bertrand’s answer was,
“No doubt it will give him pleasure.”
The next day the bust was landed,
taken to Longwood, and received by
Napoleon with evident delight. By
some means or other he had known
of its arrival, and said to O’Meara
on the 10th, “I have known it several
days.” He then rushed into one of
those explosions of wrath and oratory
which were familiar to him. He said,
“I intended, if it had not been given,
to have made such a complaint as
would have caused every Englishman’s
hair to stand on end! I should
have told a tale which would have
made the mothers of England execrate
him as a monster in human shape.”
And all this with the bust before
his eyes. To heighten the effect, he
would persist in pretending to believe
that Sir Hudson Lowe had given
orders for breaking up the bust, and
on this fancy he declaimed anew
against him, calling him “barbarous
and atrocious.” “That countenance,”
said he, turning to the bust, “would
melt the heart of the most ferocious
wild beast! The man who gave
orders to break that image would
plunge a knife into the heart of the
original, if it were in his power.”
And all this fury for a fiction!—the
palpable contradiction to the charge
of cruelty standing on his table.
It is not even clear, after all, that
there was not an intrigue connected
with this bust: Napoleon exhibited extreme
anxiety to see Radavich. This
the governor permitted, but on the
condition of the officer in attendance
being present, and it was declined.
Lord Bathurst, in his despatch to St
Helena, said, “The suspicious circumstances
under which the bust
arrived, were sufficient to make you
pause before you determined to transmit
it to the general. Had the package
contained anything less interesting to
him in his character as a father, the
clandestine manner in which it was
introduced on board of the vessel
would have been a sufficient reason
for withholding the delivery of it, at
least for a much longer period....
I am not disposed to participate in his
(the French ambassador’s) apprehensions
that letters were conveyed in it.
No doubt, however, can be entertained
that attempts are making at clandestine
communications.”
To this we may add that, by some
secret means, the French were acquainted
with every transaction of
Europe, and frequently before the
public authorities.
Napoleon ordered £300 to be given
to Radavich (who was merely the
agent for the London house). O’Meara
says, in his Voice from St Helena,
that, “by some unworthy tricks, this
poor man did not recover the money
for nearly two years.” This is a proof
of the slipshod statements which are
to be found in the volume; the fact
being, that, in March 1818, the former
proprietors of the bust wrote to Bertrand,
to complain of the conduct of
Radavich, as having come to no settlement
with them “for the payment
he had received for the bust, and for
the other articles intrusted to him;
and that he had gone from England
without rendering any account to
them.” They solicited Bertrand to
give them some remuneration.
Our limits warn us that we must
conclude, leaving a crowd of interesting
incidents behind. The work seems
perfectly to clear Sir Hudson Lowe’s
character, not merely from the charge
of severity, but even from the imputation
of petulance. No man could
be placed in a situation of greater
difficulty. He had to deal with a
coterie of the most unscrupulous kind;
he had also especially to deal with a
man irritated by the most signal
downfall in European record, subtle
beyond all example, unhesitating in
evasion, formed of falsehood, and furious
at necessary coercion. He had
to meet also the clamours of French
partisanship throughout Europe, and
to bear the calumnies of faction even
in England. He had to endure personal
insult, and to counteract reckless
intrigue. If he had been roused into
violence of temper, no man could be
more easily pardoned for its excess;
but there is not a single proof of this
charge, and the whole tenor of his
conduct seems to have been patient
and equable, though strict and firm.
He had one paramount duty to perform—the
prevention of Napoleon’s
escape, and he did that duty. All
minor deficiencies, if they existed,
might be merged in the perfect performance
of a duty which involved the
peace of the world.
The dismissal of O’Meara from his
office in the island, followed by his
dismissal from the navy, let loose a
personal enemy of some ability, much
plausibility, and the bitterest anger.
His volume, A Voice from St Helena,
embodied all the charges against Sir
Hudson Lowe, and was prosecuted as a
libel. But the prosecution having, in
the opinion of the judges, been delayed
for some months beyond the legal
time, it failed, on that ground only.
The governor of St Helena drew up
a refutation of the volume, which still
remains in the archives of Government.
Why he did not appeal to the
opinion of the country—a duty which
no public man can decline without loss
to his own character—cannot now be
ascertained. He was probably weary
of a life of contradiction, and had no
desire to continue it in controversy.
But the task, though long delayed,
has finally been performed, as it appears
to us, with perfect manliness,
clearness, and conviction, by its present
author. Mr Forsyth’s style is
admirably fitted for his subject—fair,
forcible, and argumentative. By his
work he has done credit to himself,
and cleared the character of a brave,
an honest, and a high-minded English
soldier and gentleman. We know no
ampler panegyric on the uses or the
successes of authorship.
Sir Hudson Lowe was appointed to
the colonelcy of the first vacant regiment
(the 93d) on his return—was
subsequently in command of the troops
in Ceylon—and at length, yielding to
the effects of toil and time, died in
1844, in his 75th year.
NEW READINGS IN SHAKESPEARE. [16]
181
A copy of almost any ancient
author, with its margins studded
with antique manuscript jottings, is
a treasure to the scholar who possesses
it, and a sore temptation to all
his antiquarian friends. What, then,
must be the pricelessness of an early
folio, thus annotated, of Shakespeare,
the Emperor of all the Literatures?
Would not a lover of the poet be
almost inclined to sell his whole library
in order to purchase that single
book? And when secured, with what
zest would he not set himself to
decipher the crabbed hieroglyphics
on the margins of the intoxicating
windfall! The various readings, recommended
by the charm of novelty,
and yet apparently as old, and perhaps
as genuine as the printed text,
would gradually become its rivals.
Alterations, occasionally felicitous,
would throw an air of respectability
over their less insinuating associates.
Sole possession would enhance the
importance of the discovery. Solitary
enjoyment would deepen the relish
of the entertainment. The situation
is one not at all favourable to the
exercise of a sound critical judgment.
Imagination goes to work, and colours
the facts according to its own wishes;
and faith and hope, “hovering o’er,”
at length drive away all misgivings as
to the authenticity of the emendations.
That fine old handwriting, which
is as conscientious as it is curious,
is itself a guarantee that the corrections
are not spurious—are not merely
conjectural. The manuscript corrector
must have had good grounds for
what he did. He may have been
Shakespeare’s bosom friend, his boon
companion, his chosen confidant, and
perhaps the assistant in his labours;
or, if not that, at any rate the friend
of some one who had known the great
dramatist well—was acquainted with
his innermost thoughts—and as intimate
with his works, and with all
that he intended to express, as if he
himself had written them. At all
events, the corrector must have had
access to sources of information respecting
the text of the plays, the
results of which have perished to
all the world—except me, the happy
holder of this unique and inestimable
volume.
Such, we conceive, would be the
state of mind and the train of reasoning
into which a man would naturally
be thrown by the acquisition of
such an agitating prize as we have
supposed. Under the excitement of
his feelings, the authority of the corrector
of the work would, in all likelihood,
supersede the authority of its
composer; the penman would carry
the day against the printer; and the
possessor of the book would do his
best to press the “new readings”
into the ears and down the throats of
a somewhat uncritical but not altogether
passive or unsuspicious public.
The case which we have described
is to be understood as a general and
ideal one; but something of this kind
seems to have befallen Mr Collier,
whom accident lately placed in possession
of a copy of the folio of Shakespeare,
1632, plentifully garnished
with manuscript notes and emendations.
In these trying circumstances
he has acted very much in the way
which might have been anticipated.
It is true that he announces his good
fortune in a strain of moderated enthusiasm.
“In the spring of 1849,”
says he, “I happened to be in the
shop of the late Mr Rodd, of Great
Newport Street, at a time when a
package of books arrived from the
country.” Among them was a very
indifferent copy of the folio of Shakespeare,
1632, which Mr Collier, concluding
hastily that it would complete
an imperfect copy of the same edition
which he had purchased from the
same bookseller some time before,
bought for thirty shillings. The purchase
did not answer its purpose.
The two leaves that were wanted to
complete the other folio “were unfit
for my purpose, not merely by being
too short” (how very particular these
book-fanciers are), “but otherwise
damaged and defaced. Thus disappointed,
I threw it by, and did not see
it again until I made a selection of
books I would take with me on quitting
London. On consulting it afterwards,”
continues Mr Collier, “it
struck me that Thomas Perkins,
whose name, with the addition of
‘his Booke,’ was upon the cover,
might be the old actor who had performed
in Marlowe’s Jew of Malta
on its revival shortly before 1633.”
That would have been an important
fact, as helping to connect the MS.
corrections closely with the Shakesperian
era. But here Mr Collier was
doomed to disappointment. On further
inquiry he found that the actor’s name
was Richard Perkins: “still,” says
he, with a faith too buoyant to be
submerged by such a trifle, “Thomas
Perkins might have been a descendant
of Richard,” from whom, of course,
he probably inherited a large portion
of the emendations. “This circumstance,”
says Mr Collier, “and others,
induced me to examine the volume
more particularly: I then discovered,
to my surprise, that there was hardly
a page which did not present, in a
handwriting of the time, some emendations
in the pointing or in the text,
while on most of them they were
frequent, and on many numerous.
Of course I now submitted the folio
to a most careful scrutiny; and as it
occupied a considerable time to complete
the inspection, how much more
must it have consumed to make the
alterations? The ink was of various
shades, differing sometimes on the
same page, and I was once disposed
to think that two distinct hands had
been employed upon them. This notion
I have since abandoned, and I
am now decidedly of opinion that the
same writing prevails from beginning
to end, but that the amendments
must have been introduced from time
to time during perhaps the course of
several years.”
But although Mr Collier speaks
thus calmly of his prize, we are
nevertheless convinced, by the rapidity
of his conversion from the old
readings to the new, that he, like the
rest of us, is liable to be carried a
little off his feet by any sudden stroke
of prosperity, and is keenly alive (as
most people are) to the superior
merits of anything that happens to
be his own. It is our nature to admire
what we alone have been privileged
to possess or to discover. Hence
Mr Collier has stepped at one plunge
from possession into cordial approbation
and unhesitating adoption of
most of the corrections set forth on
the margins of his folio. Formerly the
stanchest defender of the old Shakesperian
text, he is now the advocate
of changes in it, to an extent
which calls for very grave consideration
on the part of those who regard
the language of the poet as a sacred
inheritance, not to be disturbed by
innovations, without the strongest
evidence, the most conclusive reasons,
and the most clamant necessity being
adduced in their support.
We are far from blaming Mr Collier
for having published his volume of
“Notes and Emendations.” Although
it might be advantageously reduced in
bulk by the omission of many details
occupied with the settlement of matters
which have been long ago settled, still
it is in some respects a valuable contribution
to the literature of Shakespeare.
We have no faith whatever in
the authenticity of the new readings; a
few of them, however—a very few—seem
to us to be irresistibly established
by their own self-evidence;
while the whole of them are invested
with a certain degree of interest as
the interpretations of an indefatigable,
though thick-headed—of a blundering,
yet early and perhaps almost contemporary,
scholiast. As a matter of
curiosity, and as indicative of the
state of English criticism in the 17th
century, the new readings are acceptable;
and the thanks of the literary
portion of the community are due to
Mr Collier for having favoured them
with this publication. But here the
obligation stops. To insert the new
readings into the text, and to publish
them as the genuine words of Shakespeare
(which we understand Mr
Collier has either done or threatens
to do), is a proceeding which cannot
be too solemnly denounced. This is
to poison our language in its very
“wells of English undefiled.” It is
to obliterate the distinctions which
characterise the various eras of our
vernacular tongue; for however near
to the time of Shakespeare our newly
discovered scholiast may have lived,
there was doubtless some interval
between them—an interval during
which our language was undergoing
considerable changes. It is to lose
hold of old modes of thought, as well
as of old forms of expression;—it is
to confound the different styles of
our literature;—it is to vitiate with
anachronisms the chronology of our
speech;—it is to profane the memory
of Shakespeare.
When we look for evidence in favour
of the authenticity of these (so-called)
“Emendations,” we look for it in vain.
The state of the case may perhaps be
understood, by attending to the following
particulars. Of Shakespeare’s
handwriting, so far as is known, there
is not now extant so much as “the
scrape of a pen,” with the exception
of the autograph of his name. Of his
plays, thirteen were published in an
authentic form during his life, and
four in spurious or “pirated” editions.
These are called the quartos. After
his death, one of his plays was published,
by itself, for the first time—“Othello.”
In 1623, seven years after
his death, the first folio appeared. It
contains the eighteen plays just referred
to, with the addition of eighteen,
now published for the first time.
This folio 1623 was printed (if we
are to believe its editors, and there is
no reason to doubt their word) from
Shakespeare’s own manuscripts, and
from the quarto editions, revised and
corrected to some extent, either by
his own hand or under his authority.
So that the folio 1623 is the highest
authority that can be appealed to in
the settlement of his text. It ranks
even before the quartos, except in
cases of obvious misprint, or other
self-evident oversights. To it, in so
far as external evidence is concerned,
all other proofs must yield. Internal
evidence may occasionally solicit the
alteration of its text; but such emendations
must, in every case, be merely
conjectural. It is the basis of every
genuine edition, and must continue
so, until Shakespeare’s own manuscripts
be brought to light.
Out of these circumstances an important
consideration arises. It is
this, that we are not entitled, on any
account, to alter the text of the folio
1623, even in cases where manifest
improvements might be made, so long
as the old reading makes sense. If
any reasonable meaning can be extracted
from the received lection, we
are bound to retain it, because we
have every reason to believe that it
is what Shakespeare wrote; and it is
our object to possess his words and
his meaning, not as we may suppose
they ought to have been, but as they
actually were. Where no sense at all
can be obtained from a passage, a
slight, perhaps a considerable, alteration
is allowable; because any man’s
intelligibility is to be preferred to
even Shakespeare’s unintelligibility.
But we are never to flatter ourselves,
with any strong degree of assurance,
that the correction has restored to us
the exact language of the poet.
This consideration had, in former
years, its due weight with Mr Collier.
No one was a keener advocate than
he for preserving the original text inviolate.
He now views the matter in
a different light. He is tolerant of
new readings, even in cases where
sense can be elicited from the received
text. Further, he frequently gives
the preference to new readings, as we
hope to show, even in cases where the
old reading is far the more forcible
and intelligible of the two. And on
what ground does he countenance
them? Setting aside at present the
question of their internal evidence,
we reply, that he countenances them
on the ground that the folio 1623 is of
doubtful authenticity. He denies that
it was prepared from Shakespeare’s
own papers. This is the foundation
of his case. He maintains that the
copy which the printer used had been
(probably) dictated by some underling
of the theatre, to some scribe
whose ear (probably) often deceived
him in taking up the right word, and
who consequently put down a wrong
one, which was subsequently set up
in type by the printer. He is further
of opinion that a text of Shakespeare,
purer than any that ever got into
print, was preserved orally in the
theatre, and that the corrector of his
folio, who was decidedly of a theatrical
turn, and perhaps himself a manager,
picked up his new readings from the
mouths of the players themselves.
But he has entirely failed to prove
these improbable assertions. His
theory in regard to the printing of
the folio 1623 is contradicted by the
distinct announcement of its editors,
who say of their great master that
“his mind and hand went together,
and what he thought he uttered with
that easiness that we have scarce received
from him a blot in his papers.”
This declaration, that the materials
from which they worked were derived
directly from Shakespeare himself,
seems to establish conclusively the
authenticity of the folio 1623; and
that point being made good, all external
evidence in favour of the new
readings must of necessity fail.
But perhaps these new readings are
supported by their internal evidence—perhaps
they bring along with them
such an amount of force and propriety
as carries conviction on the
very face of it, and entitles them to
a decided preference in comparison
with the old? Mr Collier would fain
think so. On their evident superiority,
both in sense and in style,
he rests the main strength of his
case. Speaking of his volume, he
says, “I ought not to hesitate in
avowing my conviction, that we are
bound to admit by far the greater body
of the substitutions it contains, as the
restored language of Shakespeare. As
he was especially the poet of common
life, so he was emphatically the poet
of common sense; and to the verdict
of common sense I am willing to submit
all the more material alterations
recommended on the authority before
me. If they will not bear that test, I
for one am willing to relinquish them.”
Our principal object in the following
pages is to show that “by far the
greater body of the substitutions”
will not stand this test; and that
many of them present such a perverse
depravation of the true text, that if
the design of the corrector had been
to damage the literary character of
Shakespeare, he could not have accomplished
his purpose more effectually
than by representing these new readings
as his. At the same time, we
shall endeavour to bring forward
everything in Mr Collier’s volume
which tells in the manuscript-corrector’s
favour. This will probably
cause the corrector’s notes and emendations
to be more highly thought of
than they deserve; because, while it
will be no difficult matter to lay before
the reader all, or nearly all, his judicious
amendments, our space will not
permit us to present to him one-twentieth
part of his astounding aberrations.
Selecting, then, as many of
the more important alterations as our
limits will allow, and weighing what
their internal evidence is worth, we
shall go over the plays seriatim, commencing
with “The Tempest.”
The Tempest.—The new readings
in this play are generally unimportant,
and, in our judgment, not one of
them ought to be admitted into the
text. In no case would anything be
gained, and in some cases a good deal
would be lost, by adopting the proposed
changes. In the following passage
the original text is certainly unsatisfactory,
but the new reading is at
least equally so. Antonio, the usurping
Duke of Milan, has become so
habituated to the possession of his
unlawful power, and has been so little
checked in the exercise of it, that he
at length believes himself to be the
real duke. This idea is thus expressed.
Prospero, the rightful duke, says
of him—
“He being thus lorded,
Not only with what my revenue yielded,
But what my power might else exact,—like
one
Who having, unto truth, by telling of it,
Made such a sinner of his memory
To credit his own lie,—he did believe
He was indeed the duke.”
For “lorded,” Mr Collier’s emendator
would read “loaded”—a correction
which Mr Collier himself admits to be
“questionable,” and which we throw
overboard at once. For “unto truth”
he proposes “to untruth”—
“like one
Who having, to untruth, by telling of it,” &c.
But here, if one flaw is mended, another
and a worse one is made. By
reading “to untruth” we obtain, indeed,
a proper antecedent to “it,”
which otherwise must be looked for,
awkwardly enough, in the subsequent
word “lie.” But as a set-off against
this improvement, we would ask, how
can a man be said to make his memory
a sinner to untruth? This would
mean, if it meant anything, that the
man’s memory was true; and this is
precisely what Prospero says Antonio’s
memory was not. We must
leave, therefore, the text as it stands,
regarding it as one of those passages
in which Shakespeare has expressed
himself with less than his usual care
and felicity.
The substitution of “all” for “are”
in the lines,
“They all have met again,
And are upon the Mediterranean float”—
Or, as the MS. corrector reads it,
“They all upon the Mediterranean float”—
strikes us as peculiarly un-Shakesperian.
But this instance of the corrector’s
injudicious meddling is a small
matter. The following passage deserves
more careful consideration, for we are
convinced that the text of the first and
second folios, which has been universally
rejected since the days of Theobald,
is, after all, the right reading.
Act III. Scene 1 opens with the soliloquy
of Ferdinand, who declares that
the irksome tasks to which he has
been set by Prospero are sweetly alleviated
by the consciousness that he
has secured the interest and sympathy
of Miranda. He says—
“There be some sports are painful; but their labour
Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone: and most poor matters
Point to rich ends. This my mean task
Would be as heavy to me as odious; but
The mistress, which I serve, quickens what’s dead,
And makes my labours pleasures. Oh, she is
Ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed,
And he’s composed of harshness. I must remove
Some thousands of these logs, and pile them up
Upon a sore injunction. My sweet mistress
Weeps when she sees me work, and says such baseness
Had never like executor. I forget:
But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours,
Most busy-less, when I do it.”
The last line, as it here stands, is
Theobald’s reading; and it has been
adopted almost unanimously by subsequent
editors—by the compilers of
the variorum Shakespeare—by Mr
Knight—and most recently by Mr
Halliwell, in his magnificent folio.
Mr Singer, in his edition of 1826, and
Mr Collier’s emendator, are, so far as
we can learn, the only dissentients.
The former proposes, “most busiest
when I do it;” and the latter, “most
busy,—blest when I do it;” which
reading we agree with Mr Singer in
thinking “the very worst and most
improbable of all that have been suggested;”—will
he excuse us for adding—except
perhaps, his own? Theobald’s
text is certainly greatly to be
preferred to either of these alterations.
Had the MS. corrector’s emendation
been a compound epithet, “busy-blest”
(that is, blest with my business,
because it is associated with
thoughts of Miranda), something,
though perhaps not much, might possibly
have been said in its behalf.
But Mr Collier regards the correction
as consisting of two distinct words;
and, therefore, he must excuse us for
saying that it is one in which sense
and grammar are equally set at defiance.
We now take up the original
reading, which has been universally
discarded, but which, as we hope
clearly to show, calls for no alteration;
and an attention to which, at an
earlier stage in the revision of Shakespeare’s
text, might have prevented a
large expenditure of very unnecessary
criticism. The original text of the
line under consideration is this—
“Most busy, least when I do it.”
This is the reading of the second folio.
The first folio has “lest;” but, of
course, least and lest are the same
word in the arbitrary spelling of that
early period. We maintain that this
lection makes as excellent and undeniable
sense as could be desired.
“Most busy, least when I do it;”
—that is, “when I do it (or work) least,
then am I most busy, most oppressed
by toil.” More fully stated, the obvious
meaning is “this labour of mine
is so preciously sweetened, so agreeably
refreshed by thoughts of Miranda’s
kindness, that I really feel most
busy, most burthened, most fatigued,
when I am least occupied with my
task; because, then I am not so sensible
of being the object of her sympathy
and approval.” Shakespeare
intends that Ferdinand should express
the ardour of his attachment to Miranda
in a strong hyperbole; accordingly,
he makes him say, “I am most
busy, when I am least busy;” because
the spirit of Miranda does not cheer
and inspire my idleness, in the way
in which it cheers and inspires my
labour. Theobald’s line expresses,
although in an imperfect manner, this
same hyperbole conversely. “I am
least busy, when I am most busy;
because, when I am working hardest,
the spirit of Miranda is present to
refresh and alleviate my toils.” But
Shakespeare’s mode of expressing the
exaggeration is both stronger and
finer than Theobald’s, which in point
of language is exceedingly lame and
defective. Our only doubt, in restoring
the old reading, is in regard to
the word “it.” Perhaps it would be
as well away, and we might read more
perspicuously
“Most busy,—least when I do.”
The measure being already redundant,
the word could be spared. But its
absence or presence makes little or no
difference, and, with it, or without it,
we hope to see this restoration of the
original text, which, of course, requires
no authority except its own to
establish it, embodied in all future editions
of our great national dramatist.
The only new reading in this play
which we have some hesitation in
condemning, is the following. The
witch Sycorax is spoken of (Act V.
Scene 1.) as one
“That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,
And deal in her command without her power.”
This is the ordinary text. The MS.
corrector proposes “with all power;”
and, at first sight, this correction looks
like an improvement; for how could
the witch deal in the moon’s command,
if she had not got the moon’s power?
On second thoughts, however, we
believe that Mr Knight, who defends
the common reading, is right. By
“power,” we are here to understand
legitimate authority; and of this Sycorax
has none. By means of her spells
and counternatural incantations she
could make ebbs and flows, and thus
wielded to some extent the lunar
influences; but she had none of that
rightful and natural dominion over
the tides of the ocean which belongs
only to the moon. Our verdict, therefore,
is in favour of the old reading.
We pass from “The Tempest” with the
remark that the other new readings proposed
by Mr Collier’s emendator have
here and elsewhere been conclusively
set aside, in our estimation, by the
observations of Mr Knight and Mr
Singer; and we again protest against
any adulteration of the text of this
play by the introduction even of a
single word which the MS. corrector
has suggested.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona.—Nothing
connected with Shakespeare
is small, and therefore we make no
apology for calling the reader’s attention
to what some people might consider
a very small matter—the difference
between for and but in the
following lines. Act I. Scene 1.—Valentine
and Proteus, “The Two
Gentlemen of Verona,” are saying
good-bye to each other, the former
being on the eve of setting out on
his travels. Valentine, the traveller,
says to his friend—
—“on some love-book pray for my success.
Proteus. Upon some book I love, I’ll pray for thee.
Valentine. That’s on some shallow story of deep love,
How young Leander cross’d the Hellespont.
Proteus. That’s a deep story of a deeper love,
For he was more than over shoes in love.
Valentine. ’Tis true; for you are over boots in love,
And yet you never swam the Hellespont.”
In place of “for” in the last line but
one, the corrector proposes “but,”
and Mr Collier approves, remarking
that but “seems more consistent with
the course of the dialogue.” If, however,
we attend to the sequence of
thought in this passage, it will be apparent
that the change not only fails
to render the dialogue more consistent,
but that it altogether destroys its consistency,
converting very good sense
into downright nonsense; smartness
into drivel. When Proteus says that
Leander who crossed the Hellespont
was more than over shoes in love, Valentine
catches him up, “’tis true: no
doubt of it: he must have been more
than over shoes in love; for you, who
never swam the Hellespont at all, are
actually over boots in love.” The reasoning
here seems very plain. If Proteus,
without swimming the Hellespont,
was over boots in love, surely the very
least that could be said of Leander,
who did swim it, must be that he was
more than over shoes in love. “Your
remark, friend Proteus, though very
true, is not very recondite. It is
decidedly common-place, and such as I
should scarcely have expected to hear
from a person of your wit and penetration.
Pray favour us with something
a little more original and profound.”
All this banter, and we
venture to think it rather happy, is
implied in Valentine’s words—
“’Tis true; For you are over boots in love,
And yet you never swam the Hellespont.”
But change this “for” into “but,” and
the whole point of the dialogue is
gone. Let this new reading be adopted,
and future commentators will be
justified in declaring that Shakespeare’s
words were sometimes without meaning.
This single and apparently insignificant
instance in which the corrector
has palpably misconceived his
author, compels us to distrust his
capacity, and ought to go far to shake
the general credit of his emendations.
To alter “blasting in the bud,” into
“blasted in the bud,” is merely an
instance of excessive bad taste on the
part of the MS. corrector. We see
nothing worthy of approval or animadversion
until we come to two lines
which are quoted from Act III.
Scene 2—
“But say, this weed her love from Valentine,
It follows not that she will love Sir Thurio”—
where it may be a question whether
“wean” (the corrector’s suggestion),
might not be judiciously substituted
for “weed.” If rapid extirpation was
intended to be expressed, “weed” is
the word; otherwise we are disposed
to prefer “wean,” as better fitted
to denote the contemplated alienation
of Julia’s affections from Proteus.
In Act IV. Scene 2, a whole new
line is introduced; and as there is no
evidence to prove that the corrector
did not write this line himself, we
must protest against its insertion in
the genuine writings of Shakespeare.
The interpolation is in italics. Eglamour
says to the distressed Silvia, who
is requesting him to be her escort—
“Madam, I pity much your grievances,
And the most true affections that you bear,
Which since I know they virtuously are placed,
I give consent to go along with you.”
Johnson explains grievances as sorrows,
sorrowful affections—an explanation
which renders the interpolated
line quite unnecessary. Shakespeare
understood the art of ne quid nimis,
and frequently leaves something to be
supplied by the imagination of his
reader or hearer. Besides, it would
have been indelicate in Eglamour to
have alluded more particularly to the
“loves” of Silvia and Valentine.
If the MS. corrector had ever seen
Scene IV. effectively acted, he must
have perceived how completely one
good point would have been destroyed
by his unwise insertion of the word
“cur.” Launce, servant to Proteus,
has been sent by his master with a
little dog as a present to Silvia.
Launce has lost the lap-dog, and has
endeavoured to make compensation
by offering to Silvia his own hulking
mongrel in its place. These particulars
are thus recounted:—
“Launce.—Marry, sir, I carried Mistress
Silvia the dog you bade me.
Proteus.—And what says she to my little
jewel?
Launce.—Marry, she says your dog was
a cur; and tells you currish thanks is good
enough for such a present.
Proteus.—But she received my present?
Launce.—No, indeed, she did not. Here I
have brought him back again.
Proteus.—What! didst thou offer her this
from me?
Launce.—Ay, sir, the other squirrel was
stolen from me by the hangman’s boys in the
market-place; and then I offered her mine
own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours,
and therefore the gift the greater.”
The question is, whether the word
“this” is better by itself, or whether
it should be coupled with the word
“cur,” as the MS. emendator proposes.
Our notion is, that the single
pronoun is greatly the more expressive.
“Did you offer her this” (of
course pointing to the brute with an
expression of indignation and abhorrence,
which disdained to call him
anything but this) “THIS!!! from
me? The lady must think me mad.”
In regard to the other corrections, we
perceive no such force or propriety in
any of them as might incline us to
disturb, for their sake, the received
text of “The Two Gentlemen of Verona.”
The Merry Wives of Windsor.—In
Act II. Scene 1, the commentators
have all been gravelled by the
word “an-heires,” as it stands in all
the early editions in the following
passage—
“Host.—My hand, bully, thou shalt have
egress and regress; said I well, and thy name
shall be Brook. It is a merry knight—will
you go, anheires?”
In place of this unintelligible word,
various substitutes have been proposed.
The MS. corrector would read
“Will you go on here?” This is very
poor, and sounds to our ears very unlike
the host’s ordinary slang; and we have
no hesitation in agreeing with Mr
Dyce,[17] who gives the preference over
all the other readings to that of Sir
John Hanmer, the editor of the Oxford
edition: “Will you go on, mynheers?”—will
you go on, my masters?
The word is proved to have been used
in England in the time of Shakespeare.
In Act II. Scene 3, this same host,
who deals somewhat largely in the
unknown tongue, again says—
“I will bring thee where Mistress Page is,
at a farm-house feasting, and thou shalt woo
her. Cried game, said I well?”
This obsolete slang has puzzled the
commentators sorely. Mr Dyce suggests
“cried I aim,” which means, it
appears, “Did I give you encouragement?”—(vide
Singer, p. 7.) We confess
ourselves incompetent to form
an opinion, except to this extent, that
Mr Collier’s corrector, who proposes
“curds and cream,” seems to us to
have made the worst shot of any that
have been fired.[18]
In Act IV. Scene I, we rather think
that the MS. corrector is right in
changing “let” into “get,” in the
following passage: “How now,” says
Mrs Page to Sir Hugh Evans the
schoolmaster; “How now, Sir Hugh?—no
school to-day?” “No,” answers
Sir Hugh; “Master Slender is
let (read get) the boys leave to play.”
In Sir Hugh’s somewhat Celtic dialect,
he is get the boys a holiday.
In the following passage, Act IV.
Scene 5, the received text is this—
“Simple.—I would I could have spoken
with the woman herself. I had other things
to have spoke with her, too, from him.
Falstaff.—What are they?—let us know.
Host.—Ay, come; quick.
Simple.—I may not conceal them, sir.
Falstaff.—Conceal them, or thou diest.”
Good Dr Farmer thought that, in
both instances, we should read “reveal”—not
perceiving that the humour
of the dialogue (such as it is) consists
in reading “conceal,” and in understanding
“reveal.” But the MS.
emendator, with an innocence beyond
even Dr Farmer’s, would alter the
passage thus—
“Falstaff.—What are they?—let us
know.
Host.—Ay, come quick.
Falstaff.—You may not conceal them, sir.
Host.—Conceal them, and thou diest.”
And Mr Collier approves of this variation,
as “making the dialogue run
quite consistently.”
Measure for Measure.—In the
Duke’s speech, at the opening of the
play, a formidable difficulty presents
itself. Addressing Escalus, of whose
statesmanlike qualities he has the
highest opinion, the Duke says, as all
the editions give it—
“Of government the properties to unfold,
Would seem in me to affect speech and discourse,
Since I am put to know that your own science
Exceeds in that the lists of all advice
My strength can give you. Then no more remains
But that, to your sufficiency, as your worth is able,
And let them work.”
The two last lines of this passage
have been a grievous stumbling-block
to the commentators. The variorum
men, with Johnson at their head,
have made nothing of it. Mr Singer
reads—
“Then no more remains
But there to your sufficiency as your worth is able,
And let them work;”
which seems quite as dark and perplexing
as the original text. Mr
Collier’s man, cutting the knot with
desperate hook, which slashes away a
good many words, gives us—
“Then no more remains,
But add to your sufficiency your worth,
And let them work.”
These words are sufficiently intelligible;
but this is not to rectify
Shakespeare’s text—it is to re-write
it; and this no man can be permitted
to do. As a private speculation of
our own, we venture to propose the
following, altering merely one word
of the authentic version—
“Then no more remains,
But that (to your sufficiency as your worth is able)
You let them work.”
The Duke has remarked that he is
not competent to give Escalus any
advice on matters of public policy, as
he is much better versed in such
affairs than himself. He then goes
on to say, “No more remains, but
that (seeing your worth is able—that
is, is equal—to your sufficiency or
acquired knowledge) you should let
the two, your worth, and your sufficiency,
work together for the good of
your country.” Or it might be allowable
to introduce “equal” into the
text, thereby making the sense still
plainer—
“Then no more remains
But that (to your sufficiency as your worth is equal)
You let them work.”
But if any auxiliar authority could
be found for the use of the word
“able” as here employed (a point
about which we are doubtful, though
not desperate), we should prefer to
retain it in the text. By making the
words to and as change places, we obtain
a still more perspicuous reading—
“Then no more remains,
But that (as your sufficiency to your worth is equal)
You let them work.”
Mr Collier remarks (p. 42), “Near
the end of Mrs Overdone’s speech,
‘is’ is required before the words ‘to
be chopped off.’ It is deficient in all
printed copies, and is inserted in
manuscript in the corrected folio
1632.” We can inform Mr Collier
that the word “is” stands, in this
place, in the variorum edition of 1785.
Act I. Scene 4.—The Duke, who
has abdicated for a time in favour of
Angelo, says, in allusion to the
abuses which Angelo is expected to
correct—
“I have on Angelo imposed my office,
Who may, in the ambush of my name, strike home,
And yet, my nature never in the sight,
To do it slander.”
The corrector of Mr Collier’s folio
suggests to draw on slander; and as a
gloss or explanation of an antiquated
or awkward expression, this variation
may be accepted; but it certainly
has no title to be admitted into the
text as the authentic language of
Shakespeare. The change of “story”
into “scorn” (Scene 5), is perhaps
admissible. Alluding to a false species
of repentance, the friar, in Act II.
Scene 3, says that such insufficient
“Sorrow is always towards ourselves, not heaven,
Showing we would not spare heaven, as we love it,
But as we stand in fear.”
On the margin of Mr Collier’s folio,
“serve” is written, and “spare” is
scored out. We greatly prefer the
old reading, in spite of Mr Collier’s
assertion that it is corrupt, and
“seems little better than nonsense.”
To spare heaven is not nonsense; it
means to refrain from sin. To serve
heaven means something more; it
means to practise holiness. The
difference is but slight, but it is quite
sufficient to establish the language of
Shakespeare as greatly superior to
that of his anonymous corrector, because
the point here in question is
much rather abstinence from vice
than the positive practice of virtue.
In Act II. Scene 4, the following
somewhat obscure expression occurs:
“in the loss of question”—what does
it mean? “It means,” says Mr
Singer (p. 11), “in the looseness of
conversation.” That is a most satisfactory
explanation. Yet if Mr Collier
and his emendator had their own
way, we should be deprived of this
genuine Shakesperian phrase, and be
put off with the unmeaning words
“in the force of question.”
In Act III. Scene 1, the alteration
of “blessed” into “boasted,” in the
speech in which the Duke so finely
moralises on the vanity of human
life, cannot be too decidedly condemned—
“Thou” (oh Life) “hast nor youth nor age,
But as it were an after-dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both, for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld.”
Some people may not be able to
understand how the period of youth
can, in one and the same breath, be
called blessed, and yet miserable as
old age. They look on that as a contradiction.
Such people ought never
to read poetry. At any rate, they
ought first to learn that the poet is
privileged, nay, is often bound to declare
as actual that which is only
potential or ideal. Thus, he may
say that blessed youth is a miserable
season of existence, meaning thereby
that misery overspreads even that
time of life which ought to be, and
which ideally is, the happiest in the
pilgrimage of man. The manuscript
corrector has but an obtuse perception
of these niceties, and hence he
substitutes boasted for blessed—converting
Shakespeare’s language into
mere verbiage.
Comedy of Errors—Act I. Scene
1.—The alteration of the word “nature”
into “fortune” in the following
lines, is an undoubted departure from
the genuine language of Shakespeare,
and a perversion of his sense. Ægeon,
whose life has been forfeited by his
accidental arrival at Ephesus, says—
“Yet that the world may witness that my end
Was wrought by nature, not by vile offence,
I’ll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.”
