Let us imagine one of our critical
successors of a century hence—that
is, in the month of October 1953—sitting
musingly before a copy of a
work called Uncle Tom’s Cabin,
which a few days previously he had
taken down by chance from one of
the least-used shelves of his library.
May one also amuse one’s imagination
by a picture of the possible state of
things then existing on the other
side of the Atlantic, by the light of
which our shadowy friend of 1953 has
read the work which his substantial
one of 1853 has just laid down?
—The present United States of
America, after having been, perhaps,
more than once split asunder and
soldered together again—or the whole,
or a large portion voluntarily reannexed
to the mother country, and by
and by again detached—after these
and other, possibly more or less sudden,
violent, and bloody vicissitudes—have
become a great Empire, under
the stern, but salutary, one-willed
sway of the Emperor of America:
his majesty a jet black, who had
shown consummate and unexpected
high qualities for acquiring and retaining
the fear and submission of
millions of the stormiest tempers
of mankind; but his lovely empress
a white. He has an immense army
devoted to his person and will, composed
of men of every complexion—from
black, through copper-middle
tints, down to white; and correspondingly
diversified are his banners,
but black, of course, the predominant:
a quadroon being commander-in-chief.
As for his majesty’s civil
service, he has a coal-black chancellor,
equally at home in the profoundest
mysteries of white and black letter;
a mulatto minister of instruction, and
a white secretary of state; black and
white clergy, and a similarly constituted
bar—here a big black face
frowning out of a white wig, and
there a little white face, grinning out
of a black wig, with black and white
bands, and gowns varied ad libitum.
And the laws which they are concerned
in administering, accord with
these harmonious diversities—it being,
for instance, enacted, under heavy
penalties, that no black shall, by gesture,
speech, or otherwise, presume to
ridicule a white because of his colour,
nor, vice versâ, shall a white affect to
disparage a black because of his complexion;
that the emperor and empress
shall always be of different
colours, and that the succession to
the throne shall alternate between
black and white, or mulatto, members
of the imperial family. By this and
other provisions have been secured a
complete fusion between North and
South, between black and white, glitteringly
typified by intermingled gems
in the imperial crown; the central
one being the identical black diamond
that figured in the famous Exhibition
in Great Britain in 1851, and presented
to the emperor by one of the
descendants of her Majesty Queen
Victoria, then on the British throne!
“To this complexion” shall it be that
matters have “come at last?”
Or will our sturdy cousins of 1953
be still republican, a united republic,
but with offices, honours, rights, and
privileges, equally distributed, as in
our fancied empire, among those of
every shade of colour? Or, after a
fearful succession of struggles between
black and white, ... the ... is
predominant; ... slavery, after a
... sang— ... or a noble spontaneous....[2]
From a preliminary dissertation
prefixed to the book, our critic of
1953 learns that it excited, almost
immediately on its appearance, a prodigious
sensation among all classes,
both in Europe and America; that
both sexes, high and low, young and
old, literate and illiterate, vulgar and
refined, phlegmatic and excitable,
shed tears over it, and wrote and
talked about it everywhere; that,
within a few months’ time, impressions
of it were multiplied by millions,
and in most languages of the civilised
world. That its writer, an American
woman, immediately came over to
England, and made her appearance in
public assemblies, called in honour of
her; and she was also “lionised” [a
word explained, in a long note, as
indicating a custom prevalent in that
day, among weak persons, of running
after any notorious person weak
enough to appear pleased with it]
among the fashionables and philanthropists
of the day, but preserved,
nevertheless, amidst it all, true modesty
of demeanour, and silence
amidst extravagant eulogy. Inflamed
with curiosity, our shadowy successor
sits down to peruse a work—then possibly
little, if ever, mentioned—anxious
to see what could have produced
such a marvellous effect, in the middle
of the intelligent nineteenth century,
on all classes of readers; and whether
it produced permanent results, or
passed away as a nine days’ wonder.
Having at length closed the pages of
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and judged it
according to the critical canons of
1953, will he deem it adequate to
have produced such effects? What
estimate will he form of our intellectual
calibre?
We cannot tell, and shall not attempt
to conjecture. Dismissing, therefore,
but for a while only, the imaginary
occupant of our critical chair a
century hence, let us say for ourselves,
that though our silence, and
that of one or two quarterly contemporaries,
may have excited notice,
both in America and this country, we
have been by no means indifferent
spectators of the reception which this
singularly-successful book has met
with; regarding it as one of those
sudden phenomena in literature, demanding,
even, a deliberate consideration
of cause and effect. We apprehend
no one will doubt that, to excite such
attention and emotion among all
classes of readers, in both hemispheres,
as this work has excited, it must possess
something remarkable; and what
that is, it will be our endeavour to
determine. We ourselves never read
this work till within the last month,
and then as a matter of mere critical
curiosity, uninfluenced by the past
excitement of others, and the favourable
and unfavourable opinions which
we heard expressed as to the merits
of the work. If we could have
been biassed at all, it would have
been rather against, than in favour
of, a writer who had been over persuaded
by her friends to come to this
country, for the purpose of making a
sort of public appearance, at the moment
that admiration of her work
was at fever height. Nothing could
palliate such an indiscretion on the
part of this lady’s advisers, in the
eyes of a fastidious Englishman, but
the belief that she was a simple-minded
enthusiastic crusader against
American slavery, considering that
the totally unexpected celebrity of
her work had afforded her an opportunity
of accelerating a European
movement, in a holy cause, by her
personal presence. Criticism, however,
ought not to be influenced by
petty disturbing forces like these, nor
will ours. We shall judge Uncle
Tom’s Cabin by its own intrinsic merits
or demerits—occasionally looking
for the light which she has thought
proper to reflect upon it from its
companion volume, “The Key.”
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is a remarkable
book unquestionably; and, upon the
whole, we are not surprised at its
prodigious success, even as a mere
literary performance; but whether,
after all, it will have any direct effect
upon the dreadful INSTITUTION at
which it is aimed, may be regarded
as problematical. Of one thing we
are persuaded—that its author, as she
has displayed in this work undoubted
genius, in some respects of a higher
order than any American predecessor
or contemporary, is also a woman of
unaffected and profound piety, and an
ardent friend of the unhappy black.
Every word in her pages issues glistening
and warm from the mint of
woman’s love and sympathy, refined
and purified by Christianity. We
never saw in any other work, so
many and such sudden irresistible
appeals to the reader’s heart—appeals
which, moreover, only a wife and a
mother could make. One’s heart
throbs, and one’s eyes are suffused
with tears without a moment’s notice,
and without anything like effort or
preparation on the writer’s part. We
are, on the contrary, soothed in our
spontaneous emotion by a conviction
of the writer’s utter artlessness; and
when once a gifted woman has satisfied
her most captious reader that such is
the case, she thenceforth leads him
on, with an air of loving and tender
triumph, a willing captive to the last.
There are, indeed, scenes and touches
in this book which no living writer,
that we know of, can surpass, and
perhaps none even equal.
No English man or woman, again,
could have written it—no one, but an
actual spectator of the scenes described,
or one whose life is spent
with those moving among them;
scenes scarce appreciable by FREE
English readers—fathers, mothers,
husbands, wives, brothers and sisters.
We can hardly realise to ourselves human
nature tried so tremendously as,
it seems, is only adumbrated in these
pages. An Englishman’s soul swells at
the bare idea of such submission to the
tyrannous will of man over his fellow-man,
as the reader of this volume
becomes grievously familiar with;
and yet we are assured by Mrs Stowe
that she has given us only occasional
glimpses of the indescribable horrors
of slavery. To this part of the subject,
however, we shall return. Let
us speak first, and in only general
terms, of the literary characteristics
of the author, as displayed in her work.
Mrs Stowe is unquestionably a woman
of GENIUS; and that is a word
which we always use charily: regarding
genius as a thing per se—different
from talent, in its highest development,
altogether, and in kind.
Quickness, shrewdness, energy, intensity,
may, and frequently do accompany,
but do not constitute genius.
Its divine spark is the direct and special
gift of God: we cannot completely
analyse it, though we may
detect its presence, and the nature of
many of its attributes, by its action;
and the skill of high criticism is requisite,
in order to distinguish between
the feats of genius and the operations
of talent. Now, we imagine that
no person of genius can read Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, and not feel in glowing
contact with genius—generally gentle
and tender, but capable of rising, with
its theme, into very high regions of
dramatic power. This Mrs Stowe
has done several times in the work
before us—exhibiting a passion, an
intensity, a subtle delicacy of perception,
a melting tenderness, which are
as far out of the reach of mere talent,
however well trained and experienced,
as the prismatic colours are out of the
reach of the born blind. But the
genius of Mrs Stowe is of that kind
which instinctively addresses itself to
the Affections; and though most at
home with the gentler, it can be yet
fearlessly familiar with the fiercest
passions which can agitate and rend
the human breast. With the one she
can exhibit an exquisite tenderness
and sympathy; watching the other,
however, with stern but calm scrutiny,
and delineating both with a
truth and simplicity, in the one case
touching, in the other really terrible.
“Free men of the North, and
Christians,” says she, in her own
vigorous and earnest way, “cannot
know what slavery is.... From this
arose a desire,” on the author’s part,
“to exhibit it in a living dramatic
reality. She has endeavoured to
show it fairly in its best and its worst
phases. In its best aspect, she has
perhaps been successful; but oh! who
shall say what yet remains untold in
that valley and shadow of death that
lies on the other side?... The
writer has only given a faint shadow—a
dim picture—of the anguish and
despair that are at this very moment
riving thousands of hearts, shattering
thousands of families, and driving a
helpless and sensitive race to frenzy
and despair.”
Without going further, the beautiful,
accomplished, but ruined and heart-broken
slave Cassy—the bought, abhorring,
and ultimately discarded mistress
of the miscreant Legree, and
whose heart is full of despair and
murder towards him—affords many
instances of both kinds, the tender
and the terrible. Her successor in the
affections! of the monster, is the
lovely young slave Emmeline, of but
fifteen summers! and Cassy obtains a
great ascendancy over her, winning
her love by the story of her own indignities
and bereavements.
‘“What use will freedom be to me?”
says Cassy, when they are whispering
together in their place of concealment,
where they lie like a couple of hunted
hares, momentarily hidden from the
hounds—“Can it give me back my children,
or make me what I used to be?”
There was a terrible earnestness in her
face and voice as she spoke. Emmeline,
in her childlike simplicity, was half afraid
of the dark words of Cassy. She looked
perplexed, but made no answer. She
only took her hand with a gentle caressing
movement.
“Don’t!” said Cassy, trying to draw
it away,—(observe, she only tries!)—“you’ll
get me to loving you! and I swore
never to love anything again!”
“Poor Cassy!... I’ll be like a
daughter to you!... I shall love you
whether you love me or not!”
The gentle childlike spirit conquered.
Cassy sate down by her, put her arm
round her neck, stroked her soft brown
hair; and Emmeline then wondered at
the beauty of her magnificent eyes, now
soft with tears. “O Emmeline!” said
Cassy, “I’ve hungered for my children,
and thirsted for them, and my eyes fail
with longing for them! Here! here,”
she exclaimed, striking her breast, “it’s
all desolate! all empty!”’
Of the terrible we have a thrilling,
indeed a sickening instance, in Cassy’s
frenzied determination to murder the
fiend Legree, whose brandy she has
drugged for the purpose—but we
anticipate.
Occasionally, also, Mrs Stowe displays
a fine perception of external
nature—irradiating her inanimate
scenes with the rich hues of imagination.
At these, however, she generally
looks through a sort of solemn
religious medium. Here, for instance,
is a startlingly suggestive picture.
It is poor Uncle Tom, sitting at midnight,
exhausted and heart-broken,
during a moment’s respite from the
wasting and cruel inflictions of slavery,
and reading his Bible by moonlight.
‘... Tom sate alone by the smouldering
fire, that flickered up redly in his
face.
The silver fair-browed moon rose in
the purple sky, and looked down, calm
and silent, as God looks on the scene of
misery and oppression—looked calmly
on the lone black man, as he sate, with
his arms folded, and his Bible on his
knee. “Is God here?” inquires he.
‘Ah,’ (proceeds the author,) ‘how is it possible
for the untaught heart to keep its
faith unswerving, in the face of dire misrule,
and palpable unrebuked injustice?
In that simple heart waged a fierce conflict:
the crushing sense of wrong, the
foreshadowing of a whole life of future
misery, the wreck of all past hopes, mournfully
tossing in the soul’s sight, like dead
corpses of wife, and child, and friend, rising
from the dark wave, and surging in the
face of the half-drowned mariner? Ah,
was it easy here to believe and hold fast
the great password of Christian faith,
that GodIS, and is theRewarderof them
that diligently seek him?’
Here, again, is the lovely smile of
early morning flung over the monster
Legree (poor Tom’s brutal master),
as he wakes from a foul debauch:—
‘Calmly the rosy hue of dawn was stealing
into the room. The morning star
stood, with its solemn holy eye of light,
looking down on the man of sin, from out
the brightening sky. Oh, with what freshness,
with what solemnity and beauty, is
each new day born! as if to say to insensate
man, “Behold! thou hast one
more chance! Strive for immortal glory!”
There is no speech nor language
where this voice is not heard; but this
bold bad man heard it not. He awoke
with an oath and a curse. What to him
were the gold and the purple, the daily
miracle of morning? What to him the
sanctity of that star which the Son of
God has hallowed as his own emblem?
Brute-like, he saw without perceiving;
and, stumbling forward, poured out a
tumbler of brandy, and drank half of it.
“I’ve had a h—ll of a night!” he said.’
’Twas somewhat different, that same
morning, with his poor slave Tom,
waking bruised, wearied, and well-nigh
spirit-broken.
‘The solemn light of dawn, the angelic
glory of the morning star, had looked in
through the rude window of the shed
where Tom was lying; and, as if descending
on that star-beam, came the
solemn words, I am the root and offspring
of David, and the bright and
morning star.... Without shuddering
or trembling, he heard the voice of his
persecutor as he drew near. “Well, my
boy,” said Legree, with a contemptuous
kick, “how do you find yourself? Didn’t
I tell yer I could larn yer a thing or two?
How do yer like it, eh? How did yer
whaling”—he had been fearfully flogged
over-night—“agree with yer, Tom? An’t
quite so crank as yer was last night? Ye
couldn’t treat a poor sinner now to a bit
of a sermon, could yer, eh?”
Tom answered nothing.
“Get up, ye beast!” said Legree,
kicking him again. This was a difficult
matter for one so bruised and faint; and,
as Tom made efforts to do so, Legree
laughed.’
These passages, taken at random,
are highly characteristic of the author
of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in more ways
than one, as will by and by be shown.
Up and down the book are to be
found strewn, as it were, carelessly,
striking and grand reflections, evincing
the deeply thoughtful moralist, and
profoundly convinced believer.
‘True—there was another life—a life
which, once believed in, stands as a solemn
significant figure before the otherwise unmeaning
ciphers of time, changing them
to orders of mysterious unknown value.’
We have not met with this idea
before; and it is very striking.
Again—
‘The gift to appreciate, and the sense
to feel the finer shades and relations of
moral things, often seems an attribute of
those whose whole life shows a careless
disregard of them. Hence Moore, Byron,
Goethe, often speak words more
wisely descriptive of the true religious
sentiment, than another man whose whole
life is governed by it. In such minds,
disregard of religion is a more fearful
treason—a more deadly sin.’
Again—
‘Oh! how dares the bad soul to enter
the shadowy world of sleep!—that land
whose dim outlines lie so fearfully near
to the mystic scene of retribution!...
Legree felt a secret dislike to Tom—the
native antipathy of good to bad. He
saw plainly that when (as was often the
case) his violence and brutality fell on
the helpless, Tom took notice of it; for
so subtle is the atmosphere of opinion, that
it will make itselfFELTwithout words;
and the opinion, even of a slave, may annoy
a master....
What a sublime conception is that of
a last judgment!... A righting of all
the wrongs of ages!—a solving of all
moral problems, by an unanswerable
wisdom.’
One of these problems—perhaps
the greatest at present insoluble by
man—torments poor Tom.
‘It was strange that the religious peace
and trust which had upborne him hitherto
should give way to tossings of soul and
despondent darkness. The gloomiest
problem of this mysterious life was constantly
before his eyes: souls crushed and
ruined, evil triumphant, and God silent!
It was weeks and months that Tom
wrestled, in his own soul, in darkness
and sorrow.’
Which of us cannot here sympathise
with the poor, bruised, and
bleeding black?
Yet once more.
‘Is not this truly feeling after God, and
finding him? And may we not hope that
the yearning, troubled, helpless heart
of man, pressed by the insufferable
anguish of this short life, or wearied by
its utter vanity, never extends its ignorant
pleading to God in vain? Is not the
veil which divides us from an almighty
and most merciful Father, much thinner
than we, in the pride of our philosophy,
are apt to imagine? And is it not the
most worthy conception of Him, to suppose
that the more utterly helpless and ignorant
the human being is that seeks His aid, the
more tender and condescending will be
His communication with that soul?’
Character is often drawn by our
author with delicate discrimination;
and, at the same time, she almost as
often exhibits a poverty and crudeness
in dealing with such subjects,
which would be surprising, but that
it is evidently referrible to haste and
inattention. Her mind, too, is so intent
upon the great, noble, and holy purpose
of her book, that she often does
not give herself time to develop or
mature her own happiest conceptions.
The momentary exigencies of her
story require the introduction of an
additional figure; on which, having
paused for a moment to call up the
image of one before her mind’s eye,
she forthwith gives a few strokes,
possibly intending, at a future time,
to complete and retouch them; but
that future time never comes, for she
has got into new scenes, and moves
on, crowded with new characters and
associations. In this respect her book
may be compared to the studio of a
great painter, where the visitor sees
some pictures in all the splendour of
their completeness, and others in various
stages of incompleteness—some
exhibiting the master’s hand, and
others that of a hasty and unskilled
workman; all which may, perhaps, be
visibly accounted for by the painter’s
being absorbed by some masterpiece,
itself, however, only approaching completeness.
We feel bound, nevertheless,
to express our opinion that
an additional solution of the matter
is to be found in her probably limited
range of observation of actual life, at
all events of such life as Europeans
can appreciate. In delineating the
character of slaves and the “slave-trader,
kidnapper, negro-catcher, negro-whipper,”
as she herself groups
them, she handles her pencil with
the confident ease of a master. “The
writer,” says she herself, at the close
of her work, “has lived for many
years on the frontier line of slave
states, and has had great opportunities
of observation among those
who formerly were slaves.” To her
sadly-familiar eye “there are some
things about these slaves which cannot
lie: those deep lines of patient
sorrow upon the face—that attitude
of crouching and humble subjection—that
sad habitual expression of hope
deferred in the eye—would tell their
story, if the slave never spoke.” We
shall, however, presently have ample
opportunities of showing Mrs Stowe’s
profound appreciation of the negro
character; one of a far more composite
construction than any but a philosopher
might suppose, and also of
great interest to those who are contemplating
the future of the negro race,
as a large, though many may unhappily
deem it an unsightly element, in ascertaining
the fates of the human family.
“This is an age of the world, truly,”
says our author, “when nations are
trembling and convulsed. A mighty
influence is abroad, surging and heaving
the world as with an earthquake.
And,” she asks, “is America safe?
Every nation that carries in its bosom
great and unredressed Injustice, has in
it the elements of this great convulsion.”
While the pathos of Mrs Stowe is
deep and pure, her humour and satire
are genuine and racy, but quiet.
Gloomy as is the prevalent tone of her
work, her reader’s feelings are discreetly
relieved by many little touches of
quaint dry drollery. Master Shelby,
for instance, is a sharp youth of thirteen,
the eldest son of Uncle Tom’s
first and kind-hearted master; and he
has taken it in hand to teach Tom
(old enough to be almost his grandfather)
his letters. Chloe is Uncle
Tom’s wife, and the cook of Mr
Shelby; and it seems that she is a
capital cook, to boot, as Master
Shelby has found out. He often visits
Uncle Tom’s cabin, to teach old Tom
his letters—and also partake of certain
good things which Aunt Chloe
used to prepare for her favourite;
who displays no little art in inflaming
her ambition by faintly undervaluing
the culinary skill of one of her
rivals, a cook at a neighbouring plantation.
The whole scene is admirably
sketched, and forms one of the earliest
in the work. Excited to the utmost,
she prepares a delicious supper
for Master George, who, it will
be seen, does it full justice.
‘By this time Master George had arrived
at that pass to which even a boy
can come (under uncommon circumstances)—i. e.,
when he could not eat
another morsel; and, therefore, he was at
leisure to notice the pile of woolly heads
and glistening eyes which were regarding
their operations hungrily from the opposite
corner. [Who does not see the turgid
youngster?—But one does not dislike
him; for] “Here!—you, Mose! Peto!”
[said he, addressing the young sables—the
children of Uncle Tom and Aunt
Chloe]—breaking off liberal bits, and
throwing them at them—“You want
some, don’t you?”’
One Black Sam, a friendly fellow-slave
of Uncle Tom’s, is unconsciously
caught in the attitude of deeply considering
the interests of number One,
as soon as he hears of the departure
of poor Uncle Tom, who has been suddenly
sold to another master, leaving
a vacancy in his somewhat confidential
office, which some one must supply.
“One touch of” selfishness “makes
the whole world kin”—and here is
how it strikes our black brother.
‘Never did fall of any prime minister at
court occasion wider surges of sensation
than the report of Tom’s fate among his
compeers on the place. It was the topic
in every mouth, everywhere; and nothing
was done in the house or in the field, but
to discuss its probable results.
Black Sam, as he was called, from his
being about three shades blacker than
any other son of ebony on the place, was
revolving the matter profoundly in all its
phases and bearings, with a comprehensiveness
of vision, and a strict look-out
to his own personal well-being, that would
have done credit (says good, sly Mrs
Stowe) to any white patriot at Washington.
“It’s an ill wind dat blows nowhar—dat
ar a fact,” said Sam, sententiously,
giving an additional hoist to his pantaloons,
and adroitly substituting a long
nail in place of a missing suspender-button.
“Yes, it’s an ill wind blows nowhar,”
he repeated. “Now, dar, Tom’s down—wal,
’course der’s room for some nigger
to be up; and why not dis nigger?—dat’s
de idee! Tom, a-ridin’ round de country—boots
blacked—pass in his pocket—all
grand as Cuffee; who but he? Now,
why shouldn’t Sam?—dat’s what I want
to know!”’
There are, however, many indications
throughout the work of the writer’s
humorous powers being checked
and restrained, either purposely or
unconsciously, as if from a severe sense
of the purpose with which she writes—as
though before her mind’s eye was
ever the bleeding heart of the negro.
We have an indistinct recollection of
more than one disposition, or rather
juxta-position, of persons and incidents
most suggestive of fun: but they
are suddenly discarded, the reader
breathlessly following the grave and
ardent writer, over whose pale countenance
the smile had but furtively
flickered for an instant, like a glance
of moonlight on a gloomy sea. Here
is one of the passages to which we
allude. Mr St Clare and his heartless
lackadaisical wife are conversing about
his newly-acquired slave, Uncle Tom,
for whom he feels no little regard; but
she is speaking of him in a disparaging,
contemptuous tone.
‘“Tom isn’t a bad hand, now, at explaining
Scripture, I’ll dare swear,” said
St Clare. “He has a natural genius for
religion. I wanted the horses out early
this morning, and stole up to Tom’s
cubiculum[3] there, over the stables, and
there I heard him holding a meeting by
himself; and, in fact, I haven’t heard
anything quite so savoury as Tom’s prayer
this some time. He put in for me with a
zeal that was quite apostolic.”
“Perhaps he guessed you were listening!
I’ve heard of that trick before!”
“If he did he wasn’t very polite; for
he gave the Lord his opinion of me pretty
freely! Tom seemed to think there was
decidedly room for improvement in me,
and seemed very earnest that I should be
converted.”
“I hope you’ll lay it to heart,” said
Miss Ophelia, (who is the pious, simple-minded,
conscientious, elderly spinster,
and cousin of Mr St Clare.)’
How much of the pious disinterested
character of the poor slave, the heartless
distrust of his mistress, the humorous,
good-natured levity of his
master, and the earnest goodness of
Ophelia, does this quiet touch reveal
to us!
On another occasion, Mrs St Clare,
who has no more intellect or feeling
than her thimble, or thread paper, is
conversing with her lovely little daughter,
Eva, who is pleading with her
mamma on behalf of the poor little
negress, Topsy (of whom more anon),
and meekly suggesting the possibility
of Topsy’s being human! and consequently
capable of improvement.
‘“Mamma, I think Topsy is different
from what she used to be; she’s trying
to be a good girl.”
“She’ll have to try a good while before
she gets to be good,” said Mrs St Clare,
with a careless laugh.
“Well, you know, mamma, poor Topsy!
everything has always been against her!”
“Not since she’s been here, I’m sure.
If she hasn’t been talked to”—(not by
the silly speaker, let our readers understand,
but by good Miss Ophelia aforesaid,
for whom poor Topsy has been bought!
good-humouredly by Mr St Clare, simply
to try whether moral and religious training
can make anything of the little sooty
gnome)[4]—“and preached to, and every
earthly thing done that anybody could
do; and she’s just so ugly, and always
will be, you can’t make anything of the
creature!”
“But, mamma, it’s so different to be
brought up as I’ve been, with so many
friends—so many things to make me good
and happy; and to be brought up as she
has been, all the time, till she came here!”
“Most likely,” said Mrs St Clare, yawning.
“Dear me! how hot it is!”
“Mamma, you believe, don’t you, that
Topsy could become an angel, as well as
any of us, if she were a Christian?”
“Topsy! what a ridiculous idea! Nobody
but you would ever think of it!
I suppose she could, though!”
“But, mamma, isn’t God her father, as
much as ours? Isn’t Jesus her Saviour?”
“Well, that may be. I suppose God
made everybody.—Where’s my smelling-bottle?”’
This is very masterly. It has a
sort of rich stillness of satire, and, at
the same time, a truthfulness and suggestiveness
which make the reader
first admire the writer’s acute perception
of character and power of felicitous
dialogue, and then pause and
ponder the state of mind and feeling
revealed—that of frivolous, ignorant,
indifferent acquiescence!
The above extract incidentally indicates
another excellence of Mrs
Stowe. Her dialogue is almost always
admirable; brief, lively, pointed, and
characteristic—that is, when she does
not, so to speak, crowd too much sail
upon it, in her intense anxiety to be
didactic and hortatory on the great
subject on which her eyes are ever
fixed. When she yields to the
promptings of her own power over
character and expression, she exhibits
high dramatic capabilities. She
perceives a fine situation with the unerring
intuition of genius, and inspires
her characters with fitting sentiments,
conferring upon them appropriate
eloquence. Akin to this is the easy
strength of her narrative. She hurries
her reader along with her, breathless.
The flight and pursuit of poor
Eliza and her child—the incidents
selected to heighten the interest in
their fate—the introduction of Marks
and Tom Loker, and their interview
with Haley—their encounter at the
rocky pass with George and his wife
and child, are, in parts, worthy of the
pencil of Sir Walter Scott: but, it
must be added, that that consummate
master of his art would never
have drawn up suddenly in his exciting
course, to interpolate drivelling
allusions to Austria and the Hungarians,
Poland, Ireland, and England—or
tame and even irritating moralisings
at the very crisis of the adventure,
as is but too often the case with
Mrs Stowe. But this very fault,
and a serious one to a reader of fiction
it is, must be referred to a cause
infinitely and eternally honourable to
the author—her pure and noble purpose
in writing the book. With our
eye fixed on that purpose, we will
forgive her five times as many faults
of style and arrangement as she is
fairly chargeable with.
“In every work regard the writer’s end.”
And in the application of this obviously
just critical canon, we are disposed
to look, in the present case, with peculiar
benignity on miscarriages as to
means. One or two of them, however,
we must lightly indicate (for we are
in our critical chair) in addition to
those at which we have already
glanced.
We shall begin with a small matter.
It is evident that the writings of one
English author at least of the present
day have made a deep impression
on Mrs Stowe. This is Mr
Dickens, with whom, indeed, she has
much in common; but he must not
attribute it to mere gallantry, if we
express our opinion that there are
parts of Uncle Tom’s Cabin which
he never can surpass, which he
never has surpassed. She probes
human nature every whit as tenderly
and truly as he; her sympathies
are as keen and subtle, her spirit
is as generous, as his; her perception
of the humorous as quick and vivid
as his own. She shows also his—so to
speak—structural faults; which, in a
general way, we may indicate by saying,
that condensation and directness
of course would greatly improve the
compositions of both. A lively reader
hates to be detained on his way, in
order to have traced out for him the
source and operation of the motives by
which characters are actuated. He
likes to be given credit for a capacity
to do that for himself. It occurs to us,
that had Mr Dickens passed his life
among the same scenes as Mrs Stowe,
making allowance for certain special
circumstances affecting the latter, he
would have produced a work very
similar, in both its faults and excellencies,
to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. That she
is a reader, and doubtless an admirer
of his, is abundantly evident; for she
has closely copied his manner, and
that not in its most favourable manifestations,
but rather the more obvious
mannerisms. Mr Dickens might have
written this passage for her.
‘Carriage sticks fast, while Cudjoe on
the outside is heard making a great muster
among the horses. After various ineffectual
pullings and twitchings, just as
Senator is losing all patience, the carriage
suddenly rights itself with a bounce,
two front wheels go down into another
abyss, and Senator, woman, and child, all
tumble promiscuously on to the front seat;
Senator’s hat is jammed over his eyes and
nose quite unceremoniously, and he considers
himself fairly extinguished; child
cries, and Cudjoe on the outside delivers
animated addresses to the horses, who
are kicking, and floundering, and straining
under repeated cracks of the whip.
Carriage springs up with another bounce—down
go the hind wheels—Senator,
woman, and child, fly over on to the back
seat, his elbows encountering her bonnet,
and both her feet being jammed into his
hat, which flies off in the concussion.
After a few moments the “slough” is
passed, and the horses stop, panting; the
Senator finds his hat, the woman straightens
her bonnet, and hushes her child, and
they brace themselves firmly for what is
yet to come.’
Here again—
‘If any want to get up an inspiration,
under this head, “the beauty of old
women,” we refer them to our good
friend Rachel Halliday, just as she sits
there in her little rocking chair. It had
a turn for quaking and squeaking—that
chair had—either from having taken cold
in early life, or from some asthmatic affection,
or perhaps from nervous derangement.
But as she gently swung backward and
forward, the chair kept up a kind of
“creechy-crawchy” that would have been
intolerable in any other chair. But old
Simon Halliday often declared it was as
good as any music to him, and the children
all avowed that they wouldn’t miss
of hearing mother’s chair for anything in
the world.’
Another little mannerism acquired
from the same quarter is the use,
in grave composition, of the colloquial,
“can’t,” “won’t,” “didn’t,”
“couldn’t,” &c. &c. These are little
bits of vulgar slip-slop which are sad
eyesores to readers of taste; and we
cannot for the life of us see what end
is gained by introducing them into
black and white, except, perhaps, in
fitting dialogue.
We have already intimated a considerable
want of tact in Mrs Stowe, in
twitching aside, as it were, her reader,
when in full course of following her
breathless, to listen to some very self-obvious
and commonplace moralising.
Here is one most provoking instance.
Poor beautiful Eliza Harris, supported
by almost supernatural energy, is
flying from misery and infamy—her
little son close-clasped in her arms—with
but a little time to improve her
precarious chances of escape to Canada;
knowing that her little one is sold, and
that the blood-hounds may almost
then, even, be snuffing on her track!
’Tis early—very early—in a frosty
February morning; the sparkling stars
are looking down, as it were, out of
the cold silent heavens with pitying
looks on the poor fugitive. She hastily
hushes her child into silence, as
“with vague terror he clings round her
neck.” He could have walked;—but
let good Mrs Stowe’s own fleet pencil
tell of her heroine’s feathery movements:—
‘Her boy was old enough to have walked
by her side, and in an indifferent case she
would only have led him by the hand;
but now the bare thought of putting him
out of her arms made her shudder; and
she strained him to her bosom with a convulsive
grasp as she went rapidly forward.
The frosty ground creaked beneath her
feet, and she trembled at the sound; every
quaking leaf and fluttering shadow sent
the blood backward to her heart, and
quickened her footsteps. She wondered
within herself at the strength that seemed
to be come upon her—for she felt the
weight of her boy as if it had been a
feather, and every flutter of fear seemed
to increase the supernatural power that
bore her on; while from her pale lips
burst forth, in frequent ejaculations, the
prayer to a Friend above—“Lord, help!
Lord, save me!”’
While the reader—perhaps herself a
palpitating mother, almost blinded
with her tears—is flying along with
the dear fugitive and her child, bah!
she is arrested, to listen to twaddle—we
must say it—as follows:—
‘If it were your Harry, mother, or your
Willy, that were going to be torn from
you by a brutal trader to-morrow morning—if
you had seen the man, and heard
that the papers were signed and delivered,
and you had only from twelve o’clock till
morning to make good your escape—how
fast could you walk? How many miles
could you make in those few brief hours,
with the darling at your bosom—the little
sleepy head on your shoulder—the small
soft arms trustingly holding on to your
neck?’
Forgive us, dear Mrs Stowe, if we
gently reproach you for thus marring
your own beautiful narrative, and also
giving English mothers credit for being
so obtuse and phlegmatic as to be unable
to realise all these thoughts and
feelings as they are hasting along
with you!
And there are very many such instances
of defective workmanship. A
considerable portion of these consists
of preaching—always, doubtless, perfectly
orthodox and evangelical, but
smacking too strongly—will she forgive
us?—of the conventicle twang.
After all, however, Mrs Stowe must
be tried by the canon already cited—“regard
the writer’s end;” and doubtless
she knows that portion of the
American public for which she chiefly
writes, and what kind and amount of
hard-hitting, so to speak, is necessary
to make an impression on sensibilities
enclosed in rhinoceros hide. We do
not say that it is so; but we suppose
that Mrs Stowe has classes of hard
people in view, and knew the rough
force requisite to hit home.
All these, however, and other similar
little matters which might be mentioned,
are mere motes in sunbeams,
when regarded by the eye of a just
and generous criticism; which only
regrets, every now and then, that the
gifted authoress had not had the advantage
of submitting her MS., or her
printed sheets, to the eye of some
competent censor, capable of seizing
the scope of her noble purpose, and
solicitous to remove every obstacle in
the way of her attaining it. But she
evidently did not write for us in England—in
Europe; nor did this pious
daughter of genius dream of the world-wide
fame which she was destined to
acquire. She has assured us, in print,
that, “when writing Uncle Tom’s Cabin,”
she was “entirely unaware and
unexpectant of the importance which
would be attached to its statements
and opinions.” We implicitly believe
her; and our heart gives her its entire
confidence, as to a simple-minded and
gifted Christian woman, writing out
of the fulness of her heart, in order to
open before the eyes of free shuddering
Christendom a hideous and blood-smeared
page of living humanity. She
has repeatedly and solemnly asseverated
that she has taken the greatest
possible pains not to mis-state or exaggerate
the case against slavery; that
she speaks from long personal observation;
and, in short, “that this
work, more than any other work of
fiction that ever was written, has been
a collection and arrangement of real
incidents, of actions really performed,
of words and expressions really uttered,
grouped together with reference to a
general result, in the same manner
that the mosaic artist groups his fragments
of various stones into one general
picture. His is a mosaic of
gems—this is a mosaic of facts....
The book had a purpose entirely transcending
artistic purpose, and accordingly
encounters, at the hands of the
public, demands not usually made on
fictitious works. It is treated as a
reality—sifted, tried, and tested as a
reality; and, therefore, as a reality it
may be proper that it should be defended....
It is a very inadequate
representation of slavery, and necessarily
so, for this reason—that slavery,
in some of its workings, is too dreadful
for the purpose of art. A work
which should represent it strictly as
it is, would be a work which could
not be read.” “The writer,” she adds,
in the preface to her Key, “has aimed,
as far as was possible, to say what is
true.... She has used the
most honest and earnest endeavours
to learn the truth.” ... “And
the book is commended to the candid
attention and earnest prayers of all
Christians throughout the world.”
These are grave statements, especially
when falling from the pen of one who
had already secured a world-wide
hearing; and by the light of such
statements Uncle Tom’s Cabin ought
to be read, unless Mrs Stowe’s means
of knowledge, or her truthfulness, can
be seriously impeached. Looked at
in this light, the writer is regarded as
actuated by a magnificent spirit: one
which cannot stoop to regard petty
carping and cavilling, and need concern
itself with nothing but grave and
temperate objections based upon facts.
It will not do for her American critics
to aver, that, “without being actuated
by wrong motives in the preparation
of this work, she has done a wrong
which no ignorance can excuse, and no
penance can expiate”[5]—unless such
an allegation can be sustained by unequivocal
evidence of exaggeration,
misrepresentation, and falsehood. All
we shall say at present is, that if
Mrs Stowe is to be believed by her
reader, he will lay down her book, on
having deliberately read it, with feelings
and thoughts too painful and
deep for utterance, and which ought
to lead to action.
The title of Mrs Stowe’s book—“Uncle
Tom’s Cabin”—is far from
commensurate with the scope of the
fiction, or rather series of “pictures,”
of which it consists. The cabin is not
the scene of any events of importance
to the story. It is not impossible that
her intention originally was to confine
her pencil to the delineation of Tom,
his residence, family, relations, and
the incidents which befell item personally
through the operation of slavery.
Uncle Tom and his fortunes
might have constituted a work by itself,
and those of George and Eliza Harris,
a second. The former might have
been called Uncle Tom, and the latter
George and Eliza; or The Cabin,
and The Flight; for there are two
classes of adventures quite separate
from each other—the experiences of
the submissive, and the adventures
of the recalcitrant, slave. It is true
that the authoress seeks to link them
together, at starting, by making Uncle
Tom and Eliza Harris fellow-slaves
of the same master and mistress, and
Uncle Tom and Eliza’s child, Harry,
the subjects of a joint sale to the slave-trader;
but beyond this slight connection
there is none other. Eliza,
with her sold child, pays only one
hasty affrighted midnight visit to the
cabin of Uncle Tom; but her husband
is never shown near it. At the very
end of the story, however, Mrs Stowe
seems to have had suggested to her
the propriety of coupling the fates of
her characters together in some way
or other—so that, in a manner which
may provoke the smile of a veteran
novelist, she contrives to make a
female slave, Cassy, whom Tom encounters
at the close of his career,
prove to be the mother of Eliza Harris;
and a lady passenger, who happens,
by the merest accident on earth,
to be in the steamboat in which the
aforesaid slave is escaping, turns out
to be the sister of George Harris!
Rather a fortunate coincidence this,
it must be owned. Thus it is, that,
under the title “Uncle Tom’s Cabin—a
Picture of Slave Life in America,”
there are two distinct threads of story,
only nominally and arbitrarily connected
together; while on each is strung
a series of interesting, affecting, and
even horrifying incidents, developing
character, and the working of institutions
upon it.
Let us now give some account of
the style in which she has executed
her work.
The tale opens with a very skilfully
contrived scene, the object being to arrest
attention, without plunging into
horrors which might at first shock a
reader, and render him incredulous;
and yet it is very startling to a European
not familiar with slavery. It is
a tête-à-tête between a respectable
Kentuckian planter, involved by over-speculation,
and the slave-dealer
Haley, an impudent, swaggering,
hard-hearted, gaudily-dressed brute,
who bargains over his brandy-and-water
for flesh and blood, just as he
would do in respect of a bale of cotton.
Mrs Stowe opens the wretch’s character,
as it were an oyster, with a firm
and practised hand. It is quickly
seen that the subject of chaffering is
the sale of poor Tom, with whom Mr
Shelby is reluctantly compelled to
part, as some of his heaviest “paper”
had found its way into the hands of
Mr Haley. In this introductory dialogue
we meet with new and fearful
phraseology, as applied to human
beings. Mrs Stowe, with much tact,
contrives, by a word or two, to excite
the reader’s interest in Tom long before
he comes on the scene. In enumerating
his good qualities, Mr Shelby
speaks of poor Tom’s religious character
as a guarantee of his fidelity.
This is how it strikes the slave-dealer.
“Some folks don’t believe there’s pious
niggers, Shelby; but I do. I had a
feller, now, in this yer last lot I
took to Orleans—’twas as good as
a meetin’ now, really, to hear that
critter pray!... He fetched me a good
sum, too; for I bought him cheap of
a man that was ’bliged to sell out”
(a tasteful allusion to the exact quandary
of his companion!) “so I realised
six hundred on him. Yes.—I consider
religion a valeyable thing in a nigger,
when it’s the genuine article, and no
mistake!” By and by, in bursts
little Harry, romping about the room,
trotted out by Mr Shelby, to amuse
his hateful companion by his quaint
antics; who had first asked, as the child
entered—while the two gentlemen!
were haggling about the price of Tom—“Well;
haven’t you a boy or a gal
that you could throw in with Tom?”...
After a while, Mr Haley adds—“I’ve
got a friend that’s going into
this yer branch of the business—and
wants to buy up handsome boys to
raise for the market—fancy articles
entirely!” Mr Shelby having hinted
his reluctance to separate the child
from his beautiful mother, who had
just withdrawn him from the room,
Mr Haley favours his companion with
the result of his experiences in such
matters; deprecating doing anything
rashly (“though these critters arn’t
like white folks, you know”), lest—lest—it
should injure the mother’s health,
and lower her price in the market!
And he mentions a grievous blunder
made by a friend of his, who too suddenly
sold away a mother’s baby, on
which she “jist went ravin’ mad, and
died in a week—clear waste, sir, of a
thousand dollars, jist for want of management—there’s
where’t is. It’s always
best to do the humane thing, sir;
that’s been my experience.” (By this
time, our gentleman reader is disposed
to fling friend Haley through the window;
and our lady reader—but, oh!
as for her, we have much more serious
matter in store). Mr Shelby, it is intimated,
was desirous to help Mr Haley
down stairs with a kick, but he was
Mr Shelby’s creditor! On the former’s
return, his debtor’s scruples have been
overcome; and poor good old Tom,
and little Harry, have become the property
of Mr Haley, who is to take them
away the next morning! The whole
of this introductory scene is highly
creditable to Mrs Stowe’s powers: it
is graphic and dramatic, character
and incident being hit off with a quiet
strength, auguring well for the rest of
her performance. She has not overdrawn
Haley. She has given us quite
enough to startle and disgust us with—the
system, more than the individual,
and has at the same time relieved the
reader’s mind by a just perceptible
strain of drollery and piquant satire.