Mr Collier, slightly doubtful of the
propriety of the new reading (fortune),
says, “Possibly by ‘nature’ we might
understand the natural course of
events.” We say, certainly this is
what we must understand by the word.
I die by nature, says Ægeon, not by
vile offence; or, as Warburton interprets
it, “My death is according to
the ordinary course of Providence,
and not the effects of Divine vengeance
overtaking my crimes.” But
the word “fortune,” had Ægeon
used it, would rather have implied
that he regarded himself as an object
of Divine displeasure; and therefore
this word must not only not be
adopted, but it must be specially
avoided, if we would preserve the
meaning of Shakespeare. In this case,
the internal evidence is certainly in
favour of the ordinary reading.
In a subsequent part of the same
scene, the Duke, who is mercifully inclined
towards Ægeon, advises him
“To seek thy help by beneficial help.”
That is, he recommends him to
borrow such a sum of money as may
be sufficient to ransom his life. The
MS. corrector reads not very intelligibly—
“To seek thy hope by beneficial help.”
And Mr Collier, explaining the obscurum
per obscurius, remarks that
“Ægeon was to seek what he hoped
to obtain (viz. money to purchase his
life) by the ‘beneficial help’ of some
persons in Ephesus.” The “beneficial
help” was itself the money by which
he was to “seek his help,” or save
his life. “Beneficial help” means
“pecuniary assistance,” and therefore
we are at a loss to understand Mr
Collier when he says that Ægeon was
to seek money by the “beneficial
help” or pecuniary assistance of certain
persons in Ephesus. All that he
required to do was to obtain this pecuniary
assistance; obtaining that, he
of course would obtain the money by
which his life was to be redeemed.
The received text of the line ought on
no account to be disturbed. The repetition
of the word “help” is peculiarly
Shakesperian.
Act II. Scene 1.—A very little consideration
may convince any one that
the following correction is untenable.
The ordinary text is this: Dromio
the slave having been well drubbed
by his master, says—
“He told his mind upon mine ear; Beshrew
his hand, I scarce could understand it.
“Luciana.—Spake he so doubtfully, thou
couldst not feel his meaning?
Dromio.—Nay, he struck so plainly, I
could too well feel his blows; and withal so
doubtfully that I could scarce understand
them.”
The manuscript corrector proposes
“doubly” for “doubtfully,” in both
instances; losing sight, as we think,
of the plain meaning of words. To
speak doubly is to speak deceitfully;
to speak doubtfully is to speak obscurely
or unintelligibly. But certainly
Luciana had no intention of
asking Dromio if his master had
spoken to him deceitfully. Such a
question would have been irrelevant
and senseless. She asks, spake he so
obscurely that you could not understand
his words?—and the slave answers,
“By my troth, so obscurely that
I could scarce understand (that is,
stand under) them.” This is the only
quibble.
In Act II. Scene 2, the expression
“she moves me for her theme,” that
is, “she makes me the subject of her
discourse,” occurs. This is changed by
the MS. corrector into “she means
me for her theme;” that is, “she
means to make me the subject of her
discourse.” But the “she” who is
here referred to is actually, at that
very moment, talking most vehemently
about the person who utters these
words; and therefore this emendation
is certainly no restoration, but a corruption
of the genuine language of
Shakespeare.
Act IV. Scene 2.—The bum-bailiff
is thus maltreated. The words in
italics are the MS. corrector’s wanton
and damaging interpolations.
“Adriana.—Where is thy master, Dromio, is he well?
Dromio.—No: he’s in Tartar limbo, worse than hell;
A devil in an everlasting garment hath him, fell;
One whose hard heart is buttoned up with steel,
Who has no touch of mercy, cannot feel;
A fiend, a fury, pitiless, and rough;
A wolf, nay worse, a fellow all in buff.”
Here the only doubt is, whether
the word “fury” (the MS., and also
Theobald’s reading) is a judicious substitute
for the word “fairy,” which
the old copies present. We think
that it is not, being satisfied with
Johnson’s note, who observes—“There
were fairies like hobgoblins,
pitiless and rough, and described as
malevolent and mischievous.”—Nowadays
a fairy is an elegant creature
dressed in green. So she was in
Shakespeare’s time. But in Shakespeare’s
time there was also another
kind of fairy—a fellow clothed in a
buff jerkin, made of such durable
materials as to be well-nigh “everlasting;”
and whose vocation it was,
as it still is, to pay his addresses to
those who may have imprudently allowed
their debts to get into confusion.
Let us not allow the old usages
of language to drop into oblivion.
Act IV. Scene 3.—“The vigor of
his rage,” is obviously a much more
vigorous expression than “the rigor
of his rage,” which the MS. corrector
proposes in its place.
Act V. Scene 1.—“The following
lines,” says Mr Collier, “as they are
printed in the folio 1623, have been the
source of considerable cavil,” meaning,
we presume, dispute. The words
are uttered by the Abbess, who has
been parted from her sons for a great
many years, and has but recently discovered
them.
“Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burden are delivered.”
“That the above is corrupt,” continues
Mr Collier, “there can be no
question; and in the folio 1632, the
printer attempted thus to amend the
passage:—
‘Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail
Of you my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burthens are delivered.’
“Malone gives it thus:—
‘Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you my sons; until this present hour
My heavy burthen not delivered.’
“The MS. corrector,” continues Mr
Collier, “of the folio 1632 makes the
slightest possible change in the second
line, and at once removes the
difficulty: he puts it—
‘Thirty-three years have I been gone in travail
Of you my sons, and at this present hour
My heavy burthens are delivered.’”
In his edition 1826, Mr Singer
reads—
“Twenty-five years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burthen ne’er delivered.”
We are of opinion that a better
reading than any here given, and than
any ever given, might be proposed.
Thus—
“Thirty-three years have I but gone in travail
Of you, my sons, and till this present hour
My heavy burthen has delivered.”
That is, I have done nothing but
go in travail of you, my children, for
thirty-three years; and, moreover (I
have gone in travail of you), till this
present hour has delivered me of my
heavy burden. This reading brings
her pains up to the present moment,
when she declares herself joyfully relieved
from them by the unexpected
restoration of her children. This
amendment seems to yield a more
emphatic meaning than any of the
others; and it departs as little as any
of them from the original text of
1623.
Much Ado about Nothing—Act
I. Scene 3.—The brothers Don Pedro
and Don John have quarrelled, and
have been reconciled. Conrade remarks
to the latter, “You have of
late stood out against your brother,
and he hath ta’en you newly into his
grace.” The MS. correction is, “till
of late,” which, as any one looking
at the context even with half an eye,
may perceive both spoils the idiom
and impairs the meaning of the passage.
Act II. Scene 1.—We admit that
Shakespeare might—nay, ought—to
have written as follows, but we doubt
whether he did. “Wooing, wedding,
and repenting,” says Beatrice, “is as
a Scotch jig, a measure, and a cinque-pace;
the first suit is hot and hasty,
like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical;
the wedding, mannerly modest,
as a measure full of state and ancienty;
and then comes repentance,
and, with his bad legs, falls into
cinque-pace faster and faster, till he
sink apace into his grave.” “Apace”
is MS. corrector’s contribution.
In the following much-disputed
passage, we are of opinion that Shakespeare
uses somewhat licentiously the
word “impossible” in the sense of
inconceivable, and that Johnson’s and
the MS. corrector’s substitution of
“importable” (i. e. insupportable) is
unnecessary. “She told me,” says
Benedick, speaking of Beatrice, “that
I was the prince’s jester, and that I
was duller than a great thaw, huddling
jest upon jest, with such impossible
conveyance, upon me, that I
stood like a man at mark with a
whole army shooting at me.” “Impossible
conveyance” means inconceivable
rapidity.
Act III. Scene 1.—There surely
can be no question as to the superior
excellence of the received reading in
the following lines. The repentant
Beatrice, who has overheard her character
severely censured, says—
“What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?
Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?
Contempt farewell, and maiden pride adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.”
Beatrice means to say that contempt
and maiden pride are never the screen
to any true nobleness of character.
This is well expressed in the line,
“No glory lives behind the back of such.”
A vigorous expression, which the
MS. corrector recommends us to exchange
for the frivolous feebleness of
“No glory lives but in the lack of such.”
This substitution, we ought to say, is
worse than feeble and frivolous. It is
a perversion of Beatrice’s sentiments.
She never meant to say that a maiden
should lack maiden pride, but only
that it should not occupy a prominent
position in the front of her character.
Let her have as much of it as she
pleases, and the more the better, only
let it be drawn up as a reserve in the
background, and kept for defensive
rather than for offensive operations.
This is all that Beatrice can seriously
mean when she says, “maiden pride
adieu.”
Act IV. Scene 1.—In the following
passage we back Shakespeare’s
word against the MS. corrector’s, not
only in point of authenticity, but in
point of taste. Leonato, greatly exasperated
with his daughter, says to
her—
“For did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,
Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,
Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches,
Strike at thy life.”
This is the reading of the folio 1632.
The folio 1623 reads “reward,” but
that is obviously a misprint for “rearward.”
The MS. corrector proposes
hazard. As if the infuriated father
would have cared one straw what the
world might think or say of him for
slaying his daughter. In his passion
he was far beyond minding such a
trifle as public opinion, and would
never have paused to give utterance
to the sentiment which the corrector
puts into his mouth. What he says
is this—that after heaping reproaches
on his daughter to the uttermost, he
would follow them up by slaying her
with his own hand. This is admirably
expressed by the words, “rearward of
reproaches.” In this same scene the
fine old word “frame,” in the sense
of fabrication, is twice most wantonly
displaced, to make way, in the one
instance, for “frown,” and in the
other for “fraud.”
Act V. Scene 1.—Let any reader
who has an ear read the opening
speech of Leonato, and he will perceive
at once how grievously its effect
is damaged by the insertion of the
words “to me” in this line.
“And bid him speak (to me) of patience.”
In the same speech the following lines
are a problem. Leonato, rebuffing
his comforters, says, “Bring to me a
person as miserable as myself, and
“If such a one will smile, and stroke his beard,
And, sorrow wag! cry, Hem, when he should groan,
Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk
With candlewasters, bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.”
“And sorrow wag! cry,” is the main
difficulty. Johnson explains it thus:
“If such a one will smile, and stroke
his beard, and cry, Sorrow, begone!”
This, in our opinion, is quite satisfactory;
but what is the philology of the
word “wag?” We believe it to be
the German word “weg”—away—off
with you. The MS. corrector cuts
the knot which he cannot untie, by
reading “call sorrow joy.” This is a
gloss, not a reparation of the text.
Act V. Scene 4.—We maybe assured
that a far finer sense is contained
under Hero’s expression, when
she says, according to the common
reading,
“One Hero died defiled, but I do live,”
than under the pseudo-emendation,
“One Hero died belied, but I do live.”
Love’s Labour Lost—Act I.
Scene 1.—We agree with Mr Dyce[19]
in thinking that a quibble is intended
in Biron’s speech, when he
says that he and his friends will
“climb in the merriness,” according
as the absurd style of Armado’s letter
shall give them cause. At any rate,
nothing can be poorer than the MS.
correction of this place, “chime in
the merriness.” We think, however,
that the corrector is right in giving the
words, “Sirrah, come on,” to Dull
the constable, and not to Biron, to
whom they are usually assigned. We
also consider the change of manager
into armiger rather a happy alteration;
at any rate, we can say this of
it, that had armiger been the received
reading, we should not have been disposed
to accept manager in its place.
This is a compliment which we can
pay to very few of the MS. corrections.
Had they formed the original
text, and had the original text formed
the marginalia, we should have had
little hesitation as to which we would,
in most cases, adopt. On the ground
of their internal evidence—that is, of
their superior excellence—the marginalia
would certainly have obtained
the preference. The passage to which
we refer is this—“Adieu, valour!”
says the fantastical Armado, “rust
rapier! be still drum, for your armiger
is in love.” This reading, we think, is
worthy of being perpetuated in a note,
though scarcely entitled to be elevated
into the text.
Act III. Scene 1.—The corrector
very soon relapses into his blunders.
Passing over several, here is one, not
so conspicuous perhaps, but as decided
as any into which he has fallen.
Armado, speaking to Moth his page,
says, “Fetch hither the swain (i. e.,
Costard the clown), he must carry me
a letter.” Moth replies, “A message
well-sympathed—a horse to be ambassador
for an ass.” The MS. corrector
reads, “A messenger well-sympathised,”
not perceiving that this destroys
the point, and meaning, and
pertinency of Moth’s remark. “A message
well-sympathised” means a mission
well concocted, an embassy consistent
with itself, which, says Moth,
this one is, inasmuch as it is a case of
horse (Costard) representing an ass—(to-wit,
yourself, master mine.) Yet
Mr Collier says that “we ought unquestionably
to substitute messenger
for message.”
Moth, the page, having gone to fetch
Costard, Armado says—
“A most acute juvenal, voluble, and free of grace.
By thy favour, sweet welkin, I must sigh in thy face,
Most rude Melancholy, valour gives thee place.”
The MS. corrector alters the last line
into “moist-eyed melancholy;” and
Mr Collier remarks, “‘Most rude melancholy’
has no particular appropriateness,
whereas ‘moist-eyed melancholy’
is peculiarly accordant with the
sighs Armado breathes, in due apology,
to the face of the welkin.” No particular
appropriateness! when the
euphuist is in the very act of apologising
to the welkin for the breach of
good manners of which his “most
rude melancholy” has compelled him
to be guilty. What else could he, in
the circumstances, have called his
melancholy with any degree of propriety?
Oh, silly margins! you have
much to answer for. You are not
only stupid yourselves, but you are
the cause of stupidity in other people.
Act IV. Scene 1.—Having considered
the following passage very
carefully, we are compelled to side
with Mr Singer and Mr Dyce in favour
of the old reading “fair” against
“faith,” which is advocated by the
MS. corrector, Mr Collier, and Mr
Hunter. The princess, giving money
to the forester, whom she playfully
charges with having called her anything
but good-looking, says—
“Fair payment for foul words is more than due.
Forester. Nothing but fair is that which you inherit.
Princess. See, see, my beauty will be saved by merit.
Oh, heresy in fair, fit for these days!
A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.”
The new reading proposed is, “Oh,
heresy in faith.” But this change is
not necessary; indeed it spoils the
passage. The princess, when the
forester compliments her, says—“See,
see, my beauty will be saved” (not
on its own account, for, in this man’s
opinion, I have little or none) but “by
merit,” that is, because I have given
him money. He calls me an angel of
light because I have given him half-a-crown.
Oh, heresy in regard to
beauty! None but the really beautiful
ought to be so complimented.
Those who like me are plain (as this
man thinks me in his heart), and have
“foul hands,” ought not to obtain fair
praise—ought not to be praised as
fair, however “giving” or liberal
these hands may be. The heresy here
playfully alluded to is the error of supposing
that people can be beautified by
their gifts as well as by their appearance;
just as a religious heresy consists
in the idea that a person can be
justified by his works as well as by his
faith.
Act IV. Scene 3.—The following
passage has given some trouble to the
commentators—
“Black is the badge of hell,
The hue of dungeons, and the school of night.”
Various substitutes have been proposed
for the word “school.” The
variorum reads “scowl,” which was
introduced by Warburton. Theobald
conjectured “stole.” The marginalia
present “shade,” which is as poor as
poor can be. We believe the original
word “school” to be right, and that
the allusion is to the different badges
and colours by which different schools
or sects or fraternities were formerly
distinguished. “Black,” says the passage
before us, “is the hue worn by all
who belong to the school or brotherhood
of night.”
The context of the following passage
seems fairly to justify the MS.
correction, by which “beauty” is
changed into “learning.” Beauty may
have been a misprint. Loquitur
Biron—
“For where is any author in the world
Teaches such learning as a woman’s eye?
Learning is but an adjunct to ourself,
And where we are our learning likewise is,
Then, when ourselves we see in ladies’ eyes,
Do we not likewise see our learning there?”
This, we think, is one of the very few
emendations which ought to be admitted
into the text.
It is curious to remark, what we
learn incidentally from this play, that,
in Shakespeare’s time, the words
“doubt” and “debt” were pronounced
as they are spelt, the “b”
being sounded no less than the “t,”
and that it was the height of affectation
to say “dout” and “det,” as
we do nowadays. So changes the
norma loquendi.
Act V. Scene 2.—The following, in
the old copies, is obviously a misprint—
“So pertaunt-like would I o’ersway his state,
That he should be my fool, and I his fate.”
The variorum edition reads “portent-like.”
In 1826, Mr Singer published
“potent-like.” The MS. corrector
suggests “potently;” and this we
rather prefer.
When the princess is informed of
the intended wit-assault on her and
her ladies by the king and his lords,
she exclaims—
“What are they
That charge their breath against us?”
“To ‘charge their breath,’” says Mr
Collier, “is nonsense, and the corrector
alters it most naturally to
‘What are they
That charge the breach against us?’”
“Should any one,” says Mr Singer,[20]
“wish to be convinced of the utter impossibility
of the corrector having had
access to better authority than we
possess—nay, of his utter incapacity
to comprehend the poet, I would recommend
this example of his skill to
their consideration. The encounters
with which the ladies are threatened,
are encounters of words, wit combats;”
and therefore it was quite natural that
they should talk of their opponents as
“charging their breath against them.”
We agree with Mr Singer; but we
willingly change “love-feat,” in this
same scene, into “love-suit,” at the
bidding of the MS. corrector.
“Oh, poverty in wit!” exclaims the
princess, when she and her ladies have
demolished the king and his companions
in the wit-encounter. “Kingly-poor
flout!” The MS. corrector reads,
“killed by pure flout;” and Mr Singer
“has no doubt” that “stung by poor
flout” is the true reading. We see
no reason for disturbing the original
text. A double meaning is no doubt
intended in the expression “kingly-poor
flout.” It means “mighty poor
badinage;” and then, a king being one
of the performers, it also means “repartee
as poor as might have been
expected from royal lips;” these being
usually understood to be better fitted
for taking in than for giving out “good
things.”
Midsummer Night’s Dream—Act
I. Scene 1.—“Near the end of
Helena’s speech,” says Mr Collier,
“occurs this couplet where she is
stating her determination to inform
Demetrius of the intended flight of
Lysander and Hermia—
‘And for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense’—
which,” continues Mr Collier, “is
only just intelligible; but the old corrector
singularly improves the passage
by the word he substitutes—
‘And for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is dear recompense.’”
The old corrector is an old woman
who, in this case, has not merely mistaken,
but has directly reversed Shakespeare’s
meaning. So far from saying
that Demetrius’s thanks will be any
“recompense” for what she proposes
doing, Helena says the very reverse,
that they will be a severe aggravation
of her pain. “A dear expense” here
means a painful purchase, a bitter
bargain. “If I have thanks, the sacrifice
which I make in giving Demetrius
this information will be doubly distressing
to me.” Of course she would
much rather that Demetrius, her old
lover, did not thank her for setting
him on the traces of his new mistress.
Thanks would be a mockery in the
circumstances, and this is what Helena
means to say. Such is manifestly the
meaning of the passage, as may be
gathered both from the words themselves,
and from their connection with
the context, which is this—
“I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence,
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense;
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither, and back again.”
The sight of Demetrius, and not his
thanks, was to be Helena’s recompense.
Act II. Scene 1.—The corrector is
unquestionably wrong in his version
of these lines. Of Titania it is said
by one of the fairies, that
“The cowslips tall her pensioners be,
In their gold coats spots you see,
Those be rubies, fairy favours,” &c.
The MS. corrector reads “all” for
“tall,” and “cups” for “coats,” to
the manifest deterioration of the text.
Mr Singer thus explains the matter, to
the satisfaction, we should think, of
all readers. “This passage has reference
to the band of gentlemen-pensioners
in which Queen Elizabeth
took so much pride. They were some
of the handsomest and tallest young
men of the best families and fortune,
and their dress was of remarkable
splendour—their coats might well be
said to be of gold. Mr Collier’s objection
that ‘cowslips are never tall,’
is a strange one. Drayton in his
Nymphidia thought otherwise, and
surely a long-stalked cowslip would
be well designated by a fairy as tall.”
Act II. Scene 3.—The alteration of
“conference” into “confidence” in
the following lines is an improvement,
most decidedly, for the worse. Lysander
and Hermia are going to sleep
in the wood. She says to him—
“Nay, good Lysander, for my sake, my dear,
Lye further off yet, do not lye so near.
Lysander.—Oh, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence;
Love takes the meaning, in love’s conference.”
That is, love puts a good construction
on all that is said or done in the “conference,”
or intercourse of love. “Confidence,”
the MS. correction, makes
nonsense.
Act III. Scene 2.—The margins
seem to be right in changing “What
news, my love?” into “What means
my love?” in the speech in which
Hermia is appealing passionately to
her old lover Lysander.
Act V. Scene 1.—But we cannot
accept the substitution of “hot ice
and wondrous seething snow” for the
much more Shakespearian “hot ice
and wonderous strange snow.” The
late Mr Barron Field’s excellent emendation
of the following lines is borne
out by the MS. correction—
“Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am
A lion’s fell, nor else no lion’s dam.”
“Fell” means skin. The old reading
was—
“Then know that I, as Snug the joiner, am
A lion fell, nor else no lion’s dam.”
This ought to go into the text, if it
has not done so already.
The Merchant of Venice—Act
I. Scene 1.—In the following passage
the margins make rather a good hit
in restoring “when” of the old editions,
which had been converted into
“who,” and in changing “would”
into “’twould.”
“Oh, my Antonio, I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing, when, I am very sure,
If they should speak, ’twould almost damn those ears,
Which hearing them would call their brothers fools.”
Act II. Scene 1.—The Prince of
Morocco says—
“Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadowed livery of the burnished sun.”
Altered by the MS. corrector into
“burning sun,” which, says Mr Collier,
“seems much more proper when the
African prince is speaking of his black
complexion as the effects of the sun’s
rays.” Mr Collier will excuse us:
the African Prince is doing nothing of
the kind. He is merely throwing
brightness and darkness into picturesque
contrast—as the sun is bright,
or “burnished,” so am I his retainer
dark, or “shadowed.” “To speak of
the sun,” continues Mr Collier, “as
artificially ‘burnished,’ is very unworthy.”
True: but Shakespeare
speaks of it as naturally burnished;
and so far is this from being unworthy,
it is, in the circumstances, highly
poetical.
Act II. Scene 9.—To change the
words “pries not to the interior,” into
“prize not the interior,” in the following
lines, is wantonly to deface the
undoubted language of Shakespeare.
“What many men desire!—that many may be meant
Of the fool multitude, that chuse by show,
Not learning more than the fond eye doth teach,
Which pries not to the interior; but, like the martlet,
Builds in the weather, on the outward wall.”
Act III. Scene 2.—The MS. corrector
proposes a very plausible reading
in the lines where Bassanio is
moralising on the deceitfulness of external
appearance.
“Thus ornament is but the guiled surf
To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf
Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
The seeming truth which cunning times put on,
To entrap the wisest.”
The corrector proposes to put a full
stop after Indian, and to read on—“beauty,
in a word,” (is) “the seeming
truth,” &c. Mr Singer says,
“this variation in the pointing is no
novelty; it occurs in an edition of
Shakespeare, published by Scott and
Webster in 1833, and has been satisfactorily
shown to be erroneous and
untenable by a correspondent in Notes
and Queries, vol. v. p. 483.” We regret
that it is not in our power, at this
time, to consult the volume of Notes
and Queries referred to; but we confess
that we see no very serious objection
to this new reading, except
the awkwardness and peculiarly unShakespearian
character of the construction
which it presents. That
there is a difficulty in the passage is
evident from the changes that have
been proposed. Sir Thomas Hanmer
gave “Indian dowdy”—Mr Singer,
“Indian gipsy,” which, however, he
now abandons. We still confess
a partiality for the old text, both in
the words and in the pointing. “An
Indian beauty” may mean the worst
species of ugliness, just as a Dutch
nightingale means a toad. Still we
believe that a good deal might be said
in favour of the MS. corrector’s punctuation.
Bassanio, descanting on the portrait
of Portia, and on the difficulties
the painter must have had to contend
with, thus expresses his admiration
of the eyes—
“How could he see to do them? having made one,
Methinks, it should have power to steal both his,
And leave itself unfurnished.”
The corrector reads “unfinished,”
which Johnson long ago condemned.
“Unfurnished” means, as Mr Collier
formerly admitted, unprovided with a
counterpart—a fellow-eye.
We willingly concede to Mr Collier
the “bollen” instead of the “woolen”
bagpipe. And when he next “blaws
up his chanter,” may the devil dance
away with his anonymous corrector,
and the bulk of his emendations, as
effectually as he ever did with the
exciseman.
As You Like It—Act I. Scene 2.—In
opposition to Mr Collier, we
take leave to say that Sir Thomas
Hanmer was not right in altering
“there is such odds in the man” to
“there is such odds in the men.”
What is meant to be said is, “there
is such superiority (of strength) in the
man;” and “odds” formerly signified
superiority, as may be learnt from the
following sentence of Hobbes—“The
passion of laughter,” says Hobbes,
“proceedeth from the sudden imagination
of our own odds and eminency.”[21]
Mr Collier’s man, who
concurs with Sir Thomas Hanmer, is,
of course, equally at fault.
Act I. Scene 3.—“Safest haste”—that
is, most convenient despatch—is
much more probable than “fastest
haste,” inasmuch as the lady to whom
the words “despatch you with your
safest haste” are addressed, is allowed
ten days to take herself off in.
Act II. Scene 3.—When Orlando,
speaking of his unnatural brother, in
whose hands he expresses his determination
to place himself, rather than
take to robbing on the highway, says,
“I will rather subject me to the malice
Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother,”
the language is so strikingly Shakesperian,
that nothing but the most
extreme obtuseness can excuse the
MS. corrector’s perverse reading—
“Of a diverted, proud, and bloody brother.”
“Diverted blood,” says Dr Johnson,
means “blood turned out of the
course of nature;” and there cannot
be a finer phrase for an unnatural
kinsman.
Act II. Scene 7.—The following
passage is obviously corrupt. Jacques,
inveighing against the pride of going
finely dressed, says—
“Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,
Till that the very very means do ebb?”
The MS. correction is—
“Till that the very means of wear do ebb.”
Mr Singer suggests, “Till that the
wearer’s very means do ebb.” The
two meanings are the same: people,
carried away by pride, dress finely,
until their means are exhausted.
But Mr Singer keeps nearest to the
old text.
Act III. Scene 4.—“Capable impressure”
must be vindicated as the
undoubted language of Shakespeare,
against the MS. corrector, Mr Collier,
and Mr Singer, all of whom would
advocate “palpable impressure.”
“Lean but on a rush,
The cicatrice and capable impressure,
Thy palm a moment keeps.”
“Capable impressure” means an indentation
in the palm of the hand
sufficiently deep to contain something
within it.
Act IV. Scene 1.—Both the MS.
corrector and Mr Collier have totally
misunderstood Rosalind, when she
says, “Marry, that should you, or I
should think my honesty ranker than
my wit.” The meaning, one would
think, is sufficiently obvious.
Act V. Scene 4.—And equally obvious
is the meaning of the following
line, which requires no emendation.
Orlando says that he is
“As those who fear they hope, and know they fear.”
That is, he is as those who fear that
they are feeding on mere hope—hope
which is not to end in fruition—and
who are certain that they fear or apprehend
the worst:—a painful state
to be in. The marginal correction,
“As those who fear to hope, and
know they fear,” is nonsense.
The Taming of the Shrew.—Induction.
Scene I.—We agree with
the margins in thinking that the following
line requires to be amended,
by the insertion of “what” or “who.”
In the directions given about the
tricks to be played off on Sly, it is
said—
“And when he says he is—say that he dreams.”
The MS. corrector reads, properly
as we think—
“And when he says what he is, say that he dreams.”
Scene 2.—There is something very
feasible in the corrector’s gloss on
the word “sheer-ale.” For “sheer”
he writes “Warwickshire,” and we
have no doubt that “shire (pronounced
sheer) ale” is the true reading.
Act I. Scene 1.—One of the happiest
and most undoubted emendations
in Mr Collier’s folio, and one which,
in his preface, he wisely places in the
front of his case, now comes before
us—“ethics” for “checks,” in these
lines in which Tranio gives advice to
his master Lucentio—
“Let’s be no stoics, nor no stocks, I pray,
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks,
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.”
We have no hesitation in condemning
“checks” as a misprint for “ethics,”
which from this time henceforward
we hope to see the universal reading.
It is surprising that it should not
have become so long ago, having been
proposed by Sir W. Blackstone nearly
a hundred years since, and staring
every recent editor in the face
from among the notes of the variorum.
Mr Singer alone had the good taste
to print it in his text of 1826.
Let us here bestow a passing commendation
on Mr Hunter for a very
ingenious reading, or rather for what
is better, a very acceptable restoration
of the old text, which had been
corrupted by Rowe and all subsequent
editors. In the same speech, Tranio,
who is advising Lucentio not to study
too hard, says, according to all the
common copies—
“Talk logic wi’ th’ acquaintance that you have.”
The elder copies read—
“Balk logic, wi’ th’ acquaintance that you have.”
This means, cut logic, with such a
smattering of it as you already possess;
or, as Mr Hunter explains it,
“give the go-by to logic, as satisfied
with the acquaintance you have
already gained with it.” “Balk”
ought certainly to replace “talk” in
all future editions, and our thanks
are due to Mr Hunter for the emendation.[22]
How scandalous it is to change
“mould” into “mood” in the following
lines, addressed by Hortensio to
the termagant Kate:—
“Mates, maid! how mean you that? No mates for you:
Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.”
Kate was not, at least so thought
Hortensio, one of those,
“Quas meliore luto finxit præcordia Titan.”
Act II. Scene 1.—We greatly prefer
Mr Singer’s amendment of what
follows to the MS. corrector’s. The
common text is this:—
“Petruchio (to Kate).—Women were made
to bear, and so were you.
Katherine.—No such jade, sir, as you, if
me you mean.”
This being scarcely sense, the corrector
says—
“No such jade to bear you, if me you mean.”
Mr Singer says,
“No such load as you, sir, if me you mean.”
Act IV. Scene 2.—“An ancient
angel coming down the hill” has
puzzled the commentators. The margins
read “ambler.” We prefer the
received text—the word “angel”
being probably used in its old sense
of messenger, with a spice of the
ludicrous in its employment.
Act V. Scene 1.—Vincentio, who
is on the point of being carried to
jail, exclaims—
“Thus strangers may be haled and abused.”
The MS. corrector proposes “handled;”
and Mr Collier says that
“haled” is a misprint, and the line
“hardly a verse.” It is a very good
verse; and “haled” is the very, indeed
the only, word proper to the
place. On turning, however, to Mr
Collier’s appendix, we find that he
says, “It may be doubted whether
‘haled’ is not to be taken as hauled;
but still the true word may have been
handled.” This is not to be doubted;
“haled” is certainly to be taken for
hauled, and “handled” cannot have
been the right word.
All’s Well that ends Well—Act
I. Scene 1.—In Helena’s soliloquy,
near the end of the scene, the corrector,
by the perverse transposition
of two words, changes sense into
nonsense. She says—
“The mightiest space in fortune nature brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.”
The lady is in love with Bertram,
who is greatly above her in rank and
in fortune; and the meaning is, that
all-powerful nature brings things (herself,
for example, and Bertram) which
are separated by the widest interval
of fortune, to join as if they were
“likes” or pairs, and to kiss as if
they were kindred things. The MS.
corrector reverses this meaning, and
reads—
“The mightiest space in nature fortune brings
To join like likes and kiss like native things.”
But there was no “space” at all
between Helena and Bertram in
point of “nature.” They were both
unexceptionable human beings. They
were separated only by a disparity of
“fortune.” Why does the MS. corrector
go so assiduously out of his
way for the mere purpose of blundering,
and why does Mr Collier so
patiently endorse his eccentricities?
That is indeed marvellous.
Act 1. Scene 3.—Helena says—
“You know my father left me some prescriptions
Of rare and proved effects, such was his reading
And manifest experience.”
Read “manifold,” says the corrector;
and Mr Collier adds, “we may safely
admit the emendation.” Retain the
old reading, say we; “manifest”
means sure, well-grounded, indisputable,
and is much more likely to have
been Shakespeare’s word than “manifold.”
Act III. Scene 2.—The countess,
comforting Helena, who has been deserted
by Bertram, says—
“I pr’ythee, lady, have a better cheer,
If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
Thou robb’st me of a moiety.”
“The old corrector,” says Mr Collier,
“tells us, and we may readily
believe him, that there is a small but
important error in the second line.
He reads—
‘If thou engrossest all the griefs as thine
Thou robbest me of a moiety.’”
The small but important error here
referred to is committed by the old
corrector himself. The countess, to
give her words in plain prose, says—if
you keep to yourself all the griefs
which are thine, you rob me of my
share of them. The context where
the countess adds—
“He was my son,
But I do wash his name out of my blood,
And thou art all my child,”
seems to have misled the old corrector.
He appears to have supposed
that the countess had griefs of her
own, occasioned by the conduct of
her son Bertram, and that she protests
against Helena’s monopolising
these together with her own. This is
the only ground on which “as” can
be defended. But the answer is, that
although the countess may have had
such griefs, she was too proud to express
them. She merely expresses
her desire to participate in the afflictions
which are Helena’s. This is
one of the innumerable instances in
which Shakespeare shows his fine
knowledge of human nature. Whatever
grief a proud mother may feel on
account of a disobedient son, anger is
the only sentiment which she will
express towards him. The word “as,”
however, had the countess used it,
would have been equivalent to an
expression of grief, and not merely
of indignation; and therefore we
strongly advocate its rejection, and
the retention in the text of the word
“are.”
Act IV. Scene 2.—The following is
a troublesome passage. Diana says
to Bertram, who is pressing his suit
upon her—
“I see that men make ropes, in such a scarre,
That we’ll forsake ourselves.”
This is the old reading, and it is
manifestly corrupt. Rowe, the earliest
of the variorum editors, reads—
“I see that men make hopes, in such affairs,
That we’ll forsake ourselves.”
Malone gives “in such a scene” for
“in such a scarre.” The MS. corrector
proposes “in such a suit.” Mr
Singer says “that it is not necessary
to change the word scarre at all: it
here signifies any surprise or alarm,
and what we should now write a
scare.” We agree with Mr Singer;
and, following his suggestion, we give
our vote for the following correction—
“I see that men make hopes, in such a scare,
That we’ll forsake ourselves.”
That is, I see that men expect that
we (poor women) will lose our self-possession
in the flurry or agitation,
into which we are thrown by the vehemence
of their addresses.
Act V. Scene 1.—We willingly
change the received stage direction,
“enter a gentle astringer”—a most
perplexing character certainly—into
“enter a gentleman, a stranger,” as
proposed by the old corrector, who,
in this case, corrects like a human
being.
Act V. Scene 3.—To change the fine
expression
“Natural rebellion done in the blade of youth.”
into “Natural rebellion done in the
blaze of youth,” is to convert a poeticism
into a barbarism. “The blade of youth”
is the springtime of life. Besides,
there is an affinity between the word
“natural” and the word “blade,”
which proves the latter to have been
Shakespeare’s expression.
If “all was well that ended well,”
as the title of this play declares to be
the case, the MS. corrections throughout
it would be impregnable; for
these end with one of the very happiest
conjectural emendations that ever was
proposed. Bertram, explaining how
Diana obtained from him the ring,
says, according to the received text,
“Her insuit coming, and her modern grace
Subdued me to her rate.”
“Insuit coming” has baffled the
world. The marginalia give us, “Her
infinite cunning and her modern grace
subdued me to her rate.” It ought to
be mentioned that this excellent emendation,
which ought unquestionably
to be admitted into the text, was also
started some years ago by the late
Mr Walker, author of the “original.”
Twelfth Night, or What you
will—Act II. Scene 1.—The following
words in italics are probably corrupt;
but the MS. correction of the place is
certainly a very bad piece of tinkering.
Sebastian is speaking of his reputed
likeness to his sister Viola—“A lady,
sir, though it was said she much resembled
me, was of many accounted
beautiful; but though I could not,
with such estimable wonder, overfar
believe that, yet thus far I will boldly
publish her,” &c. The margins give
us—“But though I could not with selfestimation
wander so far to believe
that.” But who can believe that,
Shakespeare would wander so far in
his speech as to write in such a roundabout
feckless fashion as this? What
he really wrote it may now be hopeless
to inquire.