But how distinctly you see, all the
while, the dismayed and ungratefully-treated
patriarch, old Tom, and the
beautiful mother, with bleeding heart
soon to come before us—the one, his
big heart heaving with grief and astonishment;
the mother’s, bleeding and
broken! The first few chapters of this
work will satisfy the most fastidious
reader that he is sitting down before
the production of a great artist. The
scene enacting in Uncle Tom’s cabin,
during the time that his master is selling
him to Haley, and consigning him
to those of unknown suffering and
death, is first-rate, and peculiarly racy
to European readers; who, though
strangers to such scenes, feel that
this must be painted to the very life.
From the first to the end of the eighth
chapter, including also the tenth, we
are conducted, indeed, “from gay to
grave, from lively to severe;” the
lights and shadows of negro life are
brought before us with equal vividness
and distinctness, by scenes most happily
contrived, without a tinge of exaggeration,
or a disfiguring touch of
coarseness. Mr and Mrs Shelby are
just what they ought to be, without any
marked characteristics; the reader’s
attention being thus fixed undisturbedly
on the new figures of Haley, Uncle
Tom and Aunt Chloe, George and
Eliza Harris, Marks, and Tom Loker,
as well as the skittish, frolicsome, mischievous,
and selfish negro servants.
The story, too, is advancing; Tom
is on his journey, manacled and fettered,
in the slave-waggon with Haley,
whose pursuit after Eliza and her child
has been hitherto in vain, in spite of
his grim auxiliaries; and George also
has started safe on the desperate race
for freedom: the little we have seen
of him induces us heartily to say—God
speed you! brave soul, you are worthy
of the prize—may you win it!
The ninth chapter introduces us to
quite a different scene—Senator Bird,
and his bustling little soft-hearted
wife, who became the host and hostess
of fugitive Eliza—the pallid, the
breathless—with tottering knees and
bleeding feet—who has been led by the
Kentuckian, who had helped her up the
bank of the river, to the house of the
senator and his wife, just as they are
discussing—the abolition question.
They, their children, and their quiet
home-scene, are beautifully sketched—as
are the means by which Eliza
and her child are conducted to a place
of temporary succour and safety.
The eleventh chapter introduces us
to a different time and locality—an
evening in a remote Kentucky hotel.
The wild Kentuckian guests squat
about and straddle their legs, and chew,
and spit, before us. What a gathering
of hats of all shapes and sizes—“quite
a Shakspearian study!”—is before
us! We see them all, and can conjecture
the stranger aspect of those
who wear them! It is here that our disguised
friend George turns up, in the
way we have mentioned. ’Tis here
that he says, with erect form and
flashing eye, to his former kind master,
Mr Wilson, “I’ve said Mas’r for the
last time to any man! I’m free!”
“Take care. You may be taken,”
replies good Mr Wilson, apprehensively.
“All men are free and equal in
the grave, if it comes to that, Mr Wilson,”
says lion-hearted George, who
is armed to the teeth.... “Good-by,
sir; if you hear that I’m taken,
you may know that I’m dead!” He
stood up like a rock, and put out his
hand with the air of a prince. Well
done, Mrs Stowe! And how tenderly
she presently smites the rock
of his resolution, till the pent-up
waters of a husband and a father
gush forth! So do those of Mr Wilson,
as he accepts poor George’s little
commission, to give to his wife the
pin which she had formerly given to
him as a Christmas present, and beseech
her to get to Canada if ever she
have the means, “and,” he adds, “tell
her to bring up our boy A FREE MAN!”
Chapter XII. gives us a hateful
glimpse of an auction sale of slaves;
after which we accompany friend
Haley, with poor Tom and some other
human cattle, in La Belle Rivière, a
boat on the Ohio, “floating gaily down
the stream,” stuffed full of slaves,
“under a brilliant sky, the stripes and
stars of free America waving and
fluttering overhead!” Who can read
without a shudder of the young
mother, whose infant has been deceitfully
sold from her—who is suddenly
told of her bereavement: “she did
not scream, the shot had passed too
straight and direct through her heart
for cry or tear. Dizzily she sate
down. Her slack hands fell lifeless by
her side. Her eyes looked straight
forward, but she saw nothing. All
the noise and the hum of the boat,
the groaning of the machinery, mingled
dreamily to the bewildered ear;
and the poor dumb-stricken heart had
neither cry nor tear to show for its
utter misery. She was quite calm.”
In vain, during the bright starlight
solitude and silence, had poor Tom,
forgetting his own griefs—his forlorn
wife and children—crawled for a moment
to her side, and tried to whisper
a word of comfort from the New
Testament. Her heart was palsied;
and some time afterwards the good
old slave was startled from his doze.
“Something black passed by him
quickly, ... he heard a
splash in the water.... No
one else had seen or heard anything.
He got up and searched—the woman’s
place was vacant—the poor bleeding
heart was still at last, and the river
rippled and dimpled just as brightly
as if it had not closed above that
heart!”—“Where alive is that gal?”
said her new master, perplexedly, in
the morning, searching every corner
of the boat in vain; and then trying
to make up his mind to the loss of so
many dollars’ worth, with what philosophy
he might.
Chapter XIII. finds Eliza and her
husband in the Quaker settlement, all
prim, precise, kindly, thoughtful, and
resolute about securing the safety of
the fugitives. “Thou’rt safe here by
daylight,” said his hospitable host
Simeon, “for every one in the settlement
is a Friend, and all are watching.
Moreover, it is safer to travel by
night.” Thus ends the chapter. The
next three, XIV., XV., XVI., in continuation
with chapters XVIII., XIX.,
XX., XXII., XXIII., XXIV., XXV.,
XXVI.,
XXVII., XXVIII., XXIX., (that is, fourteen,
or upwards of a third of the entire
work) find us in widely distant
and different scenes,—travelling up
the magnificent Mississippi, and finally
housed at New Orleans, and moving
among a new set of characters: Tom
having, on the voyage, changed hands,
and become the property of Mr St
Clare, grateful for his having saved the
life of his daughter Eva—for she falls
over boat side into the water, and Tom
plunges in after her. This is a somewhat
startling incident, and it was
not quite necessary to peril the fragile
little creature’s life, in order to supply
her father with an inducement to buy
Tom. Story-tellers should never use
greater machinery to bring about their
ends than is adequate. The doing so
generally argues a deficiency of power
or invention. In the present instance
the gentle reader’s feelings are shocked,
and needlessly; for as little Evangeline
St Clare was the only and
idolised child of her father, who was
onboard, and wanted a coachman—having
dismissed his own for drunkenness—what
more natural than for Tom,
having gained, as in a very pretty and
natural way he had done, the affection
of little Eva on the voyage, to
occur to her, and to her father, as a
good successor to his discarded Jehu?
A silvery word or two from Eva’s
sweet little lips would have sufficed,
and Tom, in the quietest way in the
world, would have become the sable
chattel of Mr St Clare. Observe, the
very idea had occurred to Eva before
her sudden and superfluous immersion,
and she herself had told him of her
intention.
‘... “So, Uncle Tom, where are you
going?”
“I don’t know, Miss Eva.”
“Don’t know,” quoth she, concernedly.
“No, I am going to be sold to somebody.
I don’t know who.”
“My papa can buy you,” said Eva
quickly, “and if he buys you, you will
have good times. I mean to ask him to[6]
this very day.”
“Thank you, my little lady,” said Tom.’
Five minutes afterwards Mrs Stowe
has heart enough to let the benevolent
little creature go overboard, simply
to be rescued by Tom! Nor is the
incident told forcibly; and it elicits
no unusual trait of character in anybody.
Having thus introduced Tom
to new places and persons, let us give
a general account of this elaborate
episodical portion of Mrs Stowe’s undertaking.
The figures in the foreground of
this large picture are—Mr and Mrs
St Clare, his cousin Miss Ophelia,
his daughter Eva (or Evangeline),
Topsy, and Uncle Tom. Those in the
background are Mr St Clare’s brother,
his youthful son Henrique, and a
confused heap of domestic slaves—all
as happy as happy can be, under
the protection of their wealthy, indolent,
good-natured proprietor, Mr
St Clare; but there is also, almost
hid in the dark shadow, one Prue!
As for Tom, the lines have fallen to
him in exceedingly pleasant places;
he leads a life of only nominal servitude—the
huge pet of pretty little
Eva, and consequently a favourite
of her father. Here Mrs Stowe has
evidently expended much greater
pains than on any other portion of
her work; but we doubt greatly
whether she will be satisfied with
our judgment on the subject. Speaking
as English critics, we are of
opinion that Topsy is worth all the
others, ten times over; then comes
Mrs St Clare; then the cook, ladies’-maids,
and the valet Adolph; then
Miss Ophelia, then Eva, and then
Mr St Clare. The others have
nothing distinctive about them, and
seem introduced simply to “draw out”
the characters and opinions of Mr
St Clare and his daughter Eva.
Augustine St Clare and his brother
Alfred are of Canadian descent—the
sons of a wealthy Louisianian planter;
their mother having been a lovely
and pious Huguenot French lady,
whose family had been early emigrants
to Louisiana; and these two
had been her only children. It is with
Augustine[7] that we are at present
concerned; and he having been crossed
in love, through the cunning cupidity
of the young lady’s guardians—in
disgust, and to show his indifference
towards one whom he erroneously
supposed to have jilted him, married
the wealthy reigning belle of the season—“a
fine figure, a pair of bright
dark eyes, and—a hundred thousand
dollars.” Her husband was of a “sensitive
temperament”—“gay, easy,
unpunctual, unpractical, sceptical.”
Indeed, he himself declares, as to this
last, “religion is a remarkably scarce
article at our house.” Almost immediately
after his marriage, he received
a letter from the lady to whom he had
been “so passionately—romantically”
attached, explaining the true state
of matters. She was yet unmarried,
and wrote fervently to him, supposing
him also unmarried!
“Thus ended the whole romance
and ideal of life for Augustine St
Clare,” whose wife was the mere incarnation
of silliness, vanity, selfishness,
and tyranny, as far as she
dared to show this last. Her husband
treated her, from first to last, with
undisguised but laughing contempt;
but it may be doubtful whether she
really appreciated the extent to
which he civilly despised her.
‘“Mr St Clare, I wish you wouldn’t
whistle,” said Marie; “it makes my
head worse.”
“I won’t,” replied St Clare. “Is
there anything else you would wish me
not to do?”
“I wish you would have some kind of
sympathy for my trials; you never have
any feeling for me!”
“My dear accusing angel!” said
St Clare.
“It’s provoking to be talked to in
that way!”
“Then, how will you be talked to?
I’ll talk to order—any way you’ll mention,
only to give satisfaction.”...
“St Clare always laughs when I
make the least allusion to my ill health,”
said Marie, with the voice of a suffering
martyr. “I only hope the day won’t
come when he’ll remember it!” she
added, and put her handkerchief to her
eyes. Of course, there was a rather
foolish silence.’
Happy couple! But we think we
have such in our own island home!
Mrs St Clare was “beautiful, accomplished,
and an heiress—having no
doubt that Augustine was a most
fortunate man in having obtained
her.” “It is a great mistake,”
justly observes Mrs Stowe, “to suppose
that a woman with no heart
will be an easy creditor in the exchange
of affection. There is not on
earth a more merciless exactor of
love from others than a thoroughly
selfish woman; and the more unlovely
she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously
she exacts love to the uttermost
farthing.” At length she brings
her husband a solitary child—Evangeline—whom
he names after his gifted,
beloved, and sainted mother. From
the time of Eva’s birth, her mother’s
health “gradually sunk. A life of
constant inaction, bodily and mental—the
friction of ceaseless ennui and
discontent, united to the ordinary
weakness which attended the period
of maternity, in the course of a few
years changed the blooming young
belle into a yellow, faded, sickly woman,
whose time was divided among
a variety of fanciful diseases, and who
considered herself in every sense the
most ill-used and suffering person in
existence.”
Such a woman as this, being
worse than a mere cipher in his establishment,
and Eva’s health requiring
change of air, he had taken her to
Vermont for a season; bringing back
with him his cousin Ophelia—a
spinster of forty-five; a model of
propriety, exactitude, and a sort of
hard conscientiousness. She was the
absolute bond-slave of the “ought.”
Her standard of right was so high,
so all-embracing, so minute, and
making so few concessions to human
frailty, that, though she strove with
heroic ardour to reach it, she never
actually did so, and of course was
burdened with a constant and often
harassing sense of deficiency. This
gave a severe and somewhat gloomy
cast to her religious character.
The contrast between this starched,
prim, yet worthy beau-ideal of Duty
and “gay, easy, unpunctual, unpractical”
St Clare is well conceived, and
nearly as well carried out before the
reader, who gradually conceives a
kind of respect for her, which seems
continually on the point of warming
into regard; but the predominant
idea in his mind is, that Miss Ophelia
would make an excellent housekeeper
in—somebody else’s establishment:
for himself, she would—he fears—be
too good, and, too hard—and—“tall,
square-formed, and angular.” What
a treasure, however, thinks he, for
a widowed cousin—three hundred
miles off, with eight or ten wild
boys and girls to break in! Mrs
Stowe tells us, that Miss Ophelia
is “the representative of a very numerous
class of the very best of
northern people, of activity, zeal,
unflinching conscientiousness, clear
intellectual discrimination between
truth and error, and great logical and
doctrinal correctness;[8] but with a
want of that SPIRIT OF LOVE, without
which, in the eye of Christ, the most
perfect character is as deficient as a
wax flower, wanting in life and perfume....
Yet that blessed principle is
not dead, but only sleepeth, and always
answers to the touch of the true
magnet—divine love.” She, however,
“unconsciously represents one great sin—the
prejudice of caste, and colour.”
Even in the New England States,
where slavery has been abolished by
law, this prejudice flourishes in full
and fell vigour, despite, even, the
melting sunbeams of Christianity!
Those who will nobly stint themselves
of luxuries, and almost necessaries,
to send the gospel to the distant
dark heathens—at home, loathe the
sight and contiguity of their black
brother, and exhibit it even in the
house of God. “Supposing,” Mrs
Stowe says, solemnly and finely, “our
Lord was now on earth as he was
once, what course is it probable that
he would pursue with regard to this
unchristian prejudice of colour? There
was a class of men in those days,
as much despised by the Jews as
the negroes are by us; and it was
a complaint made of Christ that he
was a friend of publicans and sinners.
And if Christ should enter, on some
communion season, into a place of
worship, and see the coloured man
sitting afar off by himself, would it
not be just in His spirit to go there
and sit with him, rather than to take
the seats of his richer and more prosperous
brethren?”
The character of Miss Ophelia is
most happily developed, by means,
principally, of Topsy—the Gem of
the book, of whom more anon; and
that character is, as will be seen,
proper to the moral climate of New
England; whereas, according to Mrs
Stowe herself, “Mrs St Clare is the
type of a class of women not peculiar
to any latitude, nor any condition in
society ... she may be found in England,
or America.” The same, indeed,
is to be said of “Alfred and Augustine
St Clare, who represent,” she
says, “two classes of men which are
to be found in all countries, the radically
aristocratic and democratic men.”
In defining her “aristocrat” and
“democrat,” it must be borne in mind
that she is speaking of American exhibitions
of those characters, and as
connected with the relation of slaveholders.
On this subject we might
make many observations; but content
ourselves with saying, that, in
the main, we concur with Mrs Stowe’s
views, as expounded by herself, with
reference to the perilousness of intrusting
man with practically irresponsible
authority over his fellow-man.
That state of society is essentially
vicious, and foully rotten before
the eyes of our Almighty Maker, who
hath made of one blood all nations of
men for to dwell on all the face of the
earth, which does not make THE
LAWS the indifferent and easily accessible
protector, vindicator, and
avenger of every human being living
in that state.
The two brothers discuss frequently,
and with considerable force, the question
of slavery, as to its consistency
or inconsistency with an enlightened
and civilised system of laws, and the
spirit and precepts of Christianity.
Why Mrs Stowe should have thought
it necessary to represent her favourite
St Clare as a sceptic on religious subjects,
is not quite clear; unless, indeed,
she intends to intimate that
it is a dark and grievous characteristic
of the whole class which he
represents. Perhaps it may be, unfortunately,
so; and, indeed, she seems,
with bitter sarcasm, to hint that one
thing which tends to produce this result
is, the cool accommodation of the
principles and precepts of the Gospel
to the existing order of things in the
slave states, in even their vilest aspects.
Upon the whole, however,
Mrs Stowe succeeds in satisfying the
reader that her gentleman hero is a
manly fellow, with all his faults. His
love of his little daughter, his grief
as he perceives her withering away
before his eyes under the blight of
consumption, his anguish and despair
when she is taken from him, are
all told touchingly—very touchingly,
with true pathos. So also the fondness
with which he cherishes the
memory of his mother. He forms the
resolution to give poor Tom his freedom;
but as it is necessary, for the
exigencies of the story, to get poor
Tom into worse hands, there is no
other way occurs to the author than
to make Mr St Clare die abruptly;
and the most suitable mode of bringing
about that result is, when his
moral being has been soothed and
solemnised by a religious conversation
with his cousin Ophelia, in which he
says he “does not know what makes
him think so much of his mother that
night.” He “has a strange kind of
feeling as if she were near him ...;”
he by and by says, “I believe I’ll go
down street and hear the news to-night.”
He gets into a café; and
while reading the paper, an affray
arises between two partially intoxicated
gentlemen; he “attempts to
wrest a bowie knife from one of them,
who gives him a fatal stab with it in
the side.” He is brought home on
a shutter, wrapped in a cloak, to
the consternation of all in the house,
and dies the same evening, having
first said to Tom, “pray!” He dies,
“opening his eyes with a sudden
light, as of joy and recognition, and
saying ‘mother’—and then he was
gone.”
Eva is evidently a favourite creation
of the author’s, and she is undoubtedly
a gentle and sweet little
spirit, suggesting the tenderest
thoughts of love and pity; but a mere
worldly reader is apt to think, with a
little impatience, that she is so very
good; she talks so much beyond her
years;[9] and challenges our admiration,
with the confidence of a pattern
child. No one can find fault with
anything she says or does; but unfortunately,
you see that the writer
from the first intended her to be a
little piece of perfection. Frail and
sensitive human nature is a little irritated
by this, and suspects something
factitious. It says, peevishly, “I
know many good and charming children,
but here’s an angel in flesh!”
When, however, our excellent and
pious author herself tells us, that “the
gentle Eva is an impersonation, in
childish form, of the love of Christ—”
worldly criticism utters not another
word, but reverences the writer’s
motives. Here is little Eva’s death—
‘St Clare saw a spasm of mortal agony
pass over the face.... “Eva!”
said he, presently, gently. She did not
hear. “Oh, Eva, tell us what you see!
What is it?” A bright, a glorious smile
passed over her face, and she said,
brokenly,—“Oh, love—joy—peace!” gave
one sigh, and passed from death to life.’
It might have been grander, perhaps,
if her voiceless response, had
been that “glorious smile,” reflecting
the ineffable happiness—the suddenly
seen glory of heaven. Are not these
words, again, more likely to have
fallen from an adult, than a mere
child?—Let the spectator’s eye now
be turned heavily towards the darkest
portion of the background—and there
is crouching a grisly figure—old Prue—“cross
old Prue”—as even sweet
Eva styled her! This creature is introduced
and disposed of by the author,
with a certain dreadful power; she is
seen for but a short space—but in
that short space, what a tale of horror
does she tell!
Prue was a tall, bony, coloured
woman, with a scowling expression of
countenance, and a sullen, grumbling
voice. Her office was, to carry on her
head a basket of rusks and hot rolls to
Mr St Clare’s house.
‘She set down her basket (in the kitchen),
squatted herself down, and resting her
elbows on her knees, said—“O, Lord!
I wish I’se dead!”
“Why do you wish you were dead?”
asked Miss Ophelia.
“I’d be out of my misery,” said the
woman, gruffly, without taking her eyes
from the floor.’
She is among the merry, saucy,
black and quadroon servants, who
jibe her, as soon as Miss Ophelia is
gone. The only one who notices her
is Tom, who offers to carry her basket
for her, and tries to persuade her to
leave off drinking—to which misery
has driven her. She wishes herself
in hell—Tom shuddering the while—to
be out of her misery.
‘“Where was you raised?” he asked.
“Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to
breed chil’en for market, and sold ’em as
fast as they got big enough; last of all,
he sold me to a speculator, and my mas’r
(a baker), got me o’ him.”
“What set you into this bad way of
drinkin?”
“To get shet of my misery.”’
And she proceeds to describe that
misery; and many a tender mother
has sickened and shuddered over the
next eighteen lines.
A few days afterwards another
woman came in old Prue’s place, to
bring the rusks. On being asked
about her by Dinah, another servant,
she says, mysteriously, “Prue isn’t
coming any more!”
‘“Why not?” inquires Dinah. “She
an’t dead, is she?”
“We doesn’t exactly know. She’s down
cellar,” said the woman, glancing at Miss
Ophelia. After Miss Ophelia had taken
the rusks, Dinah followed the woman to
the door.
“What has got Prue, anyhow?” she
said.
The woman seemed desirous, yet reluctant,
to speak, and answered in a low,
mysterious tone. “Well, you mustn’t
tell nobody. Prue, she got drunk agin—and
they had her down cellar—and thar
they left her all day; and I hearn ’em
saying that the flies had got to her—and
she’s dead!”’
The unhappy wretch had been
whipped to death in a cellar, left there,
and—“the flies had got to her!” Miss
Ophelia’s honest soul was fired with
indignation on hearing it; and when
she expressed her kindled womanly
feelings to Mr St Clare, he received it
with levity, “peeling his orange,”
while good excited Miss Ophelia is
denouncing it as “perfectly abominable”—and
answering her with
badinage; gaily adding, “My dear
cousin, I didn’t do it, and I can’t
help it; I would, if I could!”
Let us turn, however, from this revolting
incident, to Mrs Stowe’s chef-d’œuvre—the
inimitable Topsy—a
true psychological curiosity—a character
quite new to us, and delineated
by the pencil of a consummate limner.
The portrait will not bear an additional
touch, nor the loss of one that
has been given it. It exactly satisfies
the critical eye.
We have already given the reader
Topsy’s presentation to Miss Ophelia.
Here is the little black imp in propriâ
personâ before you, as Mr St Clare
paraded her before the astounded
eye of his prim cousin:—
‘She was eight or nine years of age—one
of the blackest of her race; and her
round, shining eyes, glittering as glass
beads, moved with quick and restless
glances over everything in the room. Her
mouth, half open with astonishment at
the wonders of the new mas’r’s parlour,
displayed a white and brilliant set of
teeth. Her woolly hair was braided in
sundry little tails, which stuck out in
every direction. The expression of the
face was an odd mixture of shrewdness
and cunning, over which was oddly
drawn, like a kind of veil, an expression
of the most doleful gravity and solemnity.
She was dressed in a single filthy,
ragged garment, made of bagging; and
stood with her hands demurely folded
before her. Altogether there was something
queer and goblin-like about her appearance.
“Here, Topsy,” said Mr St
Clare, giving a whistle, as a man would to
call the attention of a dog, “give us a
song, now, and show us some of your
dancing.” The black glassy eyes glittered
with a kind of wicked drollery, and The
Thing struck up, in a clear shrill voice, an
odd negro melody, to which she kept
time with her hands and feet, spinning
round, clapping her hands, knocking her
knees together, in a wild, fantastic sort of
time, and producing in her throat all
those strange guttural sounds which distinguish
the native music of her race;
and, finally, turning a somerset or two,
and giving a prolonged closing note, as
odd and unearthly as that of a steam
whistle, she came suddenly down on the
carpet, and stood with her hands folded,
and a most sanctimonious expression of
meekness and solemnity over her face,
only broken by the cunning glances which
she shot, askance, from the corners of her
eyes. Miss Ophelia stood silent, perfectly
paralysed with amazement.’
A world of scrubbing and cleansing
brings to sight “great welts and calloused
(?) spots”—ineffaceable marks
of the system under which she had
grown up that far, at the sight of
which the heart of Miss Ophelia—who
had a horrid repugnance to the
touch of a nigger!—“became pitiful
within her!” She had compelled
Jane, one of the quadroon maids, to
assist her in the task of ablution, as
she did, tossing her head with disgust;
the “young one” “scanning,
with a keen and furtive glance of her
flickering eyes, the ornaments which
Jane wore in her ears!”
When arrayed, at last, in a suit
of decent clothing, and her hair had
been cropped close to her head, Miss
Ophelia sits down to question the
thing; who tells her, with a grin
showing all her glittering teeth, that
she does not know how old she is;
that she never had a mother; never
was born; never had no father, nor
mother, nor nothin. “I was raised by
a speculator, with lots of others. Old
Aunt Sue used to take care on us.”
‘“Have you ever heard anything about
God, Topsy?” She looked bewildered,
and grinned.
“Do you know who made you?”
“Nobody, as I knows on,” said the
child, with a short laugh. “I ’spect I
grow’d! Don’t think nobody ever made
me!”’...
“Virgin soil here,” indeed, as St
Clare slily suggested to his dismayed
cousin. By and by—behold Topsy,
washed and shorn, arrayed in a clean
gown, with well-starched apron, standing
reverently before Miss Ophelia,
with an expression of solemnity well
befitting a funeral, while she carefully
initiates her sooty little charge into
the mysteries of bed-making. Topsy
pays profound attention to all the
directions about under-sheets, bolsters,
and turning down; but not too
profound to prevent her, the young
disciple, when her teacher’s back was
turned for a moment, snatching a
pair of gloves and a ribbon, which
she adroitly slipped into her sleeves,
and stood with her hands duly folded
as before!
Being required, by and by, to reduce
her lessons to practice, out drops
from her sleeve an end of the purloined
ribbon! at which she looks, when
furiously challenged, with innocent
wonder. She declares solemnly she
had never seen it till that minute;
and when angrily shaken by Miss
Ophelia, out dropped the gloves from
the other sleeve! Topsy now owns to
the gloves, steadily denying the ribbon;
but, threatened with a whipping, confesses
to both, with woeful expressions
of penitence. Being adjured
to “confess” if she has taken anything
else, the little wretch owns to having
taken “Miss Eva’s red thing she wears
round her neck,” and Rosa’s red earrings,
and having burnt them! “Burnt
them! why did you do that?” inquires
the astounded lady. “’Cause
I’se wicked—I is! It’s mighty wicked,
anyhow. I can’t help it!” But in
a moment or two’s time, Eva and
Rosa make their appearance, with
necklace and earrings as usual, never
having parted with them.
“I’m sure I can’t tell what to do with
such a child,” said Miss Ophelia in despair.
“What did you tell me you took
these things for, Topsy?”
“Why, missis said I must ’fess; and I
couldn’t think of nothing else to ’fess,”
said Topsy, rubbing her eyes.
“But, of course, I didn’t want you to
confess to things you didn’t do. That’s
telling a lie just as much as the other.”
“Laws, now, is it?” said Topsy, with
an air of innocent wonder!’
Here is an impressive contrast:—
‘Eva stood looking at Topsy. There
stood the two children, representatives of
the two extremes of society. The fair,
high-bred child, with her golden head,
her deep eyes, her spiritual, noble brow,
and prince-like movements; and her
black, keen, subtle, cringing, yet acute
neighbour. They stood the representatives
of their races. The Saxon, born of
ages of cultivation, command, education,
physical and moral eminence; the African,
born of ages of oppression, submission,
ignorance, toil, and vice.’
If Miss Ophelia’s conscientiousness
was—to use the slang of the phrenologists—“largely
developed,” that of
Topsy was about equal to the conscientiousness
of a squirrel or a monkey;
and good Miss Ophelia observes
her protegée, “lithe as a cat, and active
as a monkey,” and to the full as
wantonly mischievous, with dumb despair.
One of her fancies was to deck
herself in Miss Ophelia’s choicest ornaments,
and rehearse in them, like
an actress, before the glass, singing,
whistling, and making grimaces. Once
surprised by the lady, with her “very
best scarlet Indian crape shawl wound
round her head for a turban,” “Topsy,”
says she, at the end of all patience,
“what does make you act
so?”
“Dun no, missis. I ’spects ’cause I’se
so wicked.”
“I don’t know what I shall do with
you, Topsy.”
“Law, missis, you must whip me. My
old missis allers whipped me. I an’t used
to workin’ without I gets whipped.”
“Why, Topsy, I don’t want to whip
you. You can do well if you choose;
why won’t you?”
“Laws, missis, I’se used to whippin’.
I ’spects it’s good for me.”’
Though one might almost as well,
one would have thought, have tried
to teach a hedgehog astronomy, Miss
Ophelia devoted herself to teaching
the gnome the Catechism; and, after
a patient year and a half’s efforts, here
were some of the blessed results, as
exhibited before laughing Mr St Clare,
before whom were confident catechist
and hopeful catechumen:—
“Q.—Our first parents, being left to
the freedom of their own will, fell from
the state wherein they were created.”
Topsy’s eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly.
“What is it, Topsy?” said Miss
Ophelia.
“Please, missis, was dat ar state Kintuck?”
“What state, Topsy?”
“Dat state dey fell out of. I used to
hear Mas’r tell how as we com down
from Kintuck!”’
But what the sedulous didactic
teaching of Miss Ophelia failed to do,
would have doubtless been effected
by sweet little Eva, had she lived:
from whom, one day, fell the first
word of kindness she had ever heard
in her life; and the sweet tone and
manner struck strangely on the wild
rude heart, and a sparkle of something
like a tear shone in the keen, round,
glittering eye.
Twice again this strange creature
flits across the scene, and on one of
these occasions says—
‘“Old missus whipped me a deal
harder, and used to pull my har, and
knock my head agin the door; but it
didn’t do me no good! I ’spects if theys
to pull every spear o’ har out of my head,
it wouldn’t do no good, neither! I’se so
wicked! Laws! I’se nothing but a nigger,
no ways!” ... “But, Topsy, if you’d
only try to be good, you might”——
“Couldn’t never be nothin but a
nigger, if I was never so good! If I
could be skinned, and come white, I’d try
then!”’
Poor Topsy!—these words go to
the heart of all but—a moral leper
white as snow! There is in them a
huge volume of anguish and reproach.
It required the potent eloquence of
little Eva’s death to dispel the last
lingering feelings of Miss Ophelia’s
repugnance towards the unhappy little
black, in whom also the same solemn
event had worked a marked change.
“The callous indifference was gone
... there was a striving for good—a
strife, irregular, interrupted, suspended,
oft—but yet renewed again.”
The finishing touch to this singular
and masterly delineation is exquisite
in every way:—
‘One day, when Topsy had been sent
for by Miss Ophelia, she came, hastily
thrusting something into her bosom.
“What are you doing there, you limb?
You’ve been stealing something, I’ll be
bound,” said the imperious little Rosa (a
quadroon slave), who had been sent to
call her, seizing her at the same time
roughly by the arm.
“You go ’long, Miss Rosa!” said
Topsy, pulling from her; “’tan’t none
o’ your business!”
“None o’ your sa’ce!” said Rosa.
“I saw you hiding something—I know yer
tricks,” and Rosa seized her arm, and
tried to force her hand into her bosom;
while Topsy, enraged, kicked and fought
valiantly for what she considered her
rights. The clamour and confusion of
the battle drew Miss Ophelia and St Clare
both to the spot.
“She’s been stealing!” said Rosa.
“I han’t, neither!” vociferated Topsy,
sobbing with passion.
“Give me that, whatever it is!” said
Miss Ophelia, sternly.
Topsy hesitated; but, on a second
order, pulled out of her bosom a little
parcel done up in the foot of one of her
own old stockings. Miss Ophelia turned
it out. There was a small book which
had been given to Topsy by Eva, containing
a single verse of Scripture arranged
for every day in the year; and in
a paper, the curl of hair which she had
given on that memorable day when she
had taken her last farewell. St Clare
was a good deal affected at the sight of
it; the little book had been rolled in a
long strip of black crape, torn from the
funeral weeds.
“What did you wrap this round the
book for?” said he, holding up the crape.
“’Cause—’cause—’cause ’twas Miss
Eva. Oh, don’t take ’em away, please!”
she said; and, sitting flat down on the
floor, and putting her apron over her
head, she began to sob vehemently.’[10]
“Topsy,” says Mrs Stowe, “stands
as the representative of a large class
of the children who are growing up
under the institution of slavery—quick,
active, subtle, and ingenious—apparently
utterly devoid of principle
and conscience—keenly penetrating,
by an instinct which exists
in the childish mind, the degradation
of their condition, and the utter hopelessness
of rising above it.” In a
note to a friend on the same subject,
she writes very beautifully—“There
lies, buried down in the heart
of the most seemingly stupid and
careless slave, a bleeding spot that
bleeds and aches, though he could
scarcely tell why—and this sore spot
is the degradation of his position.”
Miss Ophelia, having had a formal
gift of Topsy from Mr St Clare, takes
her home to Vermont, where we
are told, she “grew rapidly in grace
and favour with the family,” at first
sufficiently staggered by the quaint
apparition. “At the age of womanhood
she was at her own request
baptised; and finally recommended
and approved as a missionary
to one of the stations in Africa.”
Of course the mode of training
Topsy was beyond the scope of
the writer’s purpose; but we could
have wished to see a good deal
more of Topsy, in the progress of
her mental and moral development.
But as it is, the sketch is pregnant
with instruction, encouragement, and
warning: and were it for this one
portrait alone, Mrs Stowe would be
entitled to the blessings of generations
of blacks yet unborn. With the
divine penetration of genius consecrated
by holiness, she has wrought
down to the seat of our common
nature, in the black, crushed beneath
whole piled up mountains of prejudice,
scorn, and despair.
We must now return to poor Tom,
whose course is henceforth brief, and
of deepening gloom, and whose sun
goes down in blood.
Detestable Mrs St Clare, released
from the humanising presence of her
husband, as though she had been a
deadly snake half-crushed by the
presence of authority, makes amends
for past inaction, by darting venomously
at every one within her reach.
She orders off a poor girl to the whipping-house,
to be flogged, naked, by
the common flogger—a huge man—in
the presence of as many of both
sexes as chose to look on, and be entertained
by her shrieks, and the sight
of her quivering ensanguined flesh.[11]
Mrs St Clare contemptuously discarded
the entreaties of Miss Ophelia,
based mainly, with a womanly energy,
on the mere sense of sex: and in disgust,
Miss Ophelia returns, with
Topsy, to her own country. Moreover,
though poor Tom had been repeatedly
promised his freedom by her
husband, as she well knows, she
ruthlessly sells him, with all the other
slaves. Tom is told of his fate—to be
forthwith sent to the slave mart. “The
Lord’s will be done!” he exclaimed,
folding his arms, and sighing heavily.
He appeals to Miss Ophelia, who
makes a hopeless attempt on Mrs St
Clare, relying on her deceased husband’s
promise. “Indeed,” says that
charming lady, delicately clad in most
elegantly made mourning for him
whose solemn wishes she was violating,
as he lay scarce cold in his grave—“Indeed
I shall do no such thing!
Tom is one of the most valuable slaves
in the place! It could not be afforded
any way!” ... “But consider his
chance of getting a bad master——”
“O! that’s all humbug——:” and
the good lady turns a scornfully deaf
ear to the solemn assurance, that Mr
St Clare had made the promise to Eva
on her deathbed. Marie St Clare is
the type, we are told, of a class.
‘When Marie comes under a system of
laws which gives her absolute control over
her dependants—which enables her to
separate them, at her pleasure, from their
dearest family connections, or to inflict
upon them the most disgraceful, degrading,
and violent punishments, without even
the restraint which seeing the execution
might possibly induce—then it is that the
character arrives at full maturity.’
Here we part with this viper; assuring
the class whom she may represent,
that they are burthened with
the execration of the civilised world—most
piercing of all, those of her fair,
Free sisters.
Now one’s heart aches to see poor
Tom, the helpless, sorrowful inmate,
amongst a great quantity of uproarious
and quasi-merry other live lumber—of
a New Orleans slave-market.
O sickening scene! But here the
two figures arresting the eye—and
whose brief tale is told with melting
pathos and simplicity—are Susan and
Emmeline, both beautiful, mother and
daughter; the latter only fifteen, just
budding into womanhood: both with
hearts trembling at the fear of approaching
separation—and what kind
of life before them? The mother to
be sold for the purpose of breeding
other slaves; the daughter—oh speak
it not in the ears of Free fathers
and mothers—of Christian men or
women—to be “sold to a life of
shame!” She has “the same soft,
dark eye” as her mother, “with
longer lashes, and her curling hair is
of a luxuriant brown.” And in passing,
we are told, with an appalling
irony, that “the gentleman to whom
they belong, and to whom the money
for their sale is to be transmitted, is
a member of a Christian church in
New York, who will receive the money,
and go thereafter to the sacrament of
his LordAND THEIRS, and think no
more of it.”
The hurriedly-whispered dialogue
of these two would break a heart of
stone to overhear: they are—that
forlorn mother and daughter—trying
to express a hope—a faint hope—poor
souls!—that they may be sold together!
In order to aid this result,
and disguise her beauty, the mother
and she comb out her luxuriant
tresses, so as to “look plain and
decent;” but in the morning, when
the watchful owner comes round to
look at his human cattle—“How’s
this?” he said, stepping in front of
Susan and Emmeline, “where’s your
curls, gal?” He is told, timidly, that
they thought it looked “more respectable
so.”
‘“Bother!—You go right along, and
curl yourself real smart,” he added, giving
a crack to a ratan he held in his
hand; “and be back in quick time, too!
You go and help her,” to her mother—“them
curls may make a hundred dollars
difference in the sale of her!”’
Can horror go deeper? Yes, one
step. The loathsome monster, Legree—of
whom in a moment—is presently
attracted by her beauty.
“He put out his heavy, dirty hand,
and drew the girl towards him”—oh,
Mrs Stowe! shall we go on?—“passed
it over her neck and bust; felt her
arms; looked at her teeth, and then
pushed her back against her mother,
whose patient face showed the sufferings
she had been going through, at
every motion of the hideous stranger.”
‘The girl was frightened, and began to
cry.
“Stop that, you minx!” said the salesman,
“no whimpering here! The sale’s
going to begin!”’
Presently the mother is put up on
the block, and bought by a benevolent
purchaser; in descending from it she
gazes wistfully at her lovely daughter;
and implores her purchaser—“O, do
buy my daughter!” He tries to do so;
but alas! she has inflamed the sensual
monster Legree: he quietly bids
against Benevolence, resolved to secure
his victim: “the hammer falls;
he has got the girl, body and soul,
unless God help her!” But will He?
The chapter ends ominously with a
passage from his Word—
“When he maketh inquisition for blood,
he forgetteth not the cry of the humble!”
This Legree also purchases Tom,
having quickly appreciated his
“points,” as a “valleyable nigger:”
and here you may see the cobra, uncoiled
for you, in all its hideousness.
‘He was a short, broad, muscular man,
in a checked shirt, considerably open at
the bosom, and pantaloons much the
worse for dirt and wear, who elbowed
his way through the crowd, like one who
is going actively into a business; and
coming up to the group, began to examine
them systematically. From the
moment that Tom saw him approaching,
he felt an immediate and revolting horror
at him, that increased as he came
near. He was evidently, though short,
of gigantic strength. His round, bullet
head, large, light-grey eyes, with their
shaggy, sandy eyebrows, and stiff, wiry,
sun-burned air, were rather unprepossessing
items, it is to be confessed; his large
coarse mouth was distended with tobacco,
the juice of which, from time to time, he
ejected from him with great decision and
explosive force; his hands were immensely
large, hairy, sun-burned, freckled, and
very dirty, and garnished with long nails,
in a very foul condition. This man proceeded
to a very free personal examination
of the lot. He seized Tom by the
jaw, and pulled open his mouth, to inspect
his teeth (!) made him strip up his sleeve,
to show his muscle; turned him round,
made him jump and spring, to show his
paces.
“Where was you raised?” he added
briefly to these investigations. “In Kintuck,
mas’r,” said Tom, looking about as
if for deliverance. “What have you
done?” “Had care of mas’r’s farm,”
said Tom. “Likely story!” said the
other shortly, as he passed on.’
Legree’s exterior only very faintly
adumbrates the interior horrors of his
character, as the reader soon finds
out. He seems specially pleased with
one of his purchases—the sweet Emmeline,
who, as they approach “home,”
feels the hot foul breath of the serpent
upon her.
‘“Well, my little dear,” said he, turning
to Emmeline, and laying his hand on
her shoulder, “we’re almost home!”
When Legree scolded and stormed, Emmeline
was terrified; but when he laid
his hand upon her, and spoke as he now
did, she felt as if she had rather he would
strike her. The expression of his eyes
made her soul sick, and her flesh creep.
“You didn’t ever wear earrings!” he
said, taking hold of her small ear with his
coarse fingers.
“No, mas’r,” said Emmeline, trembling,
and looking down.
“Well, I’ll give you a pair, when we
get home, if you’re a good girl. You
needn’t be so frightened! I don’t mean
to make you work so very hard! You’ll
have fine times with me, and live like a
lady! Only be a good girl!”’
Alas, sweet Emmeline! motherless
Emmeline! was there no MAN—no
father, no brother, near you, to fell
the monster to the earth? No, none;
and you are close to the residence
of your eager and brutal proprietor.
There he had destined her as the
successor of one of whom he was
tired—but whom yet he feared: and
that was Cassy; a being whom we
did not suppose Mrs Stowe, with all
our trust in her previously exhibited
powers, equal to conceiving and supporting.
She occasionally reminds us
of some of the greatest passages in
Greek tragedy.
‘“Come, mistress”—quoth Legree to
Emmeline, having reached the house, and
dismissed all his other purchases to their
prescribed localities in the plantation—“You
go in here with me!” A dark wild
face was seen, for a moment, to glance at
the window of the house; and as Legree
opened the door, a female voice said something
in a quick imperative tone.’
This was—Cassy; and here is her
figure.
‘She was tall and slenderly formed,
with remarkably delicate hands and feet,
and dressed in neat and respectable garments.
By the appearance of her face,
she might have been between thirty-five
and forty; and it was a face that, once
seen, could never be forgotten—one of
those that, at a glance, seemed to convey
to us an idea of a wild, painful, and romantic
history. Her head was high,
and her eyebrows marked with beautiful
clearness. Her straight, well-formed
nose, her finely cut mouth, and the graceful
contour of her head and neck, showed
that she must once have been beautiful;
but her face was deeply wrinkled with
lines of pain, and of proud and bitter endurance.
Her complexion was sallow and
unhealthy, her cheeks thin, her features
sharp, and her whole form emaciated. But
her eye was the most remarkable feature—so
large, so heavily black, overshadowed
by long lashes of equal darkness, and so
wildly, mournfully despairing. There
was a fierce pride and defiance in every
line of her face, in every nerve of the
flexible lip, in every motion of her body;
but in her eye was a deep, settled, night
of anguish—an expression so hopeless
and unchanging, as to contrast fearfully
with the scorn and pride expressed by
her whole demeanour.’
Her relations to Legree were of a
mysterious character. The first that
Tom saw of her was when she suddenly,
and to the surprise of all her
fellow-slaves, made her appearance,
as one of themselves, in the cotton-fields,
walking by his side, erect and
proud, in the dim grey of the dawn.
She works with the others, but infinitely
quicker and more effectively.
Observing Tom generously transfer
some cotton of his own picking to the
sack of a feeble female fellow-slave,
whom he had just seen brutally maltreated
by the driver—she approached
him, and transferred some of her own
cotton to his bag, telling him in a
fearful whisper, “that he knew nothing
about that place, or he would
not have done what he had: that
when he had been there a month, he
would have ceased helping anybody,
finding it hard enough to take care of
his own skin.”
“The Lord forbid, missus,” quoth
Tom, instinctively recognising her superiority
over the others.
‘“The Lord never visits these parts,”
said she, bitterly. But her action had
been observed by the driver, across the
field: and flourishing his whip, he came
up to her. “What! what!” he said to
the woman, with an air of triumph, “You
a-foolin! Go along! yer under me now—mind
yourself, or ye’ll cotch it!” A
glance like sheet-lightning suddenly flashed
from her dark eyes; and facing about,
with quivering lip and dilated nostrils,
she drew herself up, and fixed a glance,
blazing with rage and scorn, on the driver.
“Dog!” she exclaimed, “touch me, if you
dare! I’ve power enough yet to have
you torn by the dogs, burnt alive, cut to
inches!—I’ve only to say the word!”
“What de debel you here for, den?”
said the man, cowed, and retreating a
step or two. “Didn’t mean no harm,
Misse Cassy!” and he slinks to another
quarter of the field.’
Weighing time comes in the evening.
‘“So,” says Legree, to his myrmidon,
“Misse Cassy did her day’s work?”
“Iss! she pick like de debil and all
his angels!”
“She’s got ’em all in her, I believe!”
said Legree; and growled a brutal oath.’
At length it is Cassy’s time, and
she delivers her basket to be weighed
with a haughty, negligent air: Legree
looking in her eyes with a
sneering, yet inquiring glance. She
fixed her black eyes on him steadily—her
lips moved slightly, and she
said something in French. What it
was, no one knew, but the expression
of Legree’s face became demoniacal;
and he half-raised his hand, as if to
strike—a gesture which she regarded
with fierce disdain, and turned, and
walked away. Then Tom comes up;
and—poor fellow—for once we rejoice
to say, shows something like a spirit:
for being ordered to try his hand on
flogging the poor female slave—falsely
accused of not having picked her quantity—he
steadily refuses; and after
having received a shower of blows
from Legree, firmly repeats, “This
yer thing I can’t feel it right to do,”
wiping the blood from his face; “and
massa, I never shall do it—never!”
All the shivering wretches around
exhibit consternation at his audacity;
and Legree looked stupefied and confounded;
but at last he burst forth:—
‘“What, ye blasted black beast! tell me
ye don’t think it right to do what I tell ye!
What have any of you cussed cattles to
do with thinking what’s right? I’ll put a
stop to it. Why, what do ye think ye are?
Maybe ye think ye’r a gentleman, Master
Tom, to be a-telling your master what’s
right, and what an’t; so you pretend it’s
wrong to flog the gal?”
“I think so, mas’r,” said Tom; “the
poor crittur’s sick and feeble, ’twould be
downright cruel, and it’s what I never
will do, nor begin to, mas’r. If you mean
to kill me, kill me; but as to my raising
my hand agin any one here, I never shall:
I’ll die first.” Tom spoke in a mild voice,
but with a decision that could not be
mistaken. Legree shook with anger; his
greenish eyes glared fiercely, and his very
whiskers seemed to curl with passion;
but, like some ferocious beast that plays
with its victim before he devours it, he
kept back his strong impulse to proceed
to immediate violence, and broke out into
bitter raillery. “Well, here’s a pious dog,
at last, let down among us sinners! a
saint, a gentleman, and no less, to talk to
us sinners about our sins! Powerful holy
crittur he must be! Here, you rascal;
you make believe to be so pious, didn’t
you never hear out of yer Bible, ‘Servants,
obey your masters’? An’t I your
master? Didn’t I pay down twelve hundred
dollars cash for all there is in yer
old cussed black shell? An’t yer mine
now, body and soul?” he said, giving Tom
a violent kick with his heavy boot; “tell
me!” In the very depth of physical suffering,
bowed by brutal oppression, this
question shot a gleam of joy and triumph
through Tom’s soul. He suddenly stretched
himself up, and looking earnestly to
heaven, while the tears and blood that
flowed down his face mingled, he exclaimed—“No,
no, no! my soul an’t yours,
mas’r! You havn’t bought it; ye can’t
buy it; it’s been bought and paid for by
one that’s able to keep it. No matter—no
matter, you can’t harm me!”
“I can’t!” said Legree, with a sneer;
“we’ll see. Here, Sambo! Quimbo! give
this dog such a breakin in as he won’t
get over this month.”
The two gigantic negroes that now laid
hold of Tom, with fiendish exultation in
their faces, might have formed no unapt
personification of powers of darkness.
The poor woman screamed with apprehension,
and all rose, as by a general impulse,
while they dragged him unresisting
from the place.’
Sambo and Quimbo are two huge
black fiends, each savage, sycophantic
towards Legree, rivals of each other
in his good graces, and abhorring poor
Tom, whom some expressions of Legree
show to have been designed to
become his chief overlooker.
While Tom is lying in an exposed
outhouse at midnight, groaning and
bleeding, alone, the night damp and
close, the thick air swarming with
myriads of musquitoes, which increased
the restless torture of his
wounds, whilst a burning thirst—a
torture beyond all others, filled up
the uttermost measure of physical
anguish—
“Oh, good Lord, do look down!
Give me the victory—give me the victory
over all!” prayed poor Tom, in
his anguish, when a footstep is heard
behind him—the light of a lantern
flashes in his eyes, and he recognises
Cassy, come to him like a ministering
angel. At length she sits beside him,
when he has become somewhat more
easy and composed for a while under
the soothing applications of his companion;
and she mutters a few words,
in rejoinder to his feeble but trustful
exclamations, of despair and atheism—“There’s
no God, or he’s taken
sides against us; all goes against us,
heaven and earth! Everything is
pushing us into hell! Why shouldn’t
we go?” In a few scorching words
of misery she tells him that she, “a
woman delicately bred,” has been for
four long years in the hell—of Legree’s
presence and power—her whole
body and soul, cursing every moment
of her life—the slave of his brutal
passions; “and now he has got a
new one—a young thing, only fifteen!
And she’s brought her Bible here—here,
to hell with her!” She adds,
that she has witnessed scenes of
savage cruelty, of mortal cruelty,
which “would make any one’s hair
rise, and teeth chatter to hear—but
it is useless resisting. There’s not a
white person who could testify if you
were burned alive!” She lets fall a
hint that sweet Emmeline is trying
bravely to struggle against her fate—at
present!
She gives Tom an outline of her
history. She had been the idolised
daughter of a lovely slave, and educated
in the most expensive manner
at a convent; but her father, before
he could fulfil his intention of freeing
her, died of cholera; and she was sold
to a man, who concealed from her
that he had given two thousand dollars
for her. Imagining that she was
his free choice, and he handsome,
fond, and indulgent, she lived a little
while with him as in Paradise, and
had two children—a boy, Henry,
and a girl, Elise. A cousin of his
caught sight of her, and resolved to
possess her, succeeded by shameful
arts in alienating his affection from
her, and then persuading him to sell
her, with her two children. He forced
her, recoiling from his embraces, to
live with him, and sold off her two
idolised children. In a moment of
frenzy——All she recollects is, that
“something snapped in her head—there
was a great bowie-knife gleaming
on the table.... She caught it—flew
upon him—all grew dark, and
she knew nothing more till she woke,
long afterwards, when she found that
he had left her to be sold; and, to realise
the most from her, had secured
her good attendance. As the fever left
her, “they made her get up and dress
every day; and gentlemen used to
come in, and stand, and smoke their
cigars, and look at me, and ask questions,
and debate my price!—They
threatened to whip if I were not gayer,
and didn’t take pains to make myself
agreeable.” She was ultimately bought
by a planter, a Captain Stuart; and
the child she had by him—so like her
lost Henry!—when, two weeks old,
she kissed, cried over, and—poisoned
with laudanum—“I held him close to
my heart, while he slept to death!”
At length, Captain Stuart dies of
fever. “Everybody died that wanted
to live; and I, that wanted to die,
lived” to be “sold, passed from hand
to hand, till I grew faded, wrinkled,
had a fever—and—this wretch (Legree)
bought me, and—here I am!...
In the judgment-day, I will stand up
before God a witness against them
that have ruined me and my children,
body and soul!—When I was a girl,
I thought I was religious. I used to
love God and prayer! Now, I’m a
lost soul, pursued by devils that torment
me day and night. They keep
pushing me on—and—I’ll do it, too,
some of these days!” she said, clenching
her hand, while an insane light
gleamed in her heavy black eyes.
Legree in his lair resembles a huge
tiger. As painted by the author, with
graphic force,—sitting in his desolate
apartment, drowning reflection in
brandy-and-water,—admitting Sambo
and Quimbo to his savage debauches,—and
in their absence having his fierce
bloodhounds for his companions—(anything
better than being alone)—it
seems wonderful that any human
being could obtain over him any kind
of influence, and much less ascendancy;
yet Cassy has, in spite of himself,
acquired—“the kind of influence
which a strong impassioned woman
can ever keep on the most brutal
man.” Of late, however, she had become
“more irritable and restless
under the hideous yoke of her servitude,
and her irritability sometimes
burst forth in the ravings of insanity;
and this liability made her an object of
dread to Legree, who had that superstitious
horror of insane persons which
is common to coarse and uninstructed
minds. When he brought Emmeline
to the house, all the smouldering embers
of womanly feeling flashed up in
the exhausted heart of Cassy, and she
took part with the girl.”
One night, very late, she was gliding
about unknown, and came to the
window of the room where he was
wildly carousing with the twin-fiends,
Sambo and Quimbo. “She rested her
small slender hand on the window behind,
and looked fixedly at them—a
world of anguish, scorn, and fierce
bitterness in her black eyes,” as she
saw them “singing, whooping, upsetting
chairs, and making all manner
of ludicrous and horrid grimaces at
each other. ‘Would it be a sin to rid
the world of such a wretch?’ said she
to herself.” Many subsequent scenes
in his career passing before us must
more and more have inclined Cassy
to answer the fearful question in the
negative; as though it had shaped
itself—“Is it any harm to kill a rattlesnake
that has located itself near your
house?”
‘When he first bought her, Cassy was,
indeed, a woman delicately bred; and
then he crushed her without scruple beneath
the hoof of his brutality. But as
time, and debasing influences, and despair,
hardened womanhood within her,
and waked the fires of fiercer passions,
she had become, in a manner, his mistress;
and he alternately tyrannised over, and
dreaded her. This influence had become
more harassing and decided, since partial
insanity had given a strange, weird, unsettled
cast to all her language.’
In fact, her tormentor was on one
occasion much nearer a ghastly climax
than he had any idea of; for she had
drugged his brandy—left him helpless—the
back door unlocked—and
then gone silently, at midnight, to
Tom, to tell him that the hour of liberty
was at hand.
‘“I shall have it, Misse, in God’s time,”
said he.
“Ah, but you may have it to-night!”
said Cassy, with a flash of sudden energy.
“Come on!”
Tom hesitated. “Come!” she whispered,
fixing her black eyes on him. “He’s
asleep—sound! an axe is there! I’ll
show you the way! I’d have done it myself—only
my arms are so weak! Come
along!”
“Not for ten thousand worlds, Misse!”
said Tom firmly, stopping, and holding
her back.... He flings himself on
the floor, grasping her arms, imploring
her for the love of God to abstain. “We
must suffer, and wait the Lord’s time!”
“Wait!” said Cassy. “Haven’t I
waited? till my head is dizzy, and my
heart sick? What has he made me suffer?
What has he made hundreds of
poor creatures suffer? Isn’t he wringing
the life blood out of you? I’m called on!
I’m called on! they call on me! His time’s
come, and I’ll have his heart’s blood!”
“No! no! no!” exclaimed Tom,
holding her small hands, which were
clasped with spasmodic violence.’
The slave triumphed, and saved the
life of—his murderer. He suggests to
Cassy the attempt to escape, however
desperate, “without blood-guiltiness;”
and while he is speaking to her, “there
flashed through her mind a plan so
simple and feasible in all its details,
as to awaken an instant hope.” We
suspect that our readers will hardly
be of her opinion. This was the nature
of “the stratagem” which had
occurred to her. Legree was very
superstitious; and it is evident that
some not very recent and barbarous
murder of one of his slaves had
largely developed his superstitious
fears, and especially with reference
to a particular apartment. Cassy,
having taken Emmeline into her
counsels, resolves to terrify Legree
with the idea of this room being
haunted, in order that, having a secret
access to it, she may, when the
proper time arrives, make it her safe
and undisturbed retreat. She forthwith
commences operations by training
Legree’s mind into a more and more
terrified mood with reference to this
apartment, causing all sorts of strange,
dismal, unearthly noises to issue from
it, ghosts to be seen gliding in white
out of it, and so forth. Thus far she
succeeds; and having, in the meanwhile,
made up two little beds in a
huge box in the dreaded room, and
provided food, candle-light, and clothes
for their journey, she puts her scheme
in operation. Late in the evening,
she and Emmeline affect to make their
escape, contriving to be seen in the
act by Legree; on which he gallops
homeward—orders out Sambo and
Quimbo, and a posse of other willing
myrmidons, and also the bloodhounds,
and away they start on their cruel and
perhaps bloody errand. In the meantime,
the supposed fugitives have returned
home unobserved, and taken
up their abode in the haunted chamber.
There they listen to the hunting
party—men, horses, dogs—returning
wearied and disappointed. The next
day the search is renewed, with the
like ill success; and, after a day or
two’s seclusion in their hiding-place—near
which ghosts are seen to glide,
and from which unearthly noises issue—the
adventurous pair start on their
perilous journey—Cassy disguised as
a Creole Spanish lady, dressed entirely
in black, and Emmeline as her servant.
She found no difficulty in assuming
and sustaining the character.
“Brought up from early life in the
highest society, her language, air, and
movements were all in accordance
with it; and she had still sufficient
left of her once splendid wardrobe and
sets of jewels, to enable her to complete
her personation. A small black
bonnet on her head, covered by a veil
thick with embroidery, concealed her
face.” It was near sunrise when the
two terrified and breathless travellers
paused, for a moment, in a little knot of
trees near the town. Having purchased
a trunk in the outskirts, she requested
the seller to send it with her; and
thus, escorted by a boy wheeling her
trunk, and Emmeline behind her carrying
her carpet-bag and sundry
bundles, she made her appearance at
a small tavern, like a lady of consideration,
and there encountered George
Shelby, who, with herself, was awaiting
the arrival of the boat. He handed
her courteously to it, and provided
her with a good state-room;
but Cassy found it expedient, on the
plea of indisposition, to keep her room,
and her bed—sedulously attended, it
may be imagined, by her maid Emmeline—during
the whole time they were
on the Red River. Arrived at the
Mississippi, they entered the good
steamboat Cincinnati. How she disclosed
herself to George Shelby, and
became acquainted with Madame de
Thoux—how the latter proved to be
Emily, the long-lost sister of George
Harris, and Cassy the mother of
George’s wife—somewhat compendious
work, it must be owned—has
been seen. It was, in truth, as the
author seems to have suspected,
rather “a singular coincidence in
their fortunes.” In due time they
find their way to Montreal, where
George and Eliza had established
themselves in a neat tenement in the
outskirts of the town, very happy and
contented, he having found constant
occupation in the shop of a worthy
machinist. Cassy is now ending her
days happily, “a devout and tender
Christian.” Emmeline continued with
them; and, on her passage to France,
her beauty captivated the first mate
of the vessel, and, shortly after entering
the port, she became his wife.
Before, however, this happy result
has been effected, has occurred the
crowning act of the tragedy—the
martyrdom of poor Tom; who, being
suspected by Legree of knowing of
their escape, will not deny that he
was privy to it, but will afford him
no information. On this Legree,
mortally infuriated, tells him that he
“means to kill him”—“I’ve made up
my mind to kill you.”
“‘It’s very likely, Mas’r!’ said
Tom, calmly.”
We shall spare our readers the
frightful scene, as one of simple butchery.
One might as well describe, in
detail, the slaughter of an ox by the
slaughterer and his two assistants.
He is felled to the ground by a blow
of Legree, and Sambo and Quimbo
flog him to death. These two grim
instruments of their master’s murderous
vengeance are filled with sudden
remorse, when they shortly after revisit
their victim, and hear from him
words of resignation and forgiveness.
They ask him “Who is Jesus, anyhow?”
and on Tom, in a heavenly
spirit, telling them, they ask Him for
mercy.
“Poor critturs!” said Tom, “I’d
be willing to bar all I have, if it’ll only
bring you to Christ! O Lord! give
me these two more souls, I pray!” To
very many of our readers, these expressions
will appear somewhat forced
and peculiar; whilst others may recognise
in them language with which
poor Tom had become familiar in
those scenes of religious exercise to
which, we are told, he had been accustomed
for four years before his
introduction to the reader. “‘Tom,’
said Mr Shelby to Haley, ‘is a good,
steady, sensible, pious fellow. He
got religion at a camp meeting, four
years ago; and I believe he really did
get it. I have trusted him, since then,
with everything I have: money, house,
horses—and let him come and go
round the country; and I always
found him true and square in everything.”
If such results follow “camp
meetings,” they might be advantageously
tried, and on a large scale,
too, in this country. Some little time
afterwards occurs the interview between
dying Tom and young Mr
Shelby, who had come to ransom him.
“‘Who—who—who shall separate
us from the love of Christ?’ he said,
in a voice that contended with mortal
weakness; and with a smile he fell
asleep.”
Regarded merely as a stroke of art,
this closing scene may be contemplated
with qualified feelings; but we
shall offer no remarks upon what has
evidently been conceived in a high religious,
a nobly human spirit, and executed
with no little power. Viewed in
this light—and it ought to be viewed in
no other, by a critic who has seized the
scope and entered into the spirit of
his author—objections to the development
of Uncle Tom’s character
melt away. He is not drawn to meet
the views, or satisfy the exacting
spirit of mere worldly persons, sickly
novel-readers, or conceited supercilious
critics. No, Tom is conceived
in a lofty spirit, and adorned with all
the meekness, the gentleness, the long-suffering,
which can be drawn from
the inexhaustible sources of our holy
religion alone; he is set sublimely on
a pinnacle to attract towards his
oppressed race, represented by his
crushed and bleeding form, the pitying
eye of Christendom—to awaken,
to encourage, to warn. “Suffering is,”
indeed, “the badge of all their tribe;”
and Europe has felt it to be so more
strongly and directly, since the publication
of this work, than it ever felt
before. In the soft, glorious sunlight
of Christian sympathy, the blackness
of our poor brother’s skin—his skin
torn with the incessant lash—disappears.
Uncle Tom is actuated by religious
principles which will not admit
of his speaking or doing otherwise
than he is represented as speaking and
doing. His condition was that of a
slave; it was a very hard one often,
but had not always been such; and he
was on the eve of escaping from it by
lawful means, more than once, but the
will of Providence had decreed otherwise.
The sudden death of St Clare
was permitted to consign unoffending
Tom to the hideous Legree. But is
not such an occurrence frequent in
God’s ordinary all-wise, but inscrutable
direction of human affairs? Presented
to us under the conditions dictated
by the objects and purposes of
Mrs Stowe, how could she, without
outraging propriety and defeating her
whole, her only, and righteous purpose,
have represented him, for instance,
organising a revolt against
the oppressor, in the course of which
he and his maddened fellow-sufferers
would have imbrued their hands in
the blood of Legree? With Mrs
Stowe’s proved powers of description,
and her mastery over the feelings, she
could have flashed before our eyes
characters, scenes, and actions which
only St Domingo could have paralleled!
Instead, however, of playing the part
of a mad incendiary, she has calmly
and magnanimously addressed herself
to the tribunal of public opinion, to
the sense of justice, and of religion,
by which all civilised mankind profess
to be guided. She solemnly
appeals to “the whole American
church, of all denominations, unitedly
to seek the entire abolition of slavery
throughout America and throughout
Christendom.” To “every individual
Christian, who wishes to do something
for the abolition of slavery,”
she says—“Begin by doing what
lies in your power for the coloured
people in your vicinity.... The
contest is to be carried on ‘with love
unfeigned’—‘through every degree of
opposition and persecution, a divine
unprovokable spirit of love, which
must finally conquer.... We must love
both the slaveholder and the slave,
never forgetting that both are our
brethren.... We must use, as means,
an earnest application of all straightforward,
honourable, and just measures,
for the removal of the system
of slavery. Every man in his place
should remonstrate against it. All
its sophistical arguments should be
answered, its biblical defences unmasked,
by correct reasoning, and
interpretation. Every mother should
teach the evil of it to her children;
every clergyman should fully and continually
warn his church against any
complicity with such a sin.” These
are the weapons, not carnal, but of
holy temper, with which Mrs Stowe
would enter upon this warfare; and
who shall rebuke her, and say her
Nay? Not we. We say to her, with a
tender recollection that it is a WOMAN
of whom we are writing, All hail,
thou impersonation of Christian love
and purity! Thou very genius of philanthropy!
Verily thou wilt have thy
reward. Not merely in the praises of
men, though they have been accorded
already with an almost unanimous
and universal assent; but in the reflections
of a chastened and subdued—a
warm, a loving, and devout spirit.
Taken as a literary whole, Uncle
Tom’s Cabin is a work standing before
the critical eye in large proportions,
but somewhat irregularly and
inartificially disposed; exhibiting, here
and there, minor and easily removable
marks of haste, and inexperienced
workmanship. It would have
been easy to contrive incidents, and
that without deranging her general
scheme, which would have kept curiosity
on the stretch from first to
last, and secured a sort of poetical
justice which might have satisfied the
minds of many of her readers;—by
dealing, for instance, with Marie St
Clare, a beautiful but venomous little
reptile,—and the huge speckled monster
Legree,—in a spirit of retribution,
making their own acts entail upon
them condign and appropriate punishment;
but how could that have aided
the declared moral purpose of the
writer? She has done well, on the
contrary, in representing a Haley, a
Legree, a Marie St Clare, as still—cumbering
the ground, as so many of
the centres of innumerable circles of
despotic barbarity.
The main defect of the construction
of her work as a “story”—for such
she terms it—is, its want of connectedness.
The reader is hurried incessantly
from side to side of the dividing
line between the fortunes of Uncle
Tom, and those of George and Eliza
Harris, with the episodical incidents
depending on them; coming to each
with sympathies attuned to the other;
which, again, as soon as they have
begun to be attracted to the new object,
are suddenly dissociated, to address
themselves to the one which they
had but recently quitted so abruptly.
With all its defects, however, this
book is an instrument worthy of contributing
to effect a grand purpose, to
attack and subvert A SYSTEM: the only
condition, in this view, being, that it
is founded, not upon exaggeration and
misrepresentation, but upon TRUTH.
The moment that the work had attracted
universal notice, it was obvious
that it must challenge attention to
the point of—TRUE, or FALSE, in its representations
of the condition of American
slavery. Mrs Stowe has cheerfully
accepted the challenge thrown
out to her—accepted it in a calm and
temperate spirit, and with the resolute
confidence of one believing herself
right. She formally consents to have
her book tried by the test proposed,
always protesting that she has painted
slavery as it is—has done ample justice
to large portions of humane Southern
slaveholders; but insisting that
that is no answer to her case, which is,
that the SYSTEM is one altogether opposed
to the spirit of Christianity, and
subversive of the rights, and destructive
of the best interests, of man. It
is one, she would say, that tends to
stamp out, in every newly-born slave,
the noble image of his Maker, to depress
him beneath the level of humanity;
and it is no answer to this to assert, as
is asserted by one of the keenest and
sternest of her opponents, that “the
peculiar falsity of the book consists
in making exceptional or impossible
cases the representatives of the system.”[12]
To establish her great principle,
on the one hand, and to controvert
by evidence, on the other, the
charge in point of fact, of having made
the exception the rule, she has published
what she calls A Key to Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, which is, in fact, simply
a series of Proofs and Illustrations
of the truth of her representations.
We have examined this Key to the
Cabin with some attention, and are of
opinion that its alleged facts are such
as must be answered; or those whose
accusations provoked its publication,
will have succeeded in only placing a
professed Fiction upon the solid basis
of Fact. No one who reads this Key
will tolerate being simply told, that
Uncle Tom’s Cabin is founded on falsehood.
She quotes (evidently, and
even avowedly,) under the guidance
of gentlemen of adequate experience
and knowledge of the subject, from
the authentic records of judicial decision,
dealing with cases so appalling
as, for a moment, even to make one
think Legree painted in colours less
dark than he might have been;—and
also exhibits a vast mass of documents
which cannot be disposed of, but
by counterproof. We, of course, can
deal with such statements but as we find
them; knowing that they derive their
value from the trustworthiness of a
conscientious writer, conclusively confirmed
by the absence of substantial disproof.—This
volume, in a word, we
commend to the serious consideration
of every reflecting European and American
reader of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
It were idle to class among these latter
those who read simply to indulge a
spurious whimpering sentimentality, or
to have a morbid curiosity stimulated
and inflamed by scenes of suffering and
horror. But the Christian statesman,
the enlightened politician, in either
hemisphere, is bound, we think, to
deal with the existence of this book,
and the extensive effects produced by
it, as a signal FACT. Great as are
its literary merits, they are by no
means sufficient, of themselves, to account
for the universal attention which
it has excited. It is because—to descend
to a homely illustration—this
book has acted like the sudden flash
of the policeman’s lantern on a scene
of secret midnight crime; it has painted
in such vivid colours a condition of
humanity hidden from European observation,
as has attracted and fixed
upon it the startled eyes of thinking
Europe—of a FREE Christian people.
In vain is it to hang beside it hasty
recriminatory daubs of countervailing
white slavery, or of the charms of
slavery, as exhibited by a quasi paradisaical
state, where such monsters as
Legree, Mrs St Clare, Haley, Marks,
and Tom Loker, exist not. All such
attempts have already proved, as
might have been anticipated, ridiculous
failures, as far as they had been
designed to stultify and falsify Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, and divert from it the
stern eye of public morality. How to
deal with slavery is a tremendous
problem for enlightened Christian
statesmanship. It cannot tolerate the
meddling of an unfortunate, impulsive,
unreasoning, unreflecting, however
ardent and generous, so-called humanity.
True humanity, in this instance,
consists in a sincere, comprehensive,
deliberate, and resolute effort to rouse
the PUBLIC OPINION of America on
behalf of its slave population; and
we believe that that public opinion
will ere long find—with more embarrassment
and danger the longer the
discovery takes to be made—that
slavery is an ulcer, a foul spreading
ulcer, eating its way, perilously, to the
very vitals of the body politic.
Will slavery—American slavery—will
slavery at all—be in existence
on the earth, a century hence? It is
a vast question, and we will not presume
to answer it. Perhaps our imaginary
brother of the twentieth century
may read what is here being written
by his brother of the nineteenth, and
applaud our caution. Slavery may
then have become a thing of the past;
or, in the fortunes of the world, in the
mysterious, sublime, and even then
unaccomplished destiny of the human
race, that institution may still have
its monstrous strangling coils encircling
large and helpless sections of
the family of man.
But if our shadowy brother of 1953
come to any other conclusions than
are favourable to the intelligence of
us of 1853, in respect of our reception
of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as Maga
will doubtless be then in flourishing
existence, we look to our lineal successors,
in our seat of critical justice,
to take up the cudgels for us, and
vindicate our opinions and cautious
vaticinations. And, in the mean time,
Harriet Beecher Stowe, be it known a
century hence, that we are ashamed
of neither yourself, nor our reception
of your book; that one not of the
least important names of the present
century is your own—already, and
though you should never write another
book. We doubt, indeed, whether
you ever will do so—whether, at least,
it will, or can be, a great book; for
this one embodies your life-long experiences,
heart-yearnings, and long-cherished
thoughts. Your whole soul
is wrapped up in its single noble purpose;
so, Sis fœmina Unius Libri.
[1] Uncle Tom’s Cabin: A Picture of Slave Life in America. By Harriet Beecher
Stowe. 1852.
The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Presenting the original Facts and Documents upon
which the Story is founded. By Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin. 1853.
[2] Here the MS. becomes unfortunately illegible for some lines.
[3] Is this word a suggestion from good Mrs Stowe’s husband?
[4] Topsy—an incomparable sketch—excited at first sight no pleasureable sensations
in good, starched Miss Ophelia. “Now, Augustine (Mr St Clare), what upon earth
is this for? Your house is so full of these little plagues already, that a body can’t
set their foot down without treading on ’em! I get up in the morning, I find one
asleep behind the door, see one black head poking out from under the table, one
lying on the door-mat; and they are mopping, and mowing, and grinning between
all the railings, and tumbling over the kitchen floor! What on earth did you want
to bring this one for?”
“For you to educate—didn’t I tell you? You’re always preaching about educating.
I thought I would make you a present of a fresh-caught specimen, and let you
try your hand on her, and bring her up in the way she should go!... The fact is,
this concern (!) belonged to a couple of drunken creatures, that kept a low restaurant
which I have to pass every day, and I am tired of hearing her screaming, and
them beating and swearing at her. She looked bright and funny, too, as if something
might be made of her; so I bought her (!) and I’ll give her to you. Try, now—and
give her a good orthodox New England bringing up, and see what it’ll make
of her!”
“Well—I’ll do what I can,” said Miss Ophelia; and she approached her new
subject, very much as a person might be supposed to approach a black spider—supposing
him to have benevolent designs towards it!
[5] New York Courier, Nov. 5, 1852. Quoted, Key, p. 97.
[6] “I mean to ask him to.” This is a form of expression continually occurring in
this work. It is also one used by the vulgar in this country; but Mrs Stowe puts it
into the mouths alike of educated and uneducated—black and white. We might
notice many analogous vulgarisms in at least English eyes, but the critic is disposed
heartily to act on the principle—
“Verum ubi plura nitent ... non ego paucis
Offendar maculis.”
[7] Mrs Stowe is evidently very anxious to ingratiate her favourite hero with her
readers—and perhaps with young ladies she may succeed—by constantly dwelling
on his “large, blue, flashing eyes”—“large, melancholy, blue eyes”—“his fine face,
classic as that of a Greek statue”—and so forth; but sterner touches are requisite
to make him a manly hero. It seems also somewhat odd to see him “sitting on the
floor, and laying his head back in Miss Ophelia’s lap”—who lays her “hand on
his forehead”—he saying to her, “Don’t take on, so awfully serious!”
[8] “Her theological tenets were all made up, labelled in the most positive and distinct
forms, and put by, like the bundles in her patch trunk; there were just so
many of them, and there were never to be any more. Underlaying all, deeper than
anything else, higher and broader, lay the strongest principle of her being—conscientiousness.
Nowhere is conscience so dominant and all-absorbing as with New
England women.” [Bless them!] “It is the granite formation which lies deepest,
and rises out, even to the tops of the highest mountains.” This last we suspect to be
a touch of her relative—The “Professor!”
[9] Here, however, is an exquisite touch. When Eva can no longer walk, Tom carried
her; and on one occasion her father seeks to perform that office. “Oh, papa! let Tom
take me! Poor fellow, it pleases him; and you know, it’s all he can do, and he wants
to do something!”
“So do I, Eva—.”
“Well, papa, you can do everything, and are everything to me. You read to
me,—you sit up at nights; but Tom has only this one thing, and his singing!”
[10] The next sentence in the text is a striking instance of the superfluous and even
irritating habit of Mrs Stowe already alluded to. As if she had not painted so
vividly as to touch the most stolid feelings, she adds—“It was a curious mixture of
the pathetic and the ludicrous—the little old stocking, black crape, text-book, fair
soft curl, and Topsy’s utter distress.” Surely this is writing under the picture of a
horse—“This is a horse: do you see its hair, head, neck, body, legs, hoofs, and tail?
And it has eyes and nostrils!”
[11] The luckless girl bore her own penal letter-missive—“An order, written in Mrs
St Clare’s delicate Italian hand, to the master of a whipping establishment, to give
the bearer fifteen lashes!” and this for only a hastily-uttered saucy expression!
[12] See the New York Enquirer, Nov. 5, 1852. Key, 97.
RIGHT DIVINE. — FOOTNOTES:
[No state of things can subsist without the Divine permission. It is therefore obviously
true how “the powers that be” must be “ordained of God.”
Yet truth is polygonous, and the Locke theory may be also true. All existing and
operating governments, of whatever form, may be and work by Divine appointment, and
yet receive their authority by delegation from the People,[13] that is, from the free Society
at large.
But the case may arise (as we have a remarkable instance in California) where a mass of
civilised men go forth in complete maturity, and in perfect independence of the mother
country; carrying only so much of the government as is contained in certain maxims and
general principles which they have imbibed with their mother’s milk. We see at once
that they would choose for themselves whether they would rub on under the auspices of
Justice Lynch, or depute a corporation of some sort to take the management of their affairs.
Now, as it is clearly the affair of society that John should not encroach upon Thomas’s
diggings, or Thomas put John to a violent death for his aggressions, some consultation, like
the following, will sooner or later have to be held.]
SCENE.—The Capital of “What not.”
Persons—John, Thomas, Executive, and Chorus. Thirty-two.
Varlets—Mute Persons.
John.—O great Executive, be good as great,
And save me from that brutal ruffian Thomas.
Thomas.—Hold, sir! no names; remember where you are:
I hoped you’d had enough of that before.
Executive.—Nay, gentlemen, this is unseemly.
Chorus.— Very;
’Twere well if John and Thomas did not fight!
Ex.—Well, good my masters, what am I to do?
I fain would help you; but I seem to lack
The means of action: how provide you now?
J. (whimpering).—I keep a dozen cudgel-men.
E. (to Thomas).—And you?
T.—A score.
E.—Heyday! why, this must cost you something:
But I presume it answers?
C.— I presume it answers? Does it though?
Lord bless your worship; Thomas and his men
Rob, beat, and laugh at John; who’d do the same
Had he the power: and, indeed, I’ve heard
That John intends to keep ten other varlets;
And, O that Tom and Jack would cease to fight!
E.—Why, so they may, if you will but be calm;
Let each man pay a trifle—scarce worth naming—
And I will keep a thousand cudgel-men.
C.—Apapai! this is downright Beadledom.
E.—My thousand varlets shall protect you all;
Each man shall have his thousand—all and each.
C.—I see; but recollect yourself, my friend;
This were a standing army; don’t you see?
J.—Ay, recollect yourself, good sir, you are our servant,
And hold your office only at our pleasure.
T.—Ay, marry, do you; and if we should find
That we grow weary of you, or see cause
To wish you changed, pray, how will this be done,
You, with your thousand knaves? Answer me that.
C.—Answer me that.
J.—Answer me that. I pause for a reply.
E.—Dear masters mine, a little patience, pray:
If you would change me, it can still be done:
You are a million; and my thousand knaves,
What would they do against you?
J.—would they do against you? Out, you fox!
Your thousand knaves, with discipline and arms,
Will beat ten thousand peaceful men like me.
E. (blandly).—O! gentlemen, it must be as you please,
For, after all, the affair is yours, not mine;
Even with constables, I do not seek
The task of ruling spirits such as you.
C.—O me! how John and Thomas will dispute!
This must not be: come, list to me, my boys;
Hark to me, Thomas; John, a word i’ your ear:
Our friend is right, as usual; his stout knaves
May beat ten thousand of us;—that’s a warning
That we must not attack him (aside) with that force.
(Aloud).—You pay a tithe of what your fellows cost you,
And waive the privilege of private war,
A right that wrongs me foully; those he keeps
Will see fair play between you; he, no doubt,
Will use his power most justly.
[Executive bows to each of them, and exit in a state of edifying meekness.
Loud cheers from John and Thomas.]
Ch. (proceeds).—Should he not,
So help me, Hookey Walker, he shall rue it;
The wiser sort will grieve and bide their time;
And fools will raise their thousands, eight or nine;
And our friend’s arm shall crush them; if the time,
The melancholy time, should come, when Fate, grown sick
Of his vagaries, shall have spun his thread,
Some twelve or fourteen thousands will be found
To work the righteous sentence; he will fall;
Vox Populi Vox Dei; and the Rights
Of kings and constables are both divine.
Tableau.—John and Thomas stand apart, in thoughtful attitudes, their
respective followers having gone to seek employment under the new
system. The Chorus stands pensive, but firm, in the centre of the
stage. Scene closes.
H. G. K.
[13] Populus, not Plebs. These terms are often confounded, by the use of a word
which may be said to be the translation of either. I do not here object to a nation’s
being all Plebs, but protest against this reading when it is not.
LADY LEE’S WIDOWHOOD. — PART X. — CHAP. XLVII.
“You seem so much better to-day,”
said Mr Payne next morning to Mr
Levitt, “that I think I shall leave you
alone with the Captain, and go down
to Larches, where I have not paid my
customary visit for a couple of weeks
past.”
“By all means,” said the invalid;
“I should like to go with you if I
could. I’ve a little curiosity to see
that young lady of yours” (which Mr
Payne knew to signify that his friend
felt a warm interest in Orelia, though
he had never seen her since she was a
child). “She’s handsome, you say?”
“Really,” said Mr Payne, “making
due deduction for a parent’s partiality,
I should say you wouldn’t
often see a finer young woman.”
“And accomplished too!—and high
spirited. Payne, do you know, I wish
you’d take Durham down with you.
I’m quite well enough to do without
anybody now.”
“To be sure,” said Mr Payne; “if
you think you can spare him, I shall
be delighted. ’Twill do Orelia good,
too, for she, and a friend of hers, who
is staying with her, seem to me to be
falling into a sort of religious melancholy;
and, to tell you the truth, it
has caused me a good deal of anxiety.”
“And if—if the two should take a
fancy to each other—Payne, I needn’t
say that my heir would lose nothing
in my estimation with your daughter
for a wife. I once indulged in some
little castle-building of that kind, of
which Durham was not the hero.”
“Ah, we won’t speak of that now,
my dear friend,” said Mr Payne hastily.
“I’ll go at once, and ask the
Captain to join me.”
Accordingly, he went off to propose
the visit to Durham.
“It needn’t be dull for you,” said
Mr Payne, “even if you shouldn’t
succeed in finding Langley. Besides
my daughter there’s a friend of hers,
a very charming person, whom I think
you must know—Lady Lee.”
Fane answered shortly and stiffly
that he had that pleasure.
“Come,” said Mr Payne, “this is
fortunate. We’ll start after lunch, and
get down to Larches by dinner-time.
Frewenham is just fifty miles from
here.”
Fane agreed. Since finding out that
Orelia lived near Frewenham, he divined
at once why Langley’s steps
should be drawn in that direction, and
made sure of finding him there. Accordingly,
after lunch, they set off,
and repaired in Mr Levitt’s carriage
to the railway, which took them the
greater part of their journey.
Fane was but a silent companion.
He was about, then, to see Lady Lee
again—to be under the same roof with
her; that was the text on which his
thoughts discoursed. Was it not
foolhardy to run into the dangerous
proximity?—to expose himself to the
influence of charms which could never
be his? On the other hand, would it
not be mere weakness to avoid it?
Why should he permit his movements
to be governed, his feelings played
upon, by a woman who had preferred
another to him?—who was probably
awaiting but the expiration of her
period of mourning to be the wife of
another—of a man he despised. Besides,
he had some curiosity to see
how she would receive and treat him.
Yes, that was it! Curiosity was the
feeling that made him wish to see her
again.
And Fane, though as sensible a fellow
as you would be likely to meet, and by
no means given to self-deception, really
persuaded himself that his anxiety
once more to behold Lady Lee proceeded
entirely from curiosity. If he
had a lurking doubt about that, there
were plenty of other plausible reasons
to satisfy his conscience; for, even
admitting curiosity to be too trivial a
feeling to cause him to accept Mr
Payne’s invitation, yet how could he
help accompanying him? Mr Payne
was such an old friend of his uncle’s—and
his uncle wished it too; and then
he should be glad to see Orelia again—he
had a great regard for Orelia!
Above all, there was the prospect of
securing his cousin Langley—oh, there
were reasons enough why he should
be anxious and eager for the termination
of the journey, quite independent
of the prospect of seeing Lady Lee.
Moreover, there was nothing he despised
so much as a man who would
give a second thought to a woman
after he had ascertained that she
didn’t care for him.
Didn’t care for him!—here he left
arguing, and branched off into recollections—such
as he had a thousand
times before banished, and resolved to
have done with for ever. Was her
treatment of him, at one time, that of
a woman who didn’t care for him?
Was she a likely person to be guilty
of setting traps for a man just to feed
her vanity? Wasn’t she the reverse
of everything hollow, trifling, and
insincere? These questions resulted
in the satisfactory and novel general
axiom that women were unaccountable
beings, and as changeable as the
moon.
They had quitted the railway at
Frewenham, and Fane stood at the
door of the principal hotel awaiting
the harnessing of a horse to the gig
which was to convey them to Larches
(which operation Mr Payne was superintending),
when he felt a hand
laid gently on his arm, and a voice
said, “Bless me, Captain Fane, is
that you? Who’d have thought it!”
Fane turned and beheld Miss Fillett.
Kitty was dressed in sober-coloured
and sober-cut garments, very different
from the coquettish array in which
she had been accustomed, when Fane
last saw her, to go flirting about the
precincts of the Heronry. Her very
face seemed to have lost its pert expression;
at least, if not quite lost, it
was driven to lurk in the corners of
her mouth and eyes. Beside her
walked a youth of about fourteen, in
whose features might be traced a
strong family likeness to Kitty.
“How d’ye do, Kitty? You’ve
come here with your lady, have you?”
said Fane.
“This is my nittive place,” answered
Miss Fillett. “I’m living with
my own femily, though I do see my
lady and Miss Payne from time to
time. My lady took me from here when
she married. This is my brother, Captain,”
looking at the youth at her side.
“Go on, Thomas,” she said to this
relative, “and wait for me at the
meeting-house door; and mind you
have nothink to say to them depraved
boys that’s always playing marbles
there.”
Thomas departed. “Why, goodness
gracious, Captain, what bekim
of you that time you left us so suddin?”
said Kitty, coming close up to
Fane, and speaking in a low earnest
tone. “There was certain persons
fretted after you, I can tell you.”
Fane felt his colour rise in spite of
himself. “I suspect you’re mistaken,
Kitty,” he said, affecting to laugh.
“To go off in that hasty way, without
so much as saying good-by,” Kitty
went on, “and when there was persins,
perhaps, wishing to see you, if
’twas only to bid farewell—’twasn’t
quite the thing, Captain.”
“Perhaps not, Kitty,” said the
Captain, “but we can’t always do
what we wish, you know.”