Act II. Scene V.—Malvolio congratulating
himself on his ideal elevation
says, “And then to have the
humour of state,” which the MS. corrector
changes into the poverty of
“the honour of state,” overlooking
the consideration that “the humour
of state” means the high airs, the capricious
insolence, of authority, which
is precisely what Malvolio is glorying
that he shall by and by have it in
his power to exhibit.
Act III. Scene 4.—We never can
consent to change “venerable” into
“veritable,” at the bidding of the venerable
corrector, in these lines—
“And to his image which methought did promise
Most venerable worth, did I devotion.”
“The word ‘devotion,’” says Mr
Singer, “at once determines that venerable
was the poet’s word.”
Act V. Scene 1.—How much more
Shakesperian is the line—“A contract
of eternal bond of love,” than the
corrector’s
“A contract and eternal bond of love.”
The word “bond” is here used not as
a legal term, but in the more poetical
sense of union.
Winter’s Tale—Act I. Scene 2.—We
agree with Mr Collier in his remark,
that “there is no doubt we
ought to amend the words of the old
copies, ‘What lady she her lord’ by
reading, ‘What lady should her lord,’”
as given by the MS. corrector.
In the same scene, Leontes, expatiating
on the falsehood of women, says—
“But were they false
As o’erdy’d blacks, as winds, as waters.”
That is, as false as “blacks” that have
been dyed again and again until they
have become quite rotten. This seems
sufficiently intelligible; but it does
not satisfy our anonymous friend, who
proposes “as our dead blacks;” that
is, as our mourning clothes, which,
says Mr Collier, being “worn at the
death of persons whose loss was not
at all lamented,” may therefore be
termed false or hypocritical. But
surely all persons who wear mourning
are not hypocrites; and therefore this
new reading falls ineffectual to the
ground.
Act IV. Scene 3.—We perceive nothing
worthy of adoption or animadversion
till we come to the following.
Florizel is making himself very
agreeable to Perdita, whereupon Camillo,
noticing their intimacy, remarks,
as the old copies give it—
“He tells her something
That makes her blood look on’t.”
There is something obviously wrong
here. Theobald proposed—
“He tells her something
That makes her blood look out.”
Something that calls up her blushes.
This is the received reading, and an
excellent emendation it is. But on
the whole we prefer the MS. corrector’s,
which, though perhaps not quite
so poetical as Theobald’s, strikes us as
more natural and simple when taken
with the context.
“He tells her something
Which wakes her blood. Look on’t! Good sooth, she is
The queen of curds and cream.”
On second thoughts, we are not sure
that this is not more poetical and dramatic
than the other. At any rate,
we give it our suffrage.
There is, it seems, an old word
“jape,” signifying a jest, which we
willingly accept on the authority of
the MS. corrector, in place of the unintelligible
word “gap,” in the speech
where “some stretch-mouthed rascal”
is said “to break a foul jape into the
matter.” The reading hitherto has
been “gap.” This, however, is a
hiatus only mediocriter deflendus. The
next is a very lamentable case.
Act V. Scene 3.—Here the corrector
interpolates a whole line of his own,
which we can by no means accept.
The miserable Leontes, gazing on the
supposed statue of his wife, Hermione,
which is in reality her living self,
says, according to the received text—
“Let be, let be,
Would I were dead; but that methinks already—
What was he that did make it? see, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed, and that those veins
Did verily bear blood?”
Here the train of emotion is evidently
this:—Would I were dead, but
that methinks already (he is about to
add) I am, when the life-like appearance
of the statue forcibly impresses
his senses, whereupon he checks himself
and exclaims, “What was he that
did make it”—a god or a mere man,
&c. The MS. corrector favours us
with the following version—
“Let be, let be,
Would I were dead, but that methinks already
I am but dead, stone looking upon stone:
What was he that did make it? see, my lord,
Would you not deem it breathed?” &c.
The corrector is not satisfied with
making Shakespeare write poorly, he
frequently insists on making him write
contradictorily, as in the present instance.
I am stone, says Leontes,
according to this version, looking upon
stone, for see, my lord, the statue
breathes, these veins do verily bear
blood. Is not that a proof, my lord,
that this statue is mere stone? Most
people would have considered this a
proof of the very contrary. Not so the
MS. corrector, who is the father of
the emendation; not so Mr Collier,
who says that “we may be thankful
that this line has been furnished, since
it adds so much to the force and clearness
of the speech of Leontes.” Truly,
we must be thankful for very small
literary mercies! Mr Collier may be
assured that the very thing which
Leontes says most strongly, by implication,
in this speech is, that he is not
stone looking upon stone.
Our space being exhausted, we must
reserve for our next Number the continuation
of our survey of Shakespeare’s
Plays as amended by Mr Collier’s
anonymous corrector.
THE INSURRECTION IN CHINA. [23]
203
Two Frenchman have just published,
at an opportune moment, a curious
book. One of them needs no introduction
here. The readers who have
twice encountered, in Blackwood’s
pages, the vivacious and intelligent Dr
Yvan, first under canvass for Bourbon,
and then roaming in the Eastern
Archipelago, will gladly, we are persuaded,
meet him again amongst the
mandarins. This time he is not alone,
but has taken to himself a coadjutor,
in the person of M. Callery, once a
missionary, and, since then, interpreter
to the French embassy in China—to
which, it will be remembered, Dr
Yvan was attached as physician. M.
Callery is author of a Chinese dictionary,
of a system of Chinese writing,
and of translations from the same
language. When we add that both
gentlemen, although at present in
France, were long and lately resident
in China, under circumstances peculiarly
favourable to the acquisition of
sound information respecting its state
and politics, and that they have had
free access to the archives of their
embassy, it will hardly be doubted
that they have efficiently carried out
their intention of giving a lucid account
of the origin and progress of
the civil war now waging in that
country, bringing it down to the
present day. The co-operation of
one well acquainted with the Chinese
tongue must have been invaluable,
and perhaps indispensable to Dr
Yvan, who, for his part, has evidently
contributed to the common
stock his shrewd and observant spirit
and pleasant unaffected style. The
book, which was published in Paris
in the second week of July, has
reached us rather late for deliberate
review in the August number of the
Magazine, but there is still time to
give some account of its contents.
“The Chinese insurrection,” Dr
Yvan commences, “is one of the
most considerable events of the present
time: politicians of all countries
watch with curiosity the march of that
insurgent army which, for three years
past, has moved steadily onwards with
the avowed object of upsetting the
Tartar dynasty.” The Doctor then
sketches, in a few very interesting
pages, the chief events of Chinese
history during the first half of the
present century, with particular reference
to the biography of the last
emperor, deceased in 1850, and to the
situation of the Chinese empire at the
close of his reign.
The late emperor, who assumed,
upon ascending the throne, the name
of Tao-Kouang, Brilliant Reason, was
the second son of Emperor Kia-King,
a feeble and incapable monarch, whose
power was virtually in the hands of
an unworthy favourite, a certain Lin-King,
chief of the eunuchs. In
Chinese annals, incidents of this kind
are, we are told, by no means rare.
The chief of the eunuchs has always
great influence in palace intrigues,
and his degraded condition by no
means constitutes, in that singular
country, a bar to his ambition. That
of Lin-King was boundless. He
aspired to the throne. Having gained
over most of the military mandarins,
he marched into Pekin—one day that
the emperor was out hunting with his
sons—a body of troops whose chiefs
were entirely devoted to him, and distributed
them in the neighbourhood of
the palace. His plan was to kill the
emperor and princes, and have himself
proclaimed by the army. Towards
evening Kia-King and his
eldest son returned to the palace,
whose gates had scarcely closed behind
them when it was surrounded by
troops. In his haste and agitation
the chief eunuch had not noticed that
the emperor’s second son had not returned
with his father. The conspiracy
had just broken out, when that
prince entered Pekin. He was alone,
in a hunting dress, with none of the
insignia of his rank, and he rode
through the streets unrecognised,
noting the general tumult and confusion,
whose cause he soon understood.
Outside the palace he found
the ambitious eunuch haranguing his
partisans, and at once perceived that
his father’s favourite, at whose insolence
he had often felt indignant, was
at the head of the revolt. Mingling
with the throng of horsemen, he drew
near to the traitor; amidst a host of
enemies, neither his coolness nor his
courage failed him. Neither did his
skill: he tore from his coat its round
metal buttons, slipped them into his
fowling-piece, took a short aim at
Lin-King, and laid him dead upon
the spot! Upon their leader’s fall,
the rebels fled, throwing away their
arms, and the prince triumphantly
entered the palace, whose threshold
they had not yet sullied. Old Kia-King
learned, at one time, his past
danger and present safety.
The prince who had displayed such
happy promptitude and presence of
mind, ascended the throne of China
in 1820. He was then forty years of
age. According to the custom of the
princes of his dynasty, he had married
a Tartar—a big-footed woman. By
her he had no children; but his concubines
had borne him a numerous
family. In China, law and usage recognise
no difference between legitimate
and illegitimate children. All
have the same rights of succession.
“During the first period of his
reign, Tao-Kouang selected his ministers
from amongst those statesmen
who, in the eyes of the people, were
the faithful guardians of Chinese traditions.
Every nation that traces its
history to a very remote period has
its conservative party. In quiet times
the government lies naturally in the
hands of these representatives of old
national guarantees. But when it
becomes indispensable to modify ancient
institutions, their exclusive attachment
to things of the past becomes
a real danger. This political truth is
as perceptible in the history of the
revolution of the Empire of the Centre
as in our own. Tao-Kouang’s agents,
Chinese to the backbone, and full of
superb disdain for the barbarians, led
their country into a disastrous war,
because they did not understand that
the moment was come for them to
descend from the diplomatic elevation
upon which their presumption
and European forbearance had so
long maintained them. At a later
period, the same spirit of resistance
to the necessity of the times brought
on the insurrection whose history we
are about to trace, so that the two
most important events that Chinese
annals have recorded during the last
quarter of a century, the war with England
and the revolt of Kouang-Si,
have been determined by the same
cause.”
Dr Yvan then gives an outline of
the dispute with England, the consequent
war and ultimate treaty, upon
which it is unnecessary to dwell,
since the circumstances are familiar
to most English readers, although in
France they have been often distorted,
and to many are but imperfectly
known. He blames Lin, whom he
describes as being then “a man of
about fifty, wearing the plain red
button and the peacock’s feather with
two eyes,” for his seizure of the
opium, especially because, by his zeal,
activity, and by the terror he inspired,
he had given life and vigour to the
Chinese custom-house, and had made
a great advance towards the suppression
of opium smuggling. “In
France,” says MM. Callery and
Yvan, “where ideas are not always
just, it is taken as an established fact
that, in the opium war, all the oppression
was on the side of the English, and
that right succumbed when the treaty
of Nankin was signed. Nothing can
be falser than this. The English
smuggled on the coasts of the Celestial
Empire exactly as smuggling is
to this day carried on by foreigners
on our coasts and frontiers; but it
has not yet, that we are aware, been
established as a principle that government
may seize foreign merchants
and threaten them with death, upon
the pretext that vessels with prohibited
merchandise are riding at anchor
off Havre or Marseilles.” It is very
courageous of these gentlemen thus
to tell their countrymen the truth.
We hope it will not injure the sale of
their book; we have small expectation
of its making many converts
from the received opinion in France,
that the part played by the English
in the whole of the Chinese affair was
that of wholesale poisoners, cramming
their drug down their victim’s throat
at bayonet’s point.
When Commissioner Lin had done
all the mischief he could, burying the
opium with quicklime, and bringing
a British squadron up Canton river,
blazing at the forts, he was recalled,
and Ki-chan replaced him. Ki-chan
was a capable man, resolute but prudent;
he saw that China had found
more than her match, and at once
accepted the barbarian ultimatum.
The emperor refused his sanction,
and inflicted upon the unlucky negotiator
the most signal disgrace any
high functionary had endured during
his reign. Poor Ki-chan was publicly
degraded, his property confiscated,
his house razed, his concubines were
sold, and he himself was sent, an
exile, into the depths of Tartary.
Those who would know more of him
need but refer to MM. Huc and
Gabet’s curious journey to Thibet.
At Lassa, those intrepid travellers
knew him well. Dr Yvan and Mr
Callery were intimate with another
Chinese diplomatist, Ki-in, a relation
of the emperor, who signed the treaty
of Nankin, and whom they consider
one of the two greatest statesmen
that Tao-Kouang had. The other was
Mou-tchang-ha, the Chinese prime
minister or president of the council.
“It is very probable that the Sublime
Emperor, the son of Heaven, never
exactly knew what passed between
the English and the Chinese. He
died, doubtless, in the consolatory
belief that his troops were invincible,
and that, if Hong-Kong had been
given, as an alms, to a few miserable
foreigners, it was because they had
implored the happiness of becoming
his subjects.” The treaty of Nankin
signed, Ki-in, named governor
of the two provinces of Kouang-Tong
and Kouang-Si, took up his abode
at Canton. By the disposition he
showed to be on good terms with
foreigners, and by his enlightened
and progressive policy, he drew upon
himself the hatred of the bigoted
populace, who accused him of leaning
to the barbarians and betraying his
sovereign. In innumerable placards
he was held up to popular odium and
vengeance. “Our carnivorous mandarins,”
began one of these violent
and incendiary hand-bills, given by
Dr Yvan, “have hitherto connived
at all that those English bandits have
done against order and justice, and
five hundred years hence our nation
will still deplore its humiliation. In
the 5th moon of this year, more than
twenty Chinese were killed by the
strangers: their bodies were thrown
into the river, and buried in the belly
of the fishes; but our high authorities
have treated these affairs as if they
had not heard speak of them; they
have considered the foreign devils as
if they were gods, have taken no
more account of Chinese than if they
were dog’s meat, and have despised
men’s lives like the hairs that are
shaved off the head. Thousands of
persons have lamented and been indignant;
grief has penetrated the marrow
of their bones,” &c. &c. These
absurd accusations and calumnies had
not, at the time, any influence on Ki-in’s
political destiny. The emperor
recalled him to Pekin, graced him
with new dignities, and made him
Mou-tchang-ha’s colleague. These
two statesmen then tried to introduce
certain reforms, beginning with the
army, whose bows and arrows and
old matchlocks they exchanged for
percussion guns—thus jumping clean
over the intermediate stage of flint
and steel. A curious illustration of
Chinese immobility for centuries.
After a year’s trial, Ki-in reported
the great perfection attained by artificers,
officers, and soldiers, in manufacturing
and making use of the new
implements of war. This was towards
the close of Tao-Kouang’s
reign. The conciliatory spirit and
enlightened views of the two ministers
gave promise of that practical
progress which even the most conservative
Europeans must admit to
be needed in China. Suddenly an
unexpected and important event
changed the aspect of affairs.
“Upon the 26th February, 1850”—thus
does Dr Yvan, after his brief
preliminary retrospect, commence his
second chapter—“at seven o’clock in
the morning, the approaches to the
imperial palace at Pekin were obstructed
by a compact crowd of mandarins
of the inferior classes, and of
servants in white garments with yellow
girdles, conversing in a low voice,
whilst their features wore an expression
of official grief. In the midst of
this throng of subordinate functionaries,
stood sixteen individuals, each
attended by a servant holding a saddlehorse.
These sixteen persons wore
the satin cap fastened under the chin
and surmounted by the white button;
they had a girdle of bells; a tube of
a yellow colour was slung over their
shoulders, and they all carried whips.
A great dignitary issued from the
palace, and delivered, with his own
hand, to each one of these men, a
despatch closed with the imperial red
seal; they received it with a bow,
brought each the yellow tube round
upon his breast, and respectfully placed
within it the official despatch. Then
they mounted their horses, and the
grooms fastened them to the saddle
with straps that passed over the
thighs. When they were thus well
secured, the crowd opened a passage,
and the horses set off at the top of
their speed. These sixteen messengers,
known as Feïma, flying horses,
were bound to get over six hundred
li—sixty leagues—in every twenty-four
hours. They bore the following
despatch to the governors-general of
the sixteen provinces of the Celestial
Empire:—
“‘In great haste, the minister of
rites informs the Governor-general
that, upon the 14th of the first moon,
the Supreme Emperor, mounted upon
the dragon, departed for the ethereal
regions. In the morning, at the hour
of mao, his Celestial Majesty transmitted
the imperial dignity to his
fourth son, Se-go-Ko, and in the evening,
at the hour of haï, departed for
the abode of the gods.’”
Directions for mourning completed
the despatch. Agreeably with the
constitution of the empire, the defunct
sovereign had named his successor.
It was his fourth son. But he had
deviated from ancient custom by a
verbal nomination. The legacy of
supreme power was usually transmitted,
long beforehand, by a solemn
act, deposited in a golden coffer,
opened with great ceremony upon the
emperor’s death. Even in China,
however, this last will and testament
has not always been respected, and of
this Dr Yvan digresses to give an
example, which he considers as fully
illustrative of Chinese manners and
civilisation. The tale he tells abounds
in what Europeans would laugh at as
burlesque inventions, but which are
doubtless very possible occurrences
amongst the Celestials. We shall give
its pith in a few lines. Tsin-che-houang,
the second emperor of the
Tsin dynasty, was already old and
infirm when he sent his son and heir,
Fou-sou, to superintend the building
of the great wall, at which three hundred
thousand men were working.
They did less to lengthen it, Dr Yvan
insinuates, than modern travellers
have done. Whilst Fou-sou went
north, accompanied by the renowned
Mong-tièn, the greatest general of his
time, the emperor made a pilgrimage
southwards to the tombs of his ancestors.
When far upon his road, he
felt death approaching, and wrote to
his eldest son to hasten back to the
capital. Tcha-Kao, the chief of the
eunuchs, having to seal and forward
the missive, audaciously substituted
for it a forged command from Tsin-che-houang
to the prince and general
to put themselves to death, as a punishment
for their offences. Next day
the emperor died, and the infamous
Tcha-Kao prevailed upon his second
son, Hou-haï, to seize the crown. To
carry out this usurpation, it was necessary
to conceal for a while the emperor’s
death, lest the authorities and
young princes at the capital should
proclaim the successor he had appointed.
So the body, sumptuously
attired, and in the same attitude as
when alive, was placed in a litter, surrounded
by a lattice, and by thick silk
curtains, and which none approached
but those who were in the plot.
The eunuch had proclamation made
that the emperor, in haste to return,
would travel day and night without
quitting his litter. At meal-times a
short halt was made, and food was
handed into the litter and eaten by a
man concealed in it. Unluckily, the
weather was very hot, and the smell
of the dead body soon became intolerable.
This would have revealed the
terrible truth, had not the ingenious
eunuch hit upon a device. He sent
forward an ante-dated decree by which
the emperor permitted oyster-carts to
follow the same road as himself. This
had previously been severely prohibited,
on account of the intolerable
stench emitted by the oysters—an
enormous species known to naturalists
as spondyls, of which, then as now,
the Chinese made enormous consumption.
The fishmongers profited by
the boon; hundreds of thousands of
the full-flavoured testaceans soon preceded
and followed the imperial convoy;
the decomposing corpse reached
the capital under cover of their alkaline
emanations, and was received
with gongs and acclamations. Meanwhile,
the forged mandate of self-destruction
was received by Fou-sou
and Mong-tièn. The old officer thought
it bad policy to order a general in
command of three hundred thousand
men to commit suicide, and treated
the mission as apocryphal. But Fou-sou,
considering only his duty as a son
and subject, stabbed himself forthwith.
The accession of the present emperor
was unattended by any such untoward
circumstances, notwithstanding
the irregularity of his nomination,
to which the formal Chinese attach
much importance. He ascended the
throne without opposition, quitted,
according to custom, the name he had
till then borne, and assumed that of
Hièn-foung, which signifies Complete
Abundance. His accession was hailed
with joy by both the political parties
into which China is divided, and which
the authors of this volume designate
as exclusionists and progressive conservatives.
The former expected to
find in him a stanch supporter of their
principles. If they did not anticipate
the rebuilding of the crumbling wall
of China, they doubtless hoped that
he would so fortify Canton river as to
prevent the fire-boats of the barbarians
from ascending it to the capital of the
two Kouangs. The progressive party,
upon the other hand, thought that
the son of Tao-Kouang, and the pupil
of Ki-in, would maintain peace with
the foreigner, regulate the opium
trade—as the English have done in
India, and the Dutch in Malaya—and
would introduce into the Chinese fleets,
armies, and administrations, those reforms
which lapse of time had rendered
necessary. MM. Yvan and Callery
declare, that when they learned the
emperor’s death they at once anticipated
important events. It was to be
feared that the new sovereign, a youth
of nineteen, would sympathise with the
sentiments and wishes of those of his
own age. And in China, where everything
seems diametrically opposed to
what we observe in other countries,
the young men of education and the
ignorant populace compose the high
conservative party. These two classes
profess the same hatred of foreigners,
the same instinctive repugnance for
foreign institutions. “They are reactionary
by nature, and by their attachment
to national customs. It is
the men of maturer age who, formed
at the school of experience, appreciate
the arts and institutions of Christian
nations. When we were in China,
Ki-in, before he had undergone any
disgrace, frequently praised the governments
of England, the United
States, and France; and, at the same
moment, Ki-chan, unjustly precipitated
from the summit of greatness, expressed
the same thoughts to MM. Huc
and Gabet, in the holy city of Thibet.”
For some time the new emperor
disappointed all parties. Surrounded
by flatterers, eunuchs, and concubines,
he remained inactive in his immense
palace, which equals in size one of the
large European fortified towns. He
went not beyond the limits of those
gardens whose walks are strewn with
sparkling quartz, and seemed absorbed
by voluptuous enjoyments. Politicians
were wondering at this long inaction,
when one day the thunder-cloud burst.
The absolute monarch displayed his
power; the reactionary party triumphed.
The Pekin Moniteur published
the dismissal of Mou-tchang-ha and
Ki-in, overwhelming them with abuse,
and declaring them degraded to inferior
ranks. The document was dated
in the 30th year of the reign of Tao-Kouang—the
year of an emperor’s
death being always reckoned by
Chinese chronologists as belonging
entire to his reign. The successors of
the disgraced ministers were selected
from amongst the bitterest enemies of
Europeans, and their chief efforts were
directed to neutralise the effect which
the contact of the barbarians might
have produced upon certain of their
countrymen. This departure from the
policy of Tao-Kouang, who had placed
entire confidence in Ki-in, and had
loaded him with marks of esteem,
brought ill-luck to the new emperor.
Very soon after the victory of the
reactionary party, the first news came
of the revolt of Kouang-Si.
There had been precursory symptoms
of this insurrection. It had been
currently reported amongst the people
that prophecies had fixed the re-establishment
of the Ming dynasty to take
place in the forty-eighth year of that
cycle, which year corresponded with
A.D. 1851. It was further said that
a sage, who lived under the last emperor
of that race, had saved his
standard, and had foretold that he
who displayed it in the midst of his
army should mount the throne. At
the beginning of the insurrection it
was affirmed that the rebels marched
beneath this miraculous banner, and
this was implicitly believed by the
people. “The vulgar are incredulous
of the extinction of old royal races;
it is never certain that their last representative
is in his tomb: there are
people in Portugal who still look for
the return of Don Sebastian, killed,
three centuries ago, at the battle of
Alcazar-Quivir.” An uneasy feeling
soon spread far and wide, with rumours
of the defection of mandarins.
The legitimacy of the Tartar dynasty,
and the necessity of substituting for
it a national one, were publicly discussed.
Here Dr Yvan translates an
extract from an English paper, in
which great importance is attached
to the insurrection, and to the cry for
reform which on all sides was heard.
This was in August 1850. He then
paints the portraits of the emperor
Hièn-foung, and of the pretender
Tièn-tè. The former is twenty-two,
the latter twenty-three years of age.
Without entering into a minute description
of the physical and mental
qualities of the two personages, some
of which will incidentally manifest
themselves as we proceed, we extract
a few leading traits of Tièn-tè, whose
portrait forms the frontispiece to the
volume we are examining. “Study
and vigils have prematurely aged him.
He is grave and melancholy, and very
reserved, communicating with those
around him only to give them orders.
His complexion is that of the southern
Chinese—a saffron tint. His impassible
gaze seems to probe the depths
of the human soul. He commands
rather by suggestion than by direct
dictation. In a word” (and this reminds
us of Dr Yvan’s own sovereign),
“he has the silent reserve of a man
who has reflected a great deal before
communicating his projects to any
one.”
The Doctor then gives a Chinaman’s
description of the pretender’s
entrance into one of the numerous
towns taken by his troops. “The
new emperor and his retinue reminded
me of the scenes represented at our
theatres, in which we are shown the
heroes of ancient days, those who
lived before we came under the Tartar
yoke. The persons who surrounded
Tièn-tè had cut off their tails, let the
whole of their hair grow, and, instead
of the chang buttoned at the side, they
wore tunics open in front. None of
the officers wore upon their right
thumb the pan-tche, that archer’s ring
which our mandarins so ostentatiously
display. The emperor was in
a magnificent palanquin, with yellow
satin curtains, carried by sixteen officers.
After Tièn-tè’s palanquin came
that of his preceptor, borne upon the
shoulders of eight coolies; then came
his thirty wives, in gilt and painted
chairs. A multitude of servants and
soldiers followed in fine order.”
There is a most important point to
be noted in this description—the cutting
off of the tail. It is, perhaps,
hardly necessary to repeat that the
strange style of head-dress with which
porcelain and rice-paper pictures have
familiarised Europeans, is of Tartar
origin, and, in the case of the Chinese,
a mark of subjugation. It was thus
that the victors marked the vanquished—compelling
them to shave
their heads, with the exception of a
spot upon the sinciput, the hair upon
which was suffered to grow into a
long tail. As a sign that they had
thrown off the foreign yoke, Tièn-tè’s
followers cut off their tails. This bold
act—a treasonable offence in China—was
equivalent to throwing away the
scabbard, and caused a great and
painful sensation at the court of Pekin.
As a sort of counterpoise to it,
the celestial Moniteur, the Imperial
Gazette, was made to publish a supposititious
act of submission on the
part of the rebels, in which they were
made to prostrate themselves, declare
their fidelity, and submit to stripes
and bondage.
The person designated by the Chinaman,
in the account of the procession,
as Tièn-tè’s preceptor, is his intimate
friend and privy-councillor—his
only one—a very mysterious individual—whether
his father, his tutor,
or merely a friend, none know—who
accompanies him everywhere. But
we are getting ahead of our subject,
and must glance at the commencement
of the insurrection, previously
to the appearance of Tièn-tè upon
the stage.
The province of Kouang-Si, where
the rebellion began, and which is
larger than the entire dominions of
many European sovereigns, is situated
in the south-western portion of the
empire, is administered by a governor-general,
and forms part of the vice-royalty
of the two Kouangs. Its
mountains are one of the curiosities
of the Celestial Empire; but, since
the Jesuits of Pekin, no foreigner has
been suffered freely to explore them.
“According to native travellers, these
masses have the form of various animals,
unmistakably representing a
cock, an elephant, &c.; and there are
rocks in which are found encrusted
fantastical animals, petrified in the
most singular attitudes. We have
carefully examined drawings of these
figures, which reminded us of the species
resuscitated by Cuvier, and we
have convinced ourselves that the
petrified animals are merely red stains,
produced by oxide of iron, and acutely
defined upon the black surface of the
rock. The general aspect of Kouang-Si
is singularly picturesque. That
vast district offers points of view
which Chinese artists have frequently
painted. To European eyes their collections
of landscapes have a strange
character. Those inaccessible mountains
that seem shaped by the caprice
of human imagination, those rocks
representing gigantic animals, those
rivers precipitating themselves into
gulfs, over which are thrown impassable
bridges, suggest an idea of fairyland.”
A glance at the map of
Kouang-Si suffices to prove the intelligence
and judgment of the insurgent
chiefs who chose that province for the
commencement of their operations.
Unproductive, by reason of its mountainous
character, the misery of the
inhabitants was a powerful auxiliary
to the rebels. They found at once
recruits for their army, and natural
fortresses for their defence. The emperor
needed a far larger army, and
much more efficient means of attack
than he possessed, to drive the insurgents
from their fastnesses. If defeated
in the plain, they had always
the resource of mountain warfare.
Dr Yvan compares the people of
Kouang-Si to the guerillas who in
Spain so severely harassed the French
armies. Like them, he says, they are
sober, intrepid, little sensible of fatigue,
and animated by a spirit of
independence. After centuries of occupation,
the Tartars had not yet
subdued the remotest districts of those
mountains.
The chief vegetable products of
Kouang-Si are cinnamon and aniseed.
Its mountainous conformation,
and the drawings of the Chinese artists,
leave little doubt that it abounds
in metallic deposits. Hence a seeming
miracle, which took powerful hold
on the imagination of the vulgar. Dr
Yvan tells the tale thus:—
“At the beginning of the insurrection,
the chiefs determined to mark
the date of their enterprise by the
erection of a religious monument. For
its foundation, labourers dug in decomposed
rocks, which yielded readily
to the pickaxe. They had attained
the depth of but a few feet, when they
came upon lumps similar in form and
appearance to the stones in the bed
of a river. These lumps were observed
to be very heavy, and were carefully
examined. They proved to be silver-lead
of great richness. It was from
this providential bank, it is said, that
the pretender paid his first soldiers.
Whatever the authenticity of the tale,
it is worth noting by the collectors of
legends, whose writings will one day
divert the leisure of the mandarins....
As if to confirm this metallurgic
miracle, there have recently
been discovered in Norway silver deposits
precisely similar to those of
Kouang-Si.”
It was in August 1850 that the
Pekin papers for the first time spake
of the insurgents, whom they designated
as robbers; but robbers would
hardly have established themselves
in one of the poorest districts of the
empire, remote from large towns and
high-roads. The rebels showed no
haste to contradict these rumours,
but rather allowed them to gain credit,
and waited patiently in the south-west
part of the province, until the
Celestial tigers[24] should be sent against
them. They were on terms of amity
with the Miao-tze, a race of men inhabiting
the wildest parts of Kouang-Si.
Dining one day with a Chinese
functionary of high rank, in a pagoda
at Canton, the author of this book
received from him a curious account
of those people, which they noted
upon their return home, and now
publish. The Miao-tze, the minister
told them, are aborigines of the chain
of mountains that extends from the
north of Kouang-Toung (the southernmost
province) into the central
provinces of the empire. They dwell
in small communities, never exceeding
two thousand persons. Their
houses are built on posts, like those
of the Malays. They are warlike in
disposition, and agriculture is their
pursuit. The Tartars have never
succeeded in subduing them. They
have retained the old national costume—have
never shaved their heads—have
always rejected the authority of
the mandarins and the Chinese customs.
Their independence is now a
recognised fact; and upon Chinese
maps a blank is left for the country
they occupy, to signify that it does
not obey the emperor. For a great
many years no attempt had been made
to subdue them, when suddenly, in
1832, they made an incursion, pillaging
wherever they went. They beat
the Chinese troops sent against them,
and were got rid of only by diplomacy
and concession. They hold little
intercourse with their neighbours,
and are greatly dreaded by the Chinese
of the towns, who call them
man-dogs, man-wolves. “They believe
them to have tails, and relate
that, when a child is born, the soles
of his feet are cauterised, to harden
them, and render him indefatigable.
These are mere tales,” continued the
Chinese minister, whom Dr Yvan
describes as a young and elegant
man, and who is apparently of the
more enlightened party in his country.
“In reality, the Miao-tze
are a very fine and intelligent race,
and their manners have a tendency,
I think, to become gentle.” Such a
race as this was evidently a most
valuable ally for the insurgents, whose
first military movements put them in
possession of two large towns, in one
of which three mandarins of high
rank were killed fighting against
them. Siu, governor-general of the
two Kouangs, took alarm; and upon
learning that the rebels were coming
his way, solicited the honour of making
a pilgrimage to the tomb of the
defunct emperor. This request was
refused; and the troops he sent against
the enemy were beaten and exterminated.
The antiquated tactics of the
insurgents—which would hardly have
much success against any but a Chinese
army—consisted in feigning a
flight, and drawing their opponents
into an ambuscade. This succeeded
several times running—not being, we
must suppose, guarded against in the
Chinese twenty-four-volume treatise
on the art of war. Emboldened by
their repeated victories, the rebels
crossed the frontier of Kouang-Si, and
entered Kouang-Toung, where they
soon met with and massacred, to the
very last man, a detachment of imperial
troops.
Two political acts of great importance
were now simultaneously accomplished
at Pekin and in the insurgent
camp. In the former place, the
emperor sent for Lin, the opium-burner,
and bade him go and put
down the rebellion. Notwithstanding
his great age, the austere mandarin
promptly obeyed. As if by
way of retort, the insurgents issued
a proclamation, declaring that the
Mantchous, who for two centuries
had hereditarily occupied the throne
of China, had no right to it beyond
that of the strongest; that that right
was common to all—and that they
had an equally good one to levy contributions
on the towns they conquered.
The Mantchous, they said,
were foreigners, who had conquered
the country by aid of a veteran army;
their right of government consisted in
possessing. This proclamation conveyed
the leading idea of the rebels,
which had previously been merely
rumoured. They declared legitimacy
to mean possession; and at the same
time intimated their intention of expelling
the Mantchous, and transferring
to Chinese hands the management
of the public revenues. This
publication was the last act of the
rebels in 1850. It coincided with
the death of Lin, which occurred in
November of that year. The old
commissioner was in his seventieth
year, and sank under the fatigue and
anxiety of his new command.
The Chinese year begins in February.
Its commencement is a sort of
commercial and financial crisis, when
everybody pays and calls in his debts.
In January it was reported and believed,
in Canton, that the insurrection
of Kouang-Si was entirely suppressed,
and that the celestial tigers
had gained imperishable laurels. In
consequence of this good news, business
resumed its usual course, confidence
returned, and the Chinese
“settling day” passed without disaster.
It was a mere trick of the cunning
mandarins of Kouang-Toung,
who, in the interest of the commercial
community, had fabricated the bulletins.
The public satisfaction and
tranquillity were soon dispelled by
intelligence of the cutting off of tails
already mentioned, and which admitted
of no other interpretation than
“War to the Knife!”
Li succeeded Lin as imperial commissioner
in Kouang-Si. The pusillanimous
Siu was reduced four degrees
of rank, which is something like
reducing a field-officer to an ensigncy,
but was still left governor of the two
Kouangs. A very bad system was
pursued by the agents of the Chinese
government—exemplified by the following
incidents. In March 1851,
the little town of Lo-Ngan was taken
by the insurgents, who levied a contribution,
seized the contractor of the
Mont de Piété, or pawning establishment,
and fixed his ransom at 1000
taels (about £320). He paid, and
was released. Next day the imperial
troops drove out the rebels, levied another
contribution, and squeezed 3000
taels from the contractor! This man,
who was influential in the place, and
indignant at suffering spoliation from
those who should have protected him,
harangued the people in the public
square. Others spoke after him, and
at last the excited mob cut off their
tails, swore that the reign of the Tartars
was at an end, and sent for the
insurgents, who came in the night and
massacred the garrison. Other things
concurred to induce disaffection among
the population to the reigning dynasty.
Li took for his second in command a
ferocious mandarin, who, when governor
of the province of Hou-Nan, where
the use of opium was very prevalent,
had adopted the barbarous practice of
cutting off the under lip of the smokers.
Dr Yvan was in China at the time,
and saw several poor wretches who
had been thus mutilated, and whose
aspect was horrible, the operation,
performed by clumsy executioners,
leaving hideous jagged wounds, “very
different,” the doctor feelingly and
professionally remarks, “from the elegant
scars so artfully and happily produced
by Parisian bistourys.” The
nomination of the cruel Tchang (in his
case, as in some others, we spare the
reader the labour of reading his second
and third names, which, although connected
by hyphens, are not, as we
perceive from Dr Yvan’s practice,
inseparable from the first) was significant.
At the same period, and in
one day, thirty-six persons, accused
of conspiring against the safety of the
state, were put to death at Canton.
Dr Yvan doubts whether their crimes
were really political. In China they
deal in what he calls prophylactic justice.
The thirty-six executions were
perhaps a preventive measure, and the
victims common malefactors, elevated
to the rank of rebels and traitors.
“They may, however, have been
members of secret societies, which are
very numerous in China, and in those
countries whither Chinese immigrate.
At Singapore, Penang, Batavia, Manilla,
we have known numerous adepts
of the secret societies of the Empire of
the Centre—a species of free-masonry,
whose ascertained object is the dethronement
of the Mantchous.