“No,” said Kitty, “Hevin knows
we can’t—in particular, when our wish
is to do what is right. I’ve wanted to
see you this long time, Captain Fane,
about a matter in which I’ve took
blame to myself. Ever since the loss
of dear Master Juley, which my lady
never will forgive me, though I’d have
laid down my life for him, Hevin
knows, Captain, my conscience have
pricked me”—
Kitty stopt suddenly as she looked
up the street. Fane’s eyes following
the direction of hers, he beheld a man
in black advancing on the opposite
side of the way. His face hung down
over his white neckcloth; so that,
in order to look round him, his eyes,
which were of a leaden colour, were
forced to peer in a stealthy stare from
under his thick black eyebrows. His
depressed nose, and his advancing
lips, rounding smugly and smilingly
over the teeth, gave him some resemblance
to a sheep or goat.
“’Tis the Rev. Mr Fallalove,” said
Kitty, “the minister of our chapel.
O, what will he think of me talking to
you, sir! I’ll meet you, sir,” added
Kitty, in a rapid under-tone, “outside
the town, on the road to Larches, at
ten o’clock to-morrow morning. I’ve
really got something to tell you, sir—something
you’d give a good deal,
perhaps, to know.” Fane promised
to come—and Kitty, dropping a demure
curtsey, walked away to greet
the Rev. Mr Fallalove; while Mr
Payne appearing with the gig, he
and Fane drove off to Larches.
“Go on and announce yourself,
while I take my coat off,” said Mr
Payne to Fane, standing in the lobby
at Larches—“through the drawing-room’s
your way.”
Fane advanced—the door of the
dining-room was open, and he paused,
looking at its occupants, who, taking
his step for that of a servant, did not
look towards him.
Orelia, the queenly Orelia, seated
at the head of the table, was eating
her soup with her usual lofty composure.
She was worth more attention
than Fane bestowed on her, for his
gaze never rested on her, nor on the
martyr Priscilla, whose face was
swathed up like a mummy’s, but who
smiled, nevertheless, in spite of her
teeth. He was altogether absorbed
in the contemplation of Lady Lee,
who sat at the foot of the table, her
soup untouched, her cheek resting
on her hand, her look turned aside
towards a small foot which peeped
from beneath her black dress.
How long he might have so stood is
uncertain; but Mr Payne’s advancing
step and voice now caused them all to
look up, and they saw Fane standing
in the doorway. Lady Lee visibly
started; her bosom and shoulders
gave one quick heave, and her colour
flushed up for a moment. Orelia’s
spoon stopped on its way to her
mouth—she calmly laid it down, and
rose to receive her visitors.
Fane, acting up to his principle that
it would be mere weakness to allow
himself to show any feeling beyond
strict civility towards her ladyship,
rather, as is customary in such cases,
overdid his part, and threw such an
extreme amount of indifference into
his salutation, that the warmth with
which she came forward to meet him
was dissipated in a moment. Chilled
and hurt, she resumed her seat in
silence.
Fane, supporting his character of
chance and uninterested visitor with
great success, conversed fluently on a
variety of topics, though it would have
puzzled him to remember his own remarks
half an hour after. It was one
of the few occasions in his life when
he had acted a part, and he, of course,
overacted it. He was pointedly
amusing to Orelia; he listened with
great attention to the inanities of Priscilla,
lending the most courteous ear
to a protracted account of her toothache;
but when Lady Lee spoke,
which only happened once or twice,
though her voice made his heart beat,
he manifested no consciousness of her
presence. Once or twice, addressing
some trivial remark to her, he caught
her eyes fixed on him with a look of
sorrowful surprise, but they were immediately
averted.
Mr Payne did not find Fane more
sociable, when the ladies left them to
their wine, than he had on the journey.
At tea with the ladies he resumed his
former demeanour; and afterwards
Orelia, thinking to do him and Hester
a kindness, set her father and Priscilla
down to double dummy, in a remote
corner, and sat by the card-table herself.
Fane felt rather awkward, and
glanced at Lady Lee, who was reading.
Presently he found himself approaching
her—not that he would have owned
himself impelled to take that course—not
at all; he set it all down to civility—he
couldn’t leave her sitting
there by herself, you know. But he
would be very guarded; he would try
to hit the line between the confidence
of friends and the reserve of new acquaintances,
so that his present demeanour
might blend harmoniously
into their ancient intimacy on the one
hand, and the distant civility that was
to exist between them in future, on
the other.
Lady Lee did not seem so absorbed
in her book as not to notice his approach;
for though she did not look
round, she coloured a little, and tremulously
turned over two leaves at
once, without discovering the gap thus
left in the narrative. She laid the
volume down when he took a seat near
and addressed her.
“This must be a pleasant place of
your friend’s when the flowers are in
bloom,” said Fane.
“Very.”
“No doubt you feel quite at home
here.”
“Certainly; the happiest years of
my life were spent here.”
“I trust,” said Fane, “they may
soon lose the distinction of being the
happiest.”
“That is very unlikely,”—(with a
sigh.)
A pause. Strange to say, the thought
that Lady Lee had no happiness immediately
in store for her, did not altogether
displease Fane.
“Happiness often takes us unawares,”
said Fane; “and,” he added,
“another of its peculiarities, as we all
know, is to slip from us as we prepare
to close our grasp on it. Most of us
experience much oftener its elusive
power than its pleasant surprises.”
“Yours used to be a more cheerful
philosophy,” said Lady Lee. “I remember,
in one of our last conversations,
you denounced those views of
life which are tinged with complaint
or despondency, as unmanly and untrue.”
“I suspect our philosophy comes
more from without than within,” he
said; “and we preach hope or cynicism
as we happen to be prosperous
or disappointed.”
“I should regret,” said Lady Lee,
in a low tone, “to hear that you had
any real cause for such a change.”
“Our opinions as to what might
or might not be a real cause would
possibly differ,” returned Fane. “Of
course, if one has bound up one’s happiness
in some ideal which turns out
to be a delusion, there is perhaps no
one to blame but one’s-self. I say
perhaps, because the deception may
have been so complete as to excuse
the credulity; but, at any rate, one
must not then find fault with views of
life which others, more fortunate, are
justified in adhering to.”
“It must be a weaker belief in good
than I had fancied Captain Fane’s to
be, which a single error can shake,”
said Lady Lee.
“But if the error is so important
as to upset all calculation,” said Fane.
“If I have been all my life——. But
I will not talk of myself,” he said,
breaking off, as he perceived how near
dangerous ground he was treading.
“What is the book you are reading?”
“It has a radical fault in your
eyes,” said Lady Lee; “it is written
by a woman.”
“Ah!” said Fane, “I remember
I used to think it a kind of desecration
for a woman to confide her sentiments
to the world; and the finer the sentiments,
the more it seemed to me a
pity that they should ever be blown
on by the rude breath of the public.
If she must write them, let her write
them in her journal, or her letters to
a chosen few—perhaps a chosen one;
but to trot her feelings out, to show
the form and paces of her mind to
cold-eyed critics and gaping fools,
I would as soon see the woman I loved
capering in the scantiest gauze at the
opera. So I used to say.”
“Used to say!” said Lady Lee.
“Are your opinions on this point
changing too?”
“Yes,” said Fane, with a good deal
of unconscious bitterness in his tone—“yes;
I begin to think that if a
woman’s sentiments do not influence
her life in its chief actions, it is of no
great consequence what becomes of
them; let her trumpet them in the
marketplace, if she likes, after the
manner of a proclamation. I don’t
mean to say they should be always
manifesting themselves in every petty
action, but they should colour her
existence, and influence its main outlines.
But if these sentiments and
feelings would never have found expression
at all if not in writing—if,
by presenting them to the public, she
is robbing her daily life of no delicate
tint—then my objections to female
authorship are gone; but with them
is also gone some of my belief in the
excellence of feminine nature.”
Can he have left Doddington on
some love enterprise, and been disappointed?
whispered Lady Lee’s heart;
or can the sharpness of his tone be
meant for me? A dim thought that
he might be alluding to her marriage
with Sir Joseph crossed her mind.
Poor woman! no wonder she was
puzzled; she could not see the handsome,
self-complacent, coxcombical
image of Sloperton, which to Fane’s
fancy sat between them, like Banquo’s
ghost, and seemed to push him from
his stool.
“Perhaps,” she said presently—“perhaps
you are on principle getting
rid of some of the tenets of your former
faith, stripping yourself, that you
may be the lighter to run the race of
ambition; for you never denied you
were ambitious, you know.”
“I never did,” said Fane; “but I
do now. For do but consider, Lady
Lee, if my faith in my ideals has
vanished, if the companionship and
reflected interest which these give to
a man’s efforts are no longer among
his prospects, where is he to look
for the stimulus and reward of ambition?”
“You show a dreary picture,” said
Lady Lee, with an unconscious sigh;
“but then ambition is a dreary thing,
and does not seem, in general, to look
for sympathy as its reward.”
“True,” said Fane; “and when I
see men long past their youth joining
in the contest for fame, I always ask
myself where lies their inducement?—Not
in love, for they have outlived
it—not in friendship, for they reject
it—not even in applause, for to that
they seem not to listen. They seem
actuated by an insane desire to climb
to a barren eminence, and there die.
For my own part, I could not value
nor wish for fame, unless I could read
it focussed and reflected in ——. But
I will not trouble you with my abandoned
aspirations and opinions; I
leave them, with my other theories, to
some one who has not yet discovered
that he is a dreamer of dreams.”
Fane imagined that he had conducted
the conversation so as to show
perfect indifference and independence.
It never occurred to him that he would
not have talked thus, nor on such subjects,
to a woman he did not care about.
When Lady Lee went to her room
that night, Orelia followed her, and,
sitting down by her side on the sofa
at the foot of the bed, looked inquiringly
into her eyes. Lady Lee knew
what she meant, but, having nothing
to say, said nothing. She only turned
away and sighed; and Orelia, kissing
her forehead, bid her good night.
Ah, if Fane could have afterwards
seen Lady Lee whispering her sorrow
to her pillow in the watches of the
night, what a pebble he must have
been had he not run to comfort her.
But he couldn’t see her, for there was
a solid wall separating her room from
the one where he strode to and fro
musingly.
If it is hard for two, who would
gladly give up all and everything for
each other, to find inseparable obstacles
interposed between them, must it
not be the devil’s spite for them to
discover, perhaps in the next world,
that they were divided in this one by
some merely imaginary bar—some
difference that a word would have
dissipated?
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Fane was angry with himself next
morning to perceive how anxiously he
looked for Lady Lee’s entrance to the
breakfast-room. He looked in vain,
however; she breakfasted in her own
room; and when the meal was finished,
he set off, without having seen
her, to keep his appointment with
Miss Fillett.
Kitty was lingering about a milestone
when Fane came up, and, appearing
in great distress lest any one
should see her talking to him, she got
over a stile when she saw him coming,
and walked along a bypath.
Kitty’s conscience had, as she said,
smitten her since the loss of Julius
for the share which she had taken
in Bagot’s schemes, and she now, as
soon as Fane reached her, began,
with much circumlocutory penitence,
to hint at what she called her lady’s
parshality for Fane—told what she
knew of the Colonel’s design on
Sloperton, and how she had helped to
forward it—mentioned the circumstances
which gave Bagot his power
over Lady Lee—and, lastly, described
the final exit which Sloperton had
made in apparent discomfiture from
the Heronry. She naturally took
some pains to excuse her own complicity,
but she might have spared
them; Fane attended to, and cared
for, nothing but the leading facts,
which showed him how he had been
imposed on; and when she stopt, he
actually caught Kitty round the neck
and kissed her.
“Good Hevins, Captain!” said
Miss Fillett, who, probably from surprise,
had submitted quietly to the
salute, “why, I never! ain’t you
ashamed? Do behave, sir!”
“’Twas a kiss of pure gratitude,”
said Fane, “and might have been
given by a hermit to a saint, Kitty. I
shall always look on you as a benefactor.”
“And—and—you’ll speak to my
lady for me, sir?” said Kitty.
“To be sure I will,” said Fane,
“only you mustn’t intrigue any more
with the Colonel,” he added, laughing.
He was hastening off, when he suddenly
remembered that he had intended
to ask Kitty if she had seen
anything of the dragoon Onslow in
Frewenham, and hurried back to put
the question.
In reply, Miss Fillett dived down
into her pocket, and extracting therefrom
a yellow printed paper, she unfolded
it, smoothed out the creases
against her knee, and gave it to
Fane.
It was a playbill, and announced,
under the special patronage of the
mayor and corporation of Frewenham,
Sheridan’s comedy of the Rivals for
that night.
“Well, Kitty, what has this to do
with the matter?” asked Fane. Kitty
pointed to the list of dramatis personæ.
“‘Sir Anthony Absolute—Mr Cavendish,’”
Fane read. “‘Captain Absolute—Mr
Onslow.’ What, he’s gone
on the stage, then!” Fane paused to
consider. He had plenty to occupy
him that morning; it must have been
very urgent business indeed that would
keep him that morning away from
Larches; he could see his cousin as
well at night, as now—yes; he would
go to the play, see him act, and discover
himself afterwards.
“I knew him the minute I set eyes
on him,” said Kitty, “for all he have
shaved off his mustache. They say
he acts beautiful—and I must own to
a sinful wish to see him. But plays,”
added Kitty piously, “is vanity.”
“Come to-night, Kitty,” said Fane,
dropping his purse into the pocket of
her apron; “perhaps we may have
occasion for a little more talk together,
since you seem to know so much of
what’s been going on at the Heronry,
and I can’t spare a moment to hear it
now. Come by all means, Kitty,
and I’ll promise you absolution,” and
he once more quitted her, going back
at his swiftest pace to Larches; while
Miss Fillett, after a short struggle
with herself, determined to see Onslow
act that night, let the Rev. Mr Fallalove
and Co. say what they might
about it.
Fane entered the drawing-room at
Larches, just as Lady Lee was going
out by another door. She turned a
pale tearful face towards him, and
was going to give him a distant salutation,
when the slight movement
was arrested, and the expression
changed to one of surprise, as he
hurried up and seized her hand.
“I have a long explanation to give,”
he said, “and then I think you will
forgive me. But first let me say
what has been on my mind for this
long time,” which he did in three
words.
Lady Lee did not carry out her
original intention of quitting the room;
in fact, she forgot it altogether. She
allowed him to lead her to a seat, and
listened with deep attention. Fane
had a turn for arrangement, and therefore
(after the compendious preamble
or overture of three words above-mentioned)
he began his tale at the
beginning. He told Lady Lee, with
a degree of eloquence that altogether
astonished himself, how he had first
admired, secondly loved her; how
her seemingly capricious treatment
of him had caused him to alternate
between hope and despair—and of his
interview with Josiah; and to all
this her ladyship listened with the
sweetest patience, her eyes being
sometimes downcast, sometimes fixed
on Fane. But when he told her of
the consent which Sloperton had procured
and exhibited to him, patience
gave way to indignation; her eyes,
neither downcast nor fixed on Fane,
sparkled with anger, which was presently
quenched in tears. This stage
passed, he told of his dreary existence
since, and of his efforts to forget her—of
the cause of his coming to Larches,
involving the episode of his cousin
Langley and Orelia; and wound up
his epic by swearing he was now the
happiest rascal in existence, and kissing
her ladyship’s hand.
She, too, had a little tale to tell—of
her unhappiness and anxiety—her futile
attempts to account for his sudden
departure and continued absence;
and it is really enough to make one
ashamed of one’s species, and to cause
one to believe in Rochefoucault,
Thackeray, and other cynic philosophers,
to know that Fane listened to
this account of her woes with positive
pleasure, and was raised to a state
bordering on rapture at hearing that
the night before had been passed by
her in sleeplessness and tears.
They got no farther than this before
lunch; but Orelia, seeing at a glance
how things were going, left them alone
together after that meal—and the
conclusion they arrived at before dinner
was this, that after an interval
granted to Hester’s sorrow, they should
be married—with Bagot’s consent, if
that were obtainable by purchase, or
otherwise—if not, they would be
married without it, and let him do
his worst.
CHAPTER XLIX.
That building which in Frewenham
was now devoted to the drama, bore,
in general, but little resemblance to a
theatre. It was a long narrow room
enclosed by four isolated walls, and
had been built by an enterprising master-mason
as a speculation. It was the
public room of Frewenham. Here balls
took place; here lectures were delivered;
here public meetings were held. It
served all sorts of opposite purposes;
and here—where only a few days before
an enthusiastic missionary had
collected plates-ful of money from the
devout inhabitants of Frewenham in
aid of a project for convincing the Kaffirs,
by the power of moral reasoning,
of the advantages of universal peace
and brotherhood, and subsequently
forming them into a great South African
Tee-total Society—here such of
the pleasure-loving portion of the
townsfolk as could command the price
of admission, were now assembled to
witness Sheridan’s comedy.
One end of this room was divided
from the rest, partly by a painted
wooden partition, which stretched
across the ceiling and down the sides,
partly by a green baize curtain in the
centre of it. In front of the curtain
flared and smoked a row of footlights,
diffusing an odour suggestive at once
of train-oil and boiled mutton.
The stage being on the ground-floor,
there was no pit, properly so called—a
row of forms, at a few feet from the
footlights, evidently represented the
boxes, inasmuch as their occupants
paid highest for their seats; but this
was the only advantage they possessed
over the pit and gallery behind
them, except that the vapour of the
footlights was there inhaled in greater
freshness and perfection. The orchestra
was raised on one side of the
boxes, and consisted of a violoncello,
a serpent, and two fiddles, all belonging
to the county militia. The musicians
were perfectly well known to
the audience, which was a great comfort
to those impatient persons in the
gallery, who had stormed the door
and rushed in about an hour and a
half before the play commenced, for
they were enabled to relieve their
otherwise painful suspense by calling
to them by name for favourite airs,
and making them the subjects of
many playful allusions. “Rub your
elbow with the rosin, Jim,” shouted a
wag to the leader of the band, who
was preparing his violin-bow with that
substance; “there was too much rheumatism
in that last tune.” “Your
serpent’s got a hoaze, Biffin,” cried
another, to the performer on that wind
instrument: “put him in ’ot flannel
when you go home, and don’t bring
him out no more o’ nights.” “Cherry
ripe!” shouted a chorus of voices.
“Music, play up!” “Polly, put the
kettle on!” demanded an opposition
chorus—and faction ran so high between
the adverse connoisseurs, that,
when the music struck up, nobody
knew what they were playing—while
the gallery, with its darkness visible,
and the confusion that reigned in its
obscurest nooks, where the choice
spirits had collected, presented the
aspect of an amiable pandemonium,
till the rising of the curtain produced
an instantaneous calm.
Fane had entered early, and stood
leaning against the wall watching the
entry of the spectators, who gradually
filled the house. The green baize on
the seats in the boxes became invisible
foot by foot, as careful fathers and
matrons selected good points of view
for themselves and offspring—as a
young ladies’ school entered in a body,
and with demureness, relieved by
private titters under each other’s bonnets,
ranged themselves in order—as
gay bachelors, who had been chatting
with female acquaintances at a distance,
rushed to secure their places.
Cheerfulness and expectation prevailed;
but the person among all the
audience, whose feelings Fane envied
most, was a sharp-looking little boy,
in a red frock with black specks on it,
and a magnificent feathered hat, who
came in with his papa and brothers,
and, being placed on his feet in the
front row, gazed round him with intense
delight. Fane remembered that
the last time he had been in such a
place he was about that age and size,
and he knew that the scene was, to
that little boy, the most charming
spot on earth; that he had dreamt of
it for two or three previous nights, at
least—that the smell of the footlights
was a sweet savour in his nostrils, the
noise in the gallery solemn music in
his ears—the whole place paradise—and
that he would watch the progress
of the drama with breathless interest,
and most uncriticising faith. There
was an elder brother of his, too, who
appeared, probably for the first time
in his life, in Wellington boots and a
shirt-collar, to his great pride and discomfort;
and Fane guessed with considerable
correctness that this youth
would conceive an ardent and respectful
passion for the lady who did Lydia
Languish.
Presently, as the place began to fill,
a stout gentleman stood up and blew
his nose like a trumpet, and, after replacing
his handkerchief with much
ceremony in his pocket, gazed round
him with great sternness and dignity.
He was evidently a man of the first importance
in a civic point of view—his
bunch of seals was massive, his hair
was brushed ferociously up from his
forehead, and his shirt-collars appeared
to be cutting his ears off. As the
noise in the gallery increased, he
lifted up his hand majestically, as if
to calm the tumult; still it went on—he
shook his head as if at so many
noisy children, when a voice was
heard to shout amid the din, “Hark
to old Bribery and Corruption!”
which was the nickname the stout
gentleman was known by among his
fellow-townsmen, in consequence of
some valuable electioneering qualities—whereupon
he turned away redder
than ever, and stooping down, pretended
to whisper to another stout
gentleman, who shook his head, frowned
fiercely, and said the rascals had
been getting more impudent every day
since the passing of the Reform Bill.
Fane saw Kitty Fillett steal in,
accompanied by her young brother,
and silently seat herself in the pit—a
sort of purgatory, or middle state between
the inferno of the gallery, and
the paradise of the boxes. She seemed
anxious to avoid notice, but in this
she was disappointed, for she was
presently recognised by some vigilant
censors in the gallery. “Won’t Miss
Fillett ask a blessing?” cried one.
“No backsliders,” shouted another.
“Give her the Old Hundredth,” said
a third, addressing the orchestra—whereat
Miss Fillett, wrapping her
shawl nervously about her, looked
around, sniffing in high scorn and
defiance.
Presently a little bell rang, and the
curtain drew up.
Fane recognised the dragoon directly
Captain Absolute entered,
and saw in a moment that the high
encomium passed by Mr Payne on
Langley’s powers as an actor was no
more than just. He infused great
spirit into the part, and made the
points tell admirably. He was dressed
in perfect taste, and looked so handsome
and high-bred, that the entire
young ladies’ school fell in love with
him, and two teachers began to pine
away from that very night; while
Lydia Languish, a showy-looking girl,
acted the love scenes with a degree of
warmth that showed she must either
be a mistress of that kind of acting,
or else not acting at all. Sir Anthony,
too, was remarkably well acted by an
old man, the manager of the company,
who called himself Mr Cavendish.
The costumes were correct, and in
excellent taste; and some of the
scenes were admirably painted in a
style that Fane at once ascribed to
Langley’s pencil.
The curtain fell at the end of the last
act amid great approbation. Shortly
afterwards, old Mr Cavendish made
his appearance before the curtain, to
announce that the Infant Roscius was
about to appear as Young Norval,
and to request that, however much
the audience might approve his performance,
they would refrain from
loud applause, as that would probably
put such an inexperienced performer
out in his part.
Again the bell rang, and the curtain
ascended creaking. After a pause
Young Norval entered, clad in full
Highland costume. He seemed about
four or five years old, and came in
with a sort of mock manliness in his
gait, which at once insured him the
sympathies of the female portion of
the audience. In fact, Fane heard
one young lady near pronounce him a
“darling” before he opened his mouth,
while another expressed a desire to
kiss him.
The juvenile tragedian having informed
the audience, in a bold lisp,
that his name was Norval, and having
mentioned the “Gwampian hills” as
the place of his paternal abode, was
proceeding to describe his connection
with the warlike lord, when a voice
in the pit was heard to exclaim,
“Master Juley! O goodness gracious,
Master Juley!”
Young Norval paused with an
amazed air—fumbled with his dirk—looked
about him for a moment, and,
forgetting his heroic character, began
to cry. Again the voice in the pit
was heard. “Master Juley,” it cried,
“come to Kitty!” when the drop-scene
suddenly descended, with great
swiftness, and hid him from view.
A great commotion now took place
in the house, especially the pit, where
the fainting form of Kitty Fillett was
seen passed from hand to hand on its
way to the open air. Fane, on hearing
her exclamation, had quitted the
house, and ran round to the stage-door,
which he entered. The first
person he encountered was Captain
Absolute, who was standing with his
back towards him, but who turned
instantly as Fane called out “Langley.”
“You know who I am then?” he
said, advancing. “I saw you among
the audience.”
“I’ve been following you these six
weeks,” said Fane, shaking his hand.
“First let me see the child, and I’ll
speak to you afterwards.” At that
moment the old manager passed, making
for the stage-door, with Julius
kicking and struggling in his arms.
Fane, laying one hand on the shoulder
of the old gentleman, lifted the boy
from him with the other. Julius recognised
Fane at once, and, calling
him by name, ceased crying.
Mr Holmes (for the manager was
no other than that venerable person)
surrendered the boy at once. “Allow
me to speak to you one moment, sir,”
he said, drawing Fane aside by the
arm. “Doubtless you intend to restore
him to his friends,” said Mr
Holmes, in a calm business-like tone.
“Instantly,” said Fane. “But
how came he with you, when he is believed
dead by his friends? You will
have to account for this.”
Mr Holmes looked round, to see
that no one was within earshot, and,
motioning to Fane to stoop, he whispered
in his ear.
“Good God!” said Fane, as Mr
Holmes ceased. “I can’t believe it.
And yet, why not? But this may be
a slander of yours, to screen yourself,
and gain time to escape.”
“Me!” said Mr Holmes, shrugging
his shoulders, and spreading out
his palms. “I shall make no attempt
to escape. My account of the matter
is plain, so far as I am concerned. I
was requested to take charge of the
young gentleman, and accepted it.
Then naturally comes the question.
By whom were you requested? And
whether a public answer will be satisfactory
to the young gentleman’s family
and friends, you may judge for
yourself.”
“The old scoundrel is right,” muttered
Fane. “It cannot be kept too
quiet.” Then he said aloud, “This
will be matter for his friends to decide
on; in the mean time, I shall
take him to his mother.”
“One word more,” said Mr Holmes.
“I have reason to believe it was intended
to restore the young gentleman
to his family very shortly. It
was with that view, I imagine, that I
received directions to proceed to this
place; though I didn’t know they
were in this neighbourhood.”
Fane, still holding Julius in his
arms, now went towards the door.
As he passed Langley, he stopped and
drew out his watch. “It is now ten,”
said he. “Can you, in an hour from
this, meet me, Langley, at the hotel
in Fore Street?” Langley assented,
and Fane left the theatre.
Miss Fillett having been conveyed
by charitable hands into the open air,
had been forthwith surrounded by a
circle of her own sex, who fanned her
face, stuffed hartshorn and smelling
salts up her nose, beat her hands, and
adopted other established remedies for
her restoration. These had so far
recovered her that, on seeing Fane
emerge with Julius, she broke from
the sympathetic females around her,
and, snatching the young baronet,
cast herself on her knees on the pavement,
and squeezed him in her arms,
murmuring hysterically, and shedding
tears over him.
“Where is the hold villain?” said
Kitty presently, looking round in
search of Mr Holmes. “It misgive
me, the moment I see him, that I
knew his ugly old face. Let me kim
to him. I’ll tear his eyes out.”
A word in her ear from Fane, however,
induced her to defer her vengeance
for the present; and he prevailed
on her to come with Julius,
whom she would not let out of her
clutch for an instant, to the hotel,
where a conveyance might be got to
convey them to Larches; and thither
they accordingly repaired, attended
by a considerable crowd, who had
been solacing themselves by listening
outside the theatre to catch stray
sounds and music, and obtaining hasty
glimpses of a green baize screen whenever
the door was opened.
A quarter of an hour saw them
speeding along in a dog-cart, Fane
driving, and Fillett holding the recovered
little baronet in her lap. He
slept there soundly. “Dear soul!”
said Fillett, looking down at him, and
covering him with her shawl, “he
used to be always a-bed by eight
o’clock. We shan’t get speech of him
to-night.”
They stopt at a little distance from
the cottage, and a stable-boy who sat
behind took the reins to hold the horse
till the return of Fane, who now proceeded
with Fillett and her charge to
the house.
There was a light in the drawing-room,
and Fane, going softly up, and
standing on a flower-bed underneath,
peeped in. He was very glad to see
Orelia seated there reading, alone,
and, returning to Fillett, he took Julius
from her, and sent her in to prepare
Miss Payne for the strange news
of his recovery.
Fillett went, and Fane heard the
murmur of their voices for a minute
or two—when Orelia’s grew louder—the
drawing-room door opened, and
forth she came in such tempestuous
fashion, that it was fortunate she ran
against nobody in the passage. Seeing
Julius asleep in Fane’s arms as he
stood in the porch, and recognising
the boy instantly in spite of his Highland
costume, she snatched him eagerly,
and covered him with kisses. “I
wonder what Langley would give for
one or two of those,” said Fane to
himself, as he followed her to the
drawing-room.
In answer to her breathless inquiries,
he told how he had found Julius,
and the reasons which appeared to
exist for keeping his abduction as
secret as possible. Then they consulted
together as to the best mode
of breaking the news to Lady Lee.
“I’ll go and tell her immediate,” said
the excited Fillett. “I ain’t afraid
to face my lady now.”
“Stay, my good girl,” said Fane;
“we mustn’t be rash. Miss Payne,
you could prepare her better than any
one.”
Orelia went away, and, after a
short absence, returned to the drawing-room.
“Hester is asleep,” said she; “I
was afraid to wake her.”
“Right,” said Fane. “But what
do you think, Miss Payne, of placing
Julius, who doesn’t seem likely to
wake till morning, by his mother’s
side?”
“Ho!” said Kitty, “the very
thing!—and when my lady wakes,
she’ll think ’tis a dream.”
“Do you know,” said Orelia, “that
strikes me as a happy thought of
yours. I’m resolved it shall be done—yes—it
shall.” So saying, she
took up the slumbering Julius, and
desiring Fillett to accompany her,
conveyed him to her own room; while
Fane quitted the house to rejoin Langley,
saying he would return for news
in the morning.
Arrived in her chamber, Orelia
desired Kitty to undress Julius, an
office she was well accustomed to,
and gladly undertook. He fretted a
little, in a sleepy way, at being disturbed,
and thrust his knuckles into
his eyes; but the moment the disrobing
was accomplished he relapsed
into sound slumbers, with a long-drawn
sigh. “Bless you,” said Kitty,
“he’d sleep now if you put him standing
on his head on the floor, the
dear!”
Orelia, on her first visit to Hester’s
room, had left a light there. Very
softly she now re-entered, bearing
her young friend, with his head
against her bosom, his bare legs
dangling perpendicularly from the
bend of her arm, and, stealing to the
side of the bed, stood looking at its
occupant, while Kitty, with elaborate
caution, crept after. The youthfulness
of Hester’s look, as she lay with
her face turned up till her chin approached
her upraised shoulder, struck
Orelia—she beheld the Hester of five
years before. She stood a moment
gazing at her, figuring to herself the
astonishment that would appear in
those eyes when their lids were next
raised; then she motioned to Fillett,
who turned down the bed-clothes far
enough to admit Julius, and Orelia,
stooping silently down, deposited him
with his head on the pillow near Lady
Lee’s. It seemed a matter of indifference
to him what they did with
him; he merely rubbed his nose with
his hand, as if something tickled it,
made a noise with his lips as if tasting
something, and slept on. Lady Lee,
too, slept quietly; and Orelia, after
having once or twice turned to look
at them, withdrew with Kitty. She
closed the door softly, then, listening,
thought she heard a noise—re-opened
it—it was only Lady Lee turning in
her sleep; she now lay with her face
turned to the boy’s, and her arm
across his neck—and Orelia retired
to her own room.
Fane found Langley waiting at the
hotel door, and, taking his arm, drew
him into a private room. As he had
dined early, and imagined his cousin
had probably done so too, he ordered
supper forthwith. “We should be
hungry enough before we had half
done talking,” said Fane. “First,
while supper is getting ready, I’ll
have my say.”
Accordingly he told his cousin how
he had got a clue to their relationship
by means of the seal ring at the silversmith’s—of
his late visit to their
uncle—of his uncle’s smothered affection
for Langley—of the visit with
Miss Betsey to his old apartments—of
his conversation with Mr Payne;
which last, however, he recapitulated
only so far as it related to the manner
in which Langley had first provoked
his uncle, saying nothing at present
about the forgery, which he wished
to hear Langley’s own version of.
His cousin listened eagerly—seemed
surprised at the share his ring had
borne in detecting him—smiled at
Fane’s mention of Miss Betsey, and
interrupted him to characterise her
as a “jolly old woman.” But the
account of the rooms, still preserved
in the state he had left them in, and
of his uncle’s nocturnal visits to them,
excited deeper emotion. He rose
from his chair, walked about the
room, and, when he resumed his
seat, brushed off some moisture from
his eyelashes.
“I believe in my soul,” said Langley,
“that he once loved me better
than anything on earth. But his last
letter to me was so harsh, so severe
in tone, that I imagined I should not
have obtained forgiveness, even had I
sought it. To seek it, however, was
far from my thoughts; my uncle’s
condemnation of my conduct was
mild compared with my own, and I
had resolved, before his letter came,
never to look on his face again till I
could do so without shame.”
“You must have played the very
deuce,” observed Fane, “to call forth
these feelings in him and yourself.
’Twas play, I suppose, that did it.”
“Yes,” said Langley, “that finished
me; but I had no turn for saving,
and I had, besides, dropt a good deal
on a favourite for the Leger. All my
uncle’s allowance went. I asked for
more—’twas sent with some caustic
remarks; next time, the remarks
were angry, instead of caustic—then
bitter. At last, while playing to win
back, I lost all I had. I sold everything,
and was still a hundred pounds
short. This sum I wrote to my uncle
for, assuring him ’twas the last time
I should ever trouble him. He evidently
didn’t believe me, for, with the
check for a hundred, came the letter
I already told you of, the harshest he
had ever written.”
“Well?” said Fane impatiently,
seeing him pause.
“I paid my gaming debts, in some
of which I suspected foul play, though
it would have been difficult to prove
that. All paid, I found myself with
about fifteen shillings, and a suit of
clothes, as my sole possessions, to
make a fresh start in the world with.
I left London, making my way on
foot towards a seaport; and, while
making a meal of bread and cheese,
to be paid for with my last remaining
coin, a recruiting sergeant spoke to
me, and I enlisted directly. You
know my career afterwards, till I left
the Heronry Lodge.”
“But the last check from my uncle,”
said Fane, “I want to hear about
that. To whom did you pay it?”
“To the man I had lost most to,
and who had the greatest share in my
ruin,” said Langley. “He came to
my lodgings on the day I received it.
I threw it across the table to him,
telling him, calmly enough outwardly,
that I was done for, and that he
would never hear of me more, for
that my intention was to quit the
country that very day.”
“And you saw nothing more of
him?” said Fane.
“Never till we met on the day of
the review in the Heronry grounds,”
returned Levitt, “when he seemed
confused enough at the meeting, as well
he might, for, as I say, Seager had
more to do with my ruin than anybody.”
“Seager!” exclaimed Fane. “I
always thought him a horrible rascal.
’Twas to him, then, you transferred
your check?”
“Yes,” said Langley; “and, at
the same time, I showed him the
letter that accompanied it, that he
might see the kind of misery such
proceedings as his lead to. He read
it—threw it back to me. ‘All up
there,’ said he; ‘the old boy’s done
with you—what do you mean to
do?’ I told him I should quit the
country that very day. He approved
of this design, and offered to pay my
passage to any foreign port I chose.
This I declined; and, meeting the
recruiting party, I abandoned my
first intention, and enlisted.”
Fane stood up, leaning his arm
against the chimneypiece, his head
upon his hand, deep in thought.
“Certainly,” he said to himself,
“Langley is innocent of the forgery—and
I think I see who is guilty—now,
to prove it is the point.”
“Was there any one present when
you gave the check to Seager?” he
asked.
Levitt paused for a minute to think.
“I’m not sure,” he replied, “’twas
so long ago; but I rather think
Mounteney was present.”
“And knew the amount of the
check?” asked Fane.
“Probably,” returned Levitt—“indeed,
I should say, certainly, if he
was present, as I rather fancy he
was. But why do you ask?”
Fane, however, waived this question;
it could answer no purpose, at
present, to show Langley the suspicion
he lay under. Supper appearing
at the moment enabled him to
change the subject.
“Your health, Durham,” said Langley;
“long may you enjoy my uncle’s
favour, which you deserve better than
I did. By Jupiter!” he added, setting
down his glass, “I had almost
forgotten the flavour of champagne.
It is long since I tasted it, and ’twill,
probably, be yet longer before I taste
it again.”
“You have told me nothing of your
plans for the future,” said Durham.
“They are hardly definite enough
to talk about; but I’m not used to
despond. My one clear purpose is to
leave England. Since I left the service,
I have found how difficult it is to
make, unassisted, the first step in the
ascent of life. Now, I consider myself
rather a sharp fellow, Durham, as
fellows go. I am willing to turn my
hand to any earthly thing it is capable
of, in an honest way; and a man
who, though naturally impatient, yet
performs three years’ service in the
lower ranks of the army with credit,
has some title to trust his own temper
and perseverance. Yet I’ve been for
these—let me see, how many weeks is
it since I sold my last sketch?—three,
I think—hovering on the confines of
absolute penury.”
“Good God!” exclaimed Fane.
“My dear fellow!”
“Fact,” said Levitt, with a laugh.
“So I resolved to try what virtue
there was in a stout arm and a gay
heart, in a country like Canada or
Australia. But the passage-money—there
was the rub. I’ve been trying
to raise it, as I came along, by selling
sketches to booksellers, but that
hardly kept me in bread and cheese.
Arriving here, however, I found a
theatrical company in want of a
scene-painter. I offered myself, was
approved of, and tolerably well paid;
and four or five mornings ago, when
their walking gentleman was sick, I
volunteered to supply his place. Old
Cavendish the manager gave me a
benefit to-night, which has put a few
pounds in my pocket, and the day
after to-morrow I start for the New
World.”
“There is only one little point left
unaccounted for in your narrative,”
said Fane, smiling. “Frewenham is
not exactly in the road to any point
of embarkation for Canada, or Australia
either; and you have not explained
what brought you here.”
He fixed his eyes on Levitt, who,
spite of his efforts to look indifferent,
coloured deeply.
“I’m a confounded fool, Durham—I
believe that’s undeniable,” he said.
“And yet, I’m not ashamed to say
that I came so far out of my way to
take a last look at a woman. Such a
woman, Durham—ah, you must be,
as I’ve been, beneath the very heel of
fortune, and habituated to the sense
of appearing to others in a false light,
to know the true value of a charming
woman’s sympathy. If I had met
her anywhere, or at any period of my
life, I should have preferred her to all
the world—but circumstances have
made me positively adore her. I
would not present myself again before
her for the world—that could answer
no good purpose—but I could not
deny myself one last glimpse of
Orelia.”
“Though I smile,” said Fane,
“don’t think, my dear fellow, ’tis at
your devotion. On the contrary, I
honour you for it. I was merely paying
tribute to my own penetration
at having guessed what brought you
here.”
Hereupon there ensued a conversation
on the subject of love, its exacting
and engrossing nature, its dreams,
its power to excite, its anxieties, and
the astonishing absurdities which even
sensible people commit, without any
shame or compunction, under its influence.
And as this was a subject
more interesting to the two interlocutors
than to whole-hearted, devil-may-care
people like you and me, reader,
who are not yet, heaven be praised,
utterly hoodwinked, and have no occasion
to pluck cherry lips and neatly-turned
ankles out of our eyes in order
to see clearly—and as, moreover, it
has been touched upon by one or two
previous writers, we will merely mention
in this place that the two cousins
seemed wonderfully unanimous in their
opinions and feelings, and separated
for the night with a very strong regard
for each other.
CHAPTER L.
Next morning Fane wrote a note
to Orelia, to say that he wished to
hear from her how Lady Lee had
borne the restoration of Julius to her
arms—for that he would not commit
the sacrilege of intruding upon her on
a day that ought to be sacred to other
feelings than those his presence could
inspire.
“I slept so little, and so lightly,
last night” (wrote Orelia, in reply,
after describing how she had deposited
Julius, undiscovered, by his mother’s
side), “that I was easily roused by
what I thought was a cry from Hester.
I sat up in bed and listened in silence—then
I stole to her door, and heard
such a kind of murmuring within as
a dove might make over its young.
I entered. Hester was hanging over
Julius, apparently not quite certain
whether she waked or slept—indeed,
she seemed to think it a vivid dream,
for she stared at me as I entered, and
passed her hand confusedly across her
eyes. I sat down on the bed, and
whispered to her that ’twas all real,
and if she would lie quite still and
composed, I would tell her the whole
of the story as far as I knew it.
“You did right not to come to-day.
She is still a little bewildered—and
was quite so till she had a good cry.
For some little time she did what I’m
sure you never heard her do—she
talked nonsense. As for the cause of
all these tears, he seems tolerably
unconcerned. He submitted to our
embraces this morning as coolly as if
he had only been away a week, and
is now busy, dressed in his Highland
costume (for there are no clothes of
his here), in making acquaintance
with Moloch. This helps to compose
Hester, and she is now able to comprehend
her happiness—to-morrow
she will be radiant.
“Come to-morrow as early as you
like.”
This note was brought by Mr
Payne; and Fane, after he had read
it, told that gentleman he had seen
Langley, and was persuaded of his
innocence in the matter of the forgery.
He mentioned Seager as the person
who had received the check, and Mr
Payne at once remembered that to be
the name of the person who had presented
it, and who had excited no
suspicion of anything irregular, as
this was not the first that had been
paid to him. Fane also told what he
had learnt from Lady Lee of the charge
of swindling now pending against
Seager, and of the additional probability
thus afforded that he was the
delinquent. Mr Payne promptly
adopted this view of the case, and
proposed that he should go instantly
to town to consult a legal adviser on
the matter, and, if necessary, have an
interview with Seager himself. “You
see,” he said, “that what we want,
in this instance, is, not to prosecute
or recover, but simply to establish
Langley’s innocence; and if, by confessing,
he can avoid a prosecution,
perhaps we may, without difficulty,
get Seager to admit his guilt.”
After Mr Payne had departed, Fane
spent the rest of the day in investigating
Mr Holmes’s account of the
abduction of Julius. It really appeared
that Bagot was the instigator of it—and,
moreover, that the Colonel had
intended to restore Julius so soon as
the conclusion of the trial should have
removed the original inducement for
concealing him, which was to obtain
funds wherewith to meet the trial.
Lady Lee was, as Orelia had prophesied,
all radiant when Fane next
saw her, and looked altogether so
cheerful and charming that he experienced
a sudden impulse to embrace
her; and, not seeing any just cause or
impediment, had already, with that
view, put his arm round her waist,
when she stooped, and, snatching
Julius from the ground, held him
before her as a shield. Julius, being
fond of Fane, immediately clung
round his neck, and thus covered
any little discomfiture he might naturally
have felt at having his intention
defeated.
This placing of Julius between the
lovers involved a kind of metaphor;
for Lady Lee reminded Fane that,
though they might have dispensed
with Bagot’s consent on mere pecuniary
grounds, yet now, when Julius’s
interests were again at stake, it was
imperative to obtain it.
Fane, who had in fact come rushing
into Lady Lee’s presence with the full
intention of pressing for immediate
union, now that her mourning was
thus happily at an end, was fairly
staggered by this consideration, which
he had in his eagerness quite overlooked.
But though he could have
found resolution to submit to what
was inevitable, it was not in his nature
to be patient while any alternative
remained. First, he would go instantly,
seek out Bagot, and demand
the consent—would go down on his
knees for it, if necessary, professing
himself ready for any amount of baseness
and sycophancy to propitiate the
potent Colonel. But Lady Lee, feeling
that Bagot might possibly vent
the anger she knew him to entertain
against Fane in some coarse insult,
told the latter her reasons for thinking
the Colonel was not to be propitiated.
Then he urged that if Bagot
could not be cajoled, he might be
threatened or bought—that a hint of
exposure in the business of the abduction
might bring him to terms.
This certainly seemed feasible; but
this hope was put to flight by a letter
from Mr Payne, announcing that, arriving
in town on the last day of the
trial, with the intention of seeing
Seager, he found both him and Bagot
fled, and the latter had been traced to
France. This was a terrible stroke,
affecting so powerfully as it did the
interests both of Fane and Langley.
And as this brings us to the point of
Mr Seager’s flight from town, we will
now follow that gentleman in his
career.
CHAPTER LI.
Seager, fancying himself dogged at
the railway terminus on the day of his
flight from London, took his ticket for
the station beyond that where he intended
to alight, to avoid detection.
At Frewenham he left the train and
repaired to an inn, a second-rate one,
which he had selected as a less dangerous
abode than the principal hotel.
Keeping up his disguise, he spent
two whole days (precious days to
him) in walking about Larches for
an opportunity of speaking to Lady
Lee. Fane, or Mr Payne, or Fillett,
were for ever there, one or other of
them, and it might be fatal to his
plans for any of them to discover
him. He read in the papers, with a
good deal of amusement, the account
of the late trial, and was particularly
diverted with the paragraph at the
close which announced that the prisoners
had forfeited their bail, and
were supposed to be at large on the
Continent. On the third day, however,
he saw the coast clear, and taking
off his wig and false mustache
behind a hedge, he buttoned his greatcoat
across the splendour beneath it,
and, looking like himself, walked
boldly up to the cottage and rang
the bell.
“Give that to Lady Lee,” he said
to the servant who opened the door,
“and say I wait for an answer.”
When Lady Lee opened the note,
she read a request from Mr Seager
“to grant him a short interview, on
a subject of the last importance,”
(these words being underlined.)
“Something about the affairs of
the wretched Colonel, I suppose,” she
said to herself; “shall I admit him?
Surely Bagot has forfeited all right to
my assistance.” Her eye fell on Julius,
and her heart softened. After
all, Bagot had done her no irreparable
injury. “Take the child away,” she
said, “and then admit the person
who waits.”
Mr Seager, in full possession of all
his brazen assurance, was ushered in.
Lady Lee’s look was quite composed,
and there was nothing like grief in
her aspect. “She’s got over the boy’s
loss pretty quickly,” thought Seager.
“Time is precious, my lady,” he
said, when he had seated himself;
“you’ll excuse me if I come at once
to the point, and cut the matter
short.”
“As short as you please, sir,” said
Lady Lee.
This rather put him out, but he recovered
himself as he went on.
“Perhaps, when you know what I
came about, I shall be more welcome.
What if I know of something which
nearly concerns you, and which you
would give much to hear?”
Lady Lee sat upright on the sofa,
and her face assumed a look of
anxiety. “What can it be?” she
said to herself; and then aloud, “Go
on, sir.”
“I must explain that I am peculiarly
situated just now, my lady—very
peculiarly indeed. I’m leaving
the country, and my resources are
running very low. This must be my
excuse for attaching a condition to
the revealing of this secret;—in fact,
I am compelled to make a matter of
business of it. You can command a
good sum, I dare say, such as would
be a vast thing to me, without any
inconvenience to yourself.”
“But the nature of your information,
sir?—the nature of it?” said
Lady Lee, her curiosity excited to an
extreme degree.
“You see,” said Seager, “you may
not have the sum I should require in
the house; but I’ll take your note of
hand, or I.O.U. I know you’d be
honourable, my lady.”
“The nature of it?” repeated Lady
Lee, anxiously.
“Hem,” said Mr Seager, clearing
his throat, and muttering to himself.
“It does look rather heartless, but it
can’t be helped. In a word, you had
a son who passes for dead—what if I
could give tidings of him?”
Lady Lee gave a sigh of relief, and
fell back on the sofa. She saw his
error. Mr Seager took it for a sign
of agitation, and went on.
“You’ll say, of course, Prove your
words? Very well; do you know
this handwriting?” He rose, and
held a letter before her eyes.
“Perfectly,” said Lady Lee; “it
is Colonel Lee’s.”
“Well, read a line or two of it,”
said Seager, opening it so that one
paragraph was visible.
She read—“Hester, we shall never
meet again, and I will repair an injury
I have done you. Your boy is not
dead, he——”
“There,” said Mr Seager, refolding
the letter, “that will satisfy you of
my good faith. Now, if I give this,
containing full information of your
son’s whereabouts, what will you
give?”
“But,” said Lady Lee, “have you
any right to withhold such information?”
“That’s not the question,” said
Seager; “we won’t talk about rights.
I’ve no time for humbug. In a word,
name your figure, or else I put the
letter in my pocket, and in six hours
I shall be in France. Speak out, and
be liberal!”
At this moment there was a fumbling
at the handle of the door.
“Send ’em away,” said Mr Seager;
“this matter must be between you
and me.”
Lady Lee knew who the intruder
was, and going to the door opened it,
and admitted Julius.
Mr Seager fell a pace back, crying
out, “My God! you’ve found him,
then.”
Lady Lee led Julius to the sofa
with something of a smile on her face,
and seated him on her lap.
“Well, sir,” she said to Seager,
“you forgot to mention the price you
set upon a mother’s feelings.”
“Damnation!” muttered Seager;
“it’s no go. I’ll be off. Shall I try
to get some money out of her for Lee?
No, she wouldn’t trust me with it
now, and time’s precious. My secret
is forestalled,” he said aloud, with a
brazen grin. “I’m sorry we couldn’t
have made a bargain for it. But you
needn’t say you have seen me, my
lady—promise you won’t,” he added.
“There’s been no harm done, you
know.”
Lady Lee rose and rang the bell.
Seager made off towards the door,
opened it, and turned round. “Don’t
mention you saw me,” he repeated;
“’twill do no good.”
He was hurrying off, cursing his ill
luck, and resolving to continue his
flight instantly, when he ran full tilt,
in the passage, against the police
officer whom he had evaded at the
London station. His delay in the
attempt to extort money from Lady
Lee had been fatal to his plan of
escape. The policeman addressed him
by name, and told him he was his
prisoner. Seager started back, with
an exclamation, followed by a muttered
curse.
“Hush!” he said, “don’t speak
loud. How did you find me?”
“Got on your scent last night, sir,”
said the policeman, “and have been
dodging you all the morning. I saw
you take off your wig behind the
hedge, and knew you in a minute.”
Again Seager began a string of
curses in a low tone. Presently he
drew forth a pocket-book. “Come,”
he said, “you’ll get nothing by my
capture—what shall we say, now, for
letting me slip? Nobody need ever
know you found me.”
The policeman smiled as he put the
offered notes aside.
“Stuff!” said Seager. “Every
man has his price. Why shouldn’t
you turn a penny when you can?”
He was still pressing his point, and
the officer was getting impatient,
when the front door near which they
stood opened, and Fane entered from
the garden.
“What! Seager!” he cried, on
seeing that gentleman—“the very
man I want above all others. What
brought you here! and who is this?”
he asked, looking at the policeman.
A short explanation from the latter
put Fane in possession of the facts.
“Be so good as to bring your prisoner
in here,” said Fane, opening
the door of a small room. “I won’t
detain you long, and you cannot object
to the delay, as it may result in
a fresh charge against Mr Seager.”
Seager affected to laugh at this,
but felt rather alarmed, nevertheless.
His capture had upset all his calculations,
and momentarily shaken his
habitual confidence in himself.
“Please to attend to this conversation,”
Fane said to the police officer.
“In the first place, I must tell you,
Mr Seager, that your former victim,
my cousin Langley Levitt, is now in
Frewenham, and that Mr Payne is
now in London, investigating the circumstances
of the forgery of a certain
check on his bank.”
Seager turned pale. “Well,” he
said, “what then?”
“That check you presented for payment,”
said Fane.
“Ay,” said Seager; “but that
doesn’t prove I forged it, or knew it
was forged. Can you prove that?”
“I think we can. A person was
present when Langley gave it you,
and the amount of it was then known.
I give you credit for cleverness in
your calculations. You knew Langley
was resolved to disappear from
his family and the world—you calculated
that when the forgery should be
discovered the matter would be hushed
up—and that, while Langley passed
as the forger, the fraud would never
be known. But now that he has reappeared,
and is in communication
with his friends, the matter must
come to light.”
Mr Seager sullenly shrugged his
shoulders. “Well,” said he, “I’m
in a hole, and no mistake. I can’t
show play for it, since this gentleman
has bagged me” (looking at the policeman).
“You must take your own
course. But,” he added in a low
tone, intended exclusively for Fane’s
ear, “I can’t understand your interest
in detecting me. Haven’t you taken
Levitt’s place with your uncle?”
Fane nodded.
“And if Levitt is restored to favour,
you will lose by it?”
“In a worldly point of view, yes,”
returned Fane.
“Well, then,” said Mr Seager,
“your line is plain enough. You can
say you believe (of course, with great
regret), but still, you’re compelled
to believe, that your cousin was the
forger. Your uncle takes your word
for it, and drops the matter—Langley
goes to the devil—and you remain
sole favourite and heir, don’t you see?
So much for that,” whispered Mr
Seager, with the air of a man who
has put his case incontrovertibly.
Fane smiled as he looked steadily
at Seager. “You are a clever rascal,
certainly,” he said, “in a small
way. You are well acquainted with
your own side of human nature, but
beyond that you’re in the dark.
Dismissing, then, this new and practical
view of the case, allow me to
offer a suggestion. Our principal
object, of course, is justice to Langley
rather than revenge on you.
A prosecution, though it would probably
lead to your conviction, especially
now that your character is
blasted, would require time, while
your confession would at once answer
the purpose.”
“But what should I get by confessing?”
asked Seager.
“Nothing,” said Fane. “A bribe
would impair the value of your admissions.
But I promise you this,
that if you confess, I will use what
interest I possess to stop all proceedings
against you on account of the
forgery. Now,” said he, setting
writing materials before him, “take
your choice. Silence and prosecution,
or confession and impunity.”
Mr Seager pondered for a minute;
but he was too shrewd not to see
where his advantage lay. He had
nothing to lose by confessing—his
character was already gone, and could
scarcely suffer farther, while a conviction
for the forgery might entail
transportation. After a very short
interval of consideration, he took up
a pen. “I’m ready,” he said;
“I’ll do it in the penitent style if
you like. Prickings of conscience,
desire to render tardy reparation, and
all that.”
“No,” said Fane, “it shall be
simple and genuine; allow me to dictate
it.”
This he accordingly did, setting
forth—first, that the confession was
quite voluntary, and, secondly, admitting
the forgery and the circumstances
that led to its commission.
Seager signed this, and the sergeant
and Fane witnessed it, and the latter
now desired the officer to remove his
prisoner. Mr Seager nodded to Fane,
and winked facetiously as he left the
room, made a face at the policeman,
who preceded him out, and then departed
to undergo his sentence.
CHAPTER LII.
Fane had already confided Langley’s
history to Lady Lee, and he now
showed her the testimony of his innocence,
and consulted her as to the best
course to be pursued.
They agreed it would be best to say
nothing, either to Langley or Orelia,
of the matter, until Mr Payne should
have apprised Mr Levitt of his nephew’s
innocence, and effected a reconciliation.
Fane did not in the
least doubt that his uncle would be
eager to extend forgiveness; but a
delay of a day or two would be trifling,
and the pleasure of a first meeting between
the lovers would be greatly
enhanced by the removal, beforehand,
of every obstacle to their happiness.
Mr Payne, coming down from town
to report his ill success in the attempt
to discover Seager, was agreeably surprised
by Fane’s news. He posted
off without delay to show the document
to his friend Mr Levitt, and, a
couple of days afterwards, wrote to
tell Fane that the news had produced
the best effect on his uncle’s health,
that he was eager to embrace Langley,
and that they would be down together
in person on the following day.
Fane was seated on a sofa near the
fire (it was a cold morning) whispering
into Lady Lee’s willing yet averted
ear, numerous reckless and persuasive
arguments for an immediate union.
What were riches to them while they
were thus kept apart? He, for his
part, would, he said, dig cheerfully
all day, could he be sure of finding
her ready to give zest to his pottage,
cheerfulness to his fireside, when he
came home. Let Bagot take her income;
and as for Julius, they would
take him and flee to some remote
corner of Europe, there to abide till
the Colonel relented, or had drunk
himself to death. Lady Lee smiled
at all this display of love, but shook
her head. He, Durham, must be
patient, she said.
“Miss Payne,” called out Fane to
Orelia, “be on my side.” Orelia was
sitting in a bay window designing a
picture. She seldom came near the
fire, and never felt cold. “I am telling
Hester that we ought to break
through the cobwebs that sunder us—scatter
the filthy lucre to the winds—snatch
up Julius out of reach of the
ogre Bagot, and try if the wings of
Eros cannot shield us against the
hardest fate.”
“Hester has given up much for
you already, Captain Fane,” said the
austere Orelia. “Your coming has
upset the rarest plan; and now I am
left to walk the path alone.”
“What was the plan?” inquired
Fane.
“We were going, Orelia and I,”
said Lady Lee, with an irreverent
smile, “to daff the world aside—to
devote ourselves to good works—and
we actually set out on our thorny
path; but I see now, that if we had
continued as we begun, casting as we
did so many glances backward on the
vanities of the past, we should, if
justice had been administered now as
in the days of the patriarchs, have
both been made pillars of salt.”
“Speak for yourself, my dear,” returned
Orelia, sharpening her pencil
and her tone. “I, at least, was quite
resolute to persevere, and am so still.”
“Perhaps an equally unworthy excuse,
as that which Hester pleads for
changing her mind, may yet avail
you,” suggested Fane.
“Never,” returned Orelia, with the
greatest firmness.
“Do you think she really doesn’t
care for Langley?” whispered Fane
to Lady Lee.
Lady Lee looked towards her friend
with an affectionate smile. “She’s
an odd girl,” she said, “and ’tisn’t
easy to ascertain her feelings till they
are strongly excited.”
“I’ll prove them, now,” said Fane,
rising, and going to a portfolio in the
room, and taking thence a drawing.
“Miss Payne,” he said, “you are always
ready to recognise skill in art.
See, here is a sketch I lately rescued
from the oblivion of a bookseller’s
shop; what do you think of it?”
Orelia took it. No one knew better
than she the peculiar touch and bold
outline. She gazed at it earnestly
for a minute—looked up wonderingly
and inquiringly at Fane; but, meeting
a peculiar searching glance, she
lowered her eyes, and coloured violently.
“If you like it, and would wish
others of the same sort, I think I
could procure you some,” he said.
Orelia laid down the drawing—glanced
aside—again looked at it—then
turned her eye uneasily to Lady
Lee, who was smilingly watching her.
“How very heartless to trifle with me
so,” thought Orelia, “particularly of
Hester; but I’ll show them they can’t
move me. I won’t be their sport.”
So she stoically resumed her employment,
feeling very fidgety nevertheless.
In her agitation, she shaded
a cloud in her sky with sepia instead
of the proper grey tint—dashed a
brushful of water at it—smudged her
whole sky irretrievably, as if an
eccentric-looking thunderstorm were
brewing—rubbed a hole in the paper
in getting it out, and threw down her
brush with an expression of impatience.
“He’s a very promising artist the
person who did this sketch,” said the
unfeeling Fane to Lady Lee. “I feel
quite interested in him.” Lady Lee
shook her head while she smiled at
him. She saw her impetuous friend
was getting quite excited. “Serve
her right for her hypocrisy,” whispered
Fane. “I don’t pity her in the
least. They must be in Frewenham
by this time,” he added, looking at his
watch; “and, allowing an hour for
the interview between them and Langley,
they will be here to lunch.”
Orelia’s ears were on the stretch to
catch any further information, which,
however, she would have died rather
than ask for.
But the only further talk on the
subject was when Fane asked Lady
Lee “if she didn’t think it would be
a kind act to take this poor artist by
the hand, and give him an opening
to make his way?”
“Poor artist! Take him by the
hand, indeed!” thought Orelia, with
a glance of great scorn; and indeed
she would hardly have been content
to vent her indignation in glances,
had not Miss Fillett just then entered,
and changed the current of their discourse.
Kitty’s manner was excited,
and her eyes were red.
“Ho, my lady,” cried she, “here’s
Noble have come, and he wish to see
your ladyship.”
“Noble!” cried her ladyship; “did
they not say he was with Colonel
Lee?”
“He was, my lady; but, ho!
Colonel Lee”—here Fillett choked.
“Harry’ll tell you himself: come in,
Noble, and speak to my lady.”
Noble, who was waiting at the
door, entered, and made his bow.
“You come from the Colonel—you
have a letter for me,” said Lady
Lee, holding out her hand for the
expected missive.
“No, my lady,” said Noble.
“Speak up, Harry,” said Miss
Fillett, with a sob.
“We started for France, me and
the Colonel,” said Noble, clearing his
throat; “and as soon as ever he got
ashore, he was took ill in the same
way as he was in London. The doctors
said ’twas owing to his not being
able to keep nothing on his stomach
on the passage across—brandy nor
nothing—for the water was very
rough.”
“He is ill, then,” said Lady Lee;
“not seriously, I trust.”
“My lady, he’s gone,” cried Fillett.
“Dead?” said Lady Lee.
“Dead,” said Noble. “He got
quite wild when he was took to the
hotel; and after we got him to bed,
he did himself a mischief, by jumping
out of window while he was out of
his mind. When we picked him up
he couldn’t speak.”
“And he died so?” cried Lady
Lee.
“Not immediate,” said Noble,
speaking in a deep low voice, and
keeping his eyes fixed firmly on Lady
Lee; “he got his speech again for a
little, and knowed me. ‘This is the
finish, Noble,’ says he, ‘and I’m glad
of it; I wouldn’t have consented to
live.’ Them was his last sensible
words. He talked afterwards, to be
sure, but not to know what he was
saying. He appeared to be in the
belief that he was back at the Heronry.
He talked of the horses there, in particular
of old Coverly, who died of
gripes better than six years ago.”
Lady Lee put her handkerchief to
her eyes. She had a tear for poor
Bagot. Death sponged away the
recollection of his animosity towards
her, and she remembered only the
old familiar face and rough good-nature.
“The poor Colonel,” she
said; “the poor, poor Colonel! And
his remains, Noble?”
“There was two gentlemen as was
friends of his in the town; Sir John
Barrett was one of ’em. They was
very sorry; they ordered everything,
and went to the funeral; and though
it warn’t altogether in the style I
could wish—no hearse nor mourners—yet
it was done respectable.”
Lady Lee wept silently, and Fane
thought her tears became her. Both
of them probably remembered that
the only obstacle to their union was
removed by Bagot’s death, but the
taste of both was too fine to allow
such a thought to be expressed that
day in any way. “Leave me now,
Noble,” she said; “I will hear more
from you another time.”
Kitty—who, when Noble reached
the catastrophe, had been seized with
an hysterical weeping that sounded
like a succession of small sneezes—opened
the door for him, and followed
him out. Noble walked down stairs
before her, not turning his head nor
speaking.
“Harry,” said Kitty, with a sniff,
when he reached the hall—“Harry!”
Noble turned, and surveyed her
austerely.
“Ho, Harry,” said Kitty, “haven’t
you got a word for a friend?”
“Yes,” said Harry, “for a friend
I’ve got more than a word.”
“I thought we were friends, Noble,”
said Miss Fillett, taking up the corner
of her apron, and examining it.
“There’s people in the world one
can’t be friends with, however a body
may wish it,” replied Noble.
“And am I one of that sort,
Harry?” said Kitty, with a sidelong
look. “Am I, Harry?”
“Yes,” said Harry, “yes, you be.
Look here! I’d have cut off my arm
to do you any good” (striking it with
the edge of his hand). “You know
that very well, but I can’t stand your
ways—no, I can’t, and I ain’t agoing
to any more.”
“What ways do you mean?” said
Miss Fillett innocently; “I’m sorry
my ways isn’t pleasant, Harry.”
“Pleasant!” said Harry; “they
can be pleasant enough when you
like; but when you drive a man
a’most crazy, and make him wish to
cut his fellow-creeturs’ throats, and
his own afterwards, do you think
that’s pleasant?”
Kitty at this tossed up her head,
and sniffed with an injured air. “If
I give you such thoughts as them,
Mr Noble, of course ’tis better to have
nothink to say to me. I wasn’t
aware my conversation made people
murderers.”
“Look here,” said Noble; “I don’t
say I like you the worse for it. No,
cuss it! I like you the better—that’s
the cussed part of it; but what I
mean is, that I ain’t going to be tormented
and kept awake at nights,
and to lose my meals as well as my
sleep, and to go a-hating my fellow-creeturs,
just upon account of your
philanderings; and the best way is not
to care who you philander with, and
to leave you to keep company with
them as can stand having the life
worried out of ’em better than I can.”
“I’m glad you’ve spoke out, Noble,”
said Kitty, who spied relenting in his
look, and who kept up the injured
air. “I didn’t know I was such a
rogue and a villain as I’m made out
to be by you. If I’d wished to slay
or hang somebody, you couldn’t have
spoke worse of me.”
“Well,” said Noble, “I didn’t
mean to vex you, though you’ve
vexed me many a time. I was only
saying why it was I warn’t going to
be fooled any longer. Come, I’ll
shake hands with you.”
“Ho, what! take the hand of a
young person that wishes people to
cut other people’s throats! I wonder
at you,” said Miss Fillett, allowing
him to get only the tip of her little
finger into his hand.
“Come,” said the unhappy victim
of female arts, “say you won’t torment
me any more with talking and
smiling at fellows, and I’ll be as fond
of you as ever. Look here; here’s
some French gloves that I smuggled
over, and was going to put into your
bandbox without your knowing who
they’d come from. Let me try ’em
on, Kitty.”
Miss Fillett glanced aside at the
packet displayed in his hand. “What
lovely colours!” thought Kitty; “that
lilac is genteel, and so is the straw
colour. He never could have chose
’em himself.” But she still feigned
displeasure, and Mr Noble’s desire
for reconciliation was becoming proportionably
ardent, when the pair
were disturbed by a carriage driving
up to the door, and made off
to terminate the interview in the
kitchen.
The carriage in question contained
those whom Fane expected—viz.,
Mr Payne, Mr Levitt, and Langley.
The latter helped out his uncle (who
appeared to be in much better health)
with a care and affection that showed
they were entirely reconciled. At the
first meeting Mr Levitt had attempted
to maintain his cynical demeanour,
and was highly disgusted with himself,
afterwards, to remember how
signally he had failed. “Till I witnessed
that meeting,” said Mr Payne
afterwards to Fane, “I had no idea
how much your uncle loved that boy.”
Fane was looking out of the window,
and saw them approach. “Here they
are,” he said—“your papa, Miss
Payne, and my uncle; and I see my
cousin Langley is with them. Have
you ever heard me speak of him? I
think you’ll like him.”
“Do you, indeed!” said Orelia
stiffly; for she had by no means recovered
her temper since the drawings
had been produced by Fane, and
was not disposed to be particularly
amiable to her new guests.
Mr Payne entered first and kissed
Orelia.
“I bring an old and a young friend
of mine, my dear. This is Mr Levitt,
and—where’s Langley? Come along,
Langley.”
Langley stept forward and took the
young lady’s hand.
“Onslow!” cried Orelia.
“Yes,” said the ex-dragoon, in a
low voice, and with his well-known
smile, “Onslow and Langley Levitt.”
“You didn’t know, sir,” said Fane
to his uncle, “of the fatted calf we
had ready for your prodigal nephew.
He and Orelia are old friends—I think
I may add, something more than old
friends.”
“You don’t say so!” said Mr
Levitt, pressing forward and taking
both Orelia’s hands in his. “My
dear,” he said, watching Langley’s
and her agitation, “I believe you are
going to put the finishing stroke to
my happiness, and I shall like you
better even than I expected.”
“Why, God bless me!” cried Mr
Payne, “I never heard a word of this.
The monkey has been extremely sly.”
Orelia, now a little paler than usual,
was regarding her lover with steady
eyes.
“I shall never call you anything
but Onslow,” she said; and she kept
her word.
Mr Levitt was in every respect satisfied
with the choice of his nephews,
as indeed he had good reason to be.
What did the man expect, I wonder!
He was almost as impatient as the
young men to put all future disappointment
out of the power of fate by
immediate marriage; and as the ladies
did not offer a very spirited resistance,
he had his way.
Accordingly the courtship was short,
and principally remarkable for a revolution
that took place in the opinions
of Lady Lee. Formerly, she had been
accustomed, in the moments of dignified
cynicism which occasionally
visited her, to be very unsparing in
her contempt for the ordinary forms
of love-making; kissing, in particular,
she considered to be a practice
even beneath contempt, from its extreme
silliness—fit, she would say,
only for children—an opinion she had
occasionally communicated to Sir
Joseph when his fondness became
troublesome.
This, however, with many graver
theories, had been upset since she fell
in love with Fane. The first time he
kissed her it evaporated in an uncommon
flutter of not unpleasant emotion,
which puzzled her ladyship the more
because she perfectly remembered that
a kiss from Sir Joseph had never
caused her to feel any greater agitation
than if she had flattened her nose
against a pane of glass.
However, to do justice to her consistency,
she didn’t abandon the theory
at the first defeat; but, taking counsel
with herself, and fortifying her
mind anew with reasoning on the subject,
the next time he offered to be so
childish, she repelled the attempt with
a great deal of dignity. Fane, who
had a theory of his own on such
matters (whether the result of intuition
or experience, I can’t say), and
knew what he was about perfectly,
very wisely let her alone for a time.
Her ladyship grew quite fidgety;
and though Fane had never been
more brilliant, she paid very little attention
to what he said, and, when he
only shook hands with her at parting,
felt half inclined to quarrel with him.
After this, Fane never met with any
resistance; on the contrary, not content
with one of these silly proceedings
at meeting and parting, her ladyship
would sometimes manœuvre,
artfully enough, for an extra or surplus
salute. Such is the singular
superiority of practice over theory.
Very shocking and humiliating to
the philosopher and student of human
nature is the fact, that these two intellectual
beings, with their high imaginations
and their cultivated tastes,
should sometimes, during their courtship,
demean themselves with no
greater regard for their dignity than
a redfaced dairymaid and her sweetheart
Robin. But it is true, nevertheless;
and if Fane discovered a fresh
charm in his goddess, it was in the
naïve pleasure with which she condescended
(at least he thought it condescension)
to express her fondness.
And Langley, for the same reason, was
doubly delighted with the warmth
which the outwardly majestic Orelia
did not scruple to display towards the
man to whom she had given her heart.
This is all I shall say on this part of
the subject, as courtship is of the class
of performances which afford much
more satisfaction to the dramatis personæ
than the audience.
They were married, these two pairs,
in the church which Hester’s father
had formerly served; and afterwards
Fane and she set off for the Heronry,
where they were quite alone (for Rosa
and the Curate had, before their coming,
gone to take possession of the
vicarage in Mr Levitt’s gift which
Fane had formerly offered to Josiah,
and which he did not again refuse),
while Langley and Orelia stayed at the
cottage.
CHAPTER THE LAST
It is a vile practice that of winding
up a story with a marriage, as if the
sole object of all that inkshed was to
put a couple of characters to bed;
and I wonder the rigid propriety of
our novel writers and readers doesn’t
revolt at it. Besides, considering the
matter on artistic grounds, it is not
satisfactory to check, by the chilling
word Finis, the ardour of the reader,
just excited to a high pitch at the
spectacle of the hero and heroine sinking
into each other’s arms. It is like
quitting the opera, as the curtain falls
on a splendid group, tinted with rose
light, while the whole strength of the
company sings a chorus; and going
splashing home through the rain to a
bachelor’s lodging, where the maid
has let the fire out and forgot the
matches, and you have to stumble to
bed punchless and oysterless in the
dark.
A year passed, after the marriages
aforesaid, and a party, including many
of our principal characters, was assembled
in the little church of Lanscote
to celebrate another wedding.
Josiah was the officiating clergyman;
he had come partly for that
purpose, partly to perform another
ceremony. The persons to be joined
together in holy matrimony, on this
occasion, were Rosa and Bruce.
The principal agent in effecting this
had been the old antiquary Mr Titcherly.
That lover of inscriptions had
now become himself the subject of a
tombstone; and having, as aforesaid,
great regard for Bruce, and having no
kindred of his own to bequeath to,
had in his will, after making ample
provision for the future editions of his
great work on the antiquities of Doddington,
left the rest of his property,
amounting to about £4000, to Rosa,
on condition she married Bruce; and
this, together with the solicitations of
his wife, who had been gained over to
the other party by Bruce’s enthusiastic
description of Rosa’s excellencies, had
melted the heart of that splendid old
fellow the dean of Trumpington. That
reverend personage was now present
at the wedding, together with his wife,
and Dr Macvino, who had dined the
night before at the Heronry, and pronounced
the port excellent.
Fane gave away the little magnificent
bride, half hidden in an ample
rich veil of white lace sent by Orelia,
which cost nobody knows how much.
Bruce was in his dragoon uniform.
His mustache had flourished much in
the last year, and Rosa thought him
handsomer than Apollo. Langley
was there, and Mr Oates appeared as
groom’s man, and the two Clumbers
as bridesmaids.
The ceremony was over, the bridegroom
duly shaken by the hand, the
bride, all blush and bloom and smile,
duly kissed. The Curate, leaving the
altar, took up his position beside the
antique font, and the group following
him, and ranging themselves round,
lost the gorgeous hues which the one
painted window above the altar of
Lanscote Church had shed on them
during the marriage ceremony; and,
as the Curate began the baptismal
service, they stood in the cheerful light
of the morning sun.
The principal personage of this second
ceremony had been held, during
the first one, in the arms of Miss Fillett
in the background. Kitty, who
looked rather staid and matronly, in
consequence of having been married
to Mr Noble a few weeks before, and
who had hitherto, in this new capacity,
acquitted herself entirely to
Harry’s satisfaction, dandled the infant
in the most approved fashion.
“Have done, Master Julius,” said
Kitty, giving that young gentleman a
good shake as he attempted to rush up
the pulpit-stairs. “Can’t you behave
for a minute, not even when they are
a-baptising of your little sister?”
The preliminary part of the service
being read, the infant was handed to
Josiah. He took it gently in his arms,
and looked down on its small face,
where he saw the rudiments of Hester’s
features. The service was for a
moment at a standstill, and a tear was
seen to drop on the child’s cheek as
he bent over it—the first holy water
that touched its face that morning.
“Good fellow, old Josey,” thought
Fane, as he noticed it. “Poor dear
Josiah!” mentally ejaculated Hester,
with a truer though secret knowledge
of the source of his emotion.
The dean of Trumpington hemmed
impatiently—he wanted his breakfast;
and the sympathetic Doctor Macvino,
going behind Josiah, jogged his arm.
The Curate started from his reverie,
and looked around. “Name this
child,” he said, proceeding with the
ritual.
“Rosa Orelia,” answered the bride,
who officiated as one godmother, while
Trephina Clumber was proxy for Orelia
(who was detained at home by
private business of her own.)
The christening was finished without
further delay. Then the assembly
passed forth from the old ivy-covered
porch, and, amid the admiration and
applause of the inhabitants of Lanscote,
entered their carriages to drive
back to the Heronry.
The breakfast was pronounced by
Dr Macvino, by no means an incompetent
judge, a magnificent affair.
Speeches were made afterwards—one
jocosely cynical, and sprinkled with
puns, by Mr Levitt; one gay, fluent,
and agreeable, from Captain O’Reilly,
a fresh-coloured man, with white
teeth, who had succeeded Tindal in
command of the detachment, and who
had practised popular oratory at various
contested elections; one rich and
oily, delivered ore rotundo, by Dr Macvino,
with some others.
The newly-married pair had driven
off; the guests had dispersed; even
the Curate had, in despite of the urgent
entreaties of Hester and Durham,
inexorably departed. Fane and
his wife were alone together in the
library.
“I told you yesterday, Hester,” he
said, leaning over the back of her
chair, “of the opening into public
life now offered me. My answer must
be written to-night.”
Hester looked uneasy. “You will
refuse it, Durham, won’t you?”
“I think not, Hester.”
“I thought we had been very happy
this year past. I knew I had, and I
flattered myself you had; but you are
weary of me;” and, as she spoke, the
first sad tears since her marriage came
into her eyes.
“I swear to you,” he said, removing
the tears in the readiest way that
occurred to him—“I swear to you
that I would rather live the past year
over again than the best ten others
of my existence. But what right have
I to continue this life of pleasant uselessness,
when I may exert myself?”
“Uselessness!” said his wife; “do
you call being my companion and instructor
uselessness?”
“You have a new companion now
in that young Christian of yours,
whom I hear squalling,” said Fane;
“she will prevent you from missing
me. As to the instruction part, I have
learnt as much as I could teach for the
life of me. If I have widened your
mind, you have no less refined mine;
and, could I but rid myself of a certain
uneasy conviction that we are
both of us accountable beings, I would
contentedly let the world slide for ever
as softly and easily as now. But is
this unproductive interchange of sentiment,
however elevated and refined,
fit to be the sole occupation of a man
who can be up and doing?”
Hester sighed. “You force me,”
said she, “to look at a truth I would
willingly shut my eyes to. One other
year would not tire you, Durham;
put it off for one—only one.”
“But the opportunity would be
gone,” said Fane. “Come, make up
your mind to it, and you will acknowledge
next year that, in watching my
career, applauding my success, if I
meet with it, soothing my disappointments
when they find me, you have
new and worthier occupation.”
Hester disputed no farther; he
wrote the letter of acceptance; and
next year she acknowledged that she
was growing more ambitious for him
than he was for himself.
The Curate did not remain long in
the living to which Mr Levitt had
presented him. An incident that occurred
in the second year of his incumbency
gave him a disgust at the place.
A female parishioner, of tolerably
mature years, made a dead set at Josiah.
She had experiences to impart;
she took share in his parochial matters;
she even studied botany; and the
unsuspecting Josiah was the only person
who didn’t penetrate her designs
on his heart. When the fair one found
these would certainly fail, she brought
an action for breach of promise; and
the evidence being about as strong as
that in the celebrated case of Bardell
versus Pickwick, the jury, as Englishmen
and fathers, of course found for
the plaintiff, with £200 damages.
About that time Dean Bruce, in consideration
of the family connection,
managed to get Josiah elected canon
of the cathedral; and in course of
time he became a prebend. He has
a good house and capital garden; his
study is one of the pleasantest rooms
to be found anywhere, with a cloistered
air about it, the pointed window
all hung with ivy, looking on the great
window of the cathedral, and on one
of the buttressed towers. He has
an ancient married housekeeper, who
looks faithfully after his comforts;
he entertains his friends nobly when
they come to see him (his small but
choice cellar was laid in by Dr Macvino);
the great library of the cathedral
is within a few paces of his door,
where he is treated by the librarian
with more deference than the bishop
himself; and when he needs change
he goes down to the Heronry. Time
softens the acuteness of his disappointment
in love, and the recollection
of it now brings a not unpleasant sadness.
Poor old Josey!—after all, perhaps
the most loveable and respectable of
our dramatis personæ—more so, at
least, than our heroes, whose more
discursive natures included some corners
which they would probably have
been unwilling that even their wives
should pry into; whereas Josiah’s
heart might have been turned page
by page; and, while much might have
been found to interest, there would
have been little to correct, and nothing
to blot. But somehow or other, women
do not seem always to give such
unobtrusive merits the highest place
in their affections. Orelia and Lady
Lee were, as we have seen, among
the number; and many young ladies
will, we doubt not, understand and
sympathise with their errors of judgment.
A day or two after Rosa’s marriage,
Hester got a letter from Orelia.
“Mine is a girl too,” she said, “and
I’ve set my heart on her marrying
Julius when they are of a proper
age. You must promise to forward
the project, Hester.” And as young
persons invariably allow their parents
to choose for them on these points,
and never presume to form any counter
predilections of their own, there is, of
course, every prospect that Orelia’s
desire will be gratified.
Major Tindal did not easily forgive
Orelia’s marriage, nor forget his own
discomfiture. He remains a sporting,
hard-riding bachelor; and when one
of his acquaintances marries, he affects
to pity him. “Poor devil!” he says,
“I’ll write and condole with him.”
Mr Seager, coming out of jail at the
end of two years, found himself without
money, friends, or character. He
could not, of course, resume his old
position; but Seager was not proud,
and fitted himself with admirable facility
to a new one. He started in the
thimble-rig line, that being a profession
requiring little other capital than
dexterity and a knowledge of human
nature under its more credulous and
pigeonable aspect. He augments the
income derived from this source by
that which he earns as a racing
prophet. He advertises that he,
Seager, is the only man who can
foretell the winners of all the great
events; asserts that he has hitherto
been infallible; and professes his readiness
to let correspondents enjoy a
lucrative peep into the future, on their
enclosing a specified number of postage
stamps. From such shifts as these
he ekes out a living.
Bagot could not have lived so; and
is better as he is, sleeping under his
foreign turf. In the grave he preserves
a kind of incognito, and when
called upon to answer for his deeds, may
certainly plead a misnomer; for the
French stone-mason who carved his
unpretending tombstone, taking the
name of the deceased from dictation,
Gallicised it, and inscribed on the monument
“Ci-gît Monsieur le Colonel
Bagote-Lys.”
Another marriage had been celebrated
in Lanscote Church a short
time before Rosa’s. Jennifer Greene
had brought her arts and experience
to bear with more effect on Squire
Dubbley than on the Curate. The
thoroughly subjugated Squire, after
being compelled to see all the females
of his establishment, under fifty years
of age, replaced by the most withered
frumps to be found in those parts, had
yielded to his fate. His adviser, Mr
Randy, had been previously disposed
of.
Jennifer had no sooner established
her ascendancy, than she proceeded to
exert it in the expulsion of Mr Randy.
Thus alone in power, she was not long
in convincing the Squire that she was
quite necessary to his existence, and
his sole defence against a horde of
plunderers. The Squire, moreover,
was impressed by the good looks of
the housekeeper, to which the Curate
had been so insensible; and the grand
attack, which had only harassed Josiah,
had laid the unprotected Squire
at her feet.
Lady Lee, I am loth to lose you!
Not with this page will your form
pass rustling out of sight. But, reader,
her independent life has ceased—her
thoughts are now centred in the career
of another—and a chronicle of her
deeds and aspirations would be a mere
repetition of, to you, humdrum happiness.
Her restlessness, and discontent,
and languor are no more; she
has lost even the memory of these
since the event which, like this last
sentence of my last chapter, has put a
period to Lady Lee’s Widowhood.
NEW READINGS IN SHAKESPEARE. — NO. III. —CONCLUSION. — FOOTNOTES:
Before finishing the business of
the old MS. corrector, we may be permitted
to dispose of a case, very small,
indeed, but somewhat personal to ourselves,
and arising out of these discussions.
In Notes and Queries, p. 169
(August 20, 1853), the following remark
occurs: “The critic in Blackwood
disclaims consulting Notes and
Queries; and it is, no doubt, a convenient
disclaimer.” Good Notes and
Queries, we simply regretted that it
was not in our power to consult your
pages when writing our first article
on the New Readings. We wished
to have been able to confirm, or rather
to complete, a reference to you which
Mr Singer had made in his Vindication
of Shakespeare. But unfortunately
your volumes were not at
hand; for you need scarcely be told
that we provincials cannot always
readily command the wisdom which
emanates from your enlightened circle.
But why was it “a convenient disclaimer?”
Good old ladies, you surely
cannot think that we would purloin
your small savings; we would sooner
rob the nest of a titmouse. No, no;
believe us, we have no heart for that.
We did, however, at first, fear that
we had inadvertently picked a small
morsel—perhaps its little all—out of
the mouth of a sparrow; and our
heart smote us for the unintentional
unkindness. We were prepared to
make any amends in our power to the
defrauded little chirper. We have
been at some pains to discover in
what we may have wronged any of
your mild fraternity, provocative of
the polite insinuation implied in your
epithet “convenient,” and we find
that we are as innocent as Uncle Toby
with his fly. We have not hurt, even
undesignedly, a single hair upon your
buzzing head.
We had no doubt, at first, that our
offence must have been the expression
of some little hint about Shakespeare
in which we had been anticipated by
Notes and Queries. And accordingly,
insignificant as the point might be—still
knowing what a small nibble is a
perfect fortune to that minute fry—we
were prepared to acknowledge
publicly their priority of claim to anything
we might have said, and to stomach
their not very handsome appellative
as we best might. But how
stands the case?—thus. Some time
near the beginning of August, Icon
asks Notes and Queries—“Has any
one suggested, ‘Most busy, when least
I do?’—(Tempest, iii. i.) The ‘it’
seems surplusage.” (The complete
line, we should mention, is—“Most
busy, least when I do it.”) That is
a very plain question, and Notes and
Queries answers it, at first, correctly
enough—“Yes,” says he, “this reading
was proposed in Blackwood’s Magazine
for August;” that is, some time
before the query was put. Notes and
Queries then goes on to say—“ButIcon will also find the same reading
with an anterior title of nearly three
years, together with some good reasons
for its adoption, in Notes and
Queries, vol. ii. p. 338.” Here, then,
we had no doubt that we had been
anticipated, and were quite ready to
make restitution; for Notes and Queries’
answer seems decisive. But stop
a little; just give him time to get his
ideas into disorder, and we shall see
what will turn up. He goes on to
say—“In the original suggestion in
Notes and Queries, there is no presumption
of surplusage; the word
‘it’ is understood in relation to labours.”
So that this is the position
of Notes and Queries: he is asked—Has
the word “it” ever been left out
of a certain line in Shakespeare? Yes,
answers he, it was left out in a reading
proposed in our volumes three
years ago, and identical with one lately
published in Blackwood—the only difference,
he adds, sotto voce, between
the two readings being, that in ours
the word “it” is not left out, while in
Blackwood’s it is!
So that, after all, our whole offence
consists in not having been anticipated
in this reading by Notes and Queries.
But we cannot help that. Why should
he punish us for his own want of sagacity?