“In 1845, we lived for several days
with a merchant of Chan-Toung, who
clandestinely introduces arms into
China. He took us to a house in one
of the dirtiest and least reputable
quarters of the town, and we ascended
into a sort of garret. In that country
garrets are on the first floor. His object
was to obtain our estimate of
arms which some Americans had sold
him. They were enormous swords in
steel scabbards. The heavy blades
were clumsily forged; but cheap they
certainly were, having been delivered
in China at the price of ten francs
a-piece. On our entrance the Chinese
unsheathed one of these large blades,
and uttered loud exclamations, gesticulating
the while after the fashion of
the Chinese heroes one sees painted
upon fans. We asked him if it was
for the equipment of the invincible
tigers he purchased these arms. At
the question he smiled significantly,
and showed us, by an expressive gesture,
the use intended to be made of
them against the imperial troops.
Perhaps at this moment the gigantic
weapons are in the rebels’ hands.”
Neither the appointment of the terrible
Tchang, the executions at Canton,
nor the mendacious reports,
perseveringly circulated, of imperial
triumphs, checked the rebels. On
the contrary, they replied to all this
violence and boasting by the proclamation
of an emperor of their own,
whom they called Tièn-tè, which
means Celestial Virtue! He was invested
with the imperial yellow robe,
and, contrary to Tartar usage, which
forbids the reproduction of the sovereign’s
features by his subjects, his
portrait was circulated by thousands
of copies. From one of those prints
MM. Callery and Yvan have taken
the frontispiece of their volume. The
head-dress and costume are those of
the days of the Mings, from whom
the pretender’s partisans declare him
descended.
The proclamation of Tièn-tè may
be said to close the first period of the
insurrection. Dr Yvan points admiringly
to the patient policy of its chiefs.
For a whole year Tièn-tè was kept in
the background, his partisans contenting
themselves with spreading a
report that there existed a descendant
of the Mings. Then they proclaimed,
but did not show him to the people.
He returned to a sort of mysterious
obscurity, and showed himself but at
long intervals, to his enthusiastic adherents.
The rebellion now took the
character of a civil war. The Emperor
Hièn-foung, although deficient in political
judgment, and in that tact and
penetration which enable a sovereign
to make the best choice of agents, displayed
a good deal of energy; but this
was too apt to degenerate into violence.
He was certainly not well
served. Siu, still governor of the
Kouangs, was unequal to the difficulties
that every day augmented. The
inhabitants of two districts refused to
pay taxes; the emperor ordered their
punishment; Siu sent a mandarin to
bring the ringleaders before him; the
whole population rose, and pulled the
officer out of his palanquin, which
they broke to pieces, its occupant
barely escaping with life. About the
same time Tièn-tè set a price of ten
thousand dollars on Siu’s head. The
placard containing the announcement
was affixed to the north gate of Canton,
just as Siu was about to quit that
city at the head of three thousand men,
to join other forces directed against
Kouang-Si. The viceroy was furious;
and as his palanquin passed through
Canton’s street, preceded by two
gongs, and by a banner on which was
inscribed, “Get out of the way and
be silent; here is the imperial commissioner,”
he glanced savagely right
and left, as if seeking some one on
whom to wreak his vengeance. “Presently
he slapped his hand down upon
the edge of his chair, and bade the
bearers stop. It was just opposite the
house of one of those poor artists who
paint familiar genii and large family-pictures.
The painter had hung up
some of his most remarkable works
outside his house; but strange to relate!
in the midst of smiling deities,
irritated genii, feetless women flying
along like birds in silken vestments,
there was displayed a decapitated
mandarin. The rank of the personage
was unmistakably indicated by the
insignia painted on his breast. The
corpse was in a kneeling position, and
the head, separated from the trunk,
was placed beside a beaver-hat bearing
the plain button.” The unfortunate
artist was called out of his shop,
and kneeled trembling in the dust before
Siu’s palanquin. In vain he protested
that the picture was painted to
order, and hung out to dry: he was
sent to the town-prison to receive
twenty blows of a bamboo for placing
such ill-omened horrors upon the viceroy’s
passage, and Siu went upon his
way, gloomily impressed by the double
presage of the placard and the picture.
Besides his three thousand men, he
had with him a host of mandarins,
attendants, executioners, musicians,
standard-bearers, and women, and a
large sum of money, which he added
to, upon the march, as often as he
could. The women and the treasure
were carried on men’s shoulders, in
palanquins and chests. Dr Yvan relates
the following curious incident as
having occurred upon this march:—
“They one evening reached a deep
and rapid water-course, which had to
be crossed over a bamboo bridge.
When a part of the escort had reached
the farther bank, Siu stopped his palanquin,
and ordered the coolies who
carried the treasure-chest to cross
slowly and cautiously. They obeyed;
but just as they reached the centre of
the elastic bridge, a sudden shock
threw them and their load into the
water. There was a moment of extreme
confusion. The chest had sunk,
the unfortunate coolies were struggling
against the stream, and uttering lamentable
cries, whilst Siu, furious,
was breaking his fan for rage. Luckily
the coolies swam like fish, and easily
reached the shore. The viceroy was
sorely tempted to bastinado them upon
the spot; but he reserved that pleasure
for another day, and ordered the
poor wretches, who stood panting and
terrified before him, instantly to fish
up the precious chest, threatening
them with a terrible chastisement if
they did not find it. They stript off
their clothes and courageously entered
the water; skilful divers, they explored
the river’s bed, and, after many
efforts, succeeded in getting the heavy
chest ashore. It was wet and muddy,
but otherwise uninjured. Siu had it
placed upon the shoulders of two fresh
coolies, and the march was resumed.
A few days later, on reaching Chao-King,
his first care was to have the
chest opened in his presence; but
instead of his golden ingots, he found
only pebbles and pieces of lead carefully
wrapped in silk paper. The
coolies were audacious robbers, who
had skilfully planned the exchange.
The viceroy set all his police on foot,
but in vain; the thieves had doubtless
taken refuge in the insurgent
country, where they and their booty
were safe.”
A Chinese gentleman, well-dressed,
comely, and of intelligent aspect, has
lately attracted considerable attention
in Paris, in whose streets and public
places he has been frequently seen.
He is a friend and companion of M.
Callery, and to him is owing the facsimile
of a Chinese map included in
the volume under notice. It represents
those provinces which the insurgents
have already traversed, from
the mountains of Kouang-Si to the
city of Nankin, the ancient capital of
the Mings. A stream of red spots,
running across its centre, and in some
places spreading out wide, indicates
the towns occupied by the rebels. The
map is copied from one of the numerous
charts published in China in
1851, towards the end of which year
the victories of Tièn-tè’s troops were
so numerous, and their progress so
prodigious, that even the lying Pekin
Gazette ceased to record imaginary
imperial triumphs. It must not be
supposed, however, that, in the case
of the captured towns, occupation invariably
implied retention. The chiefs
of the insurgents heeded not the strategical
importance of particular places.
With the exception of a few fortresses,
into which the pretender occasionally
retired, they abandoned successively
all the towns they took, after raising
contributions to pay their troops.
“Their tactics,” says Dr Yvan, “are
those of the barbarian chiefs who led
the great invasions of which history
has transmitted us the account. The
insurgents go straight before them,
seizing, each day, some new point,
which they next day abandon. Their
intention is evidently to cut their way
to the capital. In a country where
the centralising system prevails so
completely as in China, the Mantchous
reign as long as Pekin is in their
power; but upon the day on which
the descendant of the Mings enters
the imperial city, the provinces he has
marched through and left unconquered
will acknowledge his right, and submit
themselves to his authority.” In
several chapters of Dr Yvan’s book
we find amusing examples of the military
tactics of these strange barbarians
who deem all others such. Thirteen
thousand imperialists advanced
against the rebels near the town of
Ping-Nan-Hien. The rebels defended
themselves feebly, and retreated from
one position to another. When this
had lasted several hours, and the
weary pursuers were about to desist,
they suddenly found themselves in an
ambuscade, entangled in a bamboo
jungle, and attacked in front and flank
by a strong body of rebels, with more
than sixty pieces of artillery. When
General Ou-lan-taï got back to his
camp, it was with half his army; the
remainder had either been killed, or
had deserted to the enemy. Siu, the
valiant viceroy, safe behind the thick
walls of a fortress, swore by his meagre
mustaches that he would revenge this
rout. “To that end, he borrowed
from the ancient history of the kingdom
of Tsi a stratagem which reminds
one of the Trojan horse, and
of Samson’s foxes. He got together
four thousand buffalos, to whose long
horns he had torches fastened; the
drove was then given in charge to
four thousand soldiers; and the expedition,
prepared in the most profound
secresy, set out one night for
the rebel camp. It was anticipated
that each buffalo, thus transformed
into a fiery chariot, would commit
terrible ravages, kill all the men it
could get at, and set fire to the camp.
At first the horned battalions met with
no obstacles; the insurgents, duly advertised
of this splendid stratagem,
suffered them quietly to advance.
But before the imperialists reached
the camp, the enemy, who observed
all their movements by favour of the
splendid illumination, fell upon them
unexpectedly, as they had so often
done before, and the same scenes of
carnage were renewed. This manœuvre
of Siu’s cost the lives of more
than two thousand men, and gives an
idea of Chinese proficiency in the art
of war. Had our sole knowledge of
the affair been derived from the Anglo-Chinese
press, we should have hesitated
to reproduce it here; but we
have had opportunity of collating the
account given by The Friend of China,
with authentic Chinese documents,
and they entirely agree in their narrative
of this incredible occurrence.
In the eyes of the Tartar warriors,
and of the Chinese themselves, this
comical invention of Siu’s passes for
a highly ingenious strategical combination.”
Whilst such were the disasters of
his armies, and the progress of his
foes, what was the occupation of his
Imperial Majesty, the Son of Heaven,
Hièn-foung? Surrounded by favourites
and courtiers, he composed a
poem, whose subject was the heroic
exploits of his Tartar general, Oulan-taï—the
said exploits existing but
in the general’s own bulletins! According
to MM. Yvan and Callery,
who have read a portion of the emperor’s
epic, it is an inflated performance,
indebted in every line to
reminiscences of the classic authors of
the Celestial Empire—the Chinese
Homers, the Ariostos of Pekin; so
that the braggart general appropriately
found a plagiarist bard. Meanwhile
Siu, who had more confidence
in golden than in leaden ammunition
as a means of victory, offered ninety
thousand taels (nearly £30,000) for
the heads of Tièn-tè, his father, and
his mysterious privy-councillor—that
being, for each head, just thrice the
sum at which the insurgents had estimated
his. But no heads were brought
in, and the viceroy, weary and despairing,
implored permission to return
to Canton. To obtain such permission,
he invented an ingenious story,
which the official Pekin paper was so
unkind as to publish. He represented
to his master that the subjects of
Donna Maria da Gloria, queen of
Portugal, were preparing for an expedition
against the Celestial Empire.
He converted the peaceable Macaists
into a band of pirates ready to aid
the insurgents, and to appropriate to
themselves the provinces of Kouang-Toung
and Fo-Kien! With an emperor,
a general, and a viceroy, such
as these characteristic traits exhibit,
Dr Yvan is surely justified in anticipating
the early dissolution of the
Chinese Empire. Under such chiefs,
it is not surprising when armies exhibit
neither discipline nor courage.
In the autumn of 1851, the insurgents,
having taken three towns, respected
the lives and property of the inhabitants.
By a proclamation, Tièn-tè
exhorted the latter to remain quietly
where they were, but permitted those
who would not recognise his authority
to quit the place, taking with
them all they could of their goods and
chattels. A considerable number profited
by this permission, and departed,
laden with the most valuable portion
of their property. They fell in with
a body of imperialist troops, who
stripped them of everything, and killed
those who resisted. The unfortunate
victims of civil war reproached their
spoilers with their cowardice. “Before
the rebels,” they said, “you are
mice; it is only with us that you are
tigers!”
From an early period of the rebellion,
the mandarins endeavoured to
discredit its banner and partisans by
the propagation of lying inventions,
some of which had the double aim of exciting
the Buddhist population against
the insurgents, and of rendering the
Christians more and more odious to
the young emperor. Thus they asserted
that the pretender really was a
descendant of the Mings, but that he
was a Catholic, and that, wherever he
went, he upset pagodas and destroyed
idols. Others affirmed that he was of
the sect of Chang-ti—that is to say, a
Protestant. Whilst noticing these
statements, Dr Yvan contents himself
with remarking that the name of Tièn-tè,
chosen by the pretender, is purely
pagan. Another manœuvre of the
mandarins was to announce that the
insurgents had declared their intention,
as soon as they should have attained
to supreme authority, of driving
the Europeans from the five ports.
Thus they thought to set the Europeans
against the insurrection. But
this flimsy fabrication was easily seen
through. Attempts were also made
to cast ridicule on the insurgents, by
the circulation of pamphlets filled with
incredible anecdotes.
“One of these satirical productions
relates that Tièn-tè, having perished
in an accidental conflagration of his
camp, his wife had had his brother assassinated,
and had seized the reins
of government. But, in China, petticoat
government is inadmissible, and
people never speak but with horror of
the Empress Ou-heou, that Elizabeth
of the East, who possessed herself of
the imperial power, and exercised it
for more than twenty years. In this
respect, Chinese prejudices are so invincible
that the name of Ou-heou has
been effaced from the list of the sovereigns
of the Celestial Empire. For
the Chinese, that shameful reign never
took place. The idea of sovereign
power in a woman’s hands fills them
with indignation; yet they know that
a woman reigns over that western
people which conquered them, and
that the English nation was never
greater or more glorious than under
the rule of Her Most Gracious Majesty,
Queen Victoria.”
The existence of a Christian element
or influence in the ranks and
councils of the insurgents, which the
mandarins put forward, probably without
any better grounds than their own
malicious intent, is traced, at a later
period, by MM. Callery and Yvan, in
a proclamation issued after several
triumphs won, at short intervals, by
the armies of Tièn-tè. In a previous
proclamation, the pretender had referred,
somewhat obscurely, to the
idea of a federal empire, to be composed
of several kingdoms dependent
on one chief. This idea was more
clearly developed in the manifesto
affixed to the walls of the captured
town of Young-Gan-Tcheou, and
signed, not by Tièn-tè, although he
was then present, but by Tièn-kio,
one of the future feudatory kings, who
dated it from the first year of his
reign. It announced, in plain terms,
the plans of the insurgents. They
would combine their forces, march on
Pekin, and then divide the empire.
The whole plan, Dr Yvan, who highly
lauds it, believes to have been conceived
and elaborated by the secret
societies. “Since the overthrow of
the Mings, and the accession of the
Mantchous,” he says, “those clandestine
associations, the intellectual
laboratory of declining countries, have
been constantly active. The most
celebrated of them, the Society of the
Three Principles, or of the Triad, is
powerfully organised. In every part
of China, and in all the countries
where Chinese reside, are found members
of this association; and the children
of the Empire of the Centre
might say, almost without exaggeration,
that when three of them are assembled
together, the Triad is amongst
them.”
But if the substance of Tièn-kio’s
proclamation is politically important,
to its form Dr Yvan assigns immense
significance. He recognises in it a
new and regenerative element—that
of Christianity. “Its authors speak of
decrees of Heaven. They have prostrated
themselves before the Supreme
Being, after having learned to adore
God. They have striven to save the
people from calamities. This is a style
unknown to the idolatrous Chinese,
and foreign to Catholic language: to
Protestantism is due the honour of
having introduced it into China; and
it appears that there really is, amongst
the insurgents, an indigenous Protestant,
holding a very high rank, and
exercising very great authority. This
Protestant is, it is stated, a disciple
of Gutzlaff, the last secretary interpreter
of the government of Hong-Kong.”
Having mentioned Gutzlaff’s
name, MM. Callery and Yvan—one,
if not both, of whom appears to have
known him—give some curious particulars
concerning him. They speak
of him as an intelligent man, having
extraordinary facility in learning languages,
and of his books as narratives
in which a little truth is mingled with
very agreeable falsehoods. Born in
Pomerania, there was nothing German
in his aspect; his features were
Mongul, and in his Chinese costume
he could not be distinguished from a
Chinese.
“One night, during our residence
in China, we were conversing about
him with the mandarin Pan-se-tchèn,
who was a great friend of his, and one
of us expressed his surprise at finding,
in a European, the characteristic signs
of the Chinese race.
“‘Nothing is more natural,’ the
mandarin, quietly replied; ‘Gutzlaff’s
father was a Fokienese settled in Germany.’
“This fact appeared to us so extraordinary
that we should hesitate to
mention it here, if Pan had not affirmed
that he had it from M. Gutzlaff himself.”
We do not here trace the progress
of the Insurrection in China, the leading
events of whose earlier stages
have, to a certain extent, been made
known to Europeans by the public
press; whilst the details of its later
period, and especially those of the
siege and capture of Nankin, had not
come to the knowledge of MM. Callery
and Yvan up to the very recent
date at which their volume went to
press. We have preferred to cull
from this curious and uncommon
book, traits and incidents which, although
they may not be of paramount
importance in a political or military
sense, exhibit, as clearly as could do
the most circumstantial narrative of
the war, the character of people and
parties, and the probable eventualities
of the struggle. There exists, it appears,
amongst the Chinese—at least
in certain provinces—so strong a tendency
to assist the insurrection, that
the viceroy of the two Kouangs published
a decree forbidding the young
men of the towns to form themselves
into volunteer corps. In this cunningly-drawn-up
document he thanked
them for their zeal, and assured them
that the imperial troops amply sufficed
to put down the rebellion. The fact
was, experience had taught him, that,
as soon as the volunteers were put
under the command of a military mandarin,
and taken into the field, they
deserted to the enemy. Their aid
would have been welcome, could it
have been relied upon; for, at the
very time the decree was issued, the
imperialists were enduring daily defeats,
whilst the insurgents, who everywhere
appropriated public money, but
respected private property, daily acquired
fresh partisans.
In the month of September 1852,
Tièn-tè, with all his court, and with
his body-guard, which never quits
him, took up his quarters at a town
within a few leagues of the wily and
prudent Viceroy Siu. This personage
is the most amusing of all the
strange characters we meet with in
Dr Yvan’s pages. Crafty, cowardly,
and particularly careful of his person,
he is a type of the Chinese, as Europeans
understand that nation, of which,
however, Dr Yvan leads us to believe
that we have but an imperfect notion.
A short time before he found himself
in the perilous proximity of the insurgent
leader, Siu had been at his old
tricks, trying to impose upon his
countrymen. Having caught a petty
chief of the rebels, he ticketed him
Tièn-tè, and sent him to Pekin in an
iron cage. The official gazette published
the capital sentence pronounced
upon him, which, according to Chinese
custom, was preceded by the criminal’s
confession. This was a long
document, drawn up, doubtless, by
some Pekin man of letters, in which
the spurious Tièn-tè acknowledged
his delinquencies, and attributed the
insurrection especially to a secret society
founded by Gutzlaff, the Chang-Ti,
or Protestant. Here was evident
the perfidious intention of the exclusionist
party to bring the Christians
into discredit. The execution of the
sham Tièn-tè was still the leading
topic of discussion at Pekin, when
news came that the real pretender
was still alive and active in the
mountains of Kouang-Si, whence he
exercised his occult influence, and observed
the progress of the revolt.
When his pretended captor, Siu, found
himself in his immediate vicinity, he
made no attempt to capture him in
reality; and soon afterwards (in
January of the present year) that
officer fell into disgrace with his sovereign,
owing to the disasters that
occurred under his government. He
was deprived of his vice-royalty, and
of his peacock’s feather with two eyes.
Shortly after the appearance of this
decree in the Pekin Gazette, a melancholy
report was circulated at Canton;
Siu, it was affirmed, driven to
despair by his disgrace, had poisoned
himself. When the circumstances of
the act came to be known, the minds
of his anxious friends were considerably
relieved. He had poisoned himself
with gold leaf.
“The science of toxicology is about
on a par, in China, with the military
knowledge of the generals of the imperial
army. When a great personage
wishes to put himself to death, he
takes an ounce of gold leaf, rolls it
into a ball, and swallows the valuable
pill. According to the physiologists
of the Celestial Empire, these balls,
once in the stomach, unroll themselves,
and adhere to the whole interior of
the organ, like paper on a wall. The
stomach, thus gilt, ceases to act, and
the unhappy mandarin dies suffocated,
after a few hours’ somnolency—a
mode of suicide which we recommend
to despairing sybarites.”
The year 1852 closed as disastrously
as it had begun. Throughout its
whole course, the imperialists—or, to
speak more correctly, the troops of
the Tartar dynasty, since there are
now two emperors in the field—had
been invariably worsted, and the insurrection
had spread far and wide.
Stringent measures were adopted by
Hièn-foung; his generals were warned
that defeat would be promptly followed
by their degradation, and even by the
loss of their heads: Victory or Death
was the motto they literally and compulsorily
assumed. Another evil was
soon added to the many that assailed
the young emperor. The imperial
finances were exhausted; the Celestial
Chancellor of the Exchequer declared
his penury, and denounced the mandarins
who nominally commanded in
the insurgent provinces. They would
render no account of their stewardship;
not a copper was to be got from
them—that was hardly to be expected—but
they sent in fabulous “states”
of the troops under their command,
and demanded enormous sums wherewith
to carry on the war. In this
emergency, the means proposed, and
those resorted to, to raise the wind,
transcend belief. No desperate prodigal,
reckless of reputation, ever
adopted more shameless expedients
to replenish his purse. A mandarin
proposed an opium monopoly. A
similar proposal, under the reign of
Tao-Kouang, cost a minister his
place, and was near costing him his
life. Times are changed; Hièn-foung,
less scrupulous, and notwithstanding
his aversion to opium-smokers,
was giving to the project, at
the date of the last advices, his serious
consideration. Meanwhile, the official
newspaper published (12th November
1852) a document, comprising
twenty-three articles, in which everything
was put up for sale—titles,
judgeships, peacocks’ feathers, mandarins’
buttons, exemptions from service,
promotions in the army. In
this publication, a casual reference
being made to the English, they were
still treated as barbarians; but, five
months later (on the 16th March
last), when the insurgents were before
Nankin, and likely soon to be within
it, Celestial pride was so far humbled
that we find the authorities earnestly
and respectfully supplicating Christian
succour, in a circular addressed
to all the representatives of civilised
nations, resident in those Chinese
ports open to European commerce,
and especially to the consuls of Great
Britain and the United States. For
“barbarians” was now substituted
“your great and honourable nation.”
To such an extent are carried Chinese
vanity and conceit, that, Dr Yvan
assures us, if the demand for aid were
complied with by the English and
American plenipotentiaries, the Son
of Heaven would instantly persuade
himself that those Western people
rank amongst his tributaries, and
would very probably issue a proclamation
announcing that his troops had
subdued the rebels, aided by nations
who had lately made their submission,
and who had conducted themselves
faithfully in those circumstances.
Meanwhile, the insurgents employed
much more straightforward and satisfactory
means of filling their treasury
than those resorted to in extremity of
distress by the Mantchou emperor. In
the month of February last they captured
Ou-Tchang-Fou, a rich city of
four hundred thousand inhabitants,
the capital of the province of Hou-Pé.
A friend of MM. Yvan and Callery, an
intrepid traveller, gave them a glowing
description of this city, situated
upon the right bank of the Yang-Tze-Kiang,
or Son of the Ocean—an enormous
river, in whose waters porpoises
disport themselves as in the open sea,
and which allows the ascent of ships
of the largest burthen. Five or six
thousand (and Dr Yvan’s friend expressly
disclaims exaggeration) are the
number of the junks usually at anchor
before Ou-Tchang. The person referred
to saw upwards of a thousand
laden with salt alone, and the town is
an immense depot of China produce
and of European and American manufactures.
Chinese junks are the
noisiest vessels that float; their crews
are continually beating gongs and
letting off fireworks. The quiet of
Ou-Tchang may be imagined. It
was on the occasion of the capture of
this wealthy and important city that
poor Siu was deprived of his peacock’s
feather and driven to internal gilding.
“The troubles of the south,”
said the emperor in his proclamation,
“leave us no rest by night, and take
away our appetite.”
The fourteenth chapter of L’Insurrection
en Chine is chiefly occupied by
a description of the five feudatory
kings appointed by Tièn-tè (one of
whom takes the title of the Great Pacificator,
whilst the four others are
known as Kings of the North, South,
East, and West), of the Pretender’s
ministers, of the dress and official insignia
of the various dignitaries, and
of the organisation of the insurgent
army, which is regular and perfect.
It also comprises a proclamation, exhorting
the people to rise in arms
against their tyrannical government,
and whose exalted and metaphorical
style may be judged of by a single
short extract. “How is it that you,
Tartars, do not yet understand that it
is time to gather up your scattered
bones, and to light slices of bacon to
serve as signals to your terror?” Notwithstanding
such eccentricities of
expression, which may possibly be
heightened by extreme literalness of
translation, the document has its importance,
especially by reason of a
tendency to Christianity traced by
MM. Callery and Yvan in the commencement
of one of its paragraphs.
“We adore respectfully the Supreme
Lord,” says Tièn-tè, “in order to obtain
His protection for the people.”
The descendant of the Mings was now
in full march for the city which, under
the ancient dynasty he assumes to
represent, and proposes to restore, was
the capital of all China. With a formidable
fleet and an army of fifty
thousand men, the five kings appeared
before Nankin.
“This city, which contains more
than half a million of inhabitants, has
thrice the circumference of Paris; but
amidst its deserted streets are found
large spaces turned up by the plough,
and the grass grows upon the quays,
to which a triple line of shipping was
formerly moored. It is situated in
an immense plain, furrowed by canals
as numerous as those which traverse
the human body. Its fertile district
is a net-work of rivulets and of navigable
water-courses, fringed with willows
and bamboos. In the province
of Nankin grows the yellowish cotton
from which is made the cloth exported
thence in enormous quantities; there
also is reaped the greater part of all
the rice consumed in the empire. The
Kiang-Nan, or province of Nankin, is
the richest gem in the diadem of the
Son of Heaven. Nothing in old Europe
can give an idea of its fruitfulness—neither
the plains of Beauce, nor those
of Lombardy, nor even opulent Flanders.
Twice a-year its fields are
covered with crops, and they yield
fruit and vegetables uninterruptedly....
We have had the happiness
to sit in the shadow of the orchards
which fringe the Ou-Soung, one of
the numerous veins that fertilise the
province of Kiang-Nan. There we
have gathered with our own hands the
fleshy jujube, which travellers have
often mistaken for the date; the pomegranate,
with its transparent grains;
monstrous peaches, beside which the
finest produced at Montreuil seem but
wild fruit, and the diospyros as large
as a tomata. We have seen the
scarlet pheasant and his brother of
the pearl-tinted plumage running in
the fields. This province contains
thirty-eight millions of inhabitants.
“To a Chinese nothing is beautiful,
good, graceful, elegant, or tasteful, but
what comes from Nankin or from
Sou-Tcheou-Fou. Wedded to routine,
we have but one city which sets
the fashions; the Chinese have two.
The fashionables of the Celestial Empire
are divided into two schools, one
of which holds by Nankin, the other
by Sou-Tcheou-Fou. It is still doubtful
which of the two will carry the
day. As to Pekin, the centre of government,
it has no weight in matters
of pleasure and taste; it has the monopoly
of ennui. In Nankin reside the
men of letters and learning, the dancers,
painters, archæologists, jugglers, physicians,
poets, and celebrated courtesans.
In that charming city are held
schools of science, art, and pleasure;
for pleasure is, in that country, both
an art and a science.”
With this interesting extract we
shall conclude our article, after quoting
a significant passage from a short
proclamation which Tièn-tè’s agents
have lately circulated:
“As to those stupid priests of
Bouddha, and those jugglers of Tao-se,”
it says, “they shall all be repressed,
and their temples and their
monasteries shall be demolished, as well
as those of all the other corrupt sects.”
MM. Callery and Yvan anxiously
speculate as to who are designated by
the words other corrupt sects. Was
the proclamation drawn up by a disciple
of Confucius, or by a member of
Gutzlaff’s Chinese Union? They admit
that for the present it is impossible
to answer the question.
But Tièn-tè’s banner waves over
Nankin, and the riddle may soon be
solved.
Between the village of Lanscote
and the Heronry a side-road branched
off, leading also to Doddington. At
their junction the two roads bounded
an abrupt rocky chasm, containing a
black gloomy pool of unknown depth;
known to the neighbourhood as the
Mine Pool. A speculator had dug it
many years before, in expectation of
being richly rewarded by the mineral
treasures supposed to exist there, and
had continued the enterprise till the
miners reached a great depth, when
the water rose too rapidly to be kept
under, and the work was abandoned.
A few low bushes fringed the edge of
it, besides which a dilapidated railing
fenced it from the road. It formed a
grim feature as it appeared unexpectedly
yawning beside the green and
flowery lane, and suggested ideas
altogether incongruous with the smiling,
peaceful character of the surrounding
landscape.
On the morning after Bagot’s interview
with Mr Holmes, as related in
the last chapter, Fillett and Julius
were coming down the lane towards
Lanscote. They were often sent out
for a morning walk, and had been
easily induced to choose this road by
the Colonel, who had promised Julius
a ride on the front of his saddle if he
would come towards the village.
In these walks Julius was accustomed
to impart, for the benefit of
Kitty, most of the information collected
from his various instructors. He
would tell her of distant countries
which his mamma had described to
him—of pictures of foreign people and
animals drawn for him by Orelia—of
fairy tales told him by Rosa—of scraps
of botanical rudiments communicated
to him by the Curate. And being a
sharp-witted little fellow, with a wonderful
memory, he seldom failed to
command Kitty’s admiration and applause.
There were few branches of
natural or metaphysical science which
he had not treated of in this way. He
had explained to her all about thunderbolts—he
had destroyed for ever
her faith in will-o’-the-wisps, leaving
instead a mere matter-of-fact, uninteresting
ignis fatuus—he had sounded
her belief in witchcraft—he had
put questions respecting the nature
and habits of ghosts which she was
wholly unable to solve: “Bless the
child,” Kitty would say, “it’s as good
as a play to hear him.”
Julius, hovering round Kitty, and
chatting with her, frequently looked
anxiously about to see if his Uncle
Bag were coming, that he might claim
the promised ride. When they arrived
near the Mine Pool, down into
the depths of which he was fond of
gazing with a child’s awe, the Colonel
suddenly met them coming on horseback
up the road. Julius, clamorous
to be lifted up, ran towards him; but
Bagot called out that he was riding
home for something he had forgotten,
and would speedily overtake him. He
passed them, and trotted on to where
the road made a bend. There he
suddenly pulled up, and called to
Kitty to leave the boy for a minute
and come up—that he wanted to speak
to her.
Fillett obeyed, tripped up to the
horse’s side, and walked beside the
Colonel, who proceeded onward at a
slow pace, talking of the old affair of
Dubbley and her ladyship, and pretending
to have some fresh matter of
the kind in his head. Kitty noticed
that his manner was odd and nervous,
and his language incoherent, and
before she could at all clearly perceive
what it was he wanted to tell her, he
released her and trotted onward to the
Heronry, while she hastened to rejoin
her young charge.
Julius was not in the spot where
she had left him, and Fillett ran
breathlessly down the road, calling
him by name. Reaching a point where
she could see a long way down the
path, and finding he was not in sight,
she retraced her steps, alternately
calling him aloud and muttering to
herself what a plaguey child he was.
She looked behind every bush as she
came along, and on again reaching
the Mine Pool looked anxiously over
the fence. Some object hung in the
bushes a few yards from where she
stood, just below a broken part of the
fence; she hastened to the spot and
looked down—it was Juley’s hat.
Clasping her hands together with a
loud shriek, poor Kitty’s eyes wandered
round in every direction in
search of some gleam of comfort;—in
search of some one to help her, under
the burden of this terrible discovery.
No one was in sight; only she saw a
yellow caravan going up the other
road to Doddington, at a quarter of a
mile off. She would have run after
it shrieking to the driver to stop; but
her limbs and voice alike failed her,
and poor Kitty sunk down moaning
on the ground. “What shall I say to
my lady?” gasped Fillett.
Lady Lee was sitting in the library
dressed for a walk, and waiting for
her two friends who were getting
ready to accompany her, when she
heard a great commotion in the servants’
hall and rung the bell to ask
the reason. It was slowly answered
by a footman, who entered with a
perturbed aspect, and said the noise
was caused by Fillett, who was in
hysterics. Lady Lee asked what had
caused her disorder, but the man
looked confused, and stammered in
his reply. Before she could make
any further inquiries, Fillett herself
rushed frantically into the room, and
threw herself down before Lady Lee.
“O, my lady, my lady!” sobbed
Fillett.
“What ails the girl?” asked Lady
Lee, looking down at her with an
astonished air.
Fillett tried to answer, but nothing
was distinguishable except that “indeed
it wasn’t her fault.” At this
moment a whispering at the door
caused Lady Lee to look up, and she
saw that the servants were gathered
there, peering fearfully in. Rising up
she grasped Kitty’s shoulder, and
shook her, faltering out, “Speak,
girl!”
Fillett seized her mistress’s dress,
and again tried to tell her tale. In
the midst of her sobs and exclamations,
the words “Master Juley,” and
“the Mine Pool,” alone were heard;
but thus coupled they were enough.
Kitty, not daring to look up,
fancied she felt her ladyship pulling
away her dress from her grasp, and
clutched it more firmly. At the same
moment there was a rush of servants
from the door—the dress that Fillett
held gave way with a loud rending—and
Lady Lee fell senseless to the
ground.
Until they lost him, they did not
fully know the importance of Julius
in the household. He was a very
limb lopt off. To miss his tiny step
at the door, his chubby face at their
knees, his ringing voice about the
rooms and corridors, made all appear
very desolate at the Heronry. Though
there had been no funeral, no room
made dismal for ever by the presence
of his coffin, and though there was no
little green grave in the churchyard,
yet the house seemed a tomb haunted
by the dim shadow of his form, and
saddened by the echoes of his voice.
Every endeavour was made to recover
the poor child’s body. The
Mine Pool was searched and dragged—it
was even proposed to pump it
dry; but the numerous crannies and
recesses that lurked in its gloomy
depths precluded much prospect of
success, though the attempts were
still persisted in after all hope was
relinquished.
Lady Lee’s grief was of that silent
sort which does not encourage attempts
to console the mourner. She
did not talk about her boy; she was
not often observed to weep—but,
whenever any stray relic brought the
poor child strongly before her mind’s
eye, she might be seen gazing at it
with woeful earnestness, while her
imagination “stuffed out his vacant
garments with his form.” Rosa, observing
this, stealthily removed, one
by one, all the objects most likely to
recall his image, and conveyed them
to her own chamber; and she and
Orelia avoided, so far as might be,
while in Lady Lee’s presence, all allusions
to their little lost friend. But
in their own room at night they would
talk about him for hours, cry themselves
to sleep, and recover him in
their dreams. A large closet in their
apartment was sacred to his memory;
his clothes, his rocking-horse, his
trumpet, his musket, his box of dominoes,
and a variety of other peaceful
and warlike implements were stored
there, and served vividly to recall the
image of their late owner.
Rosa, waking in the morning with
her face all swoln with crying, would
indulge her grief with occasional
peeps into the cupboard at these melancholy
relics; while Orelia, a more
austere mourner, sat silent under the
hands of Fillett, whose sadness was
of an infectious and obtrusive nature.
Kitty would sniff, sigh, compress her
under lip with her teeth, and glance
sideways through her red, watery
eyes at the sympathetic Rosa.
“I dreamt of dear Juley again last
night, Orelia,” Rosa would say.
“Oh, Miss Rosa, so did I,” Fillett
would break in, eager to give audible
vent to her sorrow, “and so did
Martha. Martha says she saw him
like an angel; but I dreamed that I
saw him galloping away upon Colonel
Lee’s horse, and that I called and
called, ‘Master Juley!’ says I, the
same as if it had been real, ‘come to
Kitty!’ but he never looked back.
And the butler dreamed the night
before last he was drawing a bottle of
port, and just as he was going to stick
in the corkscrew, he saw the cork was
in the likeness of Master Juley, and
he woke up all of a cold shiver.”
Conversations on this subject did
not tend to cheer the young ladies’
countenances before they met Lady
Lee at the breakfast-table. On their
way down stairs they would form the
sternest resolutions (generally originating
with Orelia, and assented to
by Rosa), as to their self-command,
and exertions to be cheerful in the
presence of their still more afflicted
friend. They would walk up and kiss
her pale, mournful face, feeling their
stoicism sorely tried the while, and
sitting down to table would try to get
up a little conversation; till Rosa
would suddenly sob and choke in her
breakfast cup, and there was an end
of the attempt.