We appeal to an impartial
public to take up the cause of injured
innocence against this oppressor,
throughout whose pages we observe a
good deal of nibbling at the text of
Shakespeare. The teeth-marks of the
little vermin are just perceptible on
the bark of that gigantic trunk; and
the traces which they leave behind
are precisely such as a mouse might
make upon a cheese the size of Ben
Lomond. But we have not, like
Shakespeare, the hide of a tree or a
rhinoceros; nor are we, like him, a
mountain three thousand feet high.
The small incisor has consequently
grazed our outer cuticle, and we
should like to know what can have
provoked our puny assailant to question,—not
our competency to review
the old MS. corrector, for this too he
does, and this he is at perfect liberty
to do; his doing it is a matter with
which we have no concern—but to
impeach our disposition to deal fairly
and honestly towards himself and all
others interested in the new readings.
This, we say, he is not at liberty to
do without very good cause being
shown. Most gladly, to get rid of
the little nibbler, would we have
given up to him this reading, and
any other pittances of the kind, to
increase his small stock in trade.
But he cannot make out any title to
the reading. He tries, indeed, hard
to believe that it is actually his—he
coaxes it to come to him, he whistles
to it, but no—the reading knows its
own master, and will not go near him;
whereupon he gets angry, and bites
us. He charges us with finding it
convenient to ignore his wisdom—that
is, with being ignorant of something
in his pages, which, however, he
confesses is not to be found within
any of their four corners. But even
supposing that all which Notes and
Queries implies we are guilty of
could be made out—only conceive
its being convenient for a man not
to know—that is, to pretend ignorance—of
something which may have
been written on Shakespeare, or on
any other subject, by these commentators
on “Here we go, up, up, up,”
&c.! There is a complication of absurdity
in the idea which it is not
easy to unravel, and which defies all
power of face. For one of themselves
to have said that it might be convenient
for a man to know and profit by
their small sayings and doings, would
have been ludicrous enough; but how
any man should find a convenience—that
is to say, an advantage—in not
knowing, or rather in pretending not
to know, how this innocent people are
employing themselves—this is a conception
which, in point of naïveté,
appears to us to be unequalled by anything
out of Æsop’s Fables. How
would it do for them to call themselves
“Gnats and Queries?” We
recommend that new reading to their
consideration.
We are not sure, however, that this
small community is so very innocent
after all. Connected with this very
reading, “Most busy,” &c., they have
been guilty of as much mala fides as
can be concentrated upon a point so
exceedingly minute. To propose a
new reading without having the remotest
conception of its meaning, is to
deserve no very great credit as a critic;
yet this is what Gnats and Queries
has done. He (or one of his many
pin-heads symbolised by A. E. B.),
saw (Gnats and Queries, vol. ii. p. 338)
that the construction of the line was,
“Most busy, when least I do it”—or,
as he explains it, “Most busy, when
least employed.” But how does he explain
that, again?—he actually makes
the word “busy” apply to Ferdinand’s
thoughts. He says, “Is it not those
delicious thoughts (of Miranda) ‘most
busy’ in the pauses of (Ferdinand’s)
labour, making those pauses still more
refreshing and renovating?” So it
seems that the thoughts of Miranda
refresh, not Ferdinand’s labours, but
his idleness; and that he is “most
busy” in thinking upon her, not when
he is hardest at work, but when he
is sitting with his hands across. As
if that circumstance would have been
any motive for him to go to work:
it would have been the very contrary.
It would have kept him from his labour.
If this be not the most senseless
reversal of Shakespeare’s plain meaning
ever proposed by any mole-eyed
interpreter, we promise to eat Mr Collier’s
old MS. corrector without salt.
Yet A. E. B. claims to himself credit
for having, to some extent, anticipated
our new reading; to the extent,
that is, of seeing that the word
when should be placed (in construing)
before the word least. But what does
that signify, when he had not the remotest
inkling of the meaning? More
than that. The true and only meaning
of the line was thoroughly explained
in Blackwood’s Magazine for
August last, p. 186. A. E. B. has seen
that explanation—yet he still not only
takes credit for the new reading, but
he makes no apology for his antecedent
senselessness. We call that mala
fides. And further, he aggravates the
criminality of his dulness by referring
to a passage in Cicero (quoted in
Gnats and Queries, vol. iii. p. 229),
which has no bearing whatever on the
reading, and can only serve to throw
the reader off the true scent. Altogether,
for so small a matter, this is
as complicated a case of stupidity,
and of something worse, as ever came
under the notice of the public. We
may just add, what we only recently
discovered, that Mr Collier had inserted
the original text of the line,
“Most busy, least when I do it,” in
his edition of Shakespeare published
some ten years ago; but then he deserves
just as little credit for this as
A. E. B. does; because his note, as
might very easily be shown, and as
will be apparent to any one who
reads it along with Blackwood’s Magazine,
p. 186, is directly at variance
with his text.
But we have kept the old Corrector
too long waiting. Begging
pardon, we shall now attend to his
interests, taking him mildly in hand,—at
least at first.
Titus Andronicus.—Act I. Scene
2.—To change “set abroad” into set
abroach may be permissible; but it is
not necessary. In the following line
(Act II. Scene 1) the alteration is most
decidedly for the worse:—
“The woods are ruthless, dreadful, deaf, and dull.”
“Dreadful” is altered by the MS. corrector
to dreadless—a very unpoetical,
indeed senseless substitution.
We cannot accept the corrector’s
rhyming phraseology in Act II. Scene 2.
No man has any business to rewrite
Shakespeare after this fashion. The
liberty which this scourer of the old
text here takes with the play is just
another of the numerous proofs that
his design was, not to restore their
language, but merely to popularise it.
Dine, however, for “drive,” in the
line,
“The hounds
Should drive upon thy new transformed limbs,”
(Act II. Scene 3)
is a very sensible emendation, and one
which we are disposed to recommend
for the text, “drive” being very
probably a misprint. Possibly also
“breeder” (Act IV. Scene 2) may be
a misprint for burthen, which the corrector
proposes, and to which we have
no very great objection. The best
part of the change of the words, “Not
far one Muliteus” into “not far hence
Muli lives,” is due to Steevens: the
MS. corrector’s contribution being
very unimportant.
Act IV. Scene 4.—The flow of the
following line, as printed in the common
editions, is much more easy and
idiomatic,
“My lords, you know, as do the rightful gods,”
than the corrector’s substitution—
“My lords, you know, the rightful gods no less.”
Nothing further of any mark or likelihood
presents itself in the corrections
of this play. The emendations are
generally insignificant; but in one instance,
and perhaps two, they may
deserve some approbation.
Romeo and Juliet.—Act I. Scene
1.—We never can accept puffed in
lieu of “purged” in the lines—
“Love is a smoke, made with the fume of sighs,
Being purg’d, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes.”
Urged, as proposed by Johnson, is
infinitely better than puffed; but no
change is required.
In the following lines, the MS. corrector’s
amendment seems to us to be
no improvement either upon the common
or the original text. The text
of the quarto 1597 is this (Romeo is
speaking of Rosaline)—
“She’ll not be hit
With Cupid’s arrow; she hath Dian’s wit,
And, in strong proof of chastity well arm’d,
From love’s weak childish bow she lives uncharm’d,”
that is, disenchanted. The ordinary
reading is “unharm’d” for “uncharmed,”
and it affords a very excellent
and obvious sense. The MS. corrector
proposes encharmed—i. e. enchanted.
But if any one is dissatisfied
with “unharmed,” we think he
will do more wisely to fall back on the
primitive reading, rather than espouse
the MS. corrector’s emendation. It
seems more natural to say that a person
is disenchanted from the power
of love by the shield of chastity, than
to say that she is enchanted therefrom
by means of that protection.
The following remark by Mr Collier
puzzles us excessively. Scene 4, in
the fine description of Queen Mab, this
line occurs—
“Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose.”
But “courtiers” have been already
mentioned. “To avoid this repetition,”
says Mr Collier, “Pope read
‘lawyer’s nose;’ but while shunning
one defect he introduced another, for
though the double mention of ‘courtiers’
is thus avoided, it occasions the
double mention of lawyers. In what
way, then, does the old corrector take
upon himself to decide the question?
He treats the second ‘courtiers’ as a
misprint for a word which, when carelessly
written, is not very dissimilar—
‘Some time she gallops o’er a counsellor’s nose,
And then he dreams of smelling out a suit.’
That counsellors,” continues Mr Collier,
“and their interest in suits at
court, should be thus ridiculed, cannot
be thought unnatural.” But are not
counsellors lawyers? and is not this
precisely the same blunder as that
which Mr Collier condemns Pope for
having fallen into? Surely Queen
Mab must have been galloping to
some purpose over Mr Collier’s nob,
when he forgot himself thus marvellously.
It seems that there must be
a repetition, and therefore it is better
to let it fall on the word “courtiers”
than on the word “lawyers,” or its
synonym, counsellors,—for “courtiers”
is the original text.
Act II. Scene 2.—We are so wedded
to the exquisite lines about “the
winged messenger of heaven,”
“When he bestrides the lazy-pacing clouds,
And sails upon the bosom of the air,”
that it is with the utmost unwillingness
we consent even to the smallest
change in their expression. But it
seems that “lazy-puffing” (an evident
misprint) is the reading of the
old editions; and this goes far to
prove that lazy-passing (the MS. correction)
is the genuine word—the
long ſſ having been mistaken by the
compositor for ff. Although as a matter
of taste, perhaps of association,
we prefer “lazy-pacing,” still lazy-passing
is very good, and we have
little doubt that it is the authentic
reading. We agree also with Mr Collier
in thinking that “unbusied youth”
for “unbruised youth” (Act II. Scene
3) comes, as he says, “within the
class of extremely plausible emendations.”
“Weak dealing” (Scene 4), in
the mouth of the nurse, may very well
be a malapropism for “wicked dealing,”
and therefore the text ought not
to be disturbed. The MS. corrector
is, perhaps, right in his alteration of
the line about Juliet’s cheeks (Scene
5), where the nurse says—
“They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.”
For “straight at any,” he reads,
“straightway at my.” But the point
would require further consideration
before the change can be recommended,
with certainty, for the text.
Act III. Scene 2.—In this scene
there occurs one of the most disputed
passages in the whole of Shakespeare,
and one on which conjectural emendation
and critical explanation have
expended all the resources both of
their ingenuity and their stupidity,
without reaching any very memorable
result, except in one instance, which
we are about to mention with hearty
commendation. The difficulty presents
itself in the lines where Juliet
says—
“Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night,
That Runaway’s eyes may wink, and Romeo
Leap to these arms untalked of and unseen.”
Who is “Runaway”? He is a printer’s
(not devil but) blunder, says the
old corrector; we should read enemies.
Those may read enemies who
choose. We certainly shall not—no,
not even at the bidding of Queen Victoria
herself. We shall not turn ourselves
into a goose to please the
ghost of an old amateur play-corrector,
though he should keep rapping
at us till his knuckles are worn out.
Read Rumourers, says Mr Singer.
No, Mr Singer, we will not read Rumourers.
Read this thing, and read
that thing, say other wise authorities:
no, gentlemen, we shall not read anything
except what Shakespeare wrote,
and we know for certain that the
word which he wrote was “Runaway’s,”
just as it stands in the books;
for we learnt this from a medium;—yes,
and the medium was the Rev.
Mr Halpin, who, in the “Shakespeare
Society’s Papers,” vol. ii., has proved
to our entire satisfaction that the text
calls for, and indeed admits of, no
alteration. There could not be a
happier-chosen or more expressive
word than “Runaway’s,” as here
employed.
Mr Halpin rather fritters away his
argument, and is not very forcible;
but, coupled with one’s own reflections,
he is altogether convincing.
The salient points of the argument
may be presented shortly as follows:
First, “Runaway” holds the text:
he has the title which accrues from
actual possession. Secondly, there
cannot be a doubt that Runaway is
the general and classical sobriquet
for “Cupid.” Thirdly, Cupid was a
most important personage in all epithalamia.
Fourthly, important character
though he was, he could not be
altogether depended on for secresy;
and therefore, fifthly, it was highly
desirable, for various considerations
(at least so thought Juliet), that the
night should be so dark that even
Cupid should not be able to see very
far beyond the point of his own nose;
in order, sixthly, that he might not be
able to tell tales, or “talk” of what
he had “seen.”
That is the first or main portion of
the argument. It proceeds on the supposition
that Cupid has eyes. In that
case, says Juliet, it will be highly
proper that he should “wink;” and as
there can be no certainty that the little
rascal will do so, unless he cannot
see, it is further highly desirable that
the night should be as black as the
brows of John Nox himself. The second
and merely auxiliary part of the
argument proceeds on the supposition
that Cupid has no eyes—“Or,” says
Juliet, a little farther on—“or if Love
(i. e. Cupid) be blind;” why, then, so
much the better; “it best agrees
with night;” in other words, a blind
Cupid is fully a safer master of ceremonies
than is, all things considered,
one that can see.
Finally, supposing the Cupid here
referred to, to be not a blind but a
seeing one, will any person inform us
what can be the meaning of the
“winking Cupids” spoken of in Cymbeline,
II. 4, unless “winking” was,
at times, a very important duty on
the part of this functionary? Unless
this was part of his office, the words
referred to have no meaning whatever.
It seems to have been considered
by our poets, and also by
the world at large, as highly becoming—indeed,
as absolutely necessary—that
a seeing Cupid should possess
a marvellous alacrity in “winking,”
brought about either by his own
sense of the essential fitnesses of
things, or by what some moralists
have termed the feeling of propriety,
or by the darkness of the circumambient
night. The latter was
the interposing medium to which
Juliet chiefly trusted. Who can now
doubt that Cupid is “Runaway,” and
that “Runaway” was Shakespeare’s
word? We have omitted to say anything
in explanation of the classical
nickname. One word may suffice.
The urchin was constantly running
away from the apron-strings of his
mother Venus, and getting himself
into scrapes.
Act III. Scene 5.—The MS. alteration
of “brow” into bow is by no
means a manifest improvement in the
lines where Romeo says—
“I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,
’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.”
Why should “Cynthia’s brow” be
not as unexceptionable an expression
as the “morning’s eye”? To take the
words, “These are news indeed!”
from Juliet, and to give them to Lady
Capulet, is to spoil the consistency of
the dialogue. This alteration proves
that the old corrector has been no
very attentive student of his great
master. Lady Capulet says to her
daughter Juliet—
“But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.”
She then informs her that the gallant
Count Paris is to make her a joyful
bride “early next Thursday morn.”
Juliet protests against the match, and
winds up by exclaiming, “These are
news indeed!”—the most natural and
appropriate observation which could
be made in the circumstances. Yet
Mr Collier calls the MS. correction
which assigns these words to Lady
Capulet a “judicious arrangement.”
Act IV. Scene 2.—Becoming love for
“becomed love,” is a specimen of the
corrector’s system of modernising the
text.
Act V. Scene 1.—“If I may trust,”
says Romeo,
“If I may trust the flattering truth of sleep,
My dreams presage some joyful news at hand.”
The MS. corrector reads—
“If I may trust the flattering death of sleep,”
which Mr Collier defends on the ground
of what follows in Romeo’s speech:—
“I dreamt, my lady came and found me dead,
(Strange dream! that gives a dead man leave to think,)
And breath’d such life with kisses in my lips
That I revived—and was an emperor.”
But if the “death,” of which the corrector
supposes Romeo to speak, has
any reference to the death of which he
has dreamt, what a ludicrous and unmeaning
epithet the word “flattering”
is! Flattering death! Why
flattering? It is the most senseless
adjunct that could be employed in the
place. It was his revival from death
by the kisses of Juliet that formed the
“flattering” part of his dream. This
emendation, therefore, must be dismissed
as a most signal failure. Mr
Singer’s suggestion, though not necessary,
is better. He reads, “the flattering
soother sleep.” But the text
ought to be allowed to stand as it is.
“The flattering truth of sleep” merely
means—the pleasing truth promised
to me in dreams.
Scene 3.—We conclude our observation
on this play with the remark,
that there is no necessity whatever
for changing “outrage” into outcry
in the line where the Prince says—
“Seal up the mouth of outrage for a while.”
All who are present have been driven
nearly distracted by the tragedies they
are called upon to witness, and therefore
the meaning undoubtedly is—“seal
up the mouth of distraction for
a while,”
“Till we can clear these ambiguities.”
Timon of Athens.—Act I. Scene 1.—The
commentators have been very
generally at fault in their dealings
with the following line. The cynical
Apemantus says—
“Heavens, that I were a lord!
Timon.—What wouldst thou do then, Apemantus?
Apemantus.—Even as Apemantus does now—hate
a lord with my heart.
Timon.—What, thyself?
Apemantus.—Ay.
Timon.—Wherefore?
Apemantus.—That I had no angry wit to
be a lord.”
Warburton proposed, “that I had
so hungry a wit to be a lord.” Monk
Mason suggested, “that I had an
angry wish to be a lord.” The MS.
corrector, combining these two readings,
gives us, “that I had so hungry
a wish to be a lord.” Dr Johnson says,
“The meaning may be—I should hate
myself for patiently enduring to be a
lord. This is ill enough expressed.
Perhaps some happy change may set
it right. I have tried and can do nothing,
yet I cannot heartily concur with
Dr Warburton.” Warburton’s emendation
is substantially the same as the
MS. corrector’s—and therefore we have
Dr Johnson’s verdict against its admissibility.
His own interpretation is
unquestionably right, although he gave
it with great hesitation. No change
whatever is required. The passage
is perfectly plain if we take “to be”
as standing for “in being.” “That
I had no angry wit in being a lord.”
It is the pleasure and pride of my life
to cherish a savage disposition; but
in consenting to be a lord I should
show that I had in a great measure
foregone this moroseness of nature—and
therefore “I should hate myself,
because I could have had no angry wit,
no splenetic humour upon me, when I
consented to be a lord.”
Scene 2.—Dr Delius (of whom favourable
mention has been made in
our second article) deals very sensibly
with the following case. “At Timon’s
table,” says he, “Apemantus declares
himself to be a water-drinker, because
water, unlike strong drink, never leads
a man into crime. He says—
‘Here’s that which is too weak to be a sinner;
Honest water, which never left a man in the mire.’
The old corrector, hankering after
rhymes, changes ‘sinner’ into fire.
But had Apemantus indulged in such
an unutterable platitude at Timon’s
banquet, as the remark that water was
not fire, the rest of the guests would
most assuredly have turned him to
the door. What shall we say when
we find Mr Collier seriously believing
that Shakespeare’s word was fire!”[14]
Well done, Doctor!
Act II. Scene 2.—A construction
very similar to the one we lately met
with (to be, for in being) occurs in the
following lines, which certainly require
no amendment. Flavius, Timon’s
steward, complaining of his master’s
extravagance, says that he
“Takes no account
How things go from him, nor resumes no care
Of what is to continue. Never mind
Was, to be so unwise, to be so kind.”
The corrector reads—
“Takes no account
How things go from him, no reserve; no care
Of what is to continue. Never mind
Was surely so unwise, to be so kind.”
“To take no reserve” is surely more
awkward and ungrammatical than the
language which Shakespeare employs.
And as for the substitution surely, it
is very far from being required. The
construction is—never did a mind exist,
being so unwise, in order to be so
kind.
These two lines as amended by the
old corrector—
“He did reprove his anger, ere ’twas spent,
As if he did but move an argument,”
seem to be an improvement upon
“He did behave his anger, ere ’twas spent,
As if he did but prove an argument.”
The old copies read “behoove.” But
it would not be safe to alter the received
text without further deliberation.
We cannot accept Mr Singer’s
behood.
Act IV. Scene 2.—Flavius, when
his master is ruined, moralises thus,
“O, the fierce wretchedness that glory brings us!
Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,
Since riches point to misery and contempt?
Who’d be so mock’d with glory? or to live
But in a dream of friendship?
To have his pomp, and all what state compounds,
But only painted, like his varnished friends.”
If the expression of these verses be
somewhat elliptical, they are quite intelligible,
and the MS. corrector certainly
does not improve them. He
writes the four last lines thus—
“Who’d be so mocked with glory, as to live
But in a dream of friendship, and revive
To have his pomp and all state comprehends,
But only painted like his varnished friends.”
What is the meaning of “to be so
mocked with glory as to live but in a
dream of friendship?” A man may
be so mocked with glory as to live
only in a dream of glory. But a
dream of friendship is nonsense—or,
rather, the change of “or” into as,
makes nonsense of the passage. The
other changes are not so irrational,
but they are quite unnecessary, and
cannot, in any respect, be recommended
for the text.
Scene 3.—To change “a bawd” into
abhorred, as the MS. corrector has
done, proves that he was unable to
construe the English language. We
shall merely refer our readers to Dr
Johnson’s note on the place, which
explains it thoroughly.
In this same scene Timon rebukes
Apemantus in these terms—
“Thou art a slave, whom fortune’s tender arm
With favour never clasp’d; but bred a dog.
Had’st thou, like us, from our first swath, proceeded
The sweet degrees that this brief world affords
To such as may the passive drugs of it
Freely command, thou would’st have plung’d thyself
In general riot.”
Mr Collier writes, “‘The passive
drugs’ of the world surely cannot be
right. Timon is supposing the rich and
luxurious to be, as it were, sucking
freely at the ‘passive dugs’ of the
world, and an emendation in manuscript
which merely strikes out the
superfluous letter supports this view
of the passage, and renders needless
Monk Mason’s somewhat wild conjecture
in favour of drudges.” Reader,
look out the word “drug” in Johnson’s
Dictionary—a work which does
not deal much in wild conjectures, and
which, whatever its disparagers may
say, is still the best authority going for
the use and meaning of the English
language—and you will find that one
of the meanings of “drug” is drudge.
There cannot be a doubt that drugge
is the old way of spelling drudge, and
just as little can there be a doubt that
“drugs” in the passage before us
means drudges. To “command” the
dugs of the world, would indeed be a
wild way of speaking.
Scene 4.—In the following lines,
where it is said that it is not right
to take vengeance on the living for
the crimes of the dead, Shakespeare
writes,
“All have not offended;
For those that were, it is not square to take
On those that are, revenge.”
For “not square” the new reading is
“is’t not severe.” This smacks very
decidedly of more modern times—and
is a marked instance of our corrector’s
attempt to popularise his author. “Not
square” of course means not just.
Julius Cæsar.—Act I. Scene 2.—In
his comments on the corrections of
this play Mr Collier makes an unfortunate
commencement. He says, “The
two following lines have always been
printed thus—
‘When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome,
That her wide walks encompass’d but one man?’
This reading has never, we believe,
been doubted.” No man can be expected
to have examined all the editions
of Shakespeare. But surely Mr
Collier might have been acquainted
with Theobald’s (1773), and the common
variorum (1785), in both of which
“walls” is printed in the text, without
a word of comment, as requiring
none. Or if he had not examined
these editions, surely his remark was
somewhat precipitate that “walks”
had been always printed in the text,
and had never been doubted. We
have never seen an edition containing
“walks”—but we shall not venture
to assert that no such edition exists.
This, however, is certain, that the
change of “walks” into “walls” is
news at least a hundred years old, and
is a correction which every child would
make the instant the passage was laid
before him.
We quote the following from Mr
Collier for the sake of the remark
with which it concludes. “The MS.
corrector,” he says, “requires us to
make another change which seems
even less necessary, but, at the same
time, is judicious:
‘Brutus had rather be a villager,
Than to repute himself a son of Rome,
Under these hard conditions as this time
Is like to lay upon us.’
Under such hard conditions, sounds
better, followed as it is by ‘this
time,’ but this is perhaps a matter of
discretion, and we have no means of
knowing whether the writer of the
notes might not here be indulging his
taste.” This implies—and there are
many such insinuations throughout
Mr Collier’s book—that we have the
means of knowing that the corrector
did not exercise merely his own discretion,
in the majority of his emendations,
but had undoubted authority
for his cutting and carving on the text.
But what means have we of knowing
this? None at all. Sometimes the
corrector restores the readings of the
old quartos and of the folio 1623;
but that is no proof that his other
corrections have any guarantee beyond
his own caprice. There is no
external evidence in their favour, and
their manifest inferiority to the received
text, in almost every instance
of importance, shows that their internal
evidence is just as defective. Indeed,
as we shall by and by see, we
have the means of knowing that, in
almost every case, the old corrector
was “exercising merely his own discretion,”
or rather indiscretion. We
admit that in a few minor instances the
changes are slightly for the better,
as, for instance, the alteration of
“make” into mark in these lines
(Act II. Scene 1)—
“This shall mark
Our purpose necessary, and not envious.”
But wherever our corrector attempts
an emendation of any magnitude, he,
for the most part—indeed, we may
say always—signally fails, as has
been already abundantly shown; and
he fails, because in nine hundred and
ninety-nine apparently doubtful cases
out of every thousand, the text stands
in no need of any alteration.
Act III. Scene 1.—How vilely vulgarised
is Cæsar’s answer to Artemidorus
by the corrector’s way of putting
it. Artemidorus, pressing forward
to deliver his warning to Cæsar,
says,
“Mine’s a suit
That touches Cæsar nearer.”
Cæsar’s dignified answer is,
“What touches us ourself, shall be last served.”
The words put into his mouth by the
MS. corrector are,
“That touches us? ourself shall be last served.”
The taste of this new reading will not
find many approvers, we should think,
when it is placed in juxtaposition with
the old.
Perhaps the corrector is right in
giving the words, “Are we all ready,”
to Casca, instead of Cæsar, to whom
they are usually assigned; but Ritson
had long ago pointed out the propriety
of the change. We can accept crouchings
in place of couchings. “Law of
children” for “love of children,” has
been already recommended by Dr
Johnson.
Act IV. Scene 3.—For “new-added,”
Mr Singer suggests new-aided,
which is certainly much better than
the MS. correction new-hearted; but
no change is necessary.
Act V. Scene 1.—The old reading,
“sword of traitors,” is infinitely better
than the new, “word of traitors.”
“Forward” for “former” is another
instance of the corrector’s attempts to
modernise the text. The same may
be said of term for “time.” We
admit, however, that “those high
powers” reads better than “some high
powers.”
At the close of the play, Antony
says of Brutus,
“This was the noblest Roman of them all,
All the conspirators, save only he,
Did that they did in envy of great Cæsar;
He, only, in a general honest thought,
And common good to all, made one of them.”
We are told to read,
“He only in a generous honest thought
Of common good to all.”
This, however, is not Shakespeare
speaking his own language, but
Shakespeare popularised. “A general
honest thought” is a comprehensive
honest thought; and we may be absolutely
certain that “general” is the
poet’s word. If the MS. corrector
could be brought to life and examined,
we are convinced he would admit that
he was merely adapting Shakespeare
to his own notions of the taste and
capacities of a popular assembly.
Macbeth.—Act I. Scene 1.—When
Ross enters suddenly, with tidings of
the victory gained by Macbeth and
Banquo over the Norwegians, Lenox
exclaims,
“What a haste looks through his eyes! so should he look
That seems to speak things strange.”
A hypercritical objection has been
taken to the words, “seems to speak,”
inasmuch as Ross has not yet spoken.
Dr Johnson, deserted for a moment
by his usual good sense, would read,
“that teems to speak.” “He looks
like one that is big with something of
importance”—a phrase savouring
much more of the great lexicographer
than of the great poet. The MS.
corrector proposes, “that comes to
speak.” This is very flat and prosaic.
Mr Singer says that “seems is
to be received in its usual sense of
appears.” This is worse and worse.
Malone long ago informed us that “to
speak” stood for “about to speak,” and
this is undoubtedly right. “To
speak” is not the present, but the
future infinitive. “So should he look
that seems on the point of speaking
things strange.” No change is required.
Scene 4.—The king, on meeting
Macbeth after his victory over the
rebels, thus expresses his obligations
to him,
“Would thou had’st less deserved,
That the proportion both of thanks and payment
Might have been mine.”
We believe the meaning of this to be,
“that the larger share, both of thanks
and payment, might have come from
my side. As it is, I still owe you
more than you can ever owe me.”
To change “mine” into more is quite
uncalled for.
Scene 5.—The MS. corrector proposes
blankness for “blanket,” in the
lines where Lady Macbeth, revolving
the murder of Duncan, says,
“Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell!
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes;
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the night,
To cry, Hold! hold!”
The darkness prayed for is the thickest
that can be procured, and therefore
the word “blanket” is highly appropriate.
It has a stifling effect on
the imagination, which the general
term blankness has not.
Scene 7.—The next alteration proposed
seems to us to be a case of great
doubt and difficulty—one in which a
good deal may be said on both sides
of the question. Macbeth says to his
lady, who is pressing him strongly to
commit the murder,
“Pr’ythee, peace,
I dare do all that may become a man,
Who dares do more is none.
Lady M.—What beast was’t, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man,
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.”
The MS. corrector, changing one letter,
converts “beast” into boast, whereupon
Mr Singer says, “Who could
have imagined that any one familiar
with the poet, as Mr Collier tells us
he has been for the last fifty years,
could for a moment entertain the absurd
change of ‘beast’ to boast in this
celebrated passage?” Here Mr Singer
expresses himself, as we think, a great
deal too strongly. In better taste is
Mr John Foster’s defence of the received
reading. He says (we quote
from Mr Dyce, p. 124), with great
good sense and propriety, “Here Mr
Collier reasons, as it appears to us,
without sufficient reference to the context
of the passage, and its place in
the scene. The expression immediately
preceding, and eliciting Lady
Macbeth’s reproach, is that in which
Macbeth declares that he dares do all
that may become a man, and that who
dares more is none. She instantly
takes up that expression—If not an
affair in which a man may engage,
what beast was it then in himself or
others that made him break this enterprise
to her? The force of the
passage lies in that contrasted word,
and its meaning is lost by the proposed
substitution.” We admit the force of
this reasoning, and it, together with
the consideration that beast is the
word actually in possession of the
text, rather inclines us, though not
without much hesitation, to prefer the
old reading. We strongly suspect
that the contrast of the beast and the
man may have been an accident due
to the carelessness, or perhaps an
alteration due to the ingenuity of the
printer. There is to our feelings a
stronger expression of contempt, a
more natural, if not a fiercer taunt in
boast than in “beast.” “What vain
braggadocio fit—what swaggering humour
was it, then, that made you
break this enterprise to me?” There
is nothing in Mr Dyce’s objection,
that Macbeth had not previously
vaunted his determination to murder
Duncan. He certainly had broken
the project to his wife both by letter
and in conversation, and that pretty
strongly too, as is evident from her
words, “Nor time nor place did then
adhere,” that is, when he first broached
the subject, “yet you would make
both”—that is, you would make both
time and place bend to the furtherance
of your design, even when they were
not in themselves ripe and suitable.
And even though Macbeth had not
announced his project in a boastful
manner, it was quite natural that the
lady, disgusted by his vacillation,
should, in her excited state, upbraid
him as an empty boaster, and a contemptible
poltroon. Tried by their
intrinsic merits, we regard “boast”
as rather the better reading of the
two; and if we advocate the retention
of “beast,” it is only on the
ground that it, too, affords a very
good meaning, and is de facto the
text of the old folios.
Act III. Scene 4.—The following
passage has occasioned some discussion
among the commentators. Macbeth
addresses the ghost of Banquo,
“Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear,
The armed rhinoceros, or the Hyrcan tiger;
Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves
Shall never tremble; or, be alive again,
And dare me to the desert with thy sword:
If trembling I inhibit, then protest me
The baby of a girl.”
This is the common reading, or at least
was so until a comparatively recent
period. “Inhabit,” says Henley, “is
the original reading, and it needs no
alteration. The obvious meaning is—should
you challenge me to encounter
you in the desert, and I, through fear,
remain trembling in my castle, then
protest me,” &c. Horne Tooke (Diversions
of Purley, ii. p. 55) slightly varies
this reading by placing the comma after
then, instead of after inhabit.
“Dare me to the desert with thy sword,
If trembling I inhabit then;”—
i. e., if then I do not meet thee there;
if trembling I stay at home, or within
doors, or under any roof, or within
any habitation; if, when you call me
to the desert, I then house me, or
through fear hide myself from thee in
any dwelling—
“If trembling I do house me then, protest me,” &c.
Probably, then, the best reading is,
“If trembling I inhabit then, protest me,” &c.
At any rate, the MS. corrector’s prosaic
substitution—“if trembling I exhibit,”
i. e., if I show any symptoms of
trepidation, cannot be listened to for
a moment.
Act IV. Scene 1.—The MS. corrector
alters very properly “Rebellious
dead” of the old copies, into
“Rebellion’s head rise never till the wood
Of Birnam rise.”
Theobald had got the length of changing
“dead” into head, but the alteration
of “rebellious” into rebellion’s is
due to the old corrector, and it is decidedly
an improvement.
When Macbeth has resolved to seize
Macduff’s castle, and put his wife and
children to the sword, he exclaims—
“This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool,
But no more sights!”
The MS. corrector proposes flights,
and not without some show of reason.
Macbeth has just been informed that
Macduff has fled to England, and the
escape has evidently discomposed him,
as placing beyond his reach his most
deadly enemy. Accordingly, he is
supposed by the MS. corrector to exclaim,
“No more flights! I must take
care that no more of that party escape
me.” But, on the other hand, Macbeth,
a minute before, has been inveighing
against the witches. He
says—
“Infected be the air whereon they ride,
And damned all that trust them!”
So that “But no more sights” may
mean, I will have no more dealings
with these infernal hags. The word
“But” seems to be out of place in
connection with “flights”—and therefore
we pronounce in favour of the old
reading.
Scene 3.—Malcolm, speaking of himself,
says—
“In whom I know
All the particulars of vice so grafted,
That when they shall be open’d, black Macbeth
Shall seem as pure as snow.”
“Here,” says Mr Collier, “as has
been said on many former occasions,
‘opened’ affords sense, but so inferior
to that given by the correction of the
folio 1632, that we need not hesitate
in concluding that Shakespeare, carrying
on the figure suggested by the
word ‘grafted’ as applied to fruit,
must have written—
‘That when they shall be ripened, black Macbeth
Will seem as pure as snow.’”
But does not Mr Collier see that the
metaphor is one which does not turn
upon fruit at all, but that it turns upon
flowers? And who ever heard of
flowers ripening? That the allusion is
to flowers is obvious from this, that
Malcolm’s vices are said to surpass
Macbeth’s in their colour. “Compared
with me, black Macbeth shall
seem as pure as snow.” What confusion
of ideas can have put fruit into
the dunderhead of the corrector, and
what obliquity of judgment should
have led Mr Collier to affirm, that
“opened” affords a sense so inferior
to ripened, it is very difficult to comprehend.
In his appendix, Mr Collier
says, “an objection to ripened instead
of ‘opened,’ may be, that Malcolm
is representing these ‘particulars
of vice’ in him as already at maturity.”
Not at all; that would have
been no objection. His vices were
immature, but their immaturity was
that of flowers, and not that of fruits.
So that Mr Collier is equally at fault in
his reasons for and in his reasons
against the word “opened.” This is
not pretty in a man who has some
claims to be regarded as one of the
greatest Shakespearian scholars of the
day.
The MS. corrector in no way redeems
his character by suggesting a
decided alteration for the worse in the
line where Macduff says to Malcolm—
“You may
Convey your pleasures in a spacious plenty.”
Read enjoy, says the corrector. We
have no doubt that “convey” is the
right word—only we had better punctuate
the line thus,
“Convey your pleasures in,—a spacious plenty;”
i. e. Gather them in,—an abundant
harvest.
Act V. Scene 2.—In the lines in
which the unsettled condition of Macbeth’s
mind is alluded to, the corrector
proposes a specious though far from
necessary amendment.
“But for certain,
He cannot buckle his distempered cause
Within the belt of rule.”
The MS. correction is course; i. e. course
of action, which is distempered by the
shattered condition of his nerves. But
“cause” fits the place perfectly well,
if taken for his affairs generally,
his whole system of procedure; and
therefore we are of opinion that the
text ought not to be disturbed.
Scene 3. In the line where Macbeth
says—
“This push
Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now,”
we approve of the substitution of
chair for “cheer,” as proposed long
ago by Bishop Percy, and now seconded
by the MS. corrector. But
we see no good reason for changing
“stuff” into grief, in the line
“Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart.”
There seems to have been but little
grief on the part either of the tyrant
or his lady; and the repetition of
“stuffed” and “stuff” is very much
after the manner of Shakespeare.
Scene 4. Malcolm says of Macbeth’s
followers—
“For where there is advantage to be given,
Both more and less, have given him the revolt;”
that is, where any advantage is held
out, or “to be given” to them, both
strong and weak desert Macbeth’s
standard. The MS. corrector proposes
“advantage to be gotten; a better
reading, which has been often suggested,
is “advantage to be gained,”
and this we regard as more suitable
to modern notions; but we counsel
no change in the text, because the old
reading was to a certainty the language
of Shakespeare.
The latinism of farced, i. e., stuffed
out, for “forced,” has not a shadow of
probability in its favour. Macbeth
says of the troops opposed to him—
“Were they not forced with those that should be ours,
We might have met them, dareful, beard to beard.”
“Forced,” says Mr Singer very properly,
“is used in the sense of re-inforced.”
Neither can we accept quailed
for “cooled,” at the recommendation
of the MS. corrector, in these lines
where Macbeth says—
“The time has been my senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse and stir
As life were in’t.”
“My senses would have cooled”—that
is, my nerves would have thrilled with
an icy shudder. The received text is
quite satisfactory.
Hamlet.—Act I. Scene 2.—In consistency
with the verdict just given,
we must pronounce the following new
reading, at any rate, reasonable.
Horatio, describing the effect of the
appearance of the ghost upon Bernardo
and Marcellus, tells Hamlet, as
the quartos give it—
“They distill’d
Almost to jelly with the act of fear,
Stand dumb, and speak not to him.”
The folios read “bestilled.” The MS.
correction is bechill’d. And this we
prefer to bestilled. It is quite in keeping
with Macbeth’s expression—
“My senses would have cool’d
To hear a night-shriek.”
Shakespeare probably knew that
“jelly” was gelu, ice. But “distilled,”
the common reading, affords quite as
good a meaning as bechilled, and therefore,
as this word has authority in its
favour, which bechilled has not, we
advise no alteration of the text.
Scene 3.—We think that the old corrector
was right, when he changed
“chief” into choice in the lines where
the style in which Frenchmen dress is
alluded to—
“And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chef in that.”
This is the reading of the old copies.
The modern editions read more intelligibly—
“Are most select and generous, chief in that.”
“Chief” for chiefly. But we prefer
the MS. correction—
“Are of a most select and generous choice in that,”
both as affording better sense, and as
coming nearer the old text than the
received reading does.
In the same scene, Polonius says to
his daughter—
“I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,
Have you so slander any moment’s leisure,
As to give words, or talk with the lord Hamlet.”
We believe that “slander” here
means abuse, misuse, and therefore
we prefer the received text to squander,
the reading of the MS. corrector.
Scene 5.—The ghost says—
“Thus was I sleeping, by a brother’s hand,
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despatch’d.”
The margins read—
“Of life, of crown, of queen, at once despoiled,”
which may be more strictly grammatical
than the other. But “despatched”
is more forcible, and indicates a
more summary mode of procedure.
“Despatched,” says Mr Dyce, “expresses
the suddenness of the bereavement.”
The quartos read “deprived,”
which is quite as good as despoiled.
Act II. Scene 2.—Hamlet says—
“For it cannot be
But I am pigeon-livered, and lack gall
To make oppression better, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave’s offal.”
The margins have the weakness to
propose “to make transgression bitter!”
We are glad to perceive that
the mild Mr Dyce “lacks not gall to
make senseless criticism bitter.” He
says, “This alteration is nothing less
than villanous. Could the MS. corrector
be so obtuse as not to perceive
that ‘lack gall to make oppression
bitter,’ means lack gall to make me
feel the bitterness of oppression?” Mr
Singer proposes aggression, which is
just one half as bad as transgression.
Why cannot the commentators leave
well alone?
Act III. Scene 3.—To change
“prize” into purse in the expression,
“the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law,”
simply shows a dogged determination
on the part of the old corrector to be
more perversely idiotical than we can
believe that his stars doomed even
him to be. The king is speaking of
his usurped crown and dominion as
his “wicked prize.” Mr Collier having
put on livery in the old corrector’s
service, has, of course, nothing for it
but to assent. He says, “We need
no great persuasion to make us believe
that we ought to read purse.”
Do not suppose, Mr Collier, that we
are going to be gulled by that remark—you
yourself, we are convinced,
never swallowed so bitter a pill as
that new reading, in all your born
days.
Act III. Scene 4.—The MS. correction,
“I’ll sconce me even here,”
says Polonius, is to be preferred to
the ordinary reading, “I’ll silence me
even here.” This reading was also
proposed not long ago by Mr Hunter.
Act IV. Scene 3.—In the next, Mr
Collier is not quite so sure of his
ground, and well may he distrust it.
He says, “The next emendation is
well worthy of consideration, and perhaps
of adoption. The king asks Hamlet
where Polonius is at supper, and
the answer is this in the quartos—
“Not where he eats, but where he is eaten;
a certain convocation of politic worms are even
at him. Your worm is the only emperor for
diet,” &c.
The corrector treats us to “a convocation
of palated worms,” which is
a view of the subject we cannot at all
stomach. If there is any one word
in all Shakespeare which we can be
more certain of than another as having
been written by himself, the term
“politic,” as used in this place, is
that word. The context, “convocation,”
proves this. A convocation
is a kind of parliament, and does not
a parliament imply policy? “Politic”
here means polite, social, and discriminating.
Mr Collier advances
a very singular argument in behalf of
palated. “If the text had always
stood ‘palated worms,’ and if it had
been proposed to change it to ‘politic
worms,’ few readers would for an instant
have consented to relinquish an
expression so peculiarly Shakespearian.”
That is to say, if we had the
best possible reasons for thinking that
Shakespeare wrote “palated,” we
should not be disposed to alter it.
True: but in that case we can assure
Mr Collier that our forbearance would
be occasioned only by our respect for
the authentic text, and not by our
opinion that “palated” is the better
word of the two. Palated is, in every
respect, inferior to “politic”—so inferior,
that had palated been the text,
we should strongly have suspected a
misprint, and had “politic” stood on
the margin we should certainly have
recommended it for favourable consideration,
as we have done several of
the MS. corrections which have not
nearly so strong claims on our approval.
The corrector must have been
very old (or very young) when he set
down this new reading.
King Lear.—Act I. Scene 1.—Regan
remarks that in comparison with
her father’s welfare—
“I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
That the most precious square of sense possesses.”
The MS. corrector reads “precious
sphere,” which Mr Singer trumps by
playing out “spacious sphere.” Both
of these new readings are good, considered
as modernisations of Shakespeare.
But the old text is not to be
doubted: it is quite intelligible, and
therefore ought not to be disturbed.