This melancholy state of things was
not confined to the drawing-room. A
dismal hush pervaded the household,
and the servants went about their
avocations with slow steps and whispered
voices. They took a strange
pleasure, too, in assembling together
at night, and remembering warnings
and omens which were supposed to
have foreshadowed the mournful fate
of the poor little baronet. Exactly
a week before the event, the cook had
been woke while dozing before the
kitchen fire after supper, by a voice
calling her name three times, and
when she looked round there was nobody
there. The very day month
before his loss, the housekeeper distinctly
remembered to have dreamt of
her grandmother, then deceased about
half a century, who had appeared to
her in a lavender gown trimmed with
crape, and black mittens, and she had
said the next morning that she was
sure something would happen; in support
of which prophecy she appealed
to Mr Short the butler, who confirmed
the same, and added, on his own account,
that an evening or two afterwards
he had heard a strange noise
in the cellar, which might have been
rats, but he didn’t think it was.
The sight of Fillett, so intimately
connected with the memory and the
fate of her lost child, was naturally
painful to Lady Lee, and Kitty, perceiving
this to be the case, wisely kept
out of her way, devoting herself entirely
to the young ladies. Self-reproach
greatly increased the sharpness
of Kitty’s sorrow for poor Julius;
she accused herself of having, by her
negligence, contributed to the unhappy
catastrophe. She fancied, too,
that she could read similar reproach
in the behaviour of her fellow-servants
towards her; with the exception,
however, of Noble, who, melted at
the sight of her melancholy, and forgetting
all his previous causes of
jealous resentment, was assiduous in
his efforts to console her.
“Come,” said Harry, meeting her
near the stables one evening—“come,
cheer up. Why, you ain’t like the
same girl. Anybody would think you
had killed the poor boy.”
“I feel as if I had, Noble,” said
Kitty, with pious austerity.
“But you shouldn’t think so much
about it, you know,” replied her comforter.
“It can’t be helped now.
You’re crying of your eyes out, and
they ain’t a quarter so bright as what
they was.”
“Ho, don’t talk to me of heyes,”
said Kitty, at the same time flashing
at him a glance from the corners of
the organs in question. “This is no
time for such vanities. We ought to
think of our souls, Noble.”
Noble appeared to be thinking just
then less of souls than of bodies, for
in his anxiety to comfort her he had
passed his arm round her waist.
“Noble, I wonder at you!” exclaimed
Kitty, drawing away from
him with a reproving glance. “After
the warning we’ve all had, such conduct
is enough to call down a judgment
upon us. I’m all of a trimble
at the thoughts of what will become
of you, if you don’t repent.”
Perhaps Harry may be excused for
not seeing any immediate connection
between the decease of his young
master and the necessity of himself
becoming an ascetic. But Kitty, in
the excess of her penitence, from
being as lively and coquettish a waiting-maid
as could be found anywhere
off the stage, suddenly became a kind
of Puritan. It happened that at this
time the members of a religious sect,
very numerous in Doddington, having
been suddenly seized with an access
of religious zeal, held almost nightly
what they termed “revivals”—meetings
where inspired brethren poured
forth their souls in extempore prayer;
and those who were not fortunate
enough to obtain possession of the
platform indemnified themselves by
torrents of pious ejaculations, which
well-nigh drowned the voice of the
principal orator. There is something
attractive to the plebeian imagination
in the idea of taking heaven by storm:
the clamour, excitement, and éclat
attending a public conversion had
caused the ranks of these uproarious
devotees to be recruited by many of
their hearers, for the most part susceptible
females; and Kitty, going to
attend these meetings under the escort
of Mr Noble (who, with profound
hypocrisy, affected a leaning towards
Methodism as soon as he perceived
Miss Fillett’s bias in that direction),
was converted the very first night.
The grocer whose lodgings Oates and
Bruce occupied was the preacher on
this occasion, and his eloquence was
so fervid and effective that, coupled
with the heat of the place, it threw
Kitty into hysterics. At the sight of
so fair a penitent in this condition,
many brethren of great sanctity hastened
to her assistance, and questioned
her so earnestly and affectionately as
to her spiritual feelings, some of them
even embracing her in the excess of
their joy at seeing this good-looking
brand snatched from the burning,
that Mr Noble, conceiving (erroneously
no doubt) that they were somewhat
trenching on his prerogative,
interfered, and conveyed her from the
scene. After this, Kitty became a
regular attendant at the revivals, and
her demeanour grew more serious than
ever, insomuch that Mr Dubbley,
ignorant of this change in her sentiments,
and petitioning for a meeting
at the white gate, received an unexpected
and dispiriting repulse.
The personage who seemed the least
affected by grief of the household was
the cat Pick. Perhaps he missed the
teazings and tuggings, and frequent
invasions of his majestic ease, which
he had been wont to sustain; if so,
this was probably to him a source of
private self-congratulation and rejoicing.
Never was a cat so petted as
he now was, for the sake of his departed
master, with whom he had
been such a favourite. But Pick, far
from testifying any regret, eat, lapped,
purred, basked, and washed his face
with his paw, as philosophically as
ever.
The Curate’s sorrow at the event
did him good—it distracted his mind
from his own sorrows, and gave a new
direction to his feelings for Hester.
The unselfishness of his nature had an
opportunity of displaying itself on the
occasion. The thought of Lady Lee’s
grief had roused his warmest sympathies,
and he longed to comfort her—he
longed to sit by her side, to hold
her hand, to pour forth words of consolation
and hope. He had done this,
but not to the extent he could have
wished; he could not trust himself
for that. The Curate felt the most
deep and tender pity for her—and we
all know what pity is akin to: those
very near relations, the Siamese twins,
were not more closely allied than the
Curate’s compassion and love for
Lady Lee. Therefore Josiah, in his
moments of extremest sympathy, kept
watch and ward upon his heart, and
said not all he felt.
But he bethought himself of preaching
a sermon on the subject. He was
conscious that his sermons had of late
lacked earnestness and spirit; and he
would now pour his feelings into a
discourse at once touching and consolatory.
He chose for his text,
“He was the only son of his mother,
and she was a widow.” He had intended
to extract from this text a
hopeful moral, and to set forth powerfully
the reasons for being resigned
and trustful under such trials. But
the poor Curate felt too deeply himself
on the occasion to be the minister
of comfort to others, and, breaking
down half-a-dozen times from emotion,
set all Lanscote weeping.
“How could you make us all cry
so, Josiah?” asked Rosa, reproachfully.
“Weren’t we sad enough before?”
In fact, it seemed as if poor Julius
might have lived long, and died at a
green old age, without being either
more faithfully remembered or more
sincerely lamented.
Finding themselves disappointed in
all their efforts to comfort Lady Lee,
Orelia and Rosa came to the conclusion
that, so long as she remained at
the Heronry, she would never cease
to be saddened by the image of the
lost Juley. So they agreed it would
be well to persuade her to leave the
now sorrowful scene; and no place
seemed so likely to divert her sorrow,
by making a powerful appeal to her
feelings, as Orelia’s cottage. Here
she might recall her maiden fancies,
and renew her youth, while her married
life might slip aside like a sad
episode in her existence.
“We’ll all start together next
week,” said Orelia, when she had
obtained Lady Lee’s sanction to this
arrangement.
“No,” said Rosa, “not all, Reley.
You and Hester shall go.”
“What does the monkey mean?”
cried Orelia. “You don’t suppose
we’re going without you, do you?”
“You know I should like to accompany
you, Reley,” said Rosa, “and
you know I shall be dreadfully disconsolate
without you; but I must go
and live with Josiah.”
“Live with Josiah, indeed!” quoth
Orelia, with high scorn. “What does
Josiah want of you, d’ye think, to
plague his life out? Hasn’t he got
that Mrs what’s-her-name, his housekeeper,
to take care of him and his
property? I’m sure I never see the
woman without thinking of candle-ends.”
“’Tisn’t to take care of him that I
stay, but to comfort him,” said Rosa.
“You’ve no idea how low-spirited
Josiah has been this some time past,
ever since his friend Captain Fane
went away. He has lost his interest
in his books and flowers, and sits for
hours in thought looking so melancholy.
Oh! I couldn’t think of leaving
him.”
Rosa persisted in this determination,
and all the concession they
could obtain was, that as soon as
Josiah recovered his spirits she would
rejoin her friends at Orelia’s cottage.
Meantime, the latter and Lady Lee
made preparations for a speedy departure.
The Squire’s preceptor, Mr Randy,
saw with concern that he could never
hope to obtain undivided empire over
his pupil. He had, it is true, considerable
influence with him—knew
and humoured his foibles—assisted
him with advice on difficult points,
and had, in fact, become in various
ways almost necessary to him. Nevertheless,
he felt that Mr Dubbley’s
susceptibility to female fascinations
perpetually endangered his position.
He had, indeed, attained the post of
grand vizier, but might at any moment
be stripped of his dignities at
the first suggestion of a hostile sultana.
After long consideration of the subject,
Mr Randy came to the conclusion
that the most effectual way to establish
himself firmly at Monkstone
would be, to take care that this other
great power, whose possible advent be
constantly dreaded, instead of being
a rival, should be entirely in his interests.
This seemed to him, theoretically,
a master-stroke of policy; to
carry it into practice might not be
easy. As he was revolving the matter
in his mind one evening, after passing
through Lanscote on his way home
from Monkstone to Doddington, he
perceived the Curate’s housekeeper
taking a little fresh air at the garden
gate. She had heated herself with
the operation of making her own tea,
and leaving the tea-pot on the hob,
to “draw” as she termed it, had
come out to cool herself before drinking
it.
At the sight of her, Mr Randy’s
air became brisker. He walked more
jauntily—he swung and twirled his
stick, instead of leaning on it—he
placed his hat a little on one side of his
head—and he re-buttoned his coat,
which he had loosened in order to
walk with more ease and convenience.
He was acquainted with Mrs Greene,
and frequently stopped to talk with
her as he passed; and, as he approached
now, he took off his hat, and
made what would have been a very
imposing bow had he not unluckily
slipt at a critical moment on a pebble,
and thus impaired the dignity of the
obeisance.
“A lovely evening, Mrs Greene,”
said Mr Randy, whose courtesy was
somewhat ponderous and antique, and
whose conversation, when he was on
his stilts, rather resembled scraps from
a paper of the Rambler than the discourse
of ordinary men. “Happy
are you, my good Mrs Greene, who,
‘far from the busy hum of men,’”
(whenever Mr Randy indulged in a
quotation he made a pause before and
after it) “can dwell placidly in such
a scene as this. A scene,” added Mr
Randy, looking round at the house
and garden with a gratified air—“a
scene that Horus would have revelled
in. A pleasant life, is it not, my good
madam?”
“It’s lonesome,” said Mrs Greene.
“The better for meditation,” returned
Mr Randy didactically. “What
says the poet?—‘My mind to me a
kingdom is,’—and who could desire a
fairer dominion? Ay,” (shaking his
head and smiling seriously) “with a
few favourite authors, and with the
necessaries of life, one might be content
to let the hours slip by here
without envying the proud possessors
of palluses.”
Though Jennifer admired this style
of conversation exceedingly, she was
hardly equal to sustaining it. “You
seem to be a good deal with Squire
Dubbley, Mr Randy,” she said.
Mr Randy answered in the affirmative,
taking, at the same time, a pinch
of snuff.
“He’s a queer one, they say,” said
Jennifer. “I should think ’twas tiresome
for a book-learned gentleman
like you, Mr Randy, to be so much in
his company.”
“Not at all, Mrs Greene,” said Mr
Randy. “What says the Latin
writer?—‘Homo sum, nihil humanum
a me alienum puto,’ which means, my
good madam, that, being myself a
human being, I am interested in all
that appertains to humanity. I study
the squire with much satisfaction.”
“He’s a gay man the Squire,” said
Jennifer sententiously. “Why don’t
he marry and live respectable, I wonder?
Hasn’t he got a lady in his eye
yet, Mr Randy?”
“Marriage is a serious thing, my
good Mrs Greene—a very serious thing
indeed. No,” said Mr Randy, confidentially:
“what he wants is a housekeeper,
Mrs Greene, such a one as
some gentlemen I could name are so
fortunate as to possess—a respectable,
careful person, who could take care
of his domestic affairs, and prevent
him from being fooled by any idle
hussy of a servant-maid who may
happen to have an impudent, pretty
face of her own.”
“I should like,” said Jennifer,
with compressed lips and threatening
eyes—“I should like to see any such
show their impudent faces in a house
where I was. They wouldn’t come
again in a hurry, I can tell ’em.” And,
indeed, it was very likely they would
not.
“Ah,” said Mr Randy, in deep admiration,
“Mr Young is a fortunate
man. He has secured a housekeeper
whom we may safely pronounce to be
one in a thousand.”
Jennifer, though austere, was not
quite steeled against flattery. She
looked on the learned man with prim
complacency—she remembered that
her tea had now stood long enough—and
she suggested that perhaps Mr
Randy’s walk had disposed him for
some refreshment, and she should
take his company during the meal as
a favour.
Mr Randy was not particularly
addicted to tea: on all those points
for which it has been extolled—as a
stimulant, as a refresher, as an agreeable
beverage—he considered it to
be greatly excelled by brandy-and-water.
But the subject just touched
upon was one in which he was greatly
interested, and he resolved to follow
up an idea that had occurred to him;
so he courteously accepted Jennifer’s
invitation, and followed her into the
parsonage.
Mrs Greene’s room was a model of
order, rather too much so perhaps for
comfort—and showed other traces
of her presiding spirit in a certain
air of thriftiness which pervaded it.
Reigning supreme, as Jennifer did in
the Curate’s household, she might have
indulged in small luxuries at her
pleasure had she possessed any taste
for them, but the practice of saving,
for its own sake, afforded her positive
delight. The shelves were rather
sparingly furnished with jam-pots of
very small dimensions, carefully tied
down and corded, and marked with
the name of the confection, and the
year of its manufacture; various boxes
and canisters, labelled as containing
different groceries, were securely padlocked,
as if they were not likely to
be opened on light or insufficient
grounds; the curtains rather scantily
covered the window, and the carpet
was too small for the floor.
Jennifer, unlocking the tea-caddy,
put in two additional spoonfuls of tea
in consideration of her guest. Then
she invited Mr Randy to sit down,
which he did with great ceremony;
while she placed on the table two
saucers of jam, helped Mr Randy to
toast and butter, and some of the
sweetmeat, and poured out the tea.
And Mr Randy observing that Jennifer
transferred hers to her saucer, for
the better convenience of drinking, not
only did the like, but also blew on the
surface to reduce the temperature before
the successive gulps, which were
then both copious and sonorous.
“So the Squire’s not a good manager,
eh, Mr Randy?” said Jennifer,
after some little conversation on indifferent
matters.
“No comfort, no elegance,” said
Mr Randy. “The superintending
hand of a female is greatly wanted.”
“And does the Squire think of
getting a housekeeper?” asked Jennifer.
“I’ve not suggested it to him as
yet,” returned her guest, “but I’m
thinking of doing so, if I could fix my
eye on a proper person.”
“Bless me, you’ve got no preserve,”
said Jennifer, emptying, in a sudden
access of liberality, the saucer of damsons
on Mr Randy’s plate. “And
there’s nothing but grounds in your
cup—perhaps you’d like it a little
stronger, sir.”
“No more, my good madam, I’m
obliged to you,” said that gentleman,
drawing away his cup, and covering
it with his hand to show he was
in earnest, so that Jennifer, pressing
ardently upon him with the tea-pot,
very nearly poured the hot tea upon
his knuckles. “I’ve had quite an
abundance—quite a sufficiency, I
assure you. No, ma’am, things do
not go on at Monkstone precisely as I
could wish in all respects. For instance,
it would be agreeable to me
sometimes to find an attentive female
to receive me—to say to me, Mr
Randy you are wet, won’t you have
a basin of soup to warm you?—or, Mr
Randy, it rains, you’ll be the better of
a glass of spirits and water to fortify
you against the inclemency of the
elements. Mr Dubbley is very kind,
but these little things don’t occur to
him.”
“Indeed, then, I think they might,”
said Mrs Greene with warmth. “The
least he could do is to be civil. Take
some toast, sir.”
“’Tis forgetfulness, Mrs Greene,
not incivility—a sin of omission, not
of commission. I flatter myself few
men would venture to be uncivil to
me,” and Mr Randy drew himself up
and looked majestic. “Then the want
of a proper person in the house obliges
him to look more closely after
some small matters than is quite becoming
in a man of property.”
“Closeness,” said Jennifer, with
great disdain, “is what I never could
abide. I could forgive anything better
than that.”
“Well, well, Mrs Greene,” said her
visitor, waving his hand, “we won’t
be hard upon him—he means well.
Yes, I’ve been looking out for some
time for a lady that would answer the
Squire’s purpose.”
“And what kind of person would
be likely to suit you?” inquired Jennifer
with interest.
“We should require,” said Mr
Randy, brushing some crumbs from
his lap with his pocket-handkerchief,
as he concluded his meal—“we should
require a character not easy to be
met with;—a sensible—respectable—experienced—discreet—per-r-son—and
one, too, who would not give
herself presumptuous airs, but would
conduct herself towards me—me, Mrs
Greene, as I could wish.”
“Of course,” said Jennifer, “if
she was beholden to you for her place,
’twould be her duty to make things
pleasant to you, sir.”
“Ah,” said Mr Randy, “you are
both a discreet and a sensible person,
Mrs Greene, I perceive.”
“And as to terms, Mr Randy,”
suggested Jennifer.
“As to terms, they would be hardly
worth higgling about, Mrs Greene—for,
if the lady possessed the manifold
merits I have enumerated, and allowed
herself to be guided in all things
by me, why, she would be de facto—that
is to say, in reality—mistress of
Monkstone, and might feather her
nest to her own liking.”
This was a dazzling prospect indeed,
and well calculated to appeal to the
heart of Jennifer. There was a grand
indefiniteness as to the extent of power
and profit which might be acquired,
which she found inexpressibly alluring;
for Jennifer was, after her fashion,
ambitious, though her ambition was
of too practical a nature to set itself
on objects hopelessly remote.
Mr Randy perceiving the effect of
what he had said, and considering it
would be well to give her time to digest
it before entering into details,
now rose to take leave.
“Good evening, sir, and thank
you,” said Jennifer. “When you’re
passing another day, I hope you’ll
look in;” and Mr Randy, having
promised to do so, walked with his
customary dignity up the road.
Mr Randy had not directly said
that he thought Jennifer, if she would
agree to share interests with him,
would be exactly the person he wanted;
nor had Jennifer directly stated
that, if she succeeded in obtaining the
post of housekeeper to the Squire, she
would show her gratitude by being
all Mr Randy could wish. But the
knowledge of human nature displayed
by the Randies and Jennifers is intuitive
and unerring, so long as it is
employed upon natures on a level
with their own; and Jennifer knew
perfectly well that Mr Randy wanted
her for the furtherance of his own designs
at Monkstone; while Mr Randy
never doubted that the lure he had
held out would secure her.
Jennifer, however, had by no means
made up her mind to accept the offer
at once. It was dazzling, certainly;
but, on the other hand, she did not
like the idea of giving up her long and
persevering designs upon the Curate’s
heart, which, as the reader knows,
she had from the first been determined
to attack. That was too grievous a
waste of time and subtlety to be contemplated.
But Mr Randy’s implied
offer gave her an opportunity of carrying
into execution a scheme she
had long meditated. She considered
(her cogitations being assisted by a
third cup of tea, obtained by putting
fresh water in the tea-pot after Mr
Randy’s departure) that she had now
lived so long with the Curate that she
could not possibly become more necessary
to him than she already was—that
the sooner he was brought to
the point the better—that being such
an absent person, far from making
any proposals of the kind she desired
of his own accord, a very strong hint
from herself would be required in
order to extract them. Now if she
resolved upon giving this hint, she
must also be prepared to quit the parsonage
in case of failure; and Monkstone
would form exactly the point
she wanted to retreat upon.
This secured, she would commence
operations at once with the Curate.
He was, in Jennifer’s estimation, a
man who did not know his own mind
or his own interests. But though he
might never discover what was for
his own good unassisted, yet a man
must be foolish indeed who can’t perceive
it when ’tis shown him. From
frequent victories obtained over the
Curate, and long managing and ruling
him, she flattered herself she might
now make her own terms, for that he
could never bear to part with her;
but if she deceived herself in this,
why, then Monkstone would be a
more lucrative place. So in any case
she should gain some end, and she determined
to put her powers of cajolery
to proof without delay. Indeed, there
was no time to lose, for that very
morning Miss Rosa had signified her
intention of coming to live with her
brother when the ladies left the
Heronry.
For many weeks the poor Curate
had been indeed alone; for so long
had his old companions, hope and
cheerfulness, deserted him; for so
long had he gone mechanically about
his old pursuits, feeling that the glory
had departed from them, and sat in
the stormy autumn evenings by a
hearth where only the vacant pedestals
reminded him of the wonted presence
of household gods.
Time, of whose lapse heretofore he
had taken little note, became now a
dull, remorseless enemy. The Curate,
when he woke, would sometimes
shudder at the prospect of the many-houred
day between him and the
grateful oblivion of sleep; for the
day, formerly so busy, was now to
him but a long tract of weary, reiterated
sorrows.
Though he still spent many hours
in his garden, it was lamentable to
see the change there. Weeds sprung
unregarded side by side with his
choicest flowers—worms revelled in
his tenderest buds—and the caterpillars
were so numerous as to form
quite an army of occupation. His
books, too, were blank to him—the
pages he used to love seemed meaningless.
His only remaining consolation
was his pipe.
See, then, the Curate sitting in the
twilight in his elbow-chair, in an attitude
at once listless and uncomfortable,
his waist bent sharply in, his
head drooping, one leg gathered under
the seat, the other straddling
toward the fire, his right hand shading
his eyes, while the elbow rests on
the table—the left holding the bowl of
his pipe, while the elbow rests on the
arm of his chair. Frequently he takes
the mouthpiece from his lips, sighs
heavily, and forgets to smoke—then,
with a shake of the head, he again
sucks comfort from his meerschaum.
There is a tap at the door, which opens
slowly—Jennifer looks in at him, and
then draws near.
Jennifer stopt—looked at him—sighed—then
drew a little closer—sighed
again. The Curate, fancying
she had come on some of her accustomed
visits of inspection (for of late
she had found frequent excuses for
entering, such as to dust his books, to
stir his fire, to draw his curtains),
took no notice of her, but continued
to pursue his train of thought. Presently
he, too, sighed; it was echoed
so sympathetically by Mrs Greene,
that her suspiration sounded like a
gust coming down the chimney. Finding
that the Curate, as usual, pursued
the plan which is popularly attributed
to apparitions in their intercourse
with human beings, and was not likely
to speak till spoken to, Jennifer, with
a little cough, came round between the
table and the fire, and stirred the
latter. Being thus quite close to the
Curate, with the table in her rear, and
her master’s chair close to her left
hand, she commenced.
“I’m vexed to see you so down, Mr
Young. I’m afraid you’re not satisfied
in your mind. You used to be a
far cheerfuller gentleman than what
you are now.”
Mr Young, rousing himself, looked
up with an assumed briskness.
“It’s my way, Mrs Greene—only
my way.”
“No, sir,” said Jennifer, peremptorily,
“’tis not your way, asking your
pardon. There’s something on your
mind. Perhaps it’s me—perhaps
things have not gone according to
your wishes in the house. If it’s me,
sir, say so, I beg.”
“You, Mrs Greene—impossible.
I’m quite sensible of your kind attention
to my comforts, I assure you,”
protested the Curate.
“Because,” said Jennifer, heedless
of his disclaimer, and going on as if
he had not uttered it—“because, if so,
I wish to say one word. I only wish
to remark, sir, that whatever fault
there is of that kind, ’tis not a fault
according to my will. My wish is,
and always has been, to serve you to
the utmost of my”—
“Mrs Greene!” began the Curate,
touching her on the arm with the extended
stem of his meerschaum, to
check her volubility for a moment,
“my good soul”—
——“To the utmost of my ability,”
went on Jennifer, with a slight faltering
in her voice. “If laying down
my life could have served you, Mr
Young, I’m sure”— Here Jennifer
whimpered.
“Faithful creature!” thought the
Curate, “what an interest she takes
in me! My dear Mrs Greene,” said
he, “your doubts wrong me very
much; but this proof of your care for
me is exceedingly gratifying”—which
was perhaps an unconscious fib, for
the Curate felt more embarrassment
than gratification.
“And after all my trials and efforts,
thinking only how I could please you,
to see you—oh—oh—” and Jennifer
broke down again, and in the excess
of her agitation sat down on a chair
near her. And though to sit down in
his presence was a quite unusual proceeding
on her part, yet the Curate
was so heedless of forms, that if she
had seated herself on the mantelpiece,
he would possibly have thought it
merely a harmless eccentricity.
“Calm yourself, Mrs Greene,” entreated
the Curate. “These doubts
of my regard are quite unfounded;
be assured I fully appreciate your
value.”
“But in that case,” said Jennifer,
pursuing her own hypothesis with
great perseverance, “in that case I
must quit you whatever it costs me.
And I hope you could find them, Mr
Young, as would serve you better.”
“Don’t talk of quitting me, Mrs
Greene,” said the Curate soothingly.
“This is all mere creation of your
fancy. I am perfectly satisfied—more
than satisfied with you.”
“No, sir—I’ve seen it—I’ve seen it
this some time. You don’t look upon
me like what you used. ’Tisn’t any
longer, ‘Mrs Greene, do this,’ and
‘Mrs Greene, do that,’ and the other.
You can do without Mrs Greene now.
And perhaps,” said Jennifer, “’tis
better I was—gone” (the last word
almost inaudible).
“Really, Mrs Greene, this is quite
unnecessary. You are paining yourself
and me to no purpose. Be persuaded”—(and
the Curate took Jennifer’s
hand)—“be persuaded of my
sense of your merits.”
Jennifer wiped her eyes; then starting
and looking round over her shoulder,
“O sir,” said she, “if anybody
should catch us!—what would they
say?”
“Catch us, Mrs Greene,” said the
Curate, hastening to withdraw his
hand; but Jennifer clutched it nervously.
“Stop!” said Jennifer, “there’s a
step—and that maid’s got such a
tongue! No, ’twas my fancy—the
maid’s asleep in the kitchen. O, sir—yes,
what would they say?—people is
so scandalous. They’ve been talking
already.”
“Talking!” exclaimed Mr Young,
withdrawing his hand with a jerk.
“What can you mean, Mrs Greene?
Talking of what?”
“O yes!” said Jennifer. “They’ve
been remarking, the busy ones has,
how it comes that a lone woman like
me could live so long with a single
gentleman. Many’s the bitter thought
it gave me.”
“Good heavens, Mrs Greene!” cried
the Curate, pushing his chair, which
ran on castors, away with a loud creak,
“really this is all very strange and
unexpected.”
“And more than that,” pursued
Jennifer, “they’ve said concerning
my looks——but I couldn’t repeat
what they said, further than to mention
that they meant I wasn’t old nor
ugly—which perhaps I’m not. And
they know what a good wife I made
to Samuel” (this was the deceased
shipmaster’s Christian appellation)—“never,
as Mrs Britton that keeps
the grocery said to me last Wednesday,
never was a better. And when
’twas named to me what they’d been
saying, I thought—O good gracious!—I
thought I should have sunk into
the hearth.”
“Gracious goodness!” exclaimed
Mr Young, starting from his chair,
and pacing the room in great perturbation.
“How extremely infamous!
Why, ’tis like a terrible nightmare.
To spread false reports—to drive me
to part with a valuable servant—’tis
atrocious! I’m afraid, Mrs Greene,
you really had better go to-morrow.
I need not say how I regret it, but
what you have told me renders it imperative.”
“I wish it mayn’t be too late, sir,”
said Jennifer, putting her handkerchief
to her eyes.
“Too late!—too late for what?”
inquired the Curate.
“And where do you think I’m to
get another place? Who’ll take in a
lone woman, whose character have
been breathed upon? Oh, that ever
I should have seen Lanscote parsonage!”
cried Jennifer, choking.
“But, Mrs Greene,” said the agitated
Curate, stopping in his walk to
lean his hands on the table, and looking
earnestly at her, “it shall be my
care, as it is my duty, to prove the
falsehood of these reports. You shall
not suffer on my account, believe me.
If necessary, I’ll expose the wicked
slander from the pulpit.”
This wouldn’t have suited Jennifer
at all. The Curate was going off quite
on the wrong track, and she made a
last effort to bring him into the right
direction.
“And my—my—my feelings,” sobbed
she, “ain’t they to be considered?
Oh, that ever I should be a weak
foolish woman! Oh, that ever I
should have been born with a weak
trustful heart!”
“I daresay ’twill be painful to leave
a place where you have lived long,
and a master who I hope has been
kind to you,” said the Curate. (Jennifer
lifted up her voice here, and
writhed in her chair.) “No doubt
it will, for you have an excellent
heart, Mrs Greene. But what you
have said convinces me of the necessity
of it. And you shall be no
loser; until you can suit yourself with
a place, I’ll continue your salary as
usual.”
“Salary!” cried Jennifer, starting
from her chair. “Oh, that I should be
talked to like a hireling! God forgive
you, Mr Young. Well, it’s over now.
I’ll consider what you’ve said, Mr
Young, and I’ll try—try to bring my
mind to it.”
Jennifer rose—sobbed a little—looked
at her chair as if she had a
mind to sit down again, and then
prepared to depart. In her way out
of the room, she passed close to the
Curate, and paused, almost touching
him, with her handkerchief to her
eyes. “If ever he’d say the word,
he’d say it now,” thought Jennifer,
weeping copiously. But Mr Young,
far from availing himself of the proximity
to take her hand, or say anything
even of comfort, far less of a tenderer
nature, retreated with great alacrity
to his original post near the fire, and
Jennifer had no alternative but to
walk onward out of the room.
She left him, roused, certainly, most
effectually from his melancholy; but
the change was not for the better.
The poor shy Curate was exactly the
man to feel the full annoyance of such
reports as, according to Jennifer, were
in circulation. He fancied himself an
object of derision to all Lanscote—how
could he hope to do any good
among parishioners who said scandalous
things of him and his housekeeper?
How could he hope to convince
them of his innocence? How
preserve his dignity in the pulpit, with
the consciousness that a whole congregation
were looking at him in a
false light?
Jennifer’s demeanour next day was
sad and subdued. After breakfast she
came into the room, and, without lifting
her eyes, said that she thought
she had better go next Wednesday.
“On Wednesday,” said Jennifer,
“Miss Rosa’s coming, and then, with
your leave, I’ll quit, Mr Young.”
The Curate highly approved of this;
he knew he could not feel easy till she
was out of the house, and meanwhile
he absented himself from it as much
as possible.
It was fortunate for the Curate that
the period of her stay was so short,
for she took care it should be far from
pleasant. She personally superintended
the making of his bed, which she
caused to slope downwards towards
the feet, and at one side, so that the
hapless occupant was perpetually waking
from a dream in which he had
been sliding over precipices; and, reascending
to his pillow for another
precarious slumber, would be again
woke by finding his feet sticking out
from beneath the clothes, and his body
gradually following them. He got
hairs in his butter, and plenty of salt
in his soup; his tea, the only luxury
of the palate that he really cared
about, and that rather on intellectual
than sensual grounds, grew weaker
and weaker; his toast simultaneously
got tougher; and he was kept the
whole time on mutton-chops, which,
from their identity of flavour, appeared
to have been all cut from the same
patriarchal ram.
Wednesday arrived. The Curate,
leaning over his garden gate, saw the
carriage from the Heronry coming
down the lane. It drew up at the
parsonage; in it were Lady Lee,
Orelia, and Rosa, all in black, and all
looking very sad. Rosa, rising to take
leave of her friends, underwent innumerable
embraces.
Orelia was the calmest of the three,
but even her grandeur and stateliness
quite gave way in parting. “Good-bye,
Rosalinda,” was all she could
trust herself to say, as Rosa alighted.
The Curate had intended to say a
great deal to Hester, but it had all
vanished from his mind, and remained
unexpressed, unless a long pressure
of the hand could convey it. Lady
Lee gave several things in charge to
the Curate to execute, and delivered a
purse to him, the contents of which
were to be distributed among various
pensioners in the village; then she
told the coachman to drive on.
“Write at least three times a-week,
Rosalinda,” cried Orelia, putting a
tearful face over the hood of the carriage,
“or never hope for forgiveness.”
They were gone. A white handkerchief
waved from the side, and
another from the top of the carriage,
till it disappeared, and the Curate and
his sister slowly turned into the house—the
last remnant of the once joyous
party assembled at the Heronry.
What a hard thing was life! What
a cruel thing was fate, that they could
not all be left as they were! Their
happiness did no harm to any one—nay,
good to many—yet it was inexorably
scattered to the winds for ever.
So thought the Curate; and so felt
Rosa, though perhaps her feelings did
not shape themselves into thoughts.
But there was no time just then to
indulge their grief. Scarcely had the
carriage departed, when its place was
taken by a vehicle of altogether different
description. A donkey-cart, destined
to convey away Jennifer’s chattels,
and driven by a small boy, drew
up at the gate, producing a kind of
practical anti-climax. Then Jennifer,
attired in bonnet and shawl, entered,
and announced, in an austere and
steady voice, that she was ready to
hand over her keys of office to the still
weeping Rosa.
“Now, Miss,” said Jennifer sharply,
“if you could make it convenient
to come at once, I should be obliged.”
“Go with Mrs Greene, my child,”
said the Curate. When Jennifer found
she had failed in her grand design on
the Curate, and must quit the parsonage,
she did not continue to affect
regret at her departure; and having
easily and at once secured the coveted
post at Monkstone, through the influence
of Mr Randy, she felt the
change was likely to be for the better.
She might, therefore, have been expected
to quit her present abode, if
with some natural regret, yet at perfect
peace and charity with all the
household. Jennifer’s disposition did
not, however, admit of this. She felt
enraged at the Curate because of the
failure of her design upon him, and
resolved to be of as little use as possible
in the last moments of her expiring
authority. “He’ll be wishing me back
again before a week’s over his head,”
said Jennifer to herself, with infinite
satisfaction.
In vain Rosa protested against being
dragged into every corner of the
house, and having every bit of household
property set before her eyes. In
vain she assured Mrs Greene that both
her brother and herself were perfectly
satisfied of the correctness of everything.
“’Twas a satisfaction to herself,”
Jennifer said, “to show everything;”
and it really was, for the
extreme bewilderment and ignorance
of Rosa on all points of housekeeping
afforded Jennifer the keenest gratification.
The Heronry, where Rosa’s
chief business had been to amuse herself,
was a very bad school to learn
anything of the sort.
Accordingly, Jennifer did not spare
her the enumeration of a single kitchen
implement, pot of jam, nor article of
linen.
“The bed and table linen’s all in
this press,” said Jennifer, opening a
large one of walnut wood in the spare
bedroom.
“These are the sheets, I suppose,
Mrs Greene,” Rosa remarked, wishing
to show an interest in the matter.
“Bless you, they’re the tablecloths!”
returned Jennifer, with a
glance of disdain.
“Oh, to be sure! And these are
towels?” resumed Rosa.
“Napkins,” said Jennifer, with
calm superiority. “Mr Young’s
shirts, and collars, and bands, and
neckcloths, is all in these two drawers.
Do you understand much about clear-starching,
Miss?”
“N—n—no; I am afraid not
much,” said Rosa.
“Ah, ’twould be just as well you
should, perhaps, because the washerwoman
requires a deal of looking
after. She can be careless and impudent,
too, when she dares, especially
when she’s in drink. She never
ventured upon any tricks with me,
though.”
The thought of this terrible washerwoman
made Rosa tremble, while Jennifer
secretly exulted in the thought
of seeing the Curate in limp collars
and a crumpled shirt.
“There,” said the ex-housekeeper,
locking up the press, and handing the
key to Rosa; “I advise you, Miss,
to take out everything that’s wanted
yourself. The girl’s hands is generally
dirty, and, besides, in taking
out one thing she drags all the rest
out upon the floor. Oh, she’s a nice
one, that girl!—the work I’ve had to
manage her! Well, Miss, I hope
you’ll keep an eye upon her, that’s
all.”
Having thus rendered Rosa as uncomfortable
as possible at the prospect
before her, Jennifer at length prepared
to depart. Opening the door
of the sitting-room, she said to the
Curate, “The young lady’s seen
everything, and is quite satisfied.
Well, good-bye, and wishing you
well, sir.” But the benediction was
quite contradicted by the ferocity of
her look and tone.
“Good-bye, good-bye, my good
Mrs Greene,” said the Curate, who
could not help regarding Jennifer as
a martyr. “I wish you all success
and happiness; I hope you won’t
fret too much after the parsonage,
Mrs Greene.”
“Ho, no,” said Jennifer, with an
ironical little laugh; “it’s not likely.”
“I’m heartily glad of that,” said
the Curate, who would not have detected
irony even in Dean Swift;
“and I hope you’ll soon get another
and as good a place.”
“I’ve got one,” said Jennifer, “as
good a one as ever I could wish.”
“Indeed! that is fortunate,” said
the Curate; “and when do you go
to it then?”
“I’m going now,” said Jennifer.
“Ho, bless you! as soon as ’twas
known I was going to leave this, I
had more offers than enough. I took
Monkstone,” said Jennifer, “being
’twas near my friends in the village.
Wishing you good-bye, sir,”—here
she dropt a curtsey, and closed the
door. The boy had already conveyed
her trunks and bandboxes to the
donkey-cart. Jennifer marched past
the window (from whence the Curate
was watching this exodus) in austere
majesty, and never deigned to turn
her head. Then she, the boy, the
donkey-cart, and the bandboxes, all
went in procession down the road,
leaving Rosa sole superintendant of
the Curate’s household.
The friendship which Bruce at this
time conceived for Josiah was uncommonly
warm and sudden. Though
always well disposed towards the
worthy Curate, he had not, while
Rosa was living at the Heronry,
taken much pains to seek his society,
but he now became of a sudden a frequent
visitor to the Parsonage. He
showed great interest in flowers,
though he hardly knew a dahlia from
a polyanthus; he listened to details
of parish matters with an attention
quite wonderful, considering how
little taste he had that way; and
he became enamoured of those old
English authors who were Josiah’s
especial favourites. Finding these
manifold pretences insufficient to account
for the frequency of his visits,
he hit upon a project for rendering
them quite plausible. He insisted
on subscribing fifty pounds towards a
school-house that was to be built in
the village under the Curate’s auspices;
and when Josiah protested
against this liberality as indiscreet
and uncalled for, he hinted that it
was not altogether disinterested—that
his classical knowledge was
getting rusty—that he perceived
Josiah to be often unoccupied for an
hour or two of a morning—and proposed
they should read some Latin
together.
The Curate liked the project much;
it would divert his thoughts from
painful subjects—his own classics
wanted rubbing up—he had a great
regard for Bruce, whose openness,
vivacity, and good-nature had quite
won his heart, and the readings commenced
forthwith.
They were carried on upon a plan
which, however agreeable to the
master and his disciple, was scarcely
calculated to answer the proposed
end. Bruce and Josiah would sit
down together with their Horace, or
their Virgil, or their Terence before
them, and for a time would read
away with tolerable diligence. Presently
Rosa, coming into the room
from some household avocation, would
trip across it softly, not to disturb
them—get what she was in quest of,
perhaps a cookery-book, and go off
in the same silent fashion, with a nod
and a smile at Bruce. At this stage
of the lesson the student’s attention
would begin to waver; he would look
a good deal oftener at the door than
upon his page. Perhaps shortly after
Rosa would re-enter, to request
Josiah to get from the garden some
celery, parsnip, or other winter vegetable,
of which she stood in need for
culinary purposes. “Why didn’t
you ask me before, when I was in the
garden, my child?” the Curate would
say, which, indeed, she might very
well have done; and Josiah, rising
with a sigh to comply with her request,
would be forcibly reseated by
Bruce, who would desire him to try
again at that crabbed bit of Latinity,
while he went to get what Miss Rosa
wanted. Whereupon he and Rosa
would repair to the garden together,
she pointing out what she wanted,
while Bruce supplied her with it; and
the Curate, after looking dreamily
about for their re-entrance, would
forget them altogether, plunging
either into a reverie or into a book.
Sometimes Bruce found the Curate
absent on some clerical or parochial
errand, and on these occasions he
thought no apology necessary for his
stay, nor did Rosa expect one. If
she was too busy to talk to him in
the study, he would repair to the
kitchen, and even take a share in the
culinary mysteries to which that region
is sacred, though his presence
did not perhaps, on the whole, contribute
to the excellence of the cookery.
I have always suspected that
King Alfred, when he let the cakes
burn, was making love to the herdsman’s
wife, and that the idea of her
scolding him for negligence was devised
to conceal her share in the delinquency.
Mr Oates, seeing the state of affairs
between them, grew quite morose,
and would hardly speak to Bruce at
breakfast-time. He addicted himself
to the society of Suckling, and attempted
to divert his thoughts by
getting up a scratch pack of harriers,
and hunting them himself; and might
be heard two or three times a-week
in the woods about Doddington, attended
by the fast spirits of the place,
hallooing, and pouring through the
mellow horn his pensive soul.
Rosa had none of the dignity which
in Lady Lee and Orelia could always
have kept the most impassioned lovers
under a certain restraint. It is well
known to be the duty of young ladies
to affect total ignorance of the fact
that they are objects of adoration,
and to harrow up the souls of their
admirers with affectation of indifference,
at any rate until coming to the
point of proposal. Rosa, however,
showed undisguised pleasure at Bruce’s
visits, and one day, when he came in
with a melancholy face, and told her
the detachment was to leave Doddington
immediately, she began to
cry.
The Curate was from home that
morning, and Bruce had found Rosa
in the kitchen, rolling paste for mince-pies,
while the cat Pick, whom she
had, when leaving the Heronry,
brought with her to the Parsonage,
sat on the table, watching the process,
and occasionally putting out his paw
to arrest the motion of the rolling-pin.
The smile with which she
looked up at Bruce’s entrance turned
to a look of sympathetic sadness, as
she perceived his sorrowful aspect.
He stood by her at the end of the
table, and told her the news which
had come that morning.
“You see what a life ours is,” said
Bruce, trying to smile; “here to-day,
gone to-morrow. And when we were
going to spend such a pleasant winter
too!”
“And won’t you be here at Christmas?”
said Rosa; “and won’t you
have any of the mince-pies after all?
And is there to be an end of our rides,
and walks, and evening readings?”
“I’m afraid so,” said Bruce, shaking
his head. “The troop that relieves
us will be here to-morrow
week—though, in my opinion,” he
added, with a faint attempt at pleasantry,
“the best way to relieve us
would be to let us alone.”
“And won’t you be coming back?”
asked Rosa, with sorrow shining
moistly in her blue eyes.
“I fear not,” said Bruce, “though,
to be sure, it might be managed. But
you won’t wish that when you’ve
made acquaintance with our successors.
The new-comers will take the
place of your old friends, and you’ll
forget us—won’t you, Miss Rosa?”
This highly sincere speech was too
much for Rosa. “No—oh, no—ne—never!”
sobbed she, sinking on a
chair, and burying her face on her
plump arms as they lay folded on the
table.
Bruce had certainly supposed she
would be sorry to hear he was going,
but this display of sympathy surpassed
his expectations. He stooped
down over her—he whispered that
nothing should prevent him from coming
back—he also mentioned that she
was “a dear little thing,” and spying
a little white space amid her hair,
between her ear and her cheek, and
the whispering having brought his
lips into that neighbourhood, he
thought he would kiss it, and did so.
Rosa wept on, which distressed the
humane young man so much, that,
after begging her, in vain, to look up
and be comforted, he managed to insinuate
his hand between her cheek
and her arms, and to turn her face,
using the chin as a handle, gently
towards him. A flushed, tearful,
glistening face it was; and really, considering
the temptation and proximity,
one can’t altogether blame him
for kissing it, which he did both on
the eyes and lips; and then, turning
it so that his left cheek rested
against hers, with only the tresses
between, as he whispered in her left
ear, while her glistening eyes appeared
over his shoulder, he did his
best to pacify her. And so absorbed
was he in whispering, and she in
listening, that the cat Pick, advancing
along the flat paste (from which
he had only been kept before by the
terror of the rolling-pin), and leaving
his foot-marks on the soft substance,
proceeded, with the utmost effrontery,
to lick up, under their very noses, the
little dabs of butter dotted thereon.
He made a good deal of noise in doing
so; but as Bruce, between the whispers,
made a noise not altogether dissimilar
(for there were constantly
fresh tears requiring to be attended
to), Pick finished the butter with perfect
impunity, and sat up in the middle
of the paste, much about the same
time that Rosa pushed Bruce gently
away, and removed the last moisture
from her eyes with her apron.
The two having, by this time, come
to an understanding, Bruce suggested
that he would write to his father,
who, he assured her, was a splendid
old fellow, and who would, no doubt,
enter into the spirit of the thing immediately,
and give his consent like a
trump.
Accordingly, he fetched pen, ink,
and paper from the study, and sitting
at one end of the kitchen-table, while
Rosa rolled fresh paste at the other,
he indited a very eloquent and enthusiastic
epistle to his parent, and having
folded and directed it to “The
Very Rev. the Dean of Trumpington,”
put it with great confidence in his
pocket.
After this their conversation took
a more cheerful turn, and Rosa worked
so diligently at her task that the
mince-pies were made, after a receipt
which Bruce read out to her from a
cookery-book, and were ready for
dinner that very day, and Bruce stayed
to eat them.
That splendid old fellow the Dean
of Trumpington got the letter in due
time. It was brought in after dinner
by his butler when he was chatting,
in a pleasant digestive sort of way,
with a couple of old Canons over
a bottle of port. He put on his spectacles
to peruse it, and as his wife
was in the room, and the Canons old
friends and admirers of Harry, he
proceeded to read it aloud, and had
got pretty well into the matter before
he discovered its interesting nature.
“Why, bless my soul!” interpolated
the Reverend Doctor Bruce, in the
middle of a warm passage, “the boy’s
fallen in love!”
“My dearest Harry!” exclaimed
Mrs Bruce; and then eagerly added,
“go on, love!”
While the reading proceeded, one
old Canon, who was married and had
a large family, looked fiercely at his
glass of port, as he held it between
him and the light, and cried “hum!”
or “ha!” at the most touching passages;
while the other, who was a
bachelor, rubbed his hands as he
listened, and chuckled aloud.
“Her brother, Mr Young, is a
member of your own profession,” read
the Dean over again slowly. “Sillery”
(to the bachelor Canon), “oblige
me by touching the bell. Bring the
Clergy List,” said the Dean to the
butler, when the latter entered.
“Y,” read the Dean, running his
finger down the list, when he got it—“Yorke—Youatt—Young—here
you
are: Young, George, Vicar of Feathernest
(is that him, I wonder? good
living Feathernest)—Young, Henry,
Prebendary of Durham—Young, Josiah,
Curate of Lanscote—that must
be the man,” said the Dean, referring
to the letter; “he dates from Lanscote,
near Doddington.”
“There was a Young at Oxford
with me,” said Dr Macvino, the married
Canon, in a deep, oily, sententious
voice. “He left college on coming
into six thousand a-year. He
might have a daughter,” said the
Canon, looking round as he propounded
the theory. “And,” added
the Canon, “he might also have a
son in the Church. He was a tall
fellow, who once pulled the stroke oar
in a match, as I remember—he gave
remarkably good breakfasts.”
“Dear boy!” said Mrs Bruce,
apostrophising Harry, “I’m certain he
wouldn’t make other than a charming
choice. I’m certain she’s a sweet girl.”
“Harry knows what’s what,” said
the Dean; “I’ve confidence in that
boy.”
“Plenty of good sense,” said the
bachelor Canon.
“Good stuff,” said Dr Macvino,
who, sipping his wine before he gave
the opinion, left it doubtful whether
he was praising Bruce junior or
the port.
“Harry’s got something here,” said
the Dean, pointing to his forehead.
“He’s almost thrown away in his
present profession. He ought to have
come into the Church.”
“Decidedly he ought,” said Dr
Macvino, who thought himself an example
to teach other clever fellows
how to choose a profession.
“He’s the most sensible darling!”
said Mrs Bruce; “and I, too, was
sorry that he hadn’t chosen a learned
profession, till I saw him in his uniform.
His mustache promised to be
beautiful” (there had been perhaps
four hairs in it when she last saw
him,) “and ’tis very becoming.”
“Suits him to a hair,” said the
bachelor Canon, who was a wag in a
mild way.
“The boy’s letter is a little high-flown,”
said the Dean, “but that was
to be expected, perhaps. I remember
describing Mrs Bruce there to my
family in such terms, that, when I
brought her home, they were rather
disappointed at finding her without
wings. But I’ve no doubt the young
lady is a most proper person.”
“A young man like my Harry
ought to get a wife with twenty
thousand pounds any day,” said his
mother.
“There were two things, I remember,”
said Dr Bruce, “that Harry
was very fastidious about in women—dress
and manner: I venture to
prophecy that our future daughter-in-law
is irreproachable in both.”
“A tall girl, I suspect,” said Mrs
Bruce.
“Tall, and with a good deal of the
air noble—perhaps a little proud,”
the Doctor went on.
“But not disagreeably so,” said
Mrs Bruce.
“Certainly not,” said the Doctor.
“A hauteur of manner merely. I like
to see a woman keep up her dignity.”
“I wish he had said something
about her fortune,” said Mrs Bruce.
“So do I,” said the Doctor, “and I
think I’ll go down to Doddington to-morrow,
and see what he’s about. I’m
rather in want of change of air.” And
the two canons drank success to his
journey in another bottle of port.
Accordingly, the next day the Doctor
went down to Doddington, three
counties off, and not finding Harry at
his lodgings, got a conveyance and
a man to take him over to Lanscote.
Bruce was there of course—he had
rushed away from the parade that
morning, and, without changing his
dress, galloped to Lanscote at a tremendous
pace. He was not sorry to
find the Curate absent, and, going
clanking into the kitchen in his spurs,
found Rosa there with a great pinafore
on, making a tart.
For about ten minutes after his arrival
the manufacture of the tart proceeded
but slowly; and Rosa, to keep
him out of her way, begged him to
superintend the re-boiling of some
preserves, which Jennifer’s economy
had left to spoil in their jars. “You’ve
nothing to do,” said she, “but to sit
still before the fire, and skim the pan
from time to time with this spoon;
and I’ll get you something to keep
your uniform clean, while you’re doing
it.” So Rosa went and got a small
table-cloth, and causing him to seat
himself in the desired position in front
of the fire, she pinned it round his
neck as if he was going to be shaved—his
brass shoulder-scales sticking
out rather incongruously from under
the vestment.
“I ought to hear from my father,
to-day,” said Harry, skimming away
at the pan with his spoon.
“He won’t be angry, I hope,” said
Rosa, putting a strip of paste round
the edge of her tart-dish.
“Angry,” said Bruce, “not he. If
he was, I should just show you to him,
and if he were the most peppery old
man in existence, he’d come to the
down charge directly, like a well-bred
pointer—just as the lion did before
Una. He’d love you directly—I’m
certain he would—he must, you know—he
couldn’t help himself.”
“I’m sure I shall love him,” said
Rosa, smiling at Bruce as she took
the spoon from him in order to taste
the jam, and see how it was getting
on.
“Of course you will,” said Harry.
“As I said before, he’s a splendid old
fellow.”
At this moment a step was heard
on the gravel in front of the house,
followed by a tapping at the door of
the porch, which was open.
“Come in!” cried Bruce. “Come
in, can’t you!” he repeated, as the
tapping was renewed. “I can’t go to
the door in this way,” he said to Rosa,
looking down at his table-cloth.
“It’s only the butcher, or Josiah’s
clerk, or some of those people,” said
Rosa; “come in, if you please.”
At this the step advanced along the
passage, and came to the kitchen door.
Bruce, skimming away at his pan,
didn’t turn round till he heard a voice
he knew exclaim behind him, “God
bless my soul!” The spoon fell into
the brass pan, and disappeared in the
seething fruit.
“Why, in heaven’s name,” said the
Doctor, “what is the boy about?”
The boy in question, standing up in
great confusion to the height of six
feet, with the table-cloth descending
like a large cloud about his person,
hiding all of it except his military-looking
arms and legs, did not make
any reply. Rosa, when she tasted the
jam, had left some on her lips, and
somehow a splash of it had got transferred
to Bruce’s face.
“What prank is this, sir?” asked
the Dean sternly. “Who is this person?”
pointing his thick yellow cane
at Rosa. “Is it the cook or the
dairymaid?”
“That, sir,” said Bruce, coming to
Rosa’s rescue, “is Miss Young—the
lady I wrote to you about.”
“Oh, indeed!” said the Doctor,
who had not found the answers to the
inquiries he made in Doddington as
to the worldly condition of the house
of Young at all to his mind, and who,
at the sight of the Parsonage, had
been more struck with its diminutiveness
than its picturesqueness. “You’re
a pretty fellow! Don’t you think
you’re a pretty fellow? Answer me,
puppy!”
“I’m not doing any harm, sir,”
said Bruce, his handsome face looking
very red over the table-cloth,
which he struggled to unpin.
“Not doing any harm, sir!” sung
the Dean after him, through his
nose. “Are you making an ass of
yourself, sir, do you think? Come,
sir, I’m waiting for ye. Come along
with me, sir.”
Bruce having got rid of the table-cloth,
went up to console Rosa, who
was now sobbing in a chair.
“Are ye coming, sir?” shouted the
Dean from the door; and Bruce,
with a last whisper of comfort, went
to join his parent, who, lifting his
shovel-hat, said, “Ma’am, I wish
you a very good morning!” As they
went through the passage, Rosa heard
the Doctor say something about
“What a shock to your poor mother!”
When Josiah returned, he found
Rosa weeping by the kitchen fire,
now sunk to embers, the jam reduced
to a sort of dark concrete, and the
tart still in an elemental state.
“Harry’s papa has been here,”
sobbed Rosa; “and he’s been so
angry; and he’s carried Harry away,
and I shall ne—never—see him—any
mo—re.”
The Dean kept such strict watch
over his son while the troop remained
at Doddington, lecturing him all the
time, that he never got the smallest
glimpse of Rosa before quitting the
place, though he managed to write
her some tender and consoling letters.
His only other consolation was in
confiding his grief to Mr Titcherly,
the old antiquary. They had become
intimate and fond of one another—“a
pair of friends, though he was
young, and Titcherly seventy-two.”
Bruce had sympathised with the old
gentleman’s pursuits, and aided them—he
had, moreover, made drawings
illustrative of the great work on the
antiquities of Doddington, which were
now being engraved for a second
edition; and when the troop left the
town, nobody missed him more, nor
thought more kindly of him, next to
Rosa, than Mr Titcherly.
Bruce had nourished in his secret
heart an intention of getting leave
when they got to headquarters, and
coming back to see Rosa. This was
defeated by the vigilance of his parent,
who, suspecting the design, made it
a particular request to the Colonel
that he would allow his son no leave
of absence, hinting at an indiscreet
attachment; and the Colonel, in the
most friendly way, promised to comply
with the Dean’s wishes. Afterwards
the Dean went home, and told
his wife (he being a pious man, and
familiar with the ways of Providence)
that he considered the moving of the
detachment from Doddington in the
light of a special interference.
For my own private choice, I don’t
know whether I should have preferred
to live at Larches or the Heronry.
People who like aristocratic-looking
houses of imposing size and respectable
age would have preferred the
latter. But there are others whose
ambition does not soar so high—who
would feel encumbered by space
which they could not occupy, and by
galleries and apartments to them
superfluous; yet who have sometimes,
when dreaming in a verandah
in the tropics, a snow-hut of some
northern region, or a narrow cabin
at sea, figured to themselves a snug
English home, not too remote for the
world’s affairs, nor too public for
seclusion—not so large as to be dull
without visitors, nor so small as
to be unfit to accommodate them—not
so grand as to invite inspection,
nor so unadorned as to disappoint
it—standing, in fact, on the boundary
which divides comfort from
ostentation; and such would have
preferred Larches.
Yet, ah! that air from Queen Anne’s
time that breathed about the Heronry—that
library, where Samuel Johnson
might have devoured books in
his boyhood—the trim gardens, where
Pope might have sat in fine weather,
polishing his mellifluous lines—the
gateway and porticoes that Vanbrugh
might have regarded with paternal
complacency, as hooped dames and
bewigged cavaliers passed underneath—all
these were pleasant to the eye
and mind that love the picturesque
and antique.
Yet even these advantages would
not weigh in the scale for a minute,
when Larches was inhabited as now.
Place Lady Lee and Orelia in the
balance, and the Heronry kicks the
beam. They would have made a hut
in Tipperary, or South Africa, or any
other pagan and barbarous region,
more alluring than the palace of
Aladdin.
However (to describe its intrinsic
advantages), Larches was a onestoried
house, too spacious to be
called a cottage, which, however, it
resembled in shape, and surrounded
by a deep verandah open from the
eaves to the ground. To please a
caprice of Orelia’s, the slated roof had
been covered with thatch—indeed,
she exercised her fancy in so many
alterations, both of the house and
grounds, that the place was like a
dissolving view, and never presented
the same appearance for two consecutive
seasons. The house stood
on a knoll which raised it above the
surrounding garden, except at the
back, where the north winds were repelled
by a small grove rising from a
high bank. In the front rank of this
grove rose three tall larches that
gave the place its name. The verandah
kept the sun from the apartments,
but the windows, opening to
the ground, admitted plenty of sober
light. Looked at from without, the
open verandah and the large space
occupied by windows and doors gave
an idea of extreme airiness; while
the rich heavy curtains that lined the
windows, and the glimpses of luxurious
furniture behind, conveyed ample
assurance of comfort.
Hither Orelia had brought her
friend, and here she applied herself to
soothe her sorrow. Many offices
would, perhaps, have suited Orelia
better than that of comforter—but
her affection and warm sympathy for
Lady Lee made her discharge it with
right good-will.
When Hester had entered the hall,
at the conclusion of their journey,
Orelia came up and kissed her.
“We will forget now,” she said,
“that you have ever been Lady Lee.
We will revive in substance, as well
as in idea, the old times when you
were Hester Broome at the parsonage;
and we will see if there is not yet in
store for you as bright a future as
ever you dreamt of in your imaginative
days.”
A thin elderly person, holding a
handkerchief to her face to keep off the
draught, was hovering about an inner
door of the lobby as they entered.
This was Miss Priscilla Winter, the
lady who did propriety in Orelia’s
establishment, and managed the
minor details thereof. She had lived
with Orelia’s mother as a companion,
when the young lady herself was
a child, and had subsequently accompanied
the latter to Larches. She
was a good kind of ancient nonentity,
without any very decided opinions
on any subject, resembling, indeed,
rather a vague idea than an
absolute person. As she always had
a smile ready, and agreed with everybody,
Priscilla was sufficiently popular
and endurable. At present she smiled
a welcome on one side of her face
only, because the other was swelled—a
frequent symptom of the perpetual
toothach which afflicted her.
“Here’s Frisky,” said Orelia, on
seeing her; “dear old Frisky!—good
old Frisk!” and she went up and
greeted the old lady very cordially, as
did Lady Lee.
Orelia called her Frisky, not because
of any particular fitness in the
appellation, but, having a way of her
own of altering people’s names, she
used to call her first Priskilla, then,
when she wanted to coax her, Prisky,
which suggested Frisky, and the total
and glaring inappropriateness of the
epithet tickled the inventor so much
that it was permanently adopted by
her. The old virgin preceded them
into the drawing-room, where a comfortable
fire was blazing, and told
them dinner would be ready in a
quarter of an hour.
“And how are the live stock,
Frisk?”
“All well except Dick, who had a
fit yesterday,” said Miss Winter, “but
he seems quite cheerful again to-day.”
Dick was a bullfinch.
“I’ll see him presently,” said Orelia,
“but first I must visit Moloch.”
“Take care, my dear Orelia,” said
Priscilla; “Francis has got him
chained up—the cook says she thinks
he’s going mad, for he hasn’t drank
his water to-day.”
“Stuff!” said Orelia, marching out
of the room.
Moloch, a great yellow bloodhound,
flecked with white, chained in the
yard, thundered a deep welcome as
his mistress went towards him, and
upset his kennel in his eagerness to
jump upon her. She unstrapped his
collar, and he preceded her backwards
in a series of curvets to the drawing-room,
yelping joyfully, and nearly
upsetting Priscilla, whom Orelia found
occupied in settling Lady Lee near
the fire, that she might be warm before
taking off her things; for the old
lady was a great hand at coddling
people, if permitted.
“Hester looks pale, poor dear,”
said Priscilla, with a heart-rending
sadness of tone and aspect—“ah, well,
she’s had her trials and”—
“Now, I’ll tell you what it is,
Frisk,” interrupted Orelia, looking
sternly at the old lady, “I didn’t
bring her here to be made dismal, and
if ever I hear you saying anything of
a doleful character, I’ll leave a chink
of your bedroom window open at night,
and give you a stiff neck.—I will, as
sure as your name’s Frisky.” And
this speech at once produced the desired
effect; the venerable spinster
caught her cue with alacrity, and the
unswelled side of her face at once assumed
an expression of great cheerfulness.
Dinner was presently announced.
“I’m afraid the dining-room will be
chilly,” mumbled Priscilla, “and this
terrible face of mine—would you mind
it, my dear, if I sat at dinner in my
bonnet?”
“Not in the least, my tender
Frisk,” quoth Orelia; “and pray
bring your umbrella and pattens
also.”
A few days after their arrival, they
went down to the parsonage where
Hester had formerly lived with her
father. Orelia was curious to see
what effect the memories attached to
the place would have upon her ladyship.
She saw her grow flushed and
excited as they passed the familiar
cottages, and trees, and fields along
the road. She saw her excitement
increase as they came in sight of the
parsonage. A glimpse of it was afforded
from the road, as it stood at
the end of a lane, and looked down
upon a lawn dotted with dwarf firs.
That glimpse showed it little changed;
but as they entered the swinging gate,
opening on the gravel path that curved
round to the front of the house, the
place seemed to Hester to have
dwindled. Perhaps the spacious proportions
of the Heronry dwarfed the
parsonage by contrast—perhaps her
remembrance had flattered the scene—perhaps
it had lost its interest together
with its former inhabitants—for,
her father having died soon after her
marriage, a new clergyman now lived
there, and neither he nor his wife
were likely to renew much of the romantic
atmosphere of the spot—at any
rate, Hester’s associations vanished
rapidly. The furniture was all so
different: there was a new door
opened in the sitting-room, which
might be a convenience, but was to
her an impertinence—her bedroom,
the chamber of her maiden dreams
(ah, sacrilege!) was now a nursery.
The walls where the echoes of Hester’s
voice, as she read aloud, or sung, or
said her prayers, ought yet to have
lingered, resounded to the squalls of
the latest baby published by the prolific
clergyman’s wife, and the clamour
of its small seniors. A cradle had
taken the place of her bookcase;
and her bed, whose white curtains
had once enclosed the poetic dreams
and bright fancies of the virgin Hester—the
very altar-piece, as it were—was
occupied by a rocking-horse with
its head knocked off. Scarcely worse
the desecration, when the French
stabled their chargers in the cathedrals
of Spain.
She descended to the porch, and
paused there, trying to recall her former
self as she had sat in its shadow,
reading, working, dreaming, fancying
that the world was paradise. She
wondered what could have made her
fancy so; it had, indeed, been blissful
ignorance, but very silly, nevertheless:
her eyes were open now, and
she was quite sure—yes, quite—she
should never see things again surrounded
by such delusive splendour.
The Hester of eighteen had been quite
a different person from the Hester of
twenty-five. And so sad seemed to
be the train of thoughts thus aroused,
and bringing with it so many silent
tears, that Orelia was sorry she had
carried her well-intended visit to the
parsonage into execution. She mentioned
it in a letter to Rosa; and here,
in common type, wherein it loses all
the character it gained in the original,
from that bold yet feminine hand,
with its long upstrokes and downstrokes,
and its audacious dashes, we
will insert Orelia’s letter.
“Dearest Rosalinda,” (it said,)
“what is there about you, do you
suppose, that you should be so constantly
in my thoughts as you are, to
the utter exclusion, of course, of all
kinds of rational contemplation? For
how can any serious or important idea
be expected to remain in company
with that of a little laughing, redfaced
thing? In vain I banish the pert
image; it comes back with all the annoying
and saucy pertinacity of the
original, till I actually catch myself
addressing it; and my first impulse,
on waking of a morning, always is to
pull you out of bed.
“People sometimes say of their deceased
relations (especially if they
have left them any money), that it
would be wrong to wish them back to
this scene of trial. And I grow somewhat
resigned to your absence, when
I think that you are probably much
happier where you are. For Hester
and I are very dismal, Rosey—not a
bit better than we were during the
last sad weeks at the Heronry. She
grows paler, Rosetta—paler and thinner
every day. And I don’t think ’tis
owing to any failure of mine in carrying
out our plan for her benefit. I
have, in every possible way, closed
up the avenues to sad recollections.
I have avoided all allusions to her
married life, as if it had been wiped
out of my memory with a great wet
sponge. I have nearly choked myself
by arresting, on the brink of utterance,
observations that might have
awakened in her mind some train of
thought ending in a sigh. I have endeavoured
to interest her in her old
occupations here, and to get her to
resume the subjects of conversation
and of fancy that used to delight her
in the old times, when she was the
most enthusiastic and bright and
hopeful of friends; and I have had
my labour for my pains. She wandered
through my hothouses with
most annoying apathy—stood on the
very spot where she and I first saw
one another, and which I expected
would have had an electrical effect on
her, with an absence of recognition
that quite exasperated me; and when
I wished her good night, in the very
bedroom that was always allotted to
her when weather-bound at my cottage,
she returned the benediction
without one allusion to the old days
that have departed apparently for
ever.
“Well, Rosetta, I persevered, nevertheless—yes,
I did—I struck my
great coup—I took her down to the
parsonage, where she was born and
bred. Long after her father’s death
it stood untenanted; but a new family
now live there. I watched the effect
of each familiar object that we passed
on the road; her breath now and then
came a little quicker, and, at the first
distant glimpse of the house, her colour
rose, and she smiled more naturally
than she has done any time these three
months. ‘Now,’ said I to myself,
‘the old Hester is going to peep out
of this melancholy mask;’ so I said,
by way of assisting the metamorphosis,
‘Do you remember anything
about that stone, Hester?’ pointing
to a great white one by the side of the
road. Now, by this stone hangs a
tale, Rosamunda. You must know
(if I never told you) that Hester and
I had once a little quarrel; and as it’s
so long ago, I don’t mind saying ’twas
all my fault. Well, we did not meet
for two or three days, for Hester was
hurt, and I was sullen; but then, by
a simultaneous impulse, we started to
meet and be reconciled. Hester was
near this stone when she caught sight
of me, and, forgetting all cause of
offence, ran towards me. In her haste
(’twould take a deal to make her run
now, Rosey) she tript on the grass at
the side of the road, and fell with her
head against the corner of the stone.
There she lay for a moment, stunned,
and I, who had just reached the spot,
sat down on the stone, and, taking
her head on my lap, vowed, after she
had opened her eyes, and assured me
she was but little hurt, that I would
never again offend her.
“She remembered it well, she said,
as I stopt and pointed to the spot;
then, pressing my hand, ‘Though I
am not so demonstrative now as then,
you must not think my friendship
colder, dear Orelia,’ she said. This
looked all very promising, and I walked
on in great spirits, awaiting the
further effect of the coming scenes.
“The clergyman’s wife had called
on us, so our visit had an excuse.
The porch looked just as it used—we
entered; but there, in the identical
spot where Mr Broome used to sit and
talk to us, when a pause in his disorder
let him brighten up for an hour or
two, with the benignity of a Socrates—his
pale face glowing, his dim eye
kindling, and his failing voice hardly
able to keep pace with his eloquent
flow of thought—there sat his successor—fat,
contented, vulgar. The first
words he spoke, in tones that seemed
to struggle through layers of beef and
cabbage and Yorkshire pudding, dissipated
the romance that lingered for
me and Hester about the scene. And
his wife! I don’t deny that the woman
may have good qualities, Rosa; but I
never can forgive her that cap of hers—nor
her furniture—nor her younger
sister, with her vulgar affectation of
well-bred ease—nor her mode of addressing
her husband—she called him
by the initial letter of his horrible
surname.
“In vain I struggled with these
prosaic influences—in vain I tried to
recall the old memories of the place—they
had absolutely deserted me.
I did not look at Hester, for I should
only have looked disappointment. I
did not speak to her, for I had nothing
to say. But I looked at the clergyman
and his wife and sister-in-law—daggers,
Rosetta—and I was glad,
when we departed, to see them reduced
to a state of terrified and silent civility.
“So this part of the project signally
failed. Hitherto we had lived altogether
by ourselves, for I did not wish
to annoy her with the task of making
a parcel of new acquaintances, not
likely to be particularly interesting
either to her or to me. But now I
thought visitors might rouse her from
her melancholy, and I let them come.”
The time when Lady Lee and Orelia
were most disposed to be communicative
to each other was the last hour
before they went to bed. Both, after
flickering fitfully between dinner and
tea, musing, looking into the fire,
sighing, &c., would brighten up into
temporary effulgence, before undergoing
the extinction of sleep.
“You are cheerful to-night, Orelia,”
said Lady Lee, one night after some
guests had departed. “I am happy
to see it, my dear. Come closer,”
said her ladyship, passing her arm
round her friend’s waist, and drawing
her on to the sofa beside her. “I
want to whisper to you. May I venture
to hope” (this in Orelia’s ear,
from which she had brushed back the
volume of black hair that hid it)
“that you have forgotten that little
romance of yours?”
Orelia silently turned, and sat facing
her with her black eyes, without answering.
“You never confided in me in that
matter,” said her ladyship, still whispering,
though there was nobody but
those two in the room, and the servants
had gone to bed. “I shouldn’t
speak of it now, only that I observe
some symptoms occasionally which
make me still doubt the direction of
your thoughts. Can I help to guide
them back to tranquillity?”
“No, Hester,” said Orelia; “I
don’t want any aid. I’ve come to a
resolution of my own accord.”
“Tell it me,” said Lady Lee.
“How can I tell you all?” said
Orelia. “You didn’t know him. To
you he was merely what he appeared
to the world—to me he was himself—the
manliest, the cleverest, the most
independent, the—ah, you smile; but,
had you met him in his true position,
you would have thought of him as I
do.”
Lady Lee squeezed the hand of
the somewhat indignant enthusiast.
“Who so apt as I to believe,” she
said, “that when Orelia Payne admires,
the object is an elevated one?
Well, dearest?”
“Well,” said Orelia, “I dreamt at
the Heronry a sort of dream—that he
would regain his position in the world,
and be all you or any of my friends
could wish. He left me apparently
with some such expectation; but now
I see it was fallacious.”
“But a man could scarcely make a
very great stride in the world in a
couple of months,” observed Lady Lee.
“’Twill take years, perhaps,” said
Orelia, “even if he ever succeeds;
and consider the chances against him.
And, except as successful, I shall
never see him—he is prouder than a
fallen angel.” Here she paused, and
pondered a little. “But,” she resumed,
“I have resolved to think no
more on that subject. Yes, resolved!”
(stamping with her foot, while her
colour heightened, and a tear came
into her eye). “It can do no good—it
will be vain, weak, idle—it will
be wasting life in unreality; therefore
it shall end”—(another little stamp).
Lady Lee looked at her with a kind
of serious half smile. “So earnest,
Orelia!—then the cause cannot be
slight.”
“It is not,” said Orelia petulantly.
“I am ashamed to think how much
it has engrossed my thoughts. And
yet—everything considered—so much
merit in so unfitting a position! Had
he been placed where he deserves, I
should perhaps have withheld my admiration;
but indignation at the way
in which fortune and the world have
treated him lent it double force. Now,
Hester, I have been franker than you—for
we both had our secrets; had
we not?”
It was Lady Lee’s turn to redden
and be silent.
“Hester,” went on Orelia, “what
do you think of the men who sometimes
come here? Is there one of
them fit to be named with either of
those to whom we gave—I mean to
whom we would have given—our
hearts? Think for a moment of the
best of them—and then place their
images, side by side, with those I
speak of. Don’t they dwindle?—don’t
they show like wax-work beside
sculpture, with their fleeting hues of
character, their feeble melting outlines,
their stupid conventionalities?”
“You are severe, my dear,” said
Lady Lee, without, however, heeding
much her own reply—for Orelia had
confused her.
“O, it scatters my patience!” said
her impetuous friend. “I think less
of myself when one of them has hinted
admiration. Yesterday, that worthy
noodle, Mr Straitlace—he who thinks
it good to be wise, but not to be
merry, and whose expressive eyebrows
proclaim all pursuits to be
vanity except his own—had the astonishing
effrontery to give my hand a
kind of meaning squeeze, at taking
leave, muttering something about ‘his
pleasure at recognising a congenial
spirit.’ What have I done, Hester,
to deserve that?—the owl!”
“I don’t see the congeniality, certainly,”
said Lady Lee, smiling,
“more than between an owl and a—peacock,
or any other majestic bird.”