“Square” means compass, area.
In the following passage, too, we
advocate the retention of the old text,
though the MS. correction is plausible—is
one of the best we have been
favoured with. Cordelia entreats her
father to
“Make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness—
No unchaste action, or dishonoured step,
That hath deprived me of your grace and favour.”
Mr Collier remarks: “Murder (spelt
murther in the folios) seems here entirely
out of place; Cordelia could
never contemplate that anybody
would suspect her of murder; she is
referring to ‘vicious blots’ and ‘foulness’
in respect to virtue, and there
cannot, we apprehend, be a doubt
that the old corrector has given us
the real language of Shakespeare
when he puts the passage thus—
‘Make known
It is no vicious blot, nor other foulness.’”
But the King of France has just before
said—
“Sure her offence
Must be of such unnatural degree
That monsters it;”
that is, that makes a monster of it—it
can be nothing short of some crime
of the deepest dye—and therefore
“murder” does not seem to be so
much out of place in the mouth of
Cordelia. Stoop for “step,” as proposed
by the corrector, is still less to
be accepted. Had he never heard of
a faux pas?
Act II. Scene 4.—The fool, declaring
that he will not desert his master,
sings—
“But I will stay; the fool will stay,
And let the wise man fly.
The knave turns fool that runs away,
The fool no knave, perdy.”
Dr Johnson proposed to correct the
two last lines thus—
“The fool turns knave that runs away,
The knave no fool, perdy.”
And the MS. corrector does the same.
Mr Singer, however, declares “that
the words knave and fool are in their
right places in the old text.” We
wish that he had explained his view;
for, to our apprehension, the new
reading is the only one which makes
sense.
One or two very small amendments
here present themselves, which on the
score of taste are not altogether objectionable,
but the superiority of
which is by no means so undoubted
as to entitle them to a place in the
text. The following is one of them—probably
the best—Act IV. Scene 1,
Edgar, in disguise, says—
“Yet better thus, and known to be contemned,
Than still contemned and flattered.”
The meaning is—’tis better to be thus
contemned and known to one’s-self to
be contemned—than contemned, and
at the same time so flattered as not
to know that you are contemned.
The old corrector proposes—
“Yes, better thus unknown to be contemned,” &c.,
a reading (all but the yes) suggested
long ago by Dr Johnson—but one in
no respect superior in merit to the
common text. The common reading
“our mean (i. e. our mediocrity) secures
us,” is greatly to be preferred
to the MS. correction “our wants
secure us.” We confess, however,
a predilection for the “lust-dieted
man that braves your ordinance” (the
ordinance of heaven), instead of the
common reading, “slaves your ordinance,”
although this is defended
by Dr Johnson against Warburton,
who long ago proposed the word
(braves) which appears on the margins
of the folio.
Scene 6.—
“Behold yond’ simpering dame
Whose face between her forks presageth snow,
Who minces virtue, and does shake the head
To hear of pleasure’s name.”
“Who mimics virtue” say the margins,
accommodating Shakespeare to
the tastes and understandings of a degenerate
period. But, “who minces
virtue” is far finer: it means, who
affects a nicety of virtue. We think
that Dr Delius is wrong in preferring
mimics.
Edgar, when he discovers that Goneril
has a plot upon her husband’s
life, exclaims—
“Oh, undistinguish’d space of woman’s will!
A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,
And the exchange my brother!”
The corrector’s substitution—
“Oh, unextinguished blaze of woman’s will!”
may be dismissed at once as utterly
irreconcilable with the context, besides
being villanous rhodomontade.
The context lets us know very plainly
what the meaning of the first line
must be. “A plot,” says Edgar, “on
the life of her husband, the best of
men! and a marriage with my brother,
the greatest scoundrel unhanged!
Oh, workings of woman’s will, past
all finding out—past all distinguishing!”
“Oh, unfathomable depth;”
“Oh, unintelligible tortuosity;” “Oh,
undistinguishable limits;” that we
believe to be the meaning of “Oh,
undistinguished space of woman’s
will.” The text requires no amendment;
and we would merely suggest
ways or depth as a gloss, and not as a
substitute for “space.”
Othello.—Act I. Scene 1.—The
old corrector sometimes passes over
lines which present intolerable difficulties.
We wish, in particular, that
he had favoured us with his sentiments
on that line which has baffled
all mankind, in which Iago describes
Cassio as
“A fellow almost damned in a fair wife.”
Difficulty first, Cassio was not married!
Difficulty second, Supposing
him to be married, why should he be
either almost or altogether damned in
a fair wife? Difficulty third, Why,
if damned at all, should he be only
almost, and not completely, damned in
her? These are points on which the
old scholiast has not attempted to
throw any light. Cassio, it is well
known, had a mistress. Is it possible,
then, that Shakespeare should
use “wife” in the sense of mistress
or woman? That supposition might
remove the difficulty. As it is, all
attempts to amend the line have
hitherto been abortive. It still stands
the opprobrium criticorum.
After trying his hand very unsuccessfully
on one or two passages, the
MS. corrector comes to the lines in
which Desdemona is described by Roderigo
as
“Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes,
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere.”
Mr Collier says: “Here the commentators
have notes upon ‘extravagant,’
but pass over ‘wheeling’
without explanation, although very
unintelligible where it stands.” He
then remarks that “wheedling (the
MS. correction for ‘wheeling’) is an
important improvement of the text.”
Few people, we imagine, will agree
with Mr Collier in thinking either
that “wheeling” is unintelligible, or
that wheedling is an improvement.
“A wheeling stranger of here and
everywhere” is as plain, and, at the
same time, as poetical a periphrasis
for a vagabond as can be well conceived.
We may be certain that the
text as it stands is the language of
Shakespeare.
Proceeding onwards, we meet with
nothing which can be recommended
for the text, and little which attracts
our attention, until we come to the
expression, “A super-subtle Venetian,”
which is Iago’s designation for
Desdemona. The old corrector makes
him call her “a super-supple Venetian”!
But, if his own good taste
could not keep the old gentleman
right, surely the context might have
done so. Iago says—“An erring
barbarian (i. e. Othello) and a super-subtle
Venetian” (i. e. Desdemona).
There is here a fine opposition between
barbarism and subtlety; but
what opposition, what relation of any
kind, is there between barbarism and
suppleness?
Act II. Scene 3.—Othello, in a state
of excitement, says—
“And passion having my best judgment collied,”
for which the MS. correction is quelled.
Mr Collier says, “There can
hardly be a doubt that this is the
proper restoration.” Whereupon Mr
Singer observes pathetically—and we
quite agree with him—“I pity the
man who could for a moment think
of displacing the effective and now
consecrated word collied. Its obvious
meaning is darkened, obfuscated; and
a more appropriate and expressive
word could not have been used.”
Act IV. Scene 1.—Othello, when
the pretended proofs of Desdemona’s
guilt are accumulating upon him, and
just before he falls into a fit, exclaims,
“Nature would not invest herself in
such shadowing passion without some
instruction.” Johnson thus explains
the place, “It is not words which
shake me thus. This passion which
spreads its clouds over me, is the effect
of some agency more than the
operation of words: it is one of these
notices which men have of unseen calamities.”
How near does that come
to Campbell’s fine line,
“And coming events cast their shadows before.”
Yet “shadowing” is to be deleted, and
shuddering substituted in its room.
No, no, thou shadow—but not of
Shakespeare—we cannot afford to be
mulcted of so much fine poetry.
Scene 2.—We might have called attention
more frequently, as we went
along, to many instances which prove,
what we have now not the smallest
doubt of, that these new readings were
never at all intended by the MS. corrector
to be viewed as restorations of
Shakespeare’s text; but simply as
avowed departures from his language,
admitted innovations, which might
better suit the tastes, as he thought,
of a progenies vitiosior. That they
were designed as restitutions of the
true Shakespearian dialect is a pure
hypothesis on the part of Mr Collier.
It receives no countenance whatever
from the handiwork of his corrector,
whom, therefore, we exculpate from
the crime of forgery, although his offences
against good taste and common
sense remain equally reprehensible.
Mr Collier, we conceive, is greatly to
blame for having mistaken so completely
his protégé’s intention. As
an instance of a new reading in which
the text is merely modernised, and
certainly not restored, take the following,
where Desdemona, speaking of
Othello, says,
“How have I been behaved, that he might stick
The small’st opinion on my greatest abuse?”
This is the reading of the quartos.
The folios have,
“The small’st opinion on my least misuse.”
The latter of which words the corrector
changes into misdeed, as more intelligible
to the ears of the groundlings
subsequent to Shakespeare.
Act V. Scene 2.—Æmilia, after the
murder of Desdemona, declares that
she will not hold her peace,
“No, I will speak as liberal as the north.”
The old quarto reads air. The MS.
corrector reads wind. “Why, we
may ask,” says Mr Collier, “should
the old corrector make the change,
inasmuch as no reasonable objection
may be urged against the use of
‘north,’ which he deletes, not in favour
of ‘air’ of the quarto 1622, but
in favour of wind? We may presume
that he altered the word because he
had heard the line repeated in that
manner on the stage.” That is not at
all unlikely. Actors sometimes take
considerable liberties with the text of
their parts, and they probably did so
in the time of Shakespeare as well as
now. A player might use the north,
or the air, or the wind, according as
the one or other of these words came
most readily to his mouth. But that
proves nothing in regard to the authentic
text of Shakespeare. For this
we must look to his published works
in their earliest impressions. We attach
little or no importance to the
mere players’ alterations, even though
Mr Collier should be able to prove
(what he is not) that many of his corrector’s
emendations were playhouse
variations, for these were much more
likely to have had their origin in individual
caprice than in any more authoritative
source.
Antony and Cleopatra.—Act I.
Scene 2.—Before changing the following
passage,
“The present pleasure,
By revolution lowering, does become
The opposite of itself,”
we should require better authority
than that of the MS. corrector, who
reads,
“The present pleasure,
By repetition souring, does become
The opposite of itself.”
This, however, is one of his most specious
emendations. But the words,
“by revolution lowering,” are sufficiently
intelligible,—and are indeed
a very fine poetical expression for the
instability of human pleasure.
Scene 3.—Antony says to Cleopatra,
who seems to doubt his love,
“My precious queen, forbear,
And give true evidence to his love which stands
An honourable trial”—
that is, bear true witness to my love.
The MS. corrector changes “evidence”
into credence, as better suited
to the popular apprehension, though
much less pleasing to the discriminating
reader. There cannot be a doubt
as to which of the words is Shakespeare’s.
Scene 5.—“An arm-gaunt steed”
has puzzled the commentators. Of
all the substitutes proposed, termagant
is perhaps the best. Arrogant, suggested
by Mr Boaden, and adopted by
Mr Singer, is also worthy of consideration.
Either of these words harmonises
with the character of the animal
“who neigh’d so high.” Sir T. Hanmer
and the old corrector read arm-girt.
Act II. Scene 2.—In the description
of Cleopatra in her barge, it is said,
“The silken tackles
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands
That yarely frame the office.”
Mr Collier says, “we ought undoubtedly,
with the old corrector, to amend
the text to
‘Smell with the touches of the flower-soft hands.’”
Truly there is no accounting for tastes!
Scene 7.—“When Antony,” says
Mr Collier, “during the debauch, says
to Cæsar, ‘Be a child o’ the time,’
Cæsar replies rather unintelligibly,
‘Possess it, I’ll make answer; but I had rather fast
From all, four days, than drink so much in one.’
What does he mean by telling Antony
‘to possess it?’” His meaning
is quite obvious; he means, Be master
of it. “Be a child of the time,”
says Antony. “Rather be its master,
say I,” rejoins Cæsar—a sentiment
much more likely to come from the
lips of the great dictator than the
paltry rejoinder which the old corrector
puts into his mouth—“Profess
it”—that is, profess to be the child of
the time.
Act III. Scene 4.—Antony, complaining
of Cæsar’s unjust treatment,
says,
“When the best hint was given him, he not took’t,
Or did it from his teeth;”
that is, when the most favourable representations
of my conduct were
made to him, he heeded them not, or
merely put on the appearance of attending
to them. The corrector reads,
“but looked;” yet, although the folio
1623 has “he not looked,” we may be
pretty sure that the text, as given
above, is the right reading, as it is
assuredly the only one which makes
sense.
Scene 6.—Cæsar expresses his dissatisfaction
with the want of ceremony
with which Octavia has been
received on her entrance into Rome.
“But you are come
A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented
The ostentation of our love, which left, unshown,
Is often left unlov’d.”
For “left” the corrector reads held,
and Mr Singer proposes felt. But if
either of these emendations were
adopted, we should require to read,
“is often felt unloving,” and this the
measure will not permit. We therefore
stand by the old text, the meaning
of which we conceive to be—love
which is left unshown is often left unreturned.
“Wrong led” is better
suited to its place than wrongèd, the
MS. correction.
Scene 11.—Enobarbus, ridiculing
the idea that Cæsar will accept Antony’s
challenge to meet him in single
combat, says,
“That he should dream,
Knowing all measures, the full Cæsar will
Answer his emptiness”—
that is, it is surprising that Antony,
who has experienced every measure of
fortune, has drunk of her fullest as well
as of her emptiest cup, should dream
that the full Cæsar will answer his
emptiness. Here the words full and
emptiness prove to a demonstration
that “measure” is the right word;
yet the MS. corrector alters it to miseries!
Mr Collier remarks, in his supplementary
notes, “Still, it may be
fit to hesitate before miseries for ‘measures’
is introduced into the text.”
We see no ground for a moment’s
hesitation. Miseries is seen at a glance
to be altogether unendurable.
In the same scene, somewhat further
on, we think that the word deputation
ought to take the place of “disputation.”
This was Warburton’s amendment;
and the MS. correction coincides
with it.
Act IV. Scene 4.—“Antony,” says
Mr Collier, “enters calling for his armour;
‘Mine armour, Eros;’ and
when the man brings it, Antony is
made to say in the old copies, ‘Put
thine iron on;’ but surely it ought to
be as a manuscript note gives it, ‘Put
mine iron on.’” Not at all; either
word will do; but “thine” is more
consonant with ordinary usage. A
gentleman asks his butler, not “have
you cleaned my plate?” but “have
you cleaned your plate?” meaning, my
plate of which you have the charge.
Eros had the charge of Antony’s armour.
We agree with the corrector,
that the words, “What is this for?”
should be given to Cleopatra, who is
assisting to buckle on Antony’s armour,
and not to Antony, to whom
they are assigned in the variorum
edition 1785. “Bear a storm” for
“hear a storm,” the common reading,
is a very unnecessary change.
Scene 8.—Gests (gesta, exploits) for
“guests” is highly to be commended
in the lines where Antony says,
“We have beat him to his camp. Run one before
And let the queen know of our gests.”
This emendation by the old corrector
ought to take its place in the text: and
he should get the credit of it, although,
as a proposed reading, it may be, as
Mr Singer says, already well known.
Scene 9.—Fore sleep instead of “for
sleep,” is also entitled to very favourable
consideration.
Scene 12.—Composed for “disposed,”
is the text modernised, not restored.
Scene 13.—Cleopatra declares that
she will never be led in triumph by
Cæsar, as an object of scorn to the
proud patrician dames.
“Your wife, Octavia, with her modest eyes,
And still conclusion, shall acquire no honour
Demuring upon me.”
How good is that expression “still
conclusion”! That lady of yours,
looking demurely upon me with her
modest eyes, and drawing her quiet
inferences, shall acquire no honour from
the contrast between my fate with
her own. And yet we are called upon
by the MS. corrector to give up these
pregnant words for the vapid substitution
of “still condition!” This, we
say, is no fair exchange, but downright
robbery.
When Cleopatra and her women
are endeavouring to raise the dying
Antony into the monument, the Egyptian
queen exclaims,
“Here’s sport indeed! How heavy weighs my lord.”
Johnson’s note on this place is remarkable,
as an instance of want of
judgment in a man whose sagacity
was very rarely at fault. He says, “I
suppose the meaning of these strange
words is, here’s trifling; you do not
work in earnest.” No interpretation
could well go wider of the mark
than this. Steevens says that she
speaks with an “affected levity.” It
would be truer to say that she speaks
from that bitterness of heart which
frequently finds a vent for itself in
irony. The MS. corrector reads,
“Here’s port indeed,” which Mr Collier
explains by saying, “Here Shakespeare
appears to have employed port
as a substantive to indicate weight.”
But “it would astonish me, and many
more,” says Mr Singer, “if Mr Collier
should succeed in finding port used
for a load or weight in the whole
range of English literature.” We
might add, that even although authority
could be found for it, the proposed
reading would still be utterly
indefensible—
“Here’s port (i. e. weight) indeed! how heavy weighs my lord!”
This is as bad as “old Goody Blake
was old and poor.” Mr Singer proposes,
“Here’s support indeed,”
which we can by no means approve
of, as it seems to have no sense.
Act V. Scene 2.—Although the text
of the following lines is not very satisfactory,
we greatly prefer it to the old
corrector’s amendment. Cleopatra,
contemplating suicide, says,
“It is great
To do that thing that ends all other deeds,
Which shackles accidents, and bolts up change;
Which sleeps, and never palates more the dung,
The beggar’s nurse and Cæsar’s.”
“Dung” here is probably used contemptuously,
and must be taken in a
wide sense for food in general. As
bread is raised from manure, man, who
lives by bread, may be said to feed on
manure. The sense probably is—It
is great to do the thing (suicide) which
causes us to sleep, and never more to
taste the produce of the earth, which
nourishes alike Cæsar and the beggar.
The MS. correction is dug, which was
long ago suggested, and which certainly
does not mend matters. This
new reading affords no extrication of
the construction, “which sleeps,”
which we have ventured to explain as
“which lays us asleep, and causes us
never more to palate or taste,” &c.
Scene 2.—
“A grief that shoots
My very heart at root,”
is perhaps judiciously altered into “a
grief that smites.” The old copies
read “suites.” This emendation was
also proposed by the late Mr Barron
Field.
Cymbeline.—Act I. Scene 5.—“We
here encounter,” says Mr Collier,
“the first MS. emendation of
much value.” Iachimo has remarked,
that the marriage of Posthumus with
the king’s daughter, from whom, however,
he has been divorced, tends to
raise Posthumus in the public estimation.
“And then his banishment,”
says the Frenchman. “Ay,” adds
Iachimo, “and the approbation of
those that weep this lamentable divorce
under her colours are wonderfully
to extend him;” that is, his
banishment, and the approbation of
those of his wife’s party (this is the
meaning of “under her colours”), who
weep this lamentable divorce, help to
enhance still further the opinion of his
merits. The old corrector thus disfigures
the passage: “Ay, and the
approbations of those that weep this
lamentable divorce, and her dolours,
are wont wonderfully to extend him.”
The old corrector’s mental vision does
not seem to be capable of taking in
more than a quarter of an inch of the
text at once. He saw that the verb
“are” required a plural nominative,
hence he reads “approbations.” But
he might have avoided this barbarism
had he extended his optical range, so
as to comprehend the word “banishment”
in the preceding speech. The
two words, “banishment” and “approbation,”
are surely entitled to be
followed by the verb “are.”
Of a piece with this is the next.
Posthumus is defying Iachimo to
make good his boast that he will overcome
the chastity of Imogen. He
says, “If you make your voyage upon
her, and give me directly to understand
you have prevailed, I am no
further your enemy.” This is converted
into, “if you make good your
vauntage upon her,” &c. And this is
a restitution of the language of Shakespeare!
Scene 7.—When Iachimo is introduced
to Imogen he exclaims,
“What, are men mad? Hath nature given them eyes
To see this vaulted arch, and the rich crop
Of sea and land, which can distinguish ’twixt
The fiery orbs above and the twinn’d stones
Upon the numbered beach; and can we not
Partition make with spectacles so precious
’Twixt fair and foul?”
In this passage cope has been proposed
for “crop,” and unnumbered
for “numbered,” by several of the
commentators, and among them by
Mr Collier’s anonymous corrector.
We are of opinion that in neither of
the places ought the text to be altered.
Cope is a mere repetition of
the “vaulted arch,” and must, therefore,
be set aside as tautological.
“Numbered” is more difficult. Let
us consider the bearing of the whole
speech. It has a sinister reference to
Posthumus, the husband of Imogen,
the lady in whose presence the speech
is uttered. “How can Posthumus,”
says Iachimo, “with such a wife as
this—this Imogen—take up with the
vile slut who now holds him in her
clutches? Are men mad—with senses
so fine that they can distinguish, or
separate from each other, the fiery
orbs above; and also so acute that
they can distinguish between the
‘twinned’ (or closely resembling)
stones which can be counted upon the
beach; ‘with spectacles’—that is,
with eyes—so precious, are they yet
unable (as Posthumus seems to be) to
make partition ’twixt a fair wife and a
foul mistress?” The words, “which
can distinguish ’twixt the fiery orbs
above and the twinned stones,” do
not mean that we have senses so fine
that we can distinguish between stars
and stones, but senses so fine that we
can count, or distinguish from one another,
the stars themselves; and can
also perceive a difference in the pebbles
on the beach, though these be as
like to one another as so many peas.
This interpretation brings out clearly
the sense of the expression, “numbered
beach;” it means the beach on
which the pebbles can be numbered;
indeed, are numerically separated by
us from each other, in spite of their
homogeneousness, so delicate is our
organ of vision by which they are apprehended;
“yet,” concludes Iachimo,
as the moral of his reflections, “with
organs thus discriminating, my friend
Posthumus has, nevertheless, gone
most lamentably astray.” This explanation
renders the substitution of
unnumbered not only unnecessary, but
contradictory. We cannot be too
cautious how we tamper with the received
text of Shakespeare. Even
though a passage may continue unintelligible
to us for years, the chances
are a hundred to one that the original
lection contains a more pregnant
meaning than any that we can propose
in its place.
Mr Collier is of opinion that the
MS. corrector’s bo-peeping is preferable
to “by-peeping” or “lie peeping.”
We cannot at all agree with
him. “By-peeping” is Shakespeare’s
phrase, “lie peeping” is Johnson’s
amendment. Either will do; and an
editor ought not to go out of his way
to make himself ridiculous.[15] A few
lines further on, the substitution of
pay for “play” is quite unnecessary,
as Mr Collier himself admits in one
of his supplementary notes. Neither
is contemn any improvement upon
“condemn.”
Act II. Scene 2.—“Swift, swift,”
says Iachimo—
“Swift, swift, you dragons of the night! that dawning
May bare the raven’s eye.”
The MS. correction is, “may dare the
raven’s eye”—i. e., says Mr Collier,
may dazzle the eye of the raven.
Surely the old commentator must here
have been driven to his wits’ end. We
have little doubt that “the raven’s
eye” here means the night’s eye.
“May bare the raven’s eye”—that
is, may open the eye of darkness, and
thus usher in the day. Has not
Milton got “smoothing the raven
down of darkness till it smiled?” This
interpretation must be placed to the
credit of Mr Singer (Shakespeare Vindicated,
&c., p. 304), although it had
occurred previously to ourselves.
Scene 5.—Instead of the line,
“Like a full-acorn’d boar—a German one,”
which is the common reading, the
corrector proposes “a foaming one.”
Mr Singer suggests “a brimeing (i. e.,
a rutting) one,” and this we greatly
prefer. Iarmen is the original text—a
word without any meaning.
Act III. Scene 4.—The competing
versions of the following lines, in
which the MS. corrector’s is pitted
against the original text, have given
rise to much controversy and speculation.
Mr Halliwell has written an
ingenious, and, we believe, an exhaustive
pamphlet on this single point.
He advocates the old reading. We
cannot say that we consider his arguments
altogether convincing, or that
he has been able to adduce any very
pat parallelism, placing the point beyond
all doubt; but we believe that
he has made the most of his case,
and that if he has not produced any
such evidence, it is because there is
none to produce. We agree with Mr
Halliwell’s conclusion, in so far as it
rejects the MS. correction; but we
advocate the retention of the original
reading, simply because it is the text,
and because we know for certain that
the old corrector had no authority for
his emendation except his own brains,
generally addled, and not enjoying, in
even this instance, a short interval of
comparative lucidity.
The passage is this: Imogen, supposing
that her husband Posthumus
has been led astray by some Italian
courtesan, exclaims indignantly and
sarcastically—
“Some jay of Italy,
Whose mother was her painting, hath betray’d him;
Poor I am stale, a garment out of fashion.”
We take it that “mother” here
means Italy, and that “painting”
means model; so that the gloss on the
passage should run thus: Some jay
of Italy, to whom Italy (i. e. Italian
manners) was the model according to
which she shaped her morals and her
conduct, hath betrayed him. That
this, or something like it, is the
meaning, is confirmed by what follows—“Poor
I am stale, a garment
out of fashion;” that is, the new
fashions, the new-fangled ways, are to
be found only in Italy, and doubtless
that daughter of Italy—that jay or
imitative creature by whom Posthumus
is now enslaved—is a considerable
proficient in those fashionable
and novel methods of conquest. This,
we conceive, is nearer the meaning
than the ordinary interpretation given
by Dr Johnson, which represents this
“jay” as “the creature not of nature
but of painting.” At any rate, if we
adopt Johnson’s meaning, we must
change was into is, and read—“whose
mother is her painting.”
Again, perhaps the meaning is this:
Some jay of Italy,—whose mother,
i. e. whose birthplace (the renowned,
the fashionable Italy) was her painting—i. e.
was the adornment, the attraction,
which allured my husband
to her arms,—hath betrayed him.
This, on second thoughts, we consider
the best interpretation. But we allow
the other to stand, as a specimen of
groping towards the truth.
The MS. corrector’s version is—“who
smothers her with painting;”
but if this had stood in the printer’s
manuscript, it is exceedingly unlikely
that he would have blundered it into
the text as we now have it. Moreover,
there is a prosaic vulgarity about
the expression which smacks much
more of the old corrector, and of his
notions of what would suit a popular
assembly, than of the genius of Shakespeare.
We may be certain that there
is no allusion to rouge in the passage;
and therefore we contend for the retention
of the original text, as neither
irreconcilable with good sense, nor
alien, but rather the reverse, from
Shakespeare’s occasional modes of
expression.
When Imogen says that Posthumus
had made her
“Put into contempt the suits
Of princely fellows,”
she means, of princely equals. This
is undoubted. Posthumus was beneath
her in rank; yet, for his sake,
she had declined the proposals of
suitors as highborn as herself. “Fellows”
is modernised into followers.
The change of “pretty, and full of
view,” into privy, yet full of view, is a
sensible emendation, yet we hesitate
to recommend it for the text. Pisanio
tells Imogen that when she disguises
herself as a youth she must “change
fear and niceness into a waggish
courage.” The word “fear” here
seems to prove that “courage” is the
right reading. The MS. correction is
“waggish carriage.”
Scene 6.—Imogen, disguised, says,
“I see a man’s life is a tedious one,
I have tired myself; and for two nights together
Have made the ground my bed.”
“Tired” should be ’tired—i. e. altered
myself like a boy. But this is not a
new reading. The word is the same,
whether printed tired or ’tired.
Act IV. Scene 1.—Cloten speaking
of Imogen, says, “Yet this imperseverant
thing (i. e., Imogen) loves him
(i. e., Posthumus) in my despight.”
“Imperseverant” is explained by
Messrs Dyce and Arrowsmith to mean
undiscerning. The latter, says Mr
Singer, “has adduced (in Gnats and
Queries, vol. vii. p. 400) numerous
instances of the use of perseverance for
discernment.” The MS. substitution
of “perverse errant” seems, therefore,
to be quite uncalled for.
Scene 2.—Arviragus says that the
redbreast will bring flowers—
“Yea, and furred moss besides, when flowers are none,
To winter-ground thy corse.”
That is, the corse of Imogen, who is
supposed to be dead. “To winter-ground
a plant,” says Steevens, “is to
protect it from the inclemency of the
winter season by straw, &c.” This
is quite satisfactory, and renders the
correction winter-guard unnecessary.
The change of “so” into lo may be
accepted in the speech of Imogen
when she awakens from her trance.
Act V. Scene 1.—The last passage
on which the old corrector tries his
hand is this. He can make nothing
of it, nor can we, nor, so far as we
know, can any one else. Posthumus,
addressing the gods, says—
“Alack,
You snatch some hence for little faults; that’s love,
To have them fall no more; you some permit
To second ills with ills, each elder worse,
And make them dread it, to the doer’s thrift.”
There is no difficulty with “elder;”
it, of course, means, each crime being
worse than its predecessor. “And
make them dread it,” &c.; this may
mean—and make them go on inspiring
dread, to the profit of the doer; or,
as Steevens explains it, “To make
them dread it is to make them persevere
in the commission of dreadful
crimes.” This, it must be confessed,
is not satisfactory; but we like it
quite as well as the MS. emendation.
“And make men dread it, to
the doer’s thrift.” But whatever may
be the merit of this new reading, the
change of “elder” into later is, at any
rate, quite uncalled for. Neither can
we assent to Mr Singer’s amendment
of the place, which is—
“You some permit
To second ills with ills each alder-worst;
And make them dreaded to the doer’s shrift.”
On the whole, it is certainly safest to
let the old text stand as it is, until
something better can be suggested.
Having now washed our hands as
clean as we possibly could of the old
MS. corrector, we must, in proceeding
to dry them—that is, to sum up—first
of all notice whether there be not very
small specks of dirt still sticking to
them. We are sorry to say that there
are several. In our anxiety to do every
justice to the old scholiast, and in our
determination to redeem to the uttermost
the pledge which we came under
to him and to our readers—namely, to
bring forward everything which told
in the remotest way in his favour—we
find that we have somewhat overshot
the mark; we have fulfilled our obligation
in terms too ample; we have
been too indulgent to this shadowy
sinner, whose very skeleton Apollo
and the nine muses are now, no doubt,
flaying alive in Hades, if they have
not done so long ago. In a word, we
have something to retract: not, however,
anything that has been said
against him, but one or two small
things that have been said for him.
And, therefore, as we are not altogether
a character like old Kirkaldy
of Grange, whom the chronicles describe
as “ane stoute man, and always
ready to defend at the point of the
sword whatever he had said,” we
may as well eat in our leek at once,
without more ado.
We speak at present only of those
readings (and fortunately they are
very small and very few) which we
countenanced or recommended for the
text on the authority of the old MS.
corrector. In most cases, any mere
favourable opinion which we may have
expressed of some of the new readings
we shall allow to stand, for such opinions
are unchanged, and the expression
of them was very far from being
a recommendation of these readings
for the text. It is only the text which
we are now solicitous about; and,
therefore, insignificant as the sentiments
of any humble reviewer may be,
still, for the credit of the periodical in
which he writes, and also lest the text
of Shakespeare should run any risk of
being compromised at his hands, it is
his duty to retract his opinions to
whatever extent he may feel that they
have been rather inconsiderately advanced.
We approved, in the first instance,
of “get” for let, (Blackwood’s Magazine,
Aug., p. 188); that approbation we retract.
“Portent-like,” the common
reading, is better than either potent
like or potently, (Blackwood’s Magazine,
p. 195). “Sheer ale,” and not shire
ale, (Blackwood’s Magazine, p. 198),
should hold the text. Katherine’s
answer to Petruchio (Blackwood’s
Magazine, p. 199) is all right and
ought not to be changed. “Supplications
in the quill” ought to keep its
place in the text against Mr Singer’s
in the coil, (Blackwood’s Magazine,
September, p. 315). “In the quill,”
simply means in writing, as Steevens
long ago told us. We observe nothing
more that we feel called upon to retract.
This deduction leaves, as nearly as
we can count them, thirty new readings
at the credit of the old corrector.
We believe that the whole of these
might be placed in the text without
the risk of damaging it in any very perceptible
degree; a few of them would
improve it: indeed, some of the best
of them were introduced into it long
ago, while others have been suggested
independently of the old corrector.
So that his contributions to the improvement
of Shakespeare are, after
all, not very considerable. The only
two really valuable and original emendations
which he has proposed seem
to us to be—these welling heavens, for
“the swelling heavens,” (Blackwood’s
Magazine, p. 310), and thirst complaint,
for “first complaint,” (Blackwood’s
Magazine, p. 321.)
This, then, is all that we obtain
after winnowing this old savage’s
“elements of criticism:” two respectable
emendations out of twenty
thousand (for at that figure Mr Collier
calculates them) blundering attempts,
all of which, except these two and a
very few others, hit the nail straight
upon the point, instead of right upon
the head. One thing we at any rate
now know, that the conjectural criticism
of England must have been at
its lowest possible ebb during the
seventeenth century, if this nameless
old Aristarchus is to be looked upon
as its representative, or was president
of the Royal Society of Literature.
The concluding question is,—What
rank is this scholiast entitled to hold
among the commentators, great and
small, on Shakespeare? And the
answer is, that he is not entitled to
hold any rank at all among them. He
cannot be placed, even at a long interval,
behind the very worst of them.
He is blown and thrown out of the
course before he reaches the distance-post.
He is disqualified not only by
his incompetency, but by his virtually
avowed determination not to restore
to Shakespeare his original language,
but to take away from Shakespeare his
original language, and to substitute
his own crudities in the place of it.
We are as certain that this was his
intention and his practice, as if we had
been told so by himself. That he was
an early scholiast is certain. It is
also in the highest degree probable—indeed,
undoubted, as Mr Knight has
suggested—that he was in his prime
(his prime!) during the Commonwealth,
when the Puritans had the
ascendancy, and the theatres were
closed. That he had been a hanger-on
of the theatres in bygone days, and
that he hoped to be a hanger-on of
them again, is also pretty clear.
So there he sat during the slack
time polishing away at Shakespeare,
“nursing his wrath to keep it warm,”
biding his time till Charlie should
come over the water again, and theatricals
revive. We can have some
sympathy with that, but none with
the occupation in which he was engaged—paring
and pruning the darling
of the universe—shaving and trimming
him; taming down the great
bard in such a way as to make him
more acceptable to the tastes, as he
thought, of a more refined, if not a
more virtuous generation. For this
kind of work we have no toleration.
This critic was evidently the first of
that school of modernisers of the text
of Shakespeare which, commencing
with him, culminated and fell in
Davenant and Dryden, never more,
it is to be hoped, to rise.
With regard to Mr Collier we shall
just remark, that although he has obviously
committed a mistake (“to
err is human,” &c.) in attaching any
value to these new readings, and has
plainly been imposed upon in thinking
them restorations of Shakespeare,
still his mistake is not irretrievable,
and ought not to make the public
forgetful of the antecedent services
which he has rendered to our genuine
Shakesperian literature. His learning
is undoubted; and his judgment,
if not very acute, is sound, if he will
but allow it fair play, and obey its
behests as faithfully as he formerly
did, when he adhered with the
tenacity of a man of sense to the
authorised and undoubted text. This
now appears to us, and, we should
imagine, to every one else who has
attended to the new readings, as
greatly less corrupt than, on a slighter
inspection, we have been in the habit
of supposing. We can only answer
for ourselves; but this we can say,
that the ineffectual operations of the
old MS. corrector have opened our
eyes to a depth of purity and correctness
in the received text of Shakespeare,
of which we had formerly no
suspicion; and that is the true good
which the proceedings of this old
bungler have effected—they have
settled for ever the question as to the
purity and trustworthiness of the ordinary
editions of Shakespeare. We
now believe that the text of no author
in the world is so immaculate as that
of our great national poet, or stands
in less need of emendation, or departs
so little from the words of its original
composer. Mr Collier, too, thought
so once—let him think so again, and
his authority will instantly recover:
this transient cloud will pass away.
In regard to his edition of Shakespeare,
which, we believe, is by this
time published with the MS. corrector’s
perversions inserted in the text,
that is now a blunder past all mending.
We can only say this of it, that
effectual precautions having been now
taken by others, and by us, to prevent
this publication from ever becoming
the standard edition of Shakespeare,
we do not grudge it any
amount of success which may fall to
its share. We are rather desirous to
promote its interests, knowing that it
can now do no harm, and will not
speedily come to a reprint. Even
now it must be a very singular book.
Hereafter it will be an exceedingly
remarkable book—one entitled to take
high rank among the morbid curiosities
of literature, and to stand on the
same shelf—fit companion—with
Bentley’s edition of Milton. The
serious truth is, that no Shakesperian
collection can be complete without it.
Every Shakesperian collector ought,
beyond a doubt, to provide himself
with a copy. People who intend to
be satisfied with only one Shakespeare,
ought certainly not to take up with
this edition; but those who can indulge
themselves with several copies,
ought unquestionably to purchase it.
We say this in all seriousness and
gravity, notwithstanding the riddling
which we have thought it incumbent
on us to inflict on the old MS. corrector.
[14] Vide Alte handschriftliche Emendationen zum Shakespeare.—p. 93.
[15] The attempts made by a judicious foreigner to amend the text of our great dramatist
are interesting, and deserve notice, even though not altogether successful.
Herr Delius proposes thereby; but we must give the whole passage. The false
Iachimo, endeavouring to bring Posthumus into discredit with Imogen, says, “Had
I such a wife, I certainly would not do as Posthumus does,
Join gripes with hands
Made hard with hourly falsehood (falsehood as
With labour), then by peeping in an eye,
Base and illustrious as the smoky light
That’s fed with stinky tallow.”
“Then by” is the original text, but it is ungrammatical. For “then by” Dr Delius
proposes to read thereby (dabei, unterdess—that is, besides, meanwhile). But this
attempt, though creditable, is not successful. Thereby, as here used, is very nearly,
but it is not quite an English idiom, and was certainly not Shakespeare’s word.
The proceedings of the bankruptcy
courts occasionally make public painful
cases, in which long-suffering
parents have been compelled to
cut adrift incorrigible prodigals. In
vain have the generous “governors”
and affectionate mothers bled themselves,
pelican-wise, to supply the
cravings of extravagant youth; in
vain have they compounded with
Jews, satisfied tailors, paid long accounts
for London-made port and indigenous
champagne, met bills of
whose “value received” twenty per
cent had been given in cash, the remainder
in green spectacles, paving
stones, and stuffed birds. There is a
limit to human patience, a bottom
even to paternal pockets; indulgence
becomes imbecility when impudence
is added to insolvency, and at last
further aid and countenance are withheld.
The spendthrift grumbler
sulks, swears he is the most ill-used
of mortals, and is finally lodged in a
sponging-house or enlisted in a dragoon
regiment. Such appears to us
to be the present relative position of
England and Spain. For nearly half
a century John Bull has been “better
than a mother” to the cashless, helpless,
graceless Spaniards. He has
fought their battles, filled their treasury,
helped them to constitutions,
assisted them with advice, which they
have sometimes been too proud to
take, at others too silly to profit
by. The seed thus sown has produced
an abundant harvest of ingratitude.
We have acted the part of
Aunt Cli to the scape-grace, Jonathan
Jefferson, and we have met the
same reward. The Spaniard has used
us, and now he abuses us.
Has the day really dawned upon
which English capitalists are to be
proof against Spanish swindlers? We
almost, although with difficulty—for
there is no more gullible animal than
your capitalist on the look-out for an
investment, with his pockets stuffed
with cash, and consols at par—believe
that it has. Spain can hardly credit the
fact, and is rabid at the apprehension.
The fright has driven her from her
propriety. She proscribes our newspapers,
forbids us to bury our dead,
and vents mysterious but awful menaces
in the columns of the respectable
Madrid journal, whose editor is
the Spanish Home Secretary, its purveyor
of funds the Spanish Queen-mother.
A nameless something, we
have lately been repeatedly assured
by the España, is to be done, if the
English press continue its denunciations
of Spanish schemes and roguery;
and the same journal wrote wrathfully
and ominously when a warning was
given to the British public that, if
they chose to intrust their money to
Peninsular speculators and peculators,
they must look to themselves alone,
and not to their government, for aid
in recovering it. “Spain,” then wrote
the Rianzares journal, “will know
how to vindicate her honour, as on
former occasions.” If this means anything
beyond an ebullition of petulant
spleen, it probably refers to the brief
notice to quit given to Sir Henry Bulwer.
Lord Howden had better look
to himself, and keep his portmanteau
packed, for he is evidently exposed to
receive his passport at any moment,
because his stubborn ungrateful countrymen
decline making further advances
upon such flimsy security as
Spanish bonds—as depreciated and
worthless a pledge as Spanish honour.
The whole history of Spain’s transactions
with her foreign creditors may
be made plain, in few lines, to the
meanest capacity. Spain owed a
large sum of money, and a good deal
of interest upon it. She went to her
creditors and said, “I am at war,
troops must be paid, my treasury is
empty; I want some more money. I
am fighting for freedom from an odious
tyranny; you, free men, cannot but
sympathise with me; lend me the
cash. We will add the amount to
what I already owe you; capitalise
the over-due coupons, the whole will
make a nice round sum, upon which I
bind myself regularly to pay the interest.”
Spain has always been seductive
and smooth-tongued; her fine,
sonorous, knightly language—the sole
remnant of chivalry she has retained—inspires
confidence by its high-sounding
phrases and noble expressions.
The creditors believed her assurances,
and, in an incautious hour,
parted with their money, a portion of
which was duly applied to the first
one or two dividends, and then payment
again stopped, and was not resumed.
Years passed on, the war
terminated, Spain was at peace and
comparatively prosperous, her revenue
largely increased, notwithstanding
the absurd tariffs that grievously
restricted her exports; still no effort
was made to remove from the national
character the stigma of ingratitude
and insolvency. At last, when it was
supposed that the creditors, weary of
waiting, would accept almost anything
for the sake of a settlement—when,
it has been said and believed
by many, a considerable amount of
bonds had been bought for Spanish
government account, at the wretched
price to which the government’s refusal
of payment had sunk them in
the market—a disgraceful compromise
was offered, and finally forced upon
the creditors, who could not help
themselves, and who looked in vain,
whilst thus swindled, for efficient advocacy
and support, to those Whig
statesmen and fervent admirers of
constitutional government in the Peninsula,
whose smiling approval and
countenance had been given to the
transfer of good English money to
faithless Spanish pockets. The results
are known to the world, and may
be briefly summed up. The same
people who, in the Peninsular war,
did their utmost to rob British troops
of their laurels, claiming, to this very
day, the glory of victories in which
not a battalion of their bisoños figured,
except in the rear, or to be
routed; and insinuating, upon occasion,
that Wellington’s army was a
sort of auxiliary corps to their own
heroic legions—repaid our military intervention
and enormous pecuniary
aid in their subsequent civil discords,
by betraying us for an Orleanist alliance,
grossly insulting our government
in the person of its ambassador,
and insolently snapping their
fingers in the face of the British holder
of Spanish bonds. We have no
desire to resuscitate defunct questions;
but certain it is, that many
very sensible people—whom, as they
are not members of the Peace Society,
there is no reason to consider particularly
belligerent or disposed to
“crumple up” countries on light
grounds—throughout England, and
especially in the city of London, are
of opinion that, upon more than one
occasion during the last six years,
the imposing force which in 1851
menaced for a doubtful claim the
paltry capital of a petty state, would
have been better employed off Cadiz,
in insisting on an equitable adjustment
of the very large debt rightfully
and unquestionably owing to thousands
of British subjects. This, of
course, is a mere ignorant, common-sense
view of the case; we have no
doubt it could be quickly demonstrated
from Vattel, and other great authorities,
that common sense is the
only good quality it possesses, and that
it is utterly opposed to wise statesmanship
and international law. Meanwhile,
however, like the Count in the
Nozze, the creditor dances to Figaro’s
fiddle; Spanish ministers and financiers,
who, but the other day, had
scarcely a dollar to pay for a dinner,
are as rich as Rothschild; Spanish
dowager-queens hoard millions upon
millions, and are prepared with princely
dowries for their numerous progeny
by handsome guardsmen; but the
poor, long-suffering Spanish bondholder,
defrauded of his due, and cut
down to a fraction per cent, vegetates
in penury, or inquires the way to the
Union.
These, in round terms, and stripped
of unnecessary details, are the facts
of the case—facts that defy refutation;
these are the disreputable circumstances
under which Spain, having,
as the Orientals say, made her
face white—that is to say, having
acted as her own commissioner of
bankrupts, and whitewashed herself
upon the most favourable terms—once
more, with unblushing effrontery,
presents herself in the character
of a borrower. The pretext this time
is a different one; the ingenious Peninsula
has got “a new dodge.” Formerly
the guineas were handed over
to the sound of martial music and
clashing arms, amidst cries of “Down
with the Inquisition!” and “Viva la
constitution!” Now it is the clink of
the hammer we hear, and a vivid panorama
unfolds itself before us. It is
of the nature of a dissolving view. In
the first instance we behold a rich and
fertile country, a land flowing with
milk and honey, or, better still, teeming
with corn, and wine, and oil. But
its prosperity is crippled for want
of communications. Behold yonder
shirtless and miserable peasant, issuing
from his filthy tumble-down habitation!
Abundance surrounds him;
wine is more plentiful with him than
water; not all the efforts of himself
and family, aided by the pigs and by
that sedate-looking jackass, suffice to
consume a fourth part of the delicious
fruit produced by his orchard, with so
little painstaking on his part. How
gladly would he exchange a cart-load
of wine and fruit for a shirt to interpose
between his tawny skin and his
garments of coarse woollen cloth, for
a light linen jacket, for cool neat
dresses for his wife and daughters, for
a few of those articles of furniture
which the poorest English cottage possesses,
but in which his dwelling is so
lamentably deficient! But how can
he do this? His neighbours are either
as well supplied as himself with the
produce of the soil, or they have
neither money to buy it with, nor
goods to barter for it. For leagues
and leagues around, there is neither
town nor village in whose overstocked
market his commodities would find a
sale, or have more than a nominal
value. True, at the coast there are
people waiting, red-haired barbarians
from foreign parts, addicted to strong
drinks and plum-puddings, and perfectly
willing to take his wine and
raisins, and to give him, in return,
clothing suited to his climate, crockery
for his kitchen, a better knife to
prune his vines, and an implement of
tillage somewhat superior to that
extraordinary antediluvian plough,
which in England would be put under
a glass case, and exhibited as an
Aztec curiosity. He has heard that
there are such people, and bethinks
him how he can convey to them his
fruit and wine-skins. It is very far
from his hamlet to the nearest camino
réal, and in the interval there is no
road much better than a bridle-path.
Carriers there are none; of canals he
has never heard; he looks at his jackass,
but the burro sagaciously shakes
his ears, as if to decline so distant a
journey. So the poor peasant leans
upon his spade, and wipes away a
tear, in the midst of his useless abundance;
pours out upon the ground the
wine of last year, to make room for
the better vintage of this one, and
purchases, at an exorbitant price, of
the contrabandista, the smuggled manufactures,
whose original cost has
been quadrupled by the danger and
difficulty of their introduction, and by
the long journey on mule-back from the
coast.
This affecting picture now melts
away, the scene changes—we have all
witnessed the sort of thing at the
Polytechnic, and those who have not
will find something very like it in
most Spanish railway prospectuses—and
we are transported into a country
where on all sides is to be traced the
gratifying progress of industry, commerce,
and prosperity. “’Tis Spain,
but slothful Spain no more!” All is
bustle and movement. Busy towns,
improving villages, a thriving peasantry,
sharp misery disappearing,
comfort and civilisation rapidly advancing.
The secret of the change,
the charm that has wrought it, is to
be found in one word, and that word
is Railway. Diverging from la corte,
from that capital of the civilised world,
the court par excellence, by Spaniards
never sufficiently to be lauded—from
sandy, treeless, waterless Madrid, in
summer a furnace, in winter an ice-house—long
iron lines extend in all
directions, to every frontier, throwing
out branches right and left as they
proceed, and finally joining other lines
which run parallel to the sea-board.
That which gold—when it flowed, in a
broad continuous stream, from a newly-discovered
continent—was powerless
permanently to bring about in the
prosperity of Spain, is now effected
and assured by the ruder agency of
iron. The very nature of the Spaniard
is transformed; he is no longer
indolent and procrastinating, but
active and prompt; the most go-ahead
Yankee might take a lesson
from him. He has abolished his suicidal
tariff, and is applying himself,
heart and soul, to the amelioration
of that which must long constitute
his country’s true wealth—the
olive and vine, the corn-field and
orchard, the fleece and the silkworm.
The stimulus has spread throughout
the land, and is felt by all classes.
The peasant, whom we lately beheld
hungry and half naked in the midst of
abundance, is now a prosperous farmer,
and annually sends coastwards
many a good cask of wine and case of
fruit. The contrabandista has turned
stoker; and the lazzaroni lad whom
we saw, in the last picture, crouched
in the shadow of a crumbling wall,
and pursuing entomological researches
in the interior of his tattered vest, is
hardly to be recognised in that active
chap, in a glazed cap and uniform
jacket, who is hard at work greasing
the wheels of the locomotives.
It is impossible to deny the immense
superiority of the latter over
the former of these two pictures. The
pre-railroad one is sketched from life;
the post-railroad is the offspring of the
imagination of a Spanish railway projector.
The former might be signed,
“Truth,” the latter, “Salamanca.”
The artists, it will be noticed, are of
very opposite schools.
The question of Spanish railways
is to be contemplated and examined
under two distinct points of view.
First, as regards their probable effects
upon the state of the country, its
trade, prosperity, &c.; secondly, with
respect to the prospect of profit, and
chances of repayment of those foreigners
who may be induced to embark
in any of the numerous schemes
propounded. The first of these two
points may be succinctly disposed of.
“The general poverty of Spain is very
great,” wrote a good authority on the
subject in 1845.[17] Since then eight
years have elapsed, years of peace
and of a tranquillity almost uninterrupted;
yet, within the last few
weeks, we have been assured by recent
travellers in the country, and by
Spaniards—who cannot deny the
wretched condition they deplore and
feel ashamed of, but are impotent to
improve—that Spanish poverty and
misery are in no degree diminished.
The want of means of communication
must be reckoned, if not amongst the
causes of that unfortunate state of
things, at least amongst the obstacles
to its removal. And there can be no
reasonable doubt that the establishment
of an extensive system of railroads
would be productive of great
improvement and advantage to Spain.
These would not be so rapidly manifest
as in more populous and industrious
countries, and amongst a more
energetic race. Years might be required
to do what months have accomplished
elsewhere. But ultimately
the irresistible power of the greatest
invention of this century must make
itself felt. “Nothing,” says an accomplished
English lady, and intelligent
observer of Spain, of whose interesting
work, the result of three years’
travel and sojourn in that country,
we shall presently speak, “could tend
more to improve Spain than the establishment
of great main lines of railway.”
Whilst agreeing in this respect
with Lady Louisa Tenison, we think
it desirable to extend our investigation
a little farther than she has done,
and to examine the probable position
of the persons who may be induced
to advance money for the construction
of those important arteries.
The mountainous character of Spain
has been frequently and justly urged
as a great, if not an insuperable, obstacle
to the formation of long lines
of railroad in that country. Ford, in
his usual lively and satirical strain,
long ago denounced these as impossible
of construction.[18] The subject,
however, is too serious to be jocularly
dismissed in a couple of amusing
pages. We readily admit the extreme
difficulty and expense of tunnelling
“mighty cloud-capped sierras which
are solid masses of hard stone;” but a
little perseverance and investigation
sometimes enables one to turn a difficulty
which he could not hope to level,
and we have been assured by practical
Englishmen, whose attention has been
particularly directed to the subject,
that, in some of the most formidable
of Peninsular mountain-chains, research
brings to light defiles through
which a moderate amount of labour
would enable the locomotive to wind
or incline its way. Then long tracts of
level in the interior of the country offer
some compensation for costly work
in mountain districts; and, upon the
whole, and at a proximate compensation,
Spanish railroads would probably
not be so expensive in construction as
has been believed and affirmed by
many. The most costly and difficult
of all would be the Northern Line,
about which such a stir has lately
been made, which has caused such
agitation and convulsions in the
Spanish Cabinet, and led to such unpleasant
exposure of the greedy manœuvres
and reckless cupidity of the
Rianzares gang, and of that very
slippery gentleman, Señor Salamanca.
The Northern Line (two hundred and
fifty miles long, as now projected)
would have to make its way through
two tremendous mountain barriers—the
Somosierra range and that continuation
of the Pyrenees which extends
through the whole of the north
of Spain to Cape Finisterre. Whoever
is acquainted with the Basque
provinces knows that they are little
else than one mass or agglomeration
of mountains, through which any railway
must pass that is to communicate
with Bayonne. As a set-off to
this, it is urged that, in the Castilian
plains, there would be little else to do
than to lay down the sleepers and
rails. In railway matters it is not
easy to see how impossibilities are to
be compensated, consistently with the
completeness of a line; and certainly,
in the words of Ford, “any tunnels
which ever perforate those ranges will
reduce that at Box to the delving of
the poor mole.” The projected Northern
Company has contracted (rather
prematurely) with Mr Salamanca, to
make the line for about six millions
sterling, or £24,000 a-mile; but little
dependence will be placed, by sane
persons, upon Spanish estimates, contracts,
and contractors; and meanwhile,
pending the sanction by the
Cortes of the royal decree authorising
the line, the project is a mere bubble,
a château en Espagne, as the French
say.
Supposing, however, the Cortes to
be bullied, tricked, or wheedled out of
their consent, the mountains bored,
the tunnels made, the line opened—all
for the stipulated six millions—what
are the probabilities of a return to the
shareholders in this precious speculation?
In the first place, it must be
observed that the Spanish government,
which has just fobbed off its
creditors with a shilling or two in the
pound, proposes, with that honourable
consistency and good faith that
habitually characterises it in all financial
and most other matters, to
guarantee to the shareholders in this
and several other extensive railways
six per cent interest on the capital
advanced. It is the old story. The
capitalist gets the first dividend or
two (paid out of his own money, of
course), and then, when all calls are
paid up, the Spanish treasury sports
its oak, and the finance minister of
the day, looking lugubriously through
the vasistas, posts up “no effects.”
The shareholder perhaps consoles himself
with the reflection that in a year
or two the line will be open; and that
then, when the proceeds of a lucrative
traffic pour in, there can be no pretext
of inability to pay, and he will get
both dividend and arrears. To satisfy
him as to his prospects, we shall quote
two highly competent authorities—
“Speculators will do well to reflect that
Spain is a land which never yet has been
able to construct or support even a sufficient
number of common roads or canals
for her poor and passive commerce and
circulation. The distances are far too
great, and the traffic far too small, to call
yet for the rail. The outlay will be on
an inverse ratio to the remuneration; for
the one will be enormous and the other
paltry. The Spaniard, a creature of
routine and foe to innovations, is not a locomotive
animal;—local, and a fixture by
nature, he hates moving like a Turk, and
has a particular horror of being hurried.”—Ford,
p. 799.
Thus far the Handbook man. We
turn to an interesting and important
letter on the subject of Spanish railroads
in the journal whose untimely
revelations have procured it the hard
sentence of exclusion from Spain.
“It cannot be too often urged that ‘Royal
decrees’ have no legal force until confirmed
by the Cortes, and even then, in questions
of finance, they usually exceed the capabilities
of the country; therefore, however
strong the desire of Spain to see
locomotives crossing the country, it is
impossible for the finances to pay six per
cent interest, even upon lines already
guaranteed. If such were possible, it
would be additionally disgraceful, whilst
the interest on the national debt is not
paid. There are many legitimate and
profitable means of employing capital in
Spain, independently of the delusive
guarantee of ‘Royal decrees,’ or the
guaranteed interest, which will be paid
only so long as it suits the present temporary
object of drawing forth foreign
capital. Many instances could be given
of the success that has attended glass,
iron, lead, and other works, when established
in proper localities, which give a
return of 30, 40, and, I am assured, of even
50 per cent per annum, without any protection
from the government. Until railways
can also be established on their own
intrinsic merits, relying exclusively on
the traffic to remunerate the shareholders,
it is not safe to attempt them, as, at the
first unfavourable change in Spanish finances,
the interest is sure to remain unpaid.
It is very easy, as in the case of
the Northern line, to make a brilliant
prospectus, and trace a line upon the map,
passing through numerous towns; but
those who have travelled in Spain do not
forget that there is not enough passenger
traffic between Madrid and France to fill
a diligence throughout the year. Neither
Valladolid, Burgos, Vitoria, nor any of
the other towns mentioned, contain a locomotive
population; and, in the entire
distance, until the industrious Basque
provinces be approached, there is scarcely
a manufacturing village.”—Paris Correspondence
of the Times, 30th August
1853.
The greater part of what is here
truthfully and forcibly stated is equally
applicable to all long lines of railway
in Spain. It is unnecessary to
pile up facts, or to expend more time
in demonstrating the risk, or rather
the certain loss incurred by all who
lend money to the thriftless, faithless
Spaniard, for the carrying out of his
new mania for ferro-carriles. His
object is to supply himself with railroads
at foreign cost. He has not the
remotest intention of paying interest,
when the lines are once completed;
so that, if the traffic does but pay its
expenses, he has the property for nothing.
We do not hesitate to denounce
the whole scheme of Spanish
railroads as an impudent and gigantic
attempt at a wholesale national
swindle. The only persons who would
be benefited by it, in case of its success,
would be that sprightly Wizard
of the North, Mr Salamanca, and a
few other speculators of his kidney,
Queen Christina, the Duke of Rianzares,
and their particular friends and
adherents.
We should be sincerely glad, for the
sake of the Spanish nation, whose
many good qualities we (whilst utterly
condemning, contemning, and abominating
their dishonest government,
their intriguing licentious royal family,
their greedy dishonest speculators,
and their useless lazy army of
empleados) highly and justly admire,
to see their land lapped to-morrow in
an iron network, could it be done by
stroke of fairy-wand or touch of Aladdin’s
lamp. But that the fifty millions
sterling (we are informed that is
the sum needed for the whole scheme
of Spanish railway) should be filched
from British pockets, into which Don
Spaniard has so repeatedly, and on
such various pretexts, dipped his
digits—never withdrawing them
empty—is what we most decidedly object
to. The only lines for which there is
at present room in Spain, and that are
likely to give a profit to the shareholders,
are short lines in the most
populous and industrious districts.
And these should only be gone into
when they are got up by private companies,
and without government intervention
of any kind. The directors
should be able to head their prospectus,
as Paris shopkeepers head their advertisements,
with the words, “Sans
garantie du gouvernement.” No reliance
can be placed on anything in
which a Spanish government has a
right to interfere: a feeling now
pretty prevalent, and which has
swamped, at least for the present—and
we hope for a long time to come—the
schemes of the Spanish Hudson.
Lines like the Madrid and Aranguez,
(did it belong to a company, instead
of to the state), like the Barcelona
and Mataro—a private line, paying a
good interest—and like the proposed
eighteen-mile line, connecting Cadiz,
Port St Mary’s, and Xerez, are those
that may safely be gone into. The
last named (which is, if we are not
mistaken, independent of the government)
ought, with decent management
and reasonable economy, to be
one of the most profitable bits of railway
in Europe. And it is strong evidence
of the wholesome distaste at
present entertained in this country for
everything Spanish, that the London
committee appointed to allot a portion
of the shares in this certainly most
promising enterprise received scarcely
a single bona fide application, and were
fain to abandon the idea of distributing
any in England. So that there
seems some hope that John Bull, who
usually buys his experience dear, and
who has only lately become fully convinced
how very insolvent a virtue is
Spanish patriotism, will not wait till
he burns his fingers, to make up his
mind as to the very rotten nature of
Spanish railroads.
Enough upon this head. In Spanish
phrase, we place ourselves at the
feet of the fair authoress of the remarkably
handsome volume, two lines
in which have led us into the foregoing
reflections, and ask her pardon
for our want of gallantry in allowing
our own lucubrations to take precedence
of her strong claims to notice.
Lady Louisa Tenison furnishes us with
practical proof that, if “great lines of
railroad” be a desideratum in Spain,
they are by no means indispensable
in order that delicately-nurtured
dames should visit with safety and enjoyment
the most beautiful, and some
of the wildest districts of the Peninsula.
The romance of travel is evidently
at an end, as far as Europe is
concerned, when English ladies ride
through Spain for months together, encountering
as few adventures as though
their palfreys pranced in Hyde Park.
What, not one brush with banditti,
or narrow escape from ambushed assassins!
Not a single midnight alarm
in the lonely venta, or hand-to-hand
conflict with ferocious contrabandistas,
in the gloomy sierra, or on the wild
despoblado? We grieve to say, not one.
Persons there are who, having rambled
more or less in Spain, and desiring
to perpetrate a book, deem it
their duty to the public, and to their
publishers, to give spice to the volume
by blending fiction with fact. They
carefully note exaggerated tales, and
polite hoaxes, put upon them by waggish
muleteers, or at Madrid tables-d’hôte;
embellish them to the best of
their ability, and, the cookery complete,
present the comical olla to British
palates. Ladies and gentlemen
taste, and wonder, and vow that Spain
shall be the last division of the earth’s
surface in which they will set foot, to
be carried off to the mountains for
ransom, or shot at round corners by
lurking bravoes. For our part, we
entertain no dislike to the gasconading
class of travellers in Spain, whom we
hold to be rather amusing than otherwise;
and all we would beg of them
is to sail under their true colours, to
call their books “A Romantic Tour,”
or “Imaginative Wanderings,” and so
give their readers a chance of sifting
the chaff from the grain. It seems an
article of faith with them, that a plain,
intelligent narrative of what they saw
and observed will not satisfy the public;
that they must invent, if they
would be read. In this respect, Lady
Louisa Tenison’s volume will prove
them mistaken. It is an unaffected
and highly interesting record of her
observations on Spain and its people.
Three years’ abode, and a good knowledge
of the language, should surely
qualify so intelligent a person as Lady
Louisa evidently is, to write a book
on any country free from even an approach
to error. Of all countries,
however, Spain is the most difficult
of which to acquire a thorough knowledge.
That Lady Louisa may have
fallen into some slight misconceptions
is very possible, and ill-conditioned
critics, who prefer detecting the flies
to admiring the amber, may perhaps
note them; but we are acquainted
with no book on Spain, by an Englishman,
of which the same may not
be said. Captain Widdrington (Cook)
is one of the most uniformly accurate,
temperate, and impartial writers on
the Peninsula with whom we are acquainted;
but we daresay an enemy,
bent on picking holes in his coat,
might catch him tripping. Even Ford,
who has treated the subject more in
extenso, and in greater detail, and who
may be said to have daguerreotyped
Spain, fixing his tints with a slight
racy dash of Chili vinegar, which
makes Spaniards (who, whilst concealing
their thin skin under a cloak
of superb indifference and disdain, are
sensitive to the opinion of foreigners)
smart extremely, has not altogether
escaped blunders, especially when
touching upon modern Spanish politics.
Of the book now before us we
can say, with great truth, that very
few of the many upon the same subject
that have appeared within the last
fifteen years have given sketches of
Spain and Spaniards at once so fair,
so sensible, and so generous.
To see Spain, there is nothing like
the saddle. Ford and Borrow have
emphatically told us this, and all who
have been in the country will confirm
their decision. Long rides may at
first be attended with some weariness
of limb and loss of leather; but these
soon yield to custom, and, moreover,
when persons travel for pleasure, they
seldom need to make forced marches.
Let them select an easy-pacing Spanish
horse and a commodious saddle,
and be sure that, in a fine climate and
over rough roads, the advantages of
this mode of progress more than balance
its disagreeables. Lady Louisa
Tenison, during her various journeys
and excursions, frequently got to horse,
riding English fashion, greatly to the
admiration of the natives of the more
remote places she passed through.
Thus she avoided the tedious confinement
of galeras and other essentially
Spanish and especially wearisome
vehicles, and saw many things and
much country which she could not possibly
have got at except on horseback.
No less astonished, we dare to swear,
than at her riding-habit and sidesaddle,
were the good people of Castile
and Andalusia at the English lady’s
appearing at all in the heart of their
sierras, in their remote villages and
unfrequented posadas. Prodigiously
must they have been puzzled to conjecture
her motives for quitting the
comforts of Cadiz and Malaga, to endure
hardship and encounter fatigue;
for, as she truly says, “As to any
enthusiasm about beautiful views, or
undergoing any fatigue or trouble in
their pursuit, such nonsensical things
are classed amongst the other eccentric
fancies of the very mad English.
A person drawing for the mere love of
art is hardly considered in his senses.
I have often been asked for how much
I would sell my drawings; and, when I
replied that they were done merely for
amusement, a smile of mingled incredulity
and pity convinced me that I
was considered not over wise or candid;
and, upon one occasion, in the
Court of the Lions, whilst copying the
arabesques, some inquisitive visitors
came to the conclusion that I was
painting new patterns for fans!” And
at Grazalema, in the sierra of Ronda—a
little town plastered, as Ford says,
“like a martlet’s nest on the rocky
hill,” and one of the places where the
inhabitants, unused to the intrusion of
foreigners, thronged the streets to gaze
and wonder at the amazons—the balcony
on which Lady Louisa stationed
herself with her sketch-book was escaladed
by an adventurous youngster,
bent on ascertaining the nature of her
mysterious proceedings. “Nothing
could be more amusing than the tone
of contemptuous surprise in which he
exclaimed to the crowd, ‘Nada particular;
todo blanco!’ an announcement
which was received by his friends
with evident signs of disappointment.
The excitement spread even to the
upper classes in Grazalema, and I had
an embassy from some young señoritas,
who wished to see what I had been
doing—a request I could not well comply
with, for the best of reasons, that,
at that early stage, there really was
nothing to be seen.” However unsatisfactory
to the Grazalema critic, the
result of Lady Louisa’s sketches at
that place has been one of the best of
the charming views and characteristic
illustrations, of which nearly fifty are
distributed through her volume.
Most travellers in Spain, possessed
of an eye and a taste for the national
and characteristic, deplore the Frenchification
that country has for some time
past undergone, and whose progress
becomes annually more rapid and apparent.
On landing, Lady Louisa Tenison
was unpleasantly impressed by this—at
Malaga, where she dwelt for the
winter after her arrival in Andalusia.
We must not wonder if some of a lady’s
first observations are about a bonnet.
She regrets to see this comparatively
unbecoming covering creeping in—even
in the south, and supplanting the
graceful mantilla—Parisian fashion
ousting Spanish grace. Spanish ladies
ought to understand that the rich
masses of their abundant hair—their
opulente chevelure, as a French novelist
would call it—are unfavourable
to bonnet-wearing. Parisian women,
upon the other hand, who have generally
thin hair, offer excellent polls
whereupon to perch the masterpieces
of milliners. But it is quite horrible
to think of a dark-eyed, olive-complexioned
Andalusian maiden covering
her exuberant tresses, which, when
unbound, descend to her very heels,
and drape her like a garment—so that
she might ride, a second Godiva, unabashed
through Coventry’s or Cadiz’
streets—with a rose-coloured capote,
in lieu of the beautiful veil of black or
white lace which, as Lady Louisa justly
remarks, lends her a peculiar charm
that cannot be rivalled. Then, in
choice of colours, the daughters of
Spain, it appears, are lamentably deficient
in taste.
“The gaudy colours which now prevail
have destroyed the elegance that always
accompanies black, in which alone, some
years since, a lady could appear in public.
No further proof of this is required than
to see the same people at church, where
black is still considered indispensable, and
on the Alameda with red dresses and
yellow shawls, or some colours equally
gaudy, and combined with as little regard
to taste. The love of brilliant and showy
colours appears a ruling passion in the
present day, and offers a singular contrast
to the fashion of twenty years ago, when
a lady who should have ventured into the
street dressed in anything but black,
would have been mobbed and insulted
by the people.”—(Castile and Andalucia,
p. 8–9.)
And at Seville, we grieve to learn,
“the fan is rapidly giving way to the
parasol.” Surely the monkeys on Gibraltar
rock are not more imitative
than the charming Sevillanas and
Malagueñas. The men, too, have laid
aside the graceful and dignified capa,
to adopt that most odious and abortive
invention—dreamed by some puny
French tailor after a heavy supper—the
paletot! How is it that Spaniards,
who boast of their Españolismo, who
consider it an insult to be called Afrancesados,
and who scorn their northern
neighbours as gavachos, scruple
not eagerly to adopt every French
mode? Colbert once said that the
fashions were to France what the mines
of Peru were to Spain. They have
since been proved to be a much more
durable and valuable possession. Potosi
is lost to Spain; but France still
keeps, and is likely long to retain, the
monopoly of frippery and finery, and
Andalusian ladies, albeit no rich galleons
now bear the treasures of another
hemisphere into the port of Cadiz, find
the wherewithal to become tributary
to Parisian bonnet-makers. At Seville,
however, Lady Louisa was glad
to observe few bonnets—few enough
to attract notice when seen, and to
enhance, by the contrast, the beauty
of the mantilla. Her first visit to the
theatre, at Malaga, confirmed an impression
she had taken up on landing,
that Spanish beauty has been exaggerated
by poets, painters, and travellers—three
classes of persons to whom
license in that respect is generally accorded.
“My first disappointment
was the almost total absence of beauty
amongst the Spanish women....
They have magnificent eyes, beautiful
hair, and generally fine teeth; but
more than that cannot be said by those
who are content to give an honest and
candid opinion.” The admissions are
liberal; and the three things named, if
they do not constitute beauty, at any
rate go a very long way towards it.
But let us visit the Malaga theatre.
“All the best people were there, but
only two or three very pretty faces were
to be seen in the boxes. The pit, divided
into seats, each having its own
number, is wholly appropriated to gentlemen.
When first we arrived, the Alcalde,
or one of the Ayuntamiento, always
presided in the centre over the royal box;
but this practice has been discontinued
lately, and the audience may now indulge
in applause or disapprobation unrestrained....
One of the pieces which
had the greatest run was a Spanish comic
opera, called the ‘Tio Caniytas,’ which
has taken immensely the last two years.
An unhappy Englishman is the hero of
the play; and his endeavours to cultivate
the society of a youthful gipsy, in
order to acquire with more facility the
Gitano language, afford the Spaniards a
good opportunity of turning our countrymen
into ridicule; and he is victimised,
in turn, by the old uncle and by the
lover of his dark instructress. There are
some very pretty airs introduced, and a
characteristic dance called the Vito.”
Let the reader here turn to page
183 for an extremely spirited sketch
of this gipsy dance, and for an equally
graphic prose description of its peculiarities.
Then return to the Malaga
theatre, to look on and laugh at “a
piece called the Mercado de Londres,
(the London Market), brought out
whilst we were there, and illustrating
the adventures of a Spaniard in London.
The incidents were not very
flattering to our national pride, as the
story turned on the interesting subject
of a man selling his wife—an event
which they seem to think of common
occurrence in Soberbia Albion.”
The belief that in England men
frequently sell their wives, and that
such sale and transfer are perfectly
legal and binding upon the three persons
implicated in the transaction, is
prevalent in various Continental countries,
and is rather strengthened than
destroyed by the indignant logic with
which simple-hearted Englishmen are
apt to combat it. Even if they thereby
succeed in dissipating the absurd
notion (which is not often the case),
the foreigner, for the most part, affects
to abide in his conviction, in order to
tease the John Bull. Less civilised
or less prosperous nations are delighted
to find or fancy a stain on the
scutcheon of one whose superiority
they cannot but feel, although they
may not admit it. The only way to
treat them in such cases—particularly
Spaniards, who are very satirical, and
quick at hitting upon a “raw”—is to
out-herod them at once, to gallop far
a-head of their ridiculous assumptions,
and assure them that if they go
to England, they will find, upon every
market-day and market-place, rows of
women tethered and ticketed for sale.
They soon discover that they are made
game of, and end by discrediting that
which they at first were inclined to
believe. But we shall quit the theatre,
and step across with Lady Louisa
Tenison to the Protestant cemetery.
“It is beautifully situated on the
slope of the hills just below the fortress,
and was a great boon obtained
by the late Mr Mark, British Consul
at Malaga. The intolerance of the
Spanish nation in not allowing followers
of any religion but their own
to receive Christian burial in their
country, is indeed disgraceful. At
Cadiz, Malaga, and still more recently
at Madrid, exceptions have been made;
but everywhere else in Spain none but
Catholics can be buried in consecrated
ground.” The manner in which the
exception at Madrid was made has
lately been the subject of so much
comment and discussion, that not
much remains to be said about it.
The intolerance, that Lady Louisa
justly stigmatises as disgraceful, is to
be laid at the door of the Spanish government,
rather than at that of the
nation, and perhaps is to be imputed
less to the ministry of the day than to
certain occult monkish influences. We
cannot bring ourselves to believe that
the present prime minister of Spain,
General Lersundi, who began his military
career twenty years ago as a
private volunteer in the ranting, roaring,
hard-fighting, loud-swearing corps
of Chapelgorris—fellows who would
as soon have robbed a church as a
larder, and from whose hands few
convents (or nuns either) that ever
came in their way escaped unscathed—can
approve or sympathise with
the ridiculous stipulations, worthy of
Spain’s blackest days of bigotry, which
he was compelled to annex to his permission
of Protestant interments at
Madrid. But he was doubtless compelled
to yield to the combined weight
of the priest and the palace. How is
the virtuous Isabella to obtain pardon
for her peccadilloes, for the péchés mignons
to which she is infamously addicted,
if she does not atone for them by a
double dose of piety, and, above all, by
proving herself the “Most Catholic”
of queens, and saving her capital from
the scandal of witnessing the sober ceremonial
of a Protestant funeral? The
unchristianlike uncharitableness that
is breathed by almost every line of
General Lersundi’s well-known letter
to Lord Howden, must, we are convinced,
be disapproved by numbers of
Spaniards, and by all enlightened
Roman Catholics, whatsoever their
nation. Early in the sixteenth century,
when France had but recently
emerged from the semi-barbarism and
bloody religious persecutions of the
middle ages, a French sovereign,
Louis XIII., published an edict forbidding
his Catholic subjects to apply
to the Huguenots the offensive name
of heretics. The Reformed Church
had its places of worship, its cemeteries—everything,
in short, which is
refused to it two hundred and forty
years later, upon the soil of that
Spain which may be said, without
exaggeration, to owe its very existence
as an independent state to Protestant
blood and treasure. In Spain,
Protestants are still heretics and outcasts—ay,
in the mouths of many,
Judios, (Jews), included through ignorant
bigotry with those despised
children of Israel whom, notwithstanding
their accursed descent, Spanish
governments are often very glad to
have recourse to, and to flatter and
make much of, when pinched for coin,
and anxious for an advance on quicksilver
mines or Cuban revenue. For
Spanish ministers are of that family
of saucy dogs who do not scruple to
eat unclean puddings, and profess a
most Vespasianic indifference to the
source of gold, so long as they get it
into their hands; for, as the Spanish
proverb says, money is always orthodox.
And let us see what says, on
this head, witty and hard-hitting
Master Ford, who is always worth
listening to, whether he be discoursing
of Spain or gibbeting the addle-brained
absurdities of an Urquhart.
He bids us “visit, by all means, the
Protestant burial-ground (the same
of which Lady Louisa Tenison has
just spoken), not because it is a pleasant
‘traveller’s bourn,’ but because
it was the first permitted, in our time,
for the repose of heretical carcases,
which used to be buried in the sea-sands,
like dead dogs, and beyond
the low-water mark; and even this
concession offended orthodox fishermen,
who feared that the soles might
become infected; but the Malagueños,
even to the priest, never exhibited
any repugnance to the dollars
of the living Lutheran Briton, for
el dinero es muy catolico. This cemetery,
which lies outside the town to
the east, was obtained and laid out by
our friend Mr Mark, father of the present
consul, who planted and enclosed
the ground, and with great tact placed
a cross over the portal, to the amazement
of the natives, who exclaimed,
‘Con que estos Herejes gastan cruces!’
(“So, then, these heretics use crosses!”)
(Handbook for Spain, p. 354.) Con
que, we quit the subject, sincerely
wishing, with the Christian charity
that characterises us, that the authors,
whosoever they be, of the recent ordinances
respecting the burial of Protestants
at Madrid, may never come
to be buried either in the sea-sands,
or at a cross-road, nor be smuggled
to their graves, as it appears Englishmen
are to be who have the ill-luck
to give up the ghost within the precincts
of “la corte.” And we return
to Lady Louisa Tenison, from whom
we have again been unconsciously wandering—certainly
a most unjustifiable
want of taste on our part. We re-open
her book at a passage which makes
us laugh outright—réir a carcajadas.
“Spain,” says her ladyship, “wants
means of developing her resources,
under the guidance of a wise and
honest government.” Truly, that
does she, but where are we to look
for the government in question? And
if she got it, by a miracle, could one
reasonably expect her to keep it?
Judging from the past, assuredly not.
One honest government, in our own
day, Spain has had—when Espartero
was regent. Its capacity was, perhaps,
not equal to its probity; at any
rate, the nation would not endure it;
and its members have relapsed into
private life, no richer—a rare fact to
find in the annals of Spanish cabinets—than
when they took office. Wisdom
and honesty are indeed an uncommon
combination in the land beyond the
Pyrenees. Until some modern Diogenes
succeeds, after long wandering
lantern in hand over Spanish hill and
valley, in discovering them united, we
may look in vain for such a government
as that which Lady Louisa
Tenison, for Spain’s sake, desires to
behold.
We will not close this paper without
giving a longer exemplification
than we as yet have done of the
agreeable tone and style of the authoress
of Castile and Andalucia. We
select an amusing sketch of the Spanish
court.
“The whole style of everything connected
with the court in Spain is on a
scale of great magnificence, as far as outward
appearance is concerned. The
palace is beautifully furnished; and the
hall of the ambassadors, or the throne-room,
as we should call it, is gorgeous.
The drawing-rooms held by the Queen are
called ‘Besa Manos,’ as all Spaniards
kiss hands every time they visit the
sovereign, and not only on presentation,
as with us. They are held of an afternoon,
the gentlemen’s Besa-manos concluding
before that of the ladies begins.
Foreigners are more generally presented
at a private audience, and Spaniards
themselves prefer it. The drawing-room
is rather a fatiguing undertaking for the
Queen; for, after the general circle has
dispersed, all the members of the household,
down to the lowest dependant in
the palace, are admitted to kiss her hand.
The balls are on a scale of great magnificence;
and, although the Queen’s ardour
for dancing has somewhat abated, she is
still passionately fond of it, and keeps it
up till four or five in the morning, her
partners finding that the qualification of
dancing well is a greater recommendation
than rank or station.
“She has now grown immensely stout;
and, with the most good-natured face in
the world, has certainly nothing to boast
of in elegance of manner or dignity of deportment.
She looks what she is—most
thoroughly kind-hearted, liking to enjoy
herself, and hating all form and etiquette;
extremely charitable, but always acting
on the impulse of the moment, obeying
her own will in all things, instead of being
guided by any fixed principles of action.
She dispenses money with a lavish hand,
whilst her finances are not, by any means,
in a flourishing condition. Her hours are
not much adapted to business-like habits;
she seldom gets up till four or five o’clock
in the afternoon, and retires to rest about
the same hour in the morning. She has
one most inconvenient fault for a queen,
being always two or three hours behind
time. If she fixes a Besa-manos at two
o’clock, she comes in about five; if she
has a dinner party announced at seven,
it is nine or ten before she enters the
room; and, if she goes in state to the
theatre, and the performances are announced
for eight, her Majesty makes her
appearance about ten.”
What innumerable mute maledictions
must courtiers, cooks, and managers
heap upon her unpunctual Majesty
of Spain. Punctuality, it has been
said, is the politeness of the great. In
sovereigns, it is both politic and a
duty. How great a contrast between
the slip-shod, lie-abed practices of the
Spanish Queen, and the early-rising,
well regulated, active habits of our
own royal family.
“The interior arrangement of the
palace at Madrid would rather excite
surprise in the minds of those accustomed
to the regularity of the English Court.
Isabel Segunda generally dines alone,
and the ladies-in-waiting never reside in
the palace, only going when specially
summoned. The Queen and her husband
are now apparently on good terms. He
is a most insignificant-looking little man;
the expression of his countenance, however,
is not unpleasing, but his figure is
mean and awkward—a counterpart, in
this respect, of his father, the Infante
Don Francisco de Paula.
“The court circle is completed by the
Queen-Mother, whose former beauty has
now disappeared, as she has grown very
stout; but she possesses still the same
fascinating voice, the same bewitching
manner, and the same syren smile, which
make all who speak to her bow before the
irresistible charm which she knows so
well how to exercise. Queen Christina
might have worked an immense amount
of good for this unhappy country, had she
devoted her talents and energies to the
improvement of the nation; had she exerted
her powerful influence in a good
and noble cause, how much might she not
have accomplished! but instead of earning
a reputation which would have called
forth the admiration of posterity, she preferred
sacrificing the interests of the kingdom
for the sake of gratifying her own
inordinate love of wealth, and has, in fact,
proved merely worthy of the family from
which she sprang.”
The account of the Queen of Spain’s
habits derives particular pungency
from the fact of its being derived from
the writer’s personal observations. Of
course Lady Louisa Tenison could but
skim the surface; minutely to investigate
and describe the manner of life
of Isabella, would require a far bolder
and more unblushing pen than it
would beseem an English lady to
handle. The remarks on Queen Christina
are exceedingly just. No queen
ever had a finer opportunity of benefiting
her country, making herself
adored by her people, and immortalising
her name. Her popularity was
once great, her talents are undeniable,
her powers of fascination, the influence
she acquires over all who come in contact
with her, are precisely such as
have above been told. Popular as the
representative of anti-Carlism and of
constitutionalism, she might have made
herself beloved for her own sake. A
large majority of the Spanish nation—which
has ever been noted for its
loyalty and monarchical predilections—asked
no better than to esteem and
respect her, and not to look upon her
as a mere necessity, a sort of pis-aller,
imposed upon Spain by circumstances,
and accepted because anything appeared
better than the vacillating,
priest-ridden Carlos, and the tyranny
he aimed at restoring. But it was
soon discovered that, whilst professing
to combat absolutism, and to represent
liberal principles, Maria Christina
was at heart an absolutist and a
tyrant, that all her political tendencies
were retrograde, and that she was
utterly selfish, degradingly sensual,
and unboundedly covetous. And, to
her shame be it spoken, she brought
up her child to be no better than herself.
The opprobrious epithet shouted
at the mother by the Carlist guerillas,
during the civil war, was muttered by
the Madrileños, but a very few years
later, as often as the daughter showed
herself in the streets of her capital—and
with equal truth. The gross irregularities
of Isabella are, at this moment,
as notorious in her capital and
throughout Spain as anything of the
kind possibly can be. Christina,
having now considerably passed her
prime, has taken up, “for a good old
gentlemanly vice,” with avarice. She
has a numerous family by Mr Muñoz,
for which she cannot hope, unless she
dowers them very richly, to obtain
such brilliant alliances as her ambition
aspires to. So she speculates,
accumulates, and hoards; and there
is no saying to what exorbitant figure
her fortune has by this time
attained.
When such bright examples are set
by royal personages, it is truly wonderful
that any morality or honesty
remains in Spain. The quantity is
not large, and it must not be sought
amongst the statesmen of the country.
“One or two instances, out of a thousand,
may show the manner in which
ministerial influence is exerted. In Pinos
de la Valle, in the province of Granada,
the Alcalde, whose office it is to preside
over the elections, was suspended by the
Governor as being adverse to the Government
candidate; and a claim against the
town of two hundred pounds was remitted,
in consideration of the ministerial candidate
being returned. In the town of Orgiba,
in the same province, a fine of like
amount was imposed, and a further one
threatened, should the ministerial candidate
not be returned; and, as if this were
insufficient, the Alcalde was suspended,
the second Alcalde was put aside, and a
friend of the candidate named to conduct
the voting, although a criminal suit was
actually pending against him. It may be
asked how a government can be allowed
to exercise so shameful and baneful an
influence? The discussion is a wide and
difficult one; but one predominating cause
may be found in that insatiable rage for
government employment which pervades
Spain. It is essentially a nation of two
classes—‘empleados,’ or persons holding
offices, dependent on the Government for
their very bread, and ‘pretendientes,’ or
seekers after place. Had Le Sage written
in the middle of the nineteenth, instead
of at the commencement of the eighteenth
century, he could not have depicted the
system more to the life. Public employment
is the primary resource of every
needy man who can read and write, as
well as of thousands who cannot; the
very doorkeepers and porters, who encumber
the public offices, being legion.”
There is no gainsaying this. The
empleomania, the rage for place, is at
the bottom of much of Spain’s misery
and degradation. It reduces numerous
classes, which, in other countries,
apply themselves industriously and
profitably to professions, arts, and
trades, to the mean condition for
whose designation Spaniards employ
two contemptuous and expressive
words, whose satirical force can hardly
be rendered in English—ojalateros and
pordioseros, wishers and beggars.
Lady Louisa Tenison’s illustrations
prove her as skilful with the pencil as
she is pleasant with the pen, and materially
enhance the attractions of her
book. There is novelty in her choice
of subjects, taste and artistical feeling
in the manner of their treatment. The
mechanical getting up of the work
reflects credit on all concerned; and,
as for Mr Bentley’s binding, it is so
brilliant that we were almost afraid
to touch it, and have been obliged to
cover it whilst reviewing, lest our
critical judgment should go astray
after the gilding.
[16] Castile and Andalucia. By Lady Louisa Tenison. London: 1853.
THE WANDERER. — INTRODUCTORY. — I. — PROEM. — II. — A VOICE. — III. — THE PATH. — IV. — SETTING-OUT. — V. — THE SAME. — VI. — THE HYPHEN. — VII. — Ἀγνωστῳ Θεῳ. — VIII. — AD SODALES. — IX. — RESIGNATION. — X. — PEACE.
The throng of Earth’s slow struggles