“Then there’s that baronet Sir
Dudley (you seem to have an attraction
for baronets, Hester)—that well-dressed
Mephistopheles, with crow’s
feet about his eyes and his heart at
five and twenty, who has just cleverness
enough to find out the faulty side
of everything—he had the impudence,
after looking at you as if he were
judging a horse, to pronounce that
‘you had some good points,’ which
from him is equivalent, I suppose, to
high praise.”
“I hope he specified the points that
struck him,” said Lady Lee, smiling.
“He hadn’t time,” returned Orelia.
“I felt downright savage at the idea
of such a snail as that crawling on
your petals. I asked him who had
told him of your merits? for that we
all knew him to be slow at finding
them in anything.”
“And what did he say?”
“He turned to his next neighbour
and merely said, ‘Shut up, by Jove!’
Why, compared with these people,
Major Tindal grows respectable; for
though he has but one side to his character,
’tis a manly and decided one.”
“Poor, misguided Major Tindal,”
said Lady Lee; “to think that he
should have taken the trouble to come
all the way here” (the Major hadn’t
been able to forbear singeing his
wings again), “just to do hopeless
homage to a girl who talks of him in
that way.”
“Certainly he had better have stayed
at Doddington,” said Orelia. “But,
now, Hester, tell me—could you admire,
or ever be induced to love, any
of our present acquaintances, after
having seen others so much worthier?”
“I will go farther than that,” said
Lady Lee, resuming her habitual tone
of melancholy, which she had relinquished
for one of assumed gaiety,
merely to cover the confusion that
Orelia’s home-thrust had caused her;
“I will say that we never could have
admired or loved them in any case.”
“And yet they are not below the
average of those we shall meet in our
pilgrimage,” said this severe censor;
“and that brings me to a subject I
have for some time thought of. You
and I can never link our lives to people
of that sort.”
“Never,” said Lady Lee, fervently.
“Neither will we spend them in
vain regrets,” said Orelia. “In men
that would be unmanly, and in us
’twould equally be unwomanly. We
will drive out thought—we will leave
it no avenue to enter—we will place
a quickset round our hearts. Some
do this by openly relinquishing the
world, and taking vows; our resolutions
shall be none the weaker because
we only take our vows privately, and
to one another.”
Lady Lee looked at her friend inquiringly.
“Why should we have done with
life because we have been disappointed
in one of its objects?” said
Orelia. “Why should we languish
or let ourselves rust because those
we prefer are withheld from us? We
could not be content to go lingering
and dreaming all our lives.”
“Not content, certainly,” said Lady
Lee. “But what are we to do?”
“Make business for ourselves in
the world,” said Orelia. “Be of use—turn
our energies to account. How
many women younger than we quit a
life of ease without our provocation,
and devote themselves to one of active
usefulness! We might be the founders
of an unprofessed sisterhood. What
do you say, Hester? When shall we
begin?”
“When?” said Lady Lee. “My
dear, such a thing requires thought.”
“Say a week,” said Orelia.
“A week!” cried Lady Lee—“a
year you mean. Nuns have a noviciate.”
“And a contemptible thing it is,”
said Orelia, “that hovering between
two worlds, as it were—that lingering
on the bridge, shilly shally. No,
Hester; we won’t show any such
want of confidence in ourselves—we
will begin after a week’s trial. We
must commence by closing up all
paths to thoughts that might unsteady
us—lay aside at once poetry,
romance, music, except anthems and
oratorios. We will prescribe for ourselves
a simple dress and a uniform
and disciplined life. Come, are you
not anxious to begin?”
“I do almost catch a gleam of your
enthusiasm,” said Hester. “To relinquish
my present life will be no
privation” (with a sigh). “But we
must mature the idea before acting
on it. We must not begin lightly.”
“Lightly!” said Orelia. “I’ve
been thinking of it these four days.
And, for our plan—feeding the poor—educating
the ignorant—comforting
the sick—there is a field! So much
for our duty towards our neighbour—for
ourselves, we will improve and
occupy our minds with study, and I
was going to say meditation; but I’m
not so sure whether our meditations
would be always on profitable subjects,
at least not just yet. When
nuns turn out not so good as they
might be, who knows what share
meditation may have had in it?
We’ll act now, Hester, and put off
meditation till we grow older.”
Now, there was something in
Orelia’s proposal that was not unpleasing
to Lady Lee. To banish
thought which she found so wearisome—to
occupy time that hung so
heavy—to labour with an object and
obtain a result—these were what she
had long desired in a dreamy sort of
way, and, now that the more energetic
Orelia had struck out the path,
she was ardent to follow it. Thus
the mind would be provided for; and,
for the heart, why shouldn’t she and
Orelia, her chosen friend, be all in all
to each other? which last idea was,
perhaps, even more brilliant than the
other.
Accordingly the noviciate commenced
forthwith. They had, in
Hester’s maiden days, studied together
French and Italian; they now
began a spirited attack upon the
German language. Mathematics was
desirable, as it required attention,
exercised the mind, and did not excite
the imagination, and they plodded
away at Euclid and algebra with a
perseverance praiseworthy in an ambitious
freshman, but, in them, lamentable
to behold. The piano remained
unopened, the harp untouched,
except on Sunday, when they performed
a piece out of Handel. Lady
Lee’s copy of Corinne was put in the
fire by Orelia, who had never particularly
admired the work; and, indeed,
a great part of their library
underwent such a weeding as Don
Quixote’s suffered at the hands of the
barber and curate. Both were dressed
in mourning before for Julius, so no
great change was needed in their
attire. To crown all, they discovered,
in a couple of days, some babies in the
smallpox and croup, three distressed
families with the fathers out of work,
and a pair of rheumatic old women, so
that their charitable resolutions were
not likely to fail for want of objects.
It is very well known that heroines
of respectability ought to be naturally
benevolent. They ought, moreover,
to have a happy knack of winning
the hearts of all who experience
their bounty. I would with pleasure
bestow on my heroines all the good
attributes that belong to them, but I
have already said they were far from
faultless, and, to say the truth, the
line they had chosen was not their
forte. Lady Lee’s fastidious taste
was speedily revolted by misery,
whose pathos was impaired by selfishness
or coarseness; and Orelia, after
a visit to one of the rheumatic patients,
left a sovereign for the sufferer,
and vowed she would never go near
that horrid old grumbler again. In
fact, this was one of the points in
which they were both of them inferior
to Rosa. Their benevolence sprang
from a sense of duty, and was artificial
in expression, like the conversation
of one who has learnt a foreign
tongue grammatically; while Rosa’s
was natural, and fluent in the happiest
idioms of goodness.
However, they persevered, and,
though they were striving against
nature, their conduct was quite natural.
Women are never so enthusiastic
about their duties as when they
have just been disappointed in love.
Your pretty Puritans are sure to have
had an attachment blighted, and Devotion
is called in, like a Beguine, to
dress the wounds made by that rascal
Cupid.
But yet, reader, if Hester and
Orelia should really persist in their
project, what a glimpse of the possible
is here opened! Let imagination
hold up the curtain for a moment.
Methinks I see Orelia, aged say
about thirty-five; severe of aspect,
and with what novelists call “the
traces of former beauty,” though the
arch of the nose has strengthened to
Roman firmness, the mouth is quite
stern in its decision, and the fire of
the eyes has some fierceness in its
sparkle. Irreproachable, but not amicable—unsparing
to the indiscretion
of others, and having none of her
own—rigid in the performance of
duties, as well as in exacting them—I
see her, in fact, become that formidable
being, an exemplary woman, and
I should like to see anybody make
love to her now.
Lady Lee, too, now getting on for
forty, has changed from what we
knew her. She is not called, like
Orelia, an exemplary woman, but is
stigmatised by the equally opprobrious
epithet, a superior person. Her
eyes, dimmed with long perusing of
good wearisome books through a veil
of tears, are still beautiful in their
melancholy, but the rest of her charms
have withered. She does not discharge
her duties with the unfailing
spirit of the more energetic Orelia,
but requires a new weary effort for
the performance of each; and when
the old obstinate question recurs of
what her business in the world may
be, she silences it by a contemplation
of the indurated virtues of her friend,
which she nerves herself to imitate.
There are no more confidences or
confessions of weakness between herself
and Orelia, but a friendship such
as might have subsisted between the
Mother of the Gracchi and Mrs Fry.
They are punctual in ——, but, as
Sterne says, when the idea of his
captive becomes too painful, “I cannot
sustain the picture that my fancy
has drawn.” Fane—Onslow—to the
rescue!
THE MARQUIS DE LAROCHEJAQUELEIN. [25] — FRANCE IN 1853.
245
The name of Larochejaquelein is
not an obscure one. It was once
familiar to the world. It was known
and venerated wherever stainless
honour, fidelity proof against all
temptations and suffering, chivalrous
valour, and patient courage amid dangers
that do not try the nerves less
that they want the excitement which
sustains the soldier on the battle-field,
were held in reverence. The two
brothers who covered that name with
glory of the purest kind were noble
specimens of the old chivalry of
France, when chivalry had well-nigh
passed away; and the chronicler of
their romantic gallantry and their
heroic death was the gentle female
who bore their name, and who bore it
high, and who shared in their sufferings,
their triumphs, and their defeats.
We know of few compositions more
interesting than the narrative of the
Marchioness de Larochejaquelein,
who, we are happy to find, still survives,
her form bowed by age, but
her heart as true as when, in early
youth and beauty, she traversed on
foot the ravines of the Bocage, or
forded the canals of the Marais, and
witnessed the sanguinary wars waged
by the insurgents of La Vendée during
the wildest period of the French
Republic. It is curious that the most
attractive records of the great revolutions
which convulsed the two kingdoms
of England and France, at
periods so distant from each other,
should respectively be the production
of a female pen. The memoirs of Mrs
Hutchinson and the narrative of Madame
de Larochejaquelein are companions
fit to be placed side by side
with each other; and though the character
of the two works is different, the
interest they excite is identical. They
both possess all the fascination of romance,
but they are valuable in a degree
which few romances can pretend
to. It has been remarked, that until
their publication the world was
strangely in error on many of the important
events to which they relate,
and that they have been singularly
useful in diminishing a great deal of
the prejudice, and in dissipating the
ignorance which had existed, particularly
with reference to some of the
principal actors in these terrible scenes.
The character of the English heroine is
shadowed forth in her history; it is
more unbending, more masculine,
more stern, perhaps, and commands
admiration which the mind cannot
refuse. But the heart is led away
by the tenderness of the Frenchwoman;
and her pathetic touches,
while they add to the interest of her
story, impart to it the impress of
truth.
The nobleman who has just published
a defence of his own political
career during the eventful changes
which France has again witnessed, is
the son of that lady by a second marriage.
His lineage is an ancient and
honourable one. Sprung from the old
house of Vergier de Larochejaquelein,
he counts among his ancestors a Crusader
whose arms form one of the
many ornaments of the rich gallery of
Versailles; two warriors who fell on
the hard-fought field of Pavia, when
“all was lost except honour;” a brother
in arms and tent-companion of
Henry IV., who was left “with his
back to the field and his feet to the
foe” on the plains of Arques; a
mestre-de-camp, who met his death
while in the act of boarding a pirate
off St Domingo. His uncle was the
general-in-chief in the Vendean army,
and it was this gallant gentleman, on
whose history Froissart would have
loved to linger, who spoke this last
address to his army, which is still
remembered by the peasants of the
Morbihan—“If I advance, follow
me; if I retreat, slay me; if I fall,
avenge me!” Another of this heroic
family was a dashing officer of carabineers
under the Empire; and on the
battle-field of the Moskowa he maintained
the old valour of the house of
Larochejaquelein. Count Louis, the
father of the present Marquis, refused
to serve under Napoleon. When the
flight from Elba roused Europe again
from its brief tranquillity, the peasant
soldiers of La Vendée gathered once
more round the white banner of
their chief. The insurrection was,
however, soon put down, and Larochejaquelein,
while in the act of leading
on his men against the Imperial
troops, fell with a bullet in his heart.
This is an ancestry of which any man
may be proud.
The present Marquis is the son of
the Royalist chief of the Hundred Days,
who had married the widow of his old
companion in arms, the Marquis de
Lescure. He was born in 1804, and
at the early age of eleven was created
a peer of France, under what is called
the Second Restoration. He entered
the military service in 1821, joined
the army under the Duke d’Angoulême
in 1823, and made the campaign
of Spain. He was captain in the
horse grenadiers of the Royal Guard
in 1828, and, inheriting the military
ardour which characterised his family,
petitioned the king to be allowed to
serve in the Greek war of independence,
but was refused. He was permitted,
however, to join the Russian
army as a simple volunteer in the
campaign of the Balkan against the
Turks, “having nothing better to
do,” as he himself said on one occasion
in the Chamber of Deputies.
Though a peer of France, he had not
taken his seat in the Upper House
when the revolution of 1830 broke
out; and refusing to accept place, favour,
or honours at the hands of the
revolutionary government of July, he
resigned his functions as peer of
France. Endowed with remarkable
activity of mind, he devoted himself
for some time, and with much energy,
to industrial pursuits, and gave up
politics till 1842, when he was named
a member of the Chamber of Deputies
by the electoral college of Ploermel,
in the Morbihan. During his parliamentary
career he did not remain
idle. He took a prominent part in
most of the stormy discussions of the
time: the various projects of replies
to the addresses from the throne, the
conscription reform law, prison reform,
railroad bills, electoral reform,
liberty of instruction, all found in
him a ready, fluent, and vigorous, if
not an eloquent debater. On all occasions
he spoke out his mind frankly
and boldly; and though on many
occasions in opposition to his own
party, as well as to the government,
it is said that he never had a personal
enemy in the Chamber. His conduct,
when the paltry attempt was made
by the servile adherents of the new
régime to affix infamy on the Royalists
who paid their homage to the descendant
of their former master, on
the occasion of the Count de Chambord’s
visit to London in 1842, is
beyond all praise. He rejected, with
scornful indignation, the stigma attempted
to be fixed on him by the
Orleanists, who did not feel the sentiment
of honour, and were incapable
of appreciating it in others. He at
once resigned his seat as deputy, and
appealed from the outrage offered
him by the Philippists to the judgment
of the electors. The electors answered
the appeal, and Ploermel sent
him back to the Chamber, where he
persevered in the same independent
course. When the base arts of corruption
employed by the government
of July were to be dragged to the
light of day, Larochejaquelein was
never silent. “A corrupting and
degrading selfishness pervades all
parts of society,” he said, in the discussion
of the budget in 1845. “I
have, in common with the rest of the
nation, given up all illusions about
the constitutional forms of the state,
and I have no longer any faith in
their independence. On all sides, in
all places, I behold the triumph of
the base over the generous, of evil
over good; and each day that passes
by brings us nearer to a tremendous
crisis—the future is indeed dark and
threatening!” These prophetic words
were destined to be soon realised—sooner,
perhaps, than the speaker
himself imagined.
We have said that M. de Larochejaquelein
was a frequent and a forcible
speaker on important occasions. Without
much claim to what is termed
oratory, his language is fluent and full
of energy; and he has scarcely uttered
a few sentences, when you feel that
he is a man of profound convictions—and
this we hold to be a great, as it
is a rare, merit in times like the present.
His portly presence, open brow,
and flowing hair—his quick, earnest,
and impassioned gesticulation, remind
you of the tribune of revolutionary
days. The haughty movement of his
head, and the scornful expression of
his eye, when repelling some unjust
accusation, give him an appearance
of pride, which certainly is not characteristic
of him, for in private life no
one can be gentler or more unaffected.
You see before you the gentleman of
the old souche, not the marquis of
the salon, or that trifling race which
the wit of Molière has perpetuated.
Had the Marquis de Larochejaquelein
not been born an aristocrat, he would
have been a tribune of the people.
Whatever be his merits or demerits
as a speaker or a politician, he possesses,
at all events, the courage, the
audacity of his opinions. He was
devoted to the Bourbons of the elder
branch (and they have not always
paid his devotedness with gratitude),
not for interest, but for honour, from
family traditions; and were not the
days of chivalry all but extinct in
what was once a nation of cavaliers,
and were men again to combat for
dynasties in France, we are inclined
to think that he would be among the
first to place his lance in rest, as his
ancestors did before him; and yet, if
we are to judge from recent events,
neither the hereditary devotedness of
his family to the cause which was so
often sealed with their blood, nor the
sacrifices (and we are informed they
are not few) which he himself has
made to it, have won him the favour
of the court of Frohsdorf. On
the contrary, we believe that he has
been exposed to all the persecution
that petty malignity can set at work;
and we know that attempts have, on
many occasions, been made to ruin
him among the primitive peasantry of
La Vendée and the Morbihan. His
position with reference to his own party
became so intolerable, that he has
considered it necessary to publish, in
a small volume, a review of the state
of parties in France in 1853, and
which is, at the same time, a vindication
of his own conduct.
The work is curious and instructive.
It notices the events which have recently
occurred in France; and though
the causes which led to that very decided
act of vigour known as the coup-d’état
of December 1851, have been
long since known to the public, and
appreciated by impartial men, a narrative
bearing the impress of truth,
and penned by one of the actors in the
drama, cannot fail to be interesting.
We do not concur in all the views of M.
de Larochejaquelein, nor do we agree
in all his deductions; but we readily
admit the truth of his sketch of political
parties in France previous to the
month of December, of the intrigues
of the Orleanist faction, their hypocrisy
and selfishness, their utter recklessness
of consequences, provided but
a chance was afforded them, no matter
at what cost to the country, of recovering
the power for which they had shown
themselves unfit, and of which they
were deprived almost without an effort.
In all this we agree; and we
confess we are not a little pleased at
finding the opinions we have already
had occasion to express on these points
fully borne out by one who has so intimate
a knowledge of affairs. We
believe that the French press has, with
one or two exceptions, passed over in
silence the work of M. de Larochejaquelein;
and we are not much surprised
at that silence. It is some time
since all political intercourse has ended
between him and the persons who
compose the court of Frohsdorf.
These persons, we fear, too truly represent
the extravagant opinions and
the intolerant conduct of the men who
contributed by their evil counsels to
the overthrow of the legitimate monarchy.
They are the same of whom
it has been said, and said truly, that
they returned from their long exile,
having learned nothing and forgotten
nothing; and were the Count de
Chambord to be restored to the throne
of his ancestors, their policy would
again lead to its overthrow. We desire
to speak with respect of the present
chief of the house of Bourbon.
We admire the dignity of his bearing;
the position he has assumed with respect
to the Orleans family; the proud
refusal to make any sacrifice of what
he considered to be a principle, even
though that sacrifice increased the
number of his partisans; the firmness
with which he maintains his superiority
over those who despoiled him—the
innocent victim of base intriguers,
and a successful insurrection—of his
rights. But we fear that he allows
himself to be too much influenced in
certain matters by a coterie composed
of persons of antiquated notions,
and who do not appear to have
any conception of the progress made
in the social and political world during
the last half-century. The errors
of that coterie are exposed by M. de
Larochejaquelein; and that exposure
will not narrow the distance which
separates him from his party, or rather
from the court of Frohsdorf. The
unpalatable truth he tells will not
easily be forgiven; and the Legitimist
organs of the press have considered it
more prudent to pass them over without
notice or contradiction. The
organs of what is called the Fusion
have been equally discreet, and with
one or two exceptions the other journals
have imitated their discretion,
either because they considered his
sketch not sufficiently Buonapartist to
merit unqualified praise, or too much
so for censure. The object of the
Marquis de Larochejaquelein, who still
professes to be a Legitimist in principle,
is to show that he has been guilty
of no inconsistency in giving in his
adhesion to the imperial government,
and that he has not discarded the
opinions he always professed; that he
has not denied the name he bears, nor
renounced the political faith in which
he was brought up, by accepting that
régime, and taking, as a member of
the Senate, the oaths of allegiance to
the Emperor and the constitution.
It is principally in this respect that
the interest of the book consists, and
we have noticed briefly and impartially
the conduct of the writer, and
that of a certain number of his fellow-Legitimists
who have, equally with
himself, comprehended the imminent
danger their common country was exposed
to, and availed themselves of
the only means of safety left at their
disposal.
The offence committed by M. de Larochejaquelein,
and which the more intolerant
of the Royalist party do not
pardon, is not of recent date. He was a
Legitimist, it is true, but he was also
attached to constitutional government.
He preferred a sovereign who inherited
a crown from his ancestors, but
he was likewise the supporter of representative
institutions. But so
many catastrophes—so many revolutions
had passed over France—so
many governments had been overthrown
and institutions subverted,
that all notions of right and justice,
as of government, were completely
lost. The actors in the first Republic
denounced all monarchical forms, as
not only incompatible with human
rights, but actually opposed to common
sense itself—in fact, something
monstrous and unnatural. After convulsing
all Europe, and utterly changing
the country where it first broke
into mad violence, that Revolution
became exhausted from its very excesses;
the Republic fell into contempt;
but the terror inspired by it was such,
that then, as in more recent days,
people were glad to take shelter in
any government that promised security
to life and property. The great
object of the Consulate, as of the Empire,
was to obliterate the last traces
of a system which had cost France so
dear. That régime was so great and
so dazzling that the loss of liberty was
soon forgotten; and the yoke that
pressed on the nation was the less galling
because it was concealed in glory;
and Frenchmen consoled themselves
for not being free, because their master
was a hero.
That brilliant meteor, after blinding
the world with its splendour, and
awing it by its power, fell into darkness.
The ancient line was restored;
and the Restoration in turn began by
proclaiming the imperial rule as a
usurpation; and Louis XVIII., in the
charter of 1814, dated his reign, not
from his return to France and the fall
of Napoleon, but from the death of
his nephew, the son of Louis XVI.;—as
if the imperial epoch, with all its
marvellous events, had never existed,
and as if the account popularly, but
erroneously, attributed to the famous
Father Loriquet, was exact, that
there had been no such government
as the Republic, and that the man
who was generally believed to have
ruled the French nation despotically,
but not ingloriously, for fourteen
years, was in reality only Monsieur
le Marquis de Buonaparte, lieutenant-general
in the service of his most
Christian Majesty.
Next came the Revolution of July,
which proclaimed that Charles X.
had forfeited his right to the crown,
for himself and his heirs—who, however,
were admitted to have done nothing
to merit that forfeiture—by the
manner in which he interpreted the
14th article of the charter, which,
nevertheless, authorised him “to
make regulations and ordinances necessary
for the execution of the laws
and the safety of the state.”—(Charte
Constitutionnelle de 1814.) Republican
writers (Dictionnaire Politique,
p. 216) admit that the aforesaid article
left to the king “the dangerous privilege
of being the sole judge of the
necessity of the case;” though they
refused to recognise that or any other
article of a charter which had been
octroyée, or issued by royal authority
alone. The responsible advisers whom
Charles X. consulted, were of opinion
that his conduct in issuing the famous
ordinances was legal. The Orleanist
revolution denounced that act as a
violation of the charter, and declared
that Charles X. had broken some
imaginary compact between him and
his people, and had forfeited the
crown. This was admitting, to all
intents and purposes, the right of
armed insurrection. The principle
thus admitted by the new régime was
often turned against itself; and the
right of overthrowing the government
was many times tried during the
reign of Louis Philippe. Various insurrections
broke forth, which were
successively put down; but had any
of them succeeded, Louis Philippe
would long before 1848 have been
accused, on equally just grounds, of a
violation of the new charter, and consequent
forfeiture of the crown, as
his predecessor. At length his turn
came; and at the very moment that
most people believed the throne of
July to be fixed on the surest basis,
the insurrection of February in a few
hours overthrew that which had already
triumphed over so many previous
dangers. Louis Philippe rose
to power on the barricades of July;—that
power was laid prostrate by the
same means. He, in turn, was proclaimed
a usurper of the people’s
rights, a violater of public liberty,
and condemned to execration. It is
not strange, therefore, if the minds
of men became bewildered amid so
many conflicting doctrines. There no
longer appeared any fixed standard
by which to judge of authority. Monarchy
in its absolute form was decried
by some; constitutional monarchy by
others. Monarchy under any denomination,
or under any form whatever,
was denounced by many as an
outrage on human reason. Some
maintained that a republican rule was
hateful to the immense majority of
the nation, and that France only desired
a fair opportunity to declare its
will. Under such circumstances what
was to be done? The Royalists did
not conceal that they only endured
the Republic until an occasion offered
for re-establishing their own form of
government. Each party maintained
that it, and it alone, represented the
wants and wishes of the people;
while the unhappy people, in whose
name, and on whose behalf, all this
had been done, stood by in silent dismay,
and bent to the yoke which
each faction that got uppermost imposed
upon it. All was confusion,
anarchy, chaos;—and the country,
whose wellbeing was the pretext,
rapidly approached the brink of ruin.
Under such circumstances, we again
ask, what was to be done? The Marquis
de Larochejaquelein thought that
the only way of solving the problem
was by an appeal to the very people
in whose name every outrage was
successively perpetrated; and calling
upon it to declare, once for all, frankly
and freely, what form of government
it preferred—whether monarchy legitimate
or constitutional, or a republic.
From the day he took his seat in the
Chamber of Deputies until the 2d
December, when the National Assembly
was dissolved by the coup-d’état,
such was his constant theme. He
denied the legitimacy of the Orleans
monarchy of July, and refused to recognise
the right of two hundred deputies,
a portion of only one branch
of the legislature, to exceed the terms
of their mission, and to bestow sovereign
power on any one. He expressed
his belief that France would, if an
occasion offered, return to the government
of her legitimate sovereign, and
he did not conceal that such was the
motive for his appeal; but at all
events he demanded that France
should be consulted, and he pledged
himself to abide by the issue. By
such conduct he incurred the hatred
of Legitimists and Orleanists;—of the
former, because his doctrine was inconsistent
with the principle of divine
right; and of the latter, because the
admission of such an appeal vitiated,
ab initio, the right of the sovereign
whom the two hundred deputies
had, of their own sole act, given to
the nation. We offer no opinion as
to whether M. de Larochejaquelein
would have attained his object had his
plan been carried into effect, nor on the
abstract fitness of such an appeal;
but in so complete a dissolution of
authority of every kind, and amid
such a confusion of all ideas of government,
it would be difficult to suggest
any other experiment whereby the
right of those who founded their claim
on the will of the nation could be
tested.
The first great offence committed
by M. de Larochejaquelein consisted,
as we have just seen, in his having so
far deviated from the principle of
divine right, as to recommend an
“appeal to the nation;”—but the
crime for which he can hope for no
forgiveness from the court of Frohsdorf,
is his having recognised the imperial
government, and accepted the
office of senator under it. M. de Larochejaquelein
is of opinion, that after
so many revolutions there was no
chance for monarchy in France otherwise
than by means of universal suffrage,
by which the present government
has been elected. He thought
that the Legitimists, who had always
maintained that they, and they alone,
were acceptable to the nation, would
run no risk in abating something of
their amour propre, and in meeting
the reaction half-way. If they were
right, there was no fear of the result
of such an appeal. The Orleanists,
who were few in number and factious
in conduct, would indeed be justified
in shrinking from such an ordeal as
the ratification of the act of two hundred
deputies of the opposition; but
in any case he despaired of a monarchical
government in any form that
attempted to establish itself on a narrower
basis. “Let us now suppose,”
he says (p. 190), “that monarchy
were proclaimed in France otherwise
than by universal suffrage, which no
accredited leader of the old Royalist
parties admitted. Of the three monarchical
parties, two would have been
in open hostility with the government,
and would, as now, rely for aid
on the Republicans—this time in open
hostility, and with much more reason.
It is, perhaps, from a feeling akin to
paternal weakness that I invariably
recur to this article of my political
faith—If the question of Monarchy
or Republic had been frankly put to
the country under the Republican
government, under the Republican
constitution, all dynastic pretensions
would vanish before traditional right,
and the majority of the Republicans
themselves would have submitted to
the declared will of the nation. But
no!—it was thought better to carry
on intrigues up to the very day when
the coup-d’état of the 2d December
became a social and political necessity;
instead of cherishing carefully
that liberty which we claimed for the
national will, the parties I refer to
preferred reserving themselves for
chances which had only the effect of
prolonging our intestine divisions.”
M. de Larochejaquelein explains
why he has given his adhesion to the
present government, elected, as it has
been, by means of that very appeal
to the nation which he had, with certainly
the hope of a different result,
always advocated. “If I am asked,”
he says (p. 214), “the reason of the
humble support I give to the present
government, my answer is very simple:
I see before me a strong government,
which has rendered real
service to my country, and at this
moment I do not see any other that
can possibly succeed to it. The faults
that have been committed are so
numerous—revolutions have so exhausted
our strength—events have
such complete power over us—that, I
confess, my reason forces me to accept
the vote of eight millions of my
fellow-citizens. Nevertheless, I have
never been more convinced than I
now am, of the excellence of the hereditary
principle. Let us suppose
the Emperor to have issue—he has
also relations. Let us suppose the
Count de Chambord to have issue—but
the princes of the house of Orleans
are numerous. Under such
circumstances, France would be exposed
for centuries to the danger
resulting from the dissensions of the
monarchical parties disputing among
each other the possession of the
crown. Hereditary right, respected
by France for her own sake, saved
her from the evils which perhaps
were the fate of future generations,
and spared us the repetition of those
trials which we have already so severely
felt. I will be frank. The
reason that many Legitimists support
the government is, that they do not
wish on any account, or any terms,
either Orleanism or anarchy—the one
being, in their opinion, the consequence
of the other. Were there no
other motive than to destroy the
chance of either, the persons I speak
of are of opinion that they ought not
to refuse taking part in the affairs of
their country. Europe is equally interested
with us that the principle of
the Revolution should not be represented
on the throne of France by a
new family usurpation, for there is
no sovereign that such usurpation
should not alarm.”
The reign of Louis Philippe was
the reign of the bourgeoisie—of the
revolutionary shopkeepers of Paris.
The scepticism of the eighteenth century
had extended to morals—the
mockery that assailed religion gradually
undermined society—and all
notions about virtue, honour, independence,
were destroyed by a blighting
incredulity. We are no believers
in what is termed the perfectibility of
human nature, but we do not think
that, even with the most mercantile
people of the world, a love of gain
is incompatible with ideas of personal
and national honour. The all-powerful
bourgeoisie of the Orleanist régime
was not a good specimen of that class;
it carried into political life the characteristics
of its social life. Insolent
and overbearing in prosperity, it was
fawning and mean in adversity. A
difference is always observable between
the bearing of a gentleman—and
by the term we refer as much to
moral as to social superiority, as the
gentleman of nature may be found in
all classes—and the mere upstart, and
in France it was perhaps more striking
than elsewhere. Dignified humility,
lofty submission, obedience that
implies no forgetfulness, no sacrifice
of self-respect, loyalty which cannot
be degraded even in political servitude,
a sense of personal honour which
despotism cannot wound, are far different
from the pertness of the parvenu,
the nervous pedantry of the
doctrinaire, or the fawning of the sycophant.
The one inclines low, with a
consciousness of just subordination to
high station; but after so inclining he
stands up with erect face: the other
falls to the dust prostrate. The aristocratic
courtier will offer the incense
of his adulation, but his censer is not
rudely flung in the eyes of his royal
master, and his homage is not without
grace and dignity. His words may
be soft and insinuating, but he will
not change his nature. To use the
language of one who knew both classes
well, he may stoop to pick up his
master’s hat or handkerchief, but it
is the act of polite attention to superior
rank, and not the mercenary subserviency
of a valet; and there is an
air of equality about it which shocks
no one, and does not offend the personage
to whom it is paid. We rather
think that, generally speaking, a
prince prefers selecting his ministers
from the class of plebeians, because he
believes he shall be served by them
as mere mercenaries; while the others
he must treat as servants of his
crown, and no otherwise. It is mentioned
as one of the anecdotes of the
Court of Louis Philippe, whose fault
was want of dignity, that, one day,
wishing to gain over to some project
of family interest, on which he had set
his heart, one of his ministers, he
offered him, in a familiar, off-hand, and
half-contemptuous manner, a portion
of the fruit he was at the moment eating.
The minister appeared much
flattered, bowed low, and accepted
the royal gift. We are not aware
whether the bribe produced the effect
intended, but we much doubt if the
citizen-king would have treated with
such disdainful familiarity a Montmorency,
a Noailles, or a Molé.
The effect produced by the exclusiveness
of the July régime was such
as might have been expected. It was
inculcated that the primary object of
man’s existence was the gratification
of his meaner passion;—success in
the pursuit of wealth without any
close examination as to the means by
which it was acquired, was regarded
as the summum bonum; the enrichissez-vous
so often repeated in the banquet
and electioneering speeches of even
the most eminent of Louis Philippe’s
ministers (though we readily admit
that no such incentive influenced the
person who so spoke) were the leading
maxims of that system. Fidelity
to principles, faith in high and noble
aspirations, were rather sneered at as
the ravings of the imagination, suited
perhaps to the age of romance; and
strong attachment to traditions was referred
to as a folly unworthy of men of
sense. The bourgeois were often assured
that they alone were the sovereign;
that they alone were eminent in
eloquence and in thought; that to them
alone belonged the gifts of the earth;
that they alone, provided they were
men of substance, were superior in the
social as in the moral scale; that to
them belonged all distinctions as a
matter of right; that they only were
fit to occupy eminent posts in every
branch of the administration, and in
fact that in their hands were exclusively
placed the destinies of the state.
They who thus extravagantly exalted
the pursuit of mere material interests,
were destined to pay dearly for the
lessons they had taught. Faith and
reverence for the past had been held
up to contempt by the new school of
statesmen; but the doctrines that had
been inculcated for the overthrow of
the former dynasty, were equally applicable
to the modern one, and the
Revolution of February was the consequence.
Empty and dogmatic, the
real bourgeois—the bourgeois whose
stupidity or conceit makes him sure
good material in the hands of the revolutionists—has
nevertheless pretensions
to nothing less than universal
knowledge. Jealous of all superior to
him in social position, and insolent to
those below him, he would drag down
the former to his own level, but would
not permit the latter to rise to it.
With the examples yet before him,
and the preceptors he had to guide
him, he could not be a bourgeois such
as July encouraged, without being
somewhat of an infidel. The reverence
for religious forms that characterised
his fathers, was in his opinion
fit for times of ignorance, but not
for the enlightened nineteenth century.
He had dipped here and there
into the Philosophical Dictionary of
Voltaire; he could sneer at the Mosaic
chronology; be witty on the description
of Noah’s Ark; was incredulous
about the Deluge; and laughed outright
at the Passage of the Red Sea.
He had read the Origine de tous les
Cultes of Dupuis, and could quote
whole pages from Volney. He was
therefore a philosopher. With those
severer studies he mingled the lighter
graces of wit and poetry, and for
these accomplishments he was indebted
to the doggrel of the “philosopher
of Ferney” in Joan of Arc; the
Guerre des Dieux of Parny, and the
looser songs of Beranger. To show
that he thoroughly appreciated these
great masters, and that he was superior
to popular prejudice, he would
not enter the doors of a church, as
the observances of religion were only
fit for women and children. To prove
his independence, and to give “a lesson
to the government,” he would not
pay the just respect, which degrades no
man, to the accredited representative
of authority; but he would fall on his
knees to worship the merest political
mountebank. He incessantly clamoured
about equality, and decried the
aristocracy if he happened to see a
carriage, with a coronet or armorial
bearings, roll by him; but his pride
was up if a struggling artist or poor
man of letters addressed him otherwise
than with cap in hand. The
noisy advocate of social and political
liberty, there was no greater despot
in his domestic circle. His house-porter
crouched before him, and his
servants grew dumb when they heard
the creak of his shoe. Railing against
the “upper classes,” his ambition
was to scrape acquaintance with some
decayed viscount, some equivocal
marquis; and if he had a visit from
some one who bore a title, the coroneted
card lay for whole months in
full view on the central table of his
drawing-room, or was stuck in the
most conspicuous part of the looking-glass
frame. His personal pomposity
was increased the more he was disposed
to corpulence, and his boldness
was decisive proof of the superiority
of his intellect. Our worthy bourgeois
was rather hard to be pleased. When
the political world was tranquil, he
passed his leisure hours in running
down the government; and though no
one had more experienced the mischief
of agitation, he generally voted
for its most dangerous adversaries:
not because he approved of their principles,
or that the ministerial candidates
were not honourable men, but
because he was determined to let no
opportunity pass of making the king
and his government feel that he, M.
St Godibert, was not pleased with
them, and would “give them a lesson.”
These lessons occasionally cost
the teacher very dear; and when agitation,
warmed by himself into incipient
insurrection, grew dangerous,
he was sure to be the first to accuse
the government of having excited it
for its own special purposes. When
insurrection was defeated, he again
blamed the government for excessive
lenity in the punishment of those who
disturbed the public peace; and when
all peril was over, and a complete lull
ensued, then he accused the same government
of excessive cruelty to
those who a day or two before were
the infame canaille, but who now were
his frères egarés—his deluded brethren
and fellow-citizens.
These were the men who served as
the instruments to bring about the
Revolution of July, and these were
they who were feasted and flattered
until they were led to believe themselves
the only beings on earth worthy
of consideration. Such specimens
were of course to be met with as employés
in the various ministerial departments.
Nothing could be more
insolent, or more griping, than the
general run of those underlings. The
recommendation “enrichissez-vous,”
coming, as it did, from the first minister
of the crown, was not forgotten;—he
was one of the few who did not carry
out for himself his own theory; but
we fear that the love of power, which
was in him a passion, induced him to
tolerate, or at least not to prevent,
the scandalous jobbing which it was
known was going on—for it is not
credible that such things could be done
in secret. A government where such
men enjoy, in consequence of their
position, a great though underhand
influence, is humiliating for an honourable
man to live under. There is
something more respectable in the
audacity with which the insurgent
flings out his crimson flag, and eyes,
as he passes through the richest quarters
of Paris, the trembling bourgeois,
whose fine mansion he has already
marked out, than in the system which
admits as its principal instruments
the rapacious and insolent underlings,
who too often had the ministerial
ear under the Orleans régime.
As for the representative system in
France during the period of which we
speak, it was a farce. Two hundred
thousand electors, for a population of
thirty-three or thirty-four millions,
was not much better than an oligarchy,
and the worst of all oligarchies, for its
corruption was its bond of union, as was
proved by the disclosures made to the
world towards the conclusion of Louis
Philippe’s reign, when some of the
highest functionaries were dragged
before the tribunals for mal-practices;
and we believe that there were other
persons who did not regret that the
Revolution of February came to save
them from public disgrace. A minister
who wishes to be regarded as a
philosopher and a statesman, should
try to purify his age rather than corrupt
it; and it is as immoral as impolitic
to encourage the baser passions
of men in order to keep yourself
in power, however clean your own
conscience, and virtuous your purposes.
Such things might be palliated
in so loose a politician as Walpole;
but they would shock and
disgust were they, by the remotest
chance, to be found in so austere a
moralist as Guizot.
Some time previous to the coup-d’état
of 1851, a new scheme was
formed by the Orleanists, who were
tired of the forced leisure to which
the successful imitation, in February
1848, of the example set by themselves
in 1830, condemned them. The
object of this new project was the
complete reconciliation of the elder
and younger branches of the Bourbon
family, and of the two important sections
of the Royalist party, with a
view to a restoration, on the expiry
of the presidential power in May
1852, by a coup-d’état on the part
of the majority of the National
Assembly, a successful rising of the
people or the army, or, in fact, any
other means that offered. None of
those eventualities were, it is true,
expressed in the journals that acted
as organs of the party, but they were
so understood by all the initiated.
Each party looked forward to the
term fixed by the constitution for
Louis Napoleon to lay down his
power, for the triumph of its cause.
The Mountain took no pains to conceal
its designs; and not unfrequently,
amid the stormy debates which raged
in the Assembly, the “second Sunday
in May” 1852 was declared to be the
date when full vengeance was to be
exacted from Legitimists, Orleanists,
Buonapartists, and “reactionists” of
every kind and colour. As that fatal
term approached, the Orleanists, who
surpass all others in intrigue, and
such of the Legitimists as were
credulous enough to trust them, and
simple enough to be led by them, did
their utmost to rouse the revolutionary
demon in the Chamber, and on several
occasions openly coalesced with
the Terrorists. The Republicans suspected,
as every one who knew him
must have suspected, the sincerity of
M. Thiers; and though they were
fully aware of his real motive for
seeking admittance into their ranks,
their passions would not allow them
to refuse the co-operation of any ally,
and they relied, besides, on their own
courage and energy against treachery
when the important moment arrived.
On the other hand, the Royalists were
full of confidence in their success, if
the preliminary and indispensable condition
of reconciliation were adopted,
and they agreed that France would
not again submit to the brutal tyranny
of some three hundred Socialists.
Their ordinary language was, that,
even at the worst, the “promised
land” would at length be reached
through the Red Sea—the “promised
land” being, of course, the Royalist
restoration; and the “Red Sea” the
massacre and pillage it would be necessary
for France to traverse before
it was attained. The leaders of the
Royalists, superior in all the arts of
intrigue to their more brutal rivals,
were vastly inferior to them in energy
of action. During a brief régime of
terror they would disappear, if necessary,
and remain in some place of
safety until France, exhausted and
panic-stricken, threw herself into their
arms, when they would at once establish
a dictatorship. Louis Napoleon
was, in their opinion, the obstacle
easiest to be got rid of; they would
leave his account to be settled by the
Republicans, in case they themselves
had not previously got him out of the
way. As for any difficulties on this
latter point, they considered that it
was absurd to think of them. Louis
Napoleon had, according to them,
fallen into such contempt with the
army and the nation, that not a finger
would be raised to save him. M.
Thiers, and other great statesmen like
him, had, not merely in the saloons
of Paris, and in his own particular
circle, but openly in the Salle des pas
Perdus, and the corridors of the National
Assembly, sneered at him as
“a poor creature;” and the redoubted
General Changarnier himself—on
whom, by the way, the eyes of the
whole world were fixed—had more
than once insulted him in the Chamber,
and in his official quarters in the
Tuileries. Louis Napoleon, therefore,
was so utterly scorned as to be
made the butt for continual sarcasm
in the saloons of an old foreign intriguante,
long resident in Paris; and
this was his last degradation. The
only doubt was, whether imprisonment
at Vincennes would not be investing
such a miserable being with
too much importance. The ditch of
Vincennes would be much better, and
if a few ignorant persons thought him
of consequence, why, an ounce of lead
would quiet their fears. Some of the
more judicious and far-seeing of the
political leaders of the day, very properly
considered that the main object
they had in view would be materially
advanced, if, as we have said, a reconciliation
could be effected between the
partisans of the Count de Chambord
and the Orleanists. The idea originated
with the latter. A meeting was
held of about a dozen persons at first,
in order to explain the plan which
had been formed, and to organise
what was termed a “fusionist agitation.”
Other meetings, more numerously
attended, were held at brief intervals;
and it was resolved to send
out agents to influential persons in
the departments to win them over to
the cause of the fusion—the fusion
having for object the restoration of the
Bourbons; and the parties who were
engaged in it were precisely the same
men who, in the press and in the Assembly,
expressed their preference for
the government as established in February,
and who denounced the man
who was suspected of an intention to
attack the immaculate purity of the
young and as yet innocent Republic.
The first step of the fusionists was
directed to the chief of the house of
Bourbon and the princes of Orleans.
But the Count de Chambord refused
to sacrifice a particle of what he considered
to be his just rights. He was
King of France, and the only representative
of legitimate royalty of his
family, and he would consent to no
divided allegiance. The princes of
Orleans had been princes of the blood
before their father had usurped the
crown, and they must remain so. Past
wrongs and injuries he was not unwilling
to forgive; he would not be
very exacting in matters of secondary
importance, but on the great principle
that the sovereignty resided in him
since the abdication of the Duke
d’Angoulême, which followed that of
Charles X., he would hear of no compromise.
On the other hand, the
princes of Orleans would not admit of
any act which had the effect of making
their father a usurper; they were
the more induced to do so that they
were receiving from their agents in
France, and particularly in Paris, assurances
that great popular sympathy
existed for them; and in fact, that to
the house of Orleans alone the nation
was looking for salvation! At the
same time it was known that the Prince
de Joinville was doing something on
his own account with reference to the
presidency of the Republic. Relying
on the popularity he enjoyed to a
greater degree than any of his family,
he seems to have entertained some
hopes of success. With the prudence
which characterised his father, he
would not, however, commit himself
to any declaration; would neither deny
nor admit that he was a candidate for
the presidency; would neither avow
nor disavow the acts of his friends;
he might profit by their exertions, but
if they failed, he would leave them to
all the consequences of their defeat,
and, in the latter case, would very
probably disavow them. This, it will
be admitted, was not very frank, or
straightforward, or princely. It can
scarcely be believed that the Prince
de Joinville had all at once become a
Republican; and it is not unfair to
conclude, that, if successful, he would
have employed his position as President
to the restoration of his family.
The mistrust of the house of Orleans
that had characterised the elder Bourbons—and
its history proves how their
mistrust was justified—was increased
by that conduct; and the Count de
Chambord was disgusted with the policy
which permitted, without disavowal,
the name of his cousin to be
spoken of by his partisans in Paris as
the candidate for the future presidency
of the Republic. M. Thiers did not,
after all, approve of the fusion. It was
sufficient that the suggestion of a reconciliation
had proceeded from a rival
of whom he had been always jealous,
for that clever and restless intriguer
to set his face against it. His utmost
energies were devoted to secure the
establishment of a regency in the person
of the Duchess of Orleans, mother
of the Count de Paris, whose confidential
adviser he was, and whose
minister he hoped to be. A restoration
by means of the fusion would
seriously interfere with his private
plans, and he gave it therefore his
most decided opposition. To secure
at any cost the services of the man
who at that time commanded the
army of Paris, and whose influence
over the vast military force of the Republic
was long believed to be unbounded,
was a great object. That
man had unquestionably rendered services
to order. But his head had been
turned by adulation arising from gratitude
for past and hopes of future
services; and he at length came to
believe that on him alone depended
the fate of France. He was flattered
with the idea that the part of Monk
was reserved for him; and to enhance
the value of his co-operation, he coquetted
with both parties, and affected
an air of mysterious reserve, which rendered
him equally impenetrable to all.
That reserve was carried on so long
that it began to be whispered that
General Changarnier would, when
matters came to the point, declare
neither for the one party nor the other,
but would offer himself as candidate
for the Presidency. This rumour was
absurd; and the silence of the general,
who was Legitimist by tradition
rather than from principle, and an
Orleanist from interest and habit, was
nothing more than the usual coquetry
in which he apparently took much
delight. In fact, he remained dreaming
away till the coup-d’état rudely
woke him and others from their slumber.
Of the possibility of a fusion of
interests between these parties, or of
a sincere reconciliation between the
elder and younger branches of the
royal family, we entertain very serious
doubts.
The house of Orleans had been, from
the time of the Regent, of infamous
memory, fatal to the elder Bourbons.
It was the evil genius that haunted
them from the cradle to the grave.
The government of Louis Philippe repaid
the benefits conferred on the
house of Orleans with ingratitude.
One of its earliest acts was the introduction
of a measure for the perpetual
banishment of the elder Bourbons,
and for the compulsory sale of the
property they held in France. They
who have been shocked, and, we
readily admit, justly shocked, at the
decree of the 22d January 1852, confiscating
to the state the appanages
which, according to the usages of the
French monarchy, should have reverted
to the state at the accession of
a prince of the royal family, and at
the compulsory sale of the Orleans
property, may have forgotten that
that decree was but an imitation of
the legislative enactment of the 10th
April 1832. We condemn, on principle,
such acts of confiscation; they are replete
with injustice; but we cannot help
feeling that the decree of the 22d January
1852, all bad as it was, was an act
of retribution. Signal ingratitude is
seldom left unpunished; and while
we reprobate the conduct of Louis
Napoleon, we cannot say that the
house of Orleans was wholly undeserving
of the treatment it met with.
The sentence of perpetual exile,
and confiscation of property, was
passed by the Restoration on the
Buonaparte family. That family
owed no gratitude to the Bourbons;
but the princes of Orleans were
bound by the strongest ties of gratitude
to them. On the 10th April
1832, the law was promulgated relative
to the elder branch of the Bourbons
and the family of Napoleon.
The law bore, of course, the signature
Louis Philippe, and the counter-signature
of M. Barthe, Louis Philippe’s
Minister of Justice. The 1st, 2d,
3d, and 6th articles were as follows:
“1st, The territory of France
and of its colonies is interdicted for
ever to Charles X., deposed as he is
from the royal dignity in virtue of
the declaration of the 7th August
1830; it is also interdicted to his
descendants, and to the husbands
and wives of his descendants. 2d,
The persons mentioned in the preceding
article shall not enjoy in
France any civil rights; they shall
not possess any property real or personal;
they shall not acquire any,
gratuitous or otherwise. 3d, The
aforesaid persons are bound to sell,
in a definitive manner, the whole
of the property, without exception,
which they possess in France. That
sale shall be effected, for the unencumbered
property, within the year dating
from the promulgation of the present
law; and for the property susceptible
of liquidation, within the year dating
from the period at which the right of
possession shall have been irrevocably
fixed. 6th, The provisions of
the first and second articles of the
present law are applicable to the
ascendants and descendants of Napoleon,
to his uncles and aunts, his
nephews and nieces; to his brothers,
their wives and their descendants;
to his sisters and their husbands.”
This law against the benefactors
and the kinsmen of Louis Philippe
was not enacted in the first heat of
animosity, and the first impulse of
revenge for real or fancied wrongs,
which, immediately following a great
revolution, might have been alleged as
a palliation. It was enacted one year
and nine months after the Revolution
of July, when the passions of political
parties, so far as they affected the
unfortunate Charles X. and his family,
had time to cool down. A high-minded
man would have preferred
forfeiting even the crown of France,
glorious though it be, to putting his
signature to such a document. The
public and private virtues of the
Orleans family have been enlarged
upon even to satiety. State reasons
may be alleged as an excuse for
things which morality condemns; but
the vaunted qualities of that family
should have placed them above any
such justification. State reasons may
be alleged for the perpetration of any
enormity. We have no doubt that
Catherine II. could allege them for
the partition of Poland; and the
Emperor Nicholas justifies his present
conduct towards the Ottoman Empire
quite as satisfactorily. Pretensions
to virtues far superior to those of
ordinary men should, however, place
those who are so gifted out of ordinary
rules. We have said that we
reprobate the decree of the 22d
January 1852, but we have no doubt
that Louis Napoleon justified that
arbitrary act by the law of 1832.
The house of Orleans renewed the
sentence of perpetual banishment
against the family of Napoleon, and
of incapability to possess property
in the French territory. Louis
Philippe owed a heavy debt of gratitude
to Charles X. and his family;
we have seen how that debt was paid
off; no such obligation bound the
Buonapartes to the house of Orleans.
But there existed another obstacle
in the way of reconciliation between
the elder and younger branches of
the Bourbons—another outrage which
it is scarcely in human nature to
forget. The Orleanist party had protested
in 1820 against the legitimacy
of the present Count de Chambord.
In that year a document appeared in
London, entitled “Protest of the
Duke of Orleans.” It was headed
as follows: “His Royal Highness
declares that he protests formally
against the minutes of the 29th September
last, which pretend to establish
that the child named Charles
Ferdinand Dieu-Donné is the legitimate
son of the Duchess of Berri.
The Duke of Orleans will produce,
in fitting time and place, witnesses
who can prove the origin of that
child and its mother. He will produce
all the papers necessary to show
that the Duchess of Berri has never
been enceinte since the unfortunate
death of her husband, and he will
point out the authors of the machination
of which that very weak-minded
princess has been the instrument.
Until such time as the favourable
moment arrives for disclosing the
whole of that intrigue, the Duke of
Orleans cannot do otherwise than
call attention to the fantastical scene
which, according to the above-mentioned
minutes, has been played at
the Pavilion Marsan (the apartment
of the Duchess of Berri at the
Tuileries.)” The paper then repeats
the whole of the account of the
accouchement as it appeared in the
Journal de Paris, the confidential
journal of the government, and shows
the alleged contradictions in it, with
the view of proving that the whole
was an imposture. The Protest and
the accompanying details to which we
have alluded, were republished in the
Courrier Français of the 2d August
1830; and the Courrier Français was
devoted to the Orleanist dynasty.
But those are not the only humiliations
which the elder Bourbons have
suffered from the family of Orleans;
and when we are told that the son of
the Duchess of Berri is about to take
to his bosom the sons of the man who
laid bare to the world’s mockery the
weakness of his mother, we are called
upon to believe that that son has
become lost to every manly sentiment.
We doubt much if this be the
case. There can be no sincerity on
the part of the Orleanists who first
suggested the fusion. They well
know that, in the event of a Legitimist
restoration, the men who overthrew
the throne of his grandfather
and drove him into exile, who resisted
all attempts to restore them
to their country, can never be his advisers—if
he be what we hope he is.
Could the Duchess of Berri receive
at her levee the purchasers of the Jew
Deutz, or those who signed and gave
to publication the medical report of
Blaye? It is a vile intrigue, got up
for the sole benefit of the Orleanists.
It was not out of love for the house
of Bourbon, but from hatred to Louis
Napoleon, that the fusion originated;
and we agree with M. de Larochejaquelein
when he says that “the Orleanists
and Legitimists, not being able
to effect a fusion of love, try to effect
one of hatred, with the predetermined
resolution to tear each other to pieces
hereafter, and with a violence all the
greater from the consciousness that
one party was tricked by the other,
if indeed both were not tricked.”
The Legitimists are no match for their
rivals in cunning—in the lower arts of
Machiavellism—in what is vulgarly
but expressively termed la politique de
cuisine. In 1848 the former occupied
a much better position than the latter.
The régime they had combated for
eighteen long years was at length
overthrown, and the comparison between
the fall of their sovereign and
that of the “citizen” king was infinitely
in favour of the former.
Charles X. retired slowly before
his enemies, and with all the dignity
of a defeat which is not dishonourable,
nor dishonouring. In the most critical
moments, and when menaced with
great danger, he never forgot who
and what he was. He assumed no
disguise; he put on no menial livery;
and to the last moment of his embarkation
for the land of his exile, his
friends had no cause to blush for him.
He was throughout a king—“Ay,
every inch a king!” Whatever the
faults he may have committed when
on the throne—and we are free to
admit that his rule was far from
faultless—there was no loss of personal
dignity in his descent from it. If the
revolution of February succeeded without
the co-operation of the Legitimists,
it was not against them that it
was directed, nor was it the Legitimists
who were to be conquered. And
yet, in the course of a very few
months, the party became completely
subordinate to their more clever and
more unscrupulous rivals. It is true
that in the first movement, when
anarchy was wildest, the instinct of
self-preservation from the evils which
menaced society itself, bound all men
of order, without reference to party,
against the common enemy, Socialism.
But it is difficult to understand, when
the impossibility of a Republican system
was recognised, when the necessity
of substituting another form of
government was evident to all, how
the Legitimists allowed themselves
to be seduced by their enemies. A
snare in the form of the “fusion” was
laid for them, and they easily fell
into it. It would be a waste of time
to detail all the manœuvres, the negotiations,
the conferences, the
schemes for the realisation of that
idea. There was nothing positive
or real at bottom. Everything was
left to chance. It was soon evident
that neither of the parties was sincere;
each tried to deceive the other.
Some of the more confident, or the more
audacious, suggested that propositions
should be made to Louis Napoleon
himself; and among the Legitimists
there were found persons silly enough
to believe that he would, notwithstanding
all the chances in his favour,
derived from the spontaneous election
of the 10th December 1848, gladly
co-operate in the restoration of a
prince of the house of Bourbon. The
name of General Changarnier was
proposed as the person to whom the
dictatorship was to be intrusted until
such time as the Royalist restoration
was accomplished. A dictatorship
was the great object with all
parties: the Socialists, in order that
France should be regenerated according
to their peculiar ideas; the “moderate
Republicans” would have
selected General Cavaignac, as they
did after the insurrection of June,
and would have tried once more to
force their system on a terrified population;
the Legitimists and Orleanists
looked to a dictatorship as the surest
means toward a Royalist restoration,
though it was not decided among
them who was to be the future sovereign.
The Orleanists counted much
on their cleverness to beat their allies
out of the field—allies in the moment
of uncertainty and danger, but foes to
be got rid of at any cost when the booty
came to be divided. “In 1849,” says
M. de Larochejaquelein, “I was one
of those who wished at least to maintain
the Republic, in order to insure
the union of all that was reasonable
and patriotic in the country; to call
on France to put an end, once for all,
to revolutions; and our object was to
form the electoral committee, known
afterwards by the name of the Committee
of the Rue de Poitiers. I had
been chosen by the Legitimists; but
when we met, I requested to have it
explained to me for what reason the
committee was only composed of Orleanists
and Legitimists. It appeared
to me fitting and proper that the more
judicious and moderate Republicans
should form at least a third part of
our committee, as we had at heart
hopes of a different kind. I was told
that the committee did not wish for
Republicans, simply because it did not
wish for the Republic. I demanded
why, out of sixty members of the
committee, forty-five belonged to the
Orleanists, and only fifteen to the Legitimist
party. An ex-minister replied
that, though the party of legitimacy
was, no doubt, honourable, yet
that it formed a very small minority,
while the other was in fact the nation.
Not being of that opinion, I withdrew,
and I declined being made use of as
an instrument for the restoration to
the throne of France of the revolutionary
monarchy of 1830.” The
division and weakness of those parties
is further illustrated in this passage:
“There remained another means of
which the intimate confidants of the
Count de Chambord were dupes—a
plan which was never admitted except
by them, and the impossibility of
which was evident—namely, to bring
about a restoration through the instrumentality
of the Legislative Assembly
itself. Without understanding
what they were doing, the parliamentary
Legitimists of 1850 directed
all their efforts to renew the act of
1830, when 219 deputies, without
right of any kind, and with the most
flagrant disregard of their duty,
presumed to change the form of
Government. The Assembly was
divided into so many parties that
it was in vain to hope for a majority
for that object. It is true that towards
the close of the Assembly all
parties made a desperate attempt to
combat Buonapartism; but the moment
that a serious proposition was
made to substitute a government for
that of the President, it was found
that concord did not and could not
exist between two of the great parties
who composed that Assembly.”
M. de Larochejaquelein gives some
interesting details of the secret intrigues
of the Orleanists to win over
the Legitimists to the “fusion;” and
it is amusing to find how both parties
were deeply engaged in the duty of
allotting crowns and imposing conditions
on pretenders, up to the very
eve of the coup-d’état. We had
already become acquainted, through
the channel of the public press, with
the intrigues which made the presidency
of Louis Napoleon one continued
agitation, and we are not sorry
to have the testimony of one who was
an eye and an ear witness of the
whole. “I appeal,” says M. de Larochejaquelein,
“to the good faith of
all political men—Is it, or is it not,
true, that the idea of the most confidential
advisers of the house of Orleans
was to induce the Count de
Chambord to abdicate in favour of the
Count de Paris? Is it, or is it not
true, that they urged the adoption of
the Count de Paris by the Count de
Chambord, even to the prejudice of
the issue of the latter, supposing that
he had any? Is it, or is it not true,
that on the eve of the 2d December,
certain persons who were the most
influential, who stood highest in favour
at Claremont, made that monstrous
proposition in the Salle des Conferences
of the National Assembly, and that it
produced a great effect on the Legitimist
members of the Assembly? Is it,
or is it not true, that the Sceptics of the
party replied, with surprising impertinence,
Yes, no doubt we earnestly
desire the fusion! What then? But
it is not our interest to oppose it.
You (the Legitimists) have for a long
time kept yourselves apart from public
affairs. The country belongs to us.
Your principle is the best; we do not
dispute the fact; but, above all, it is
certain that your principle (legitimacy)
is necessary for us to adopt. Your
prince (the Count de Chambord) may
return with our royal family. He is
its chief; agreed. But at the end
of six months he will see what his
position really is. He will see that it
is impossible for him to govern with
you, and without us. He has no children;
he has too deep a sense of religion
to be ambitious; he loves France
too much to wish her to be given up
to commotions which would expose
her to new revolutions. He will prefer
the castle of Chambord as a residence
to the Tuileries. You may be
certain that we shall treat him well,
and we shall all be contented. The
principle itself will be respected, and
we shall govern France.” Such were
the propositions, and such the language
of the partisans of the Orleans
family to the Legitimists. Not a word,
of course, was said of Louis Napoleon;
and these profound statesmen were
thus disposing in sure confidence of
the fruit of their schemes only a few
hours before they were scattered like
chaff before the wind by the man on
whom they disdained even to pass a
thought! The Orleanists were still
tormented by one fear; they trembled
lest the proposition so often presented
to the Assembly by M. de Larochejaquelein
should again be renewed at
that critical moment which preceded
the expiration of the presidency of
Louis Napoleon. The President of
the Assembly, M. Dupin, the principal
agent of the Orleans family,
urged, and with more than usual energy,
that body to refuse its authorisation
for the printing of M. Leo de
Laborde’s proposition, namely, that
France should, at the important moment
when every faction was struggling
for supremacy, be consulted as
to whether she desired, or not, the
re-establishment of her traditional
monarchy. M. Dupin treated the
question as if it were one of life or
death to himself. He threw off all
restraint, and resisted with his utmost
efforts any measure resembling an appeal
to the nation, or embodying the
principle of legitimacy. “And even
at the present moment,” says M. de
Larochejaquelein, “the language of the
Orleanists is this: ‘We find that the
fusion is the best instrument of hostility
against the government of Louis
Napoleon, and for that object we must
effect it. But if the Count de Chambord
should ever become a widower,
he must not think of forming a new
matrimonial engagement. Should he
happen to have children, he must no
longer count on our support.’”
One of the hallucinations under
which the Orleanists laboured was,
that Louis Napoleon was in his heart
devoted to them exclusively; and that
when the fusion was consummated,
he would transfer his power to them.
That delusion survived even the coup-d’état.
M. de Larochejaquelein admits,
in common with all rational men, that
the coup-d’état was the salvation of
society itself, and they who were
loudest in their applause of it were
the Orleanists. “The most ardent in
their approbation,” the noble writer remarks,
“were the Orleanists, because
they were convinced that the President
was, perhaps without meaning it,
working for them. The decrees of the
22d January undeceived them. From
that moment they became divided into
two camps, that of the extreme opponents,
and that of the men who
accept the government, but who yet
cherish a spirit of hostility to it, more
or less openly declared.”
We have often thought it extraordinary
why those Legitimists who
had freely taken the oaths of allegiance
to Louis Philippe refused them
to Louis Napoleon; and on what
grounds those who yielded prompt
obedience to a revolutionary system,
established by some two hundred deputies,
should, while demanding an
appeal to the people, decline to recognise
a power which is the issue of
the national will. M. de Larochejaquelein
professes to be unable to account
for the fact. “It would be
curious,” he says, “to find out the
reasons on which they found that refusal.
I confess that I cannot explain
a proceeding of the kind, and which
is so advantageous to the revolution
of July. It is true that the Legitimists
must be pained at seeing their
hopes baffled once more; but were it
only in a social point of view, they
ought to give their co-operation to
the government. By keeping apart,
they leave the place open to the men
whom they had for so many years
combated, and they commit the injustice
of placing on an equality the
usurpation of 1830 with the election
of the Emperor successively by six,
by seven, and by eight millions of
suffrages. Prince Louis Napoleon had
overthrown nothing which was endeared
to us; it was not he who had
persecuted the princes who were the
object of our reverence and of our devotedness;
it was not he who placed
the revolution on a throne; but it was
he who combated the revolution. He
had, in the opinion of the immense
majority of the people, rendered a
signal service to France by effacing
beforehand the fatal term of May 1852.
He made an appeal to all honest men,
without distinction of party, to aid him
in saving the country. The majority
of Legitimists could not well disregard
the will of the nation; they submitted
to the verdict without sacrificing
their principles.” We need not
say that we approve of the policy
which has preferred the good of their
country to the mere gratification of
party feeling or personal ambition;
and we see no inconsistency in the
accepting a government that has
fulfilled the conditions which, in the
eyes of these persons, alone justified
their adhesion.
As for the Orleanists, they began
in intrigue, have continued in it, and
we have no reason to suppose that
they will ever change. Place and
power are, with very few exceptions,
their object. The Palais Royal
was, during the Restoration, the favourite
resort, the headquarters of
all the malcontents of the day: all
who stirred up opposition to the government,
all who intrigued against
Louis XVIII. or Charles X., were
welcome to the palace of “our cousin
of Orleans.” They were not true even
to the government of their own choice;
they had overthrown one dynasty, and
because M. Thiers or M. Odillon Barrot
wanted the place, which M. Guizot
preferred exposing the country to convulsion
rather than be torn from, another
dynasty was flung down after it.
The tactics of the party have been always
pretty much the same; revolution
was evoked by them to the hypocritical
cry of Vive la Charte, or Vive la Constitution.
They were the men who organised,
in 1829, the formidable associations
against the payment of the taxes.
At that time, also, as twenty years
later, banquets were got up; and at
one of those scenes of feasting, 221
crowns, in honour of the 221 deputies
of the opposition, adorned the hall;
and that nothing should be wanting
to complete the resemblance, it was
M. Odillon Barrot who made the
speech on the 4th July 1830, which
was the prelude to the fall of Charles
X.—the same great citizen whose
banquettings and whose orations
helped to destroy the throne of Orleans
in 1848—the same demagogue
whose conceit led him to suppose that
he alone could lay the fiend he had
evoked. There was nothing too low
for them to stoop to, no instrument
too mean for them to reject. It was
that faction that brought about the
revolution of July, it was the same
that helped on that of February, and
it was the coalition of the fusionists
with the Mountain that provoked the
coup-d’état of December 1851. Where
were all those eminent statesmen,
those solemn orators, those sour pedants,
those profound thinkers, those
philosophers, those great citizens, when
the widowed Duchess of Orleans faced
the mob, who had been rendered infuriate
by the men who were afterwards
unable or afraid to control them?
It has been made a matter of reproach
to Louis Napoleon, that the
persons who enjoy his confidence, or
preside at his councils, are obscure
adventurers, of no moral or social influence;
and that no man of eminence,
worth, or standing, will accept either
power or place in a government so
degraded. This, we rather think, is
too sweeping an assertion. We should
like to know what was the social,
moral, or political eminence of M.
Thiers, when the Revolution of July
brought him first into notice. If we
cast our eye over the list of senators
under the imperial régime, we find
names there that may stand a comparison
with many in the late Chamber
of Peers; and as for corruption,
we may point to the events that immediately
preceded the Revolution of
February, when some of the highest
had to answer for acts which were
anything but moral. It is true that
some of the leading men who directed
the policy of the country under Louis
Philippe have taken no active part in
public affairs under the imperial government.
But when we hear all this
talk about “eminent men” refusing
office, and declining all participation
in the government of the day, we are
tempted to ask how had those “eminent
men” managed the business of the
country when they had its sole direction
and control? Their government,
with immense resources at its command,
and after eighteen years of profound
peace, was upset in a few hours
by a contemptible street row.
We are not aware that M. de Larochejaquelein
has been answered by
any of the parties whose intrigues he
has exposed. We think it would be
difficult to answer him; his sketch
carries with it internal evidence of its
correctness. It is no answer, so far
as the truth of his allegations is concerned,
that he has abandoned the
party with which he had been connected.
We believe that he has had
to undergo the petty persecutions of
the coterie of Frohsdorf, who have resorted
to every stratagem to destroy
whatever influence his name may still
carry with it in La Vendée; and,
judging from his present production,
he is of opinion that that coterie is not
worth any man’s making any extraordinary
sacrifices for them. But
whatever be the motives that have
influenced his conduct, or whatever
the value of his “appeal to the
people,” we are bound to admit, that
so far he has acted consistently with
his theory.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.
1. The Elements of Materia Medica and Therapeutics. By Jonathan Pereira,
M.D., F.R.S. Third Edition. London, 1849–50. Pp. 1538.
2. The Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Fifth Edition. London.
3. M‘Culloch’s Commercial Dictionary, edit. 1847, p. 1314.
7. English edition, p. 278, quoted in M‘Culloch’s Commercial Dictionary, p. 1314.
8. Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry. London edition of 1812, p. 167.
9. Ale was the name given to unhopped malt liquor before the use of hops was introduced.
When hops were added, it was called beer, by way of distinction, I suppose,
because we imported the custom from the Low Countries, where the word beer was,
and is still, in common use. Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea), called also alehoof
and tunhoof, was generally employed for preserving ale before the use of hops was
known. “The manifold virtues in hops,” says Gerard in 1596, “do manifestly argue
the holesomeness of beere above ale, for the hops rather make it physicall drink to
keep the body in health, than an ordinary drink for the quenching of our thirst.”
10. Voyage dans le Nord de la Bolivie, et dans les parties voisines du Perou. Par H.
A. Weddell, M.D., &c. &c. Paris, Bertrand; London, Baillière. 1853.
Scènes et Récits des Pays d’Outre-Mer. Par Théodore Pavie. Paris, Lévy.
1853.
11. Blackwood’s Magazine, No. CCCCXXX., for August 1851.
12. The occupants of the pit at a theatre are called in Spain the mosqueteria.
13. “Be not so well pleased, Juana, to see how I suffer for thee; that which is my
fate to-day, to-morrow may chance to be thine.”
14. This arm, which the gauchos throw to a distance of twenty paces, consists of
three balls fastened to the same number of cords. The one held in the hand is
longer than the two others.
15. History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena. By John Forsyth, M.A.
3 vols. London: Murray.
16. Notes and Emendations to the Text of Shakespeare’s Plays, from Early MS. Corrections
in a Copy of the Folio, 1632, in the possession of J. Payne Collier, Esq., F.S.A.;
forming a Supplemental Volume to the Works of Shakespeare, by the same Editor.
The Text of Shakespeare vindicated from the Interpolations and Corruptions advocated
by J. P. Collier, Esq., in his Notes and Emendations. By Samuel Weller
Singer. 1853.
Old Lamps or New? A Plea for the Original Editions of the Text of Shakespeare,
forming an Introductory Notice to the Stratford Shakespeare. Edited by Charles
Knight. 1853.
A Few Notes on Shakespeare, with Occasional Remarks on the Emendations of the
MS. Corrector in Mr Collier’s Copy of the Folio, 1632. By the Rev. Alexander
Dyce. 1853.
A Few Remarks on the Emendation “Who smothers her with Painting,” in the Play
of Cymbeline, discovered by Mr Collier in a Corrected Copy of the Second Edition of
Shakespeare. 1852.
New Illustrations of the Life, Studies, and Writings of Shakespeare, supplementary
to all Editions. By Joseph Hunter. In 2 vols. 1845.
23. L’Insurrection en Chine, depuis son Origine jusqu’à la Prise de Nankin. Par MM.
Callery et Yvan. Avec une Carte topographique, et le Portrait du Prétendant.
Paris: 1853.
24. Painted upon the bucklers of the Chinese soldiers are all manner of ferocious
animals;—the tiger is the one most frequently seen, hence the surname. On behalf
of his Celestial friend, and in extenuation of this ridiculous custom, Dr Yvan maintains
that, in many of our European military equipments, the same intention of terrifying
by a fierce aspect is manifest—as, for instance, in the bear-skin caps of grenadiers,
hussars, &c. The Spaniards, who bear little love to any foreigners, and who
are particularly given to laughing at their Portuguese neighbours, assert that there
was formerly in use, in the Portuguese army, the word of command, “Rosto feroz a o
enimigo!”—Ferocious face to the enemy!—upon receiving which, the soldiers looked
excessively savage, showed their teeth, and made a threatening gesture. This must
have been a base imitation of the Chinese. To this day the tigers, who are often
faint-hearted enough, go into action making horrible grimaces. Dr Yvan gives a
very curious account of the Chinese army, in which sound of gong is used instead of
word of command, and the officers are stationed behind their men to prevent their
running away—an exercise to which they are extremely addicted. Silence in the
ranks is far from being enjoined; on the contrary, when approaching an enemy, the
tigers and other wild beasts roar in character—their sweet voices, with a gong accompaniment,
combining in a discord that is truly infernal. There exists a Chinese
treatise on the art of war, in twenty-four volumes, entitled Ou-Pi-Tche. Its perusal
is not allowed to civil mandarins below the third rank, or to military mandarins
below the fourth, nor, of course, to persons of inferior degree. It is not admitted in
China that a private person, a literary man, a merchant, an agriculturist, can have
any good motive in studying such a work. Booksellers are permitted to keep but
one copy at a time, and are compelled to register the names of purchasers. “Before
beginning the war with the Celestial Empire,” Dr Yvan says, “the English procured
several copies of this treatise. One day, at Canton, an American merchant mentioned
this fact to a mandarin of very high rank. The mandarin struck the palm of
his left hand with his fan: ‘I no longer wonder,’ he cried, ‘that the red-haired barbarians
vanquished us!’”—L’Insurrection en Chine, chap. ix. pp. 119–124.
25. La France en 1853. Par Le Marquis De Larochejaquelein. Paris: 1853.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last chapter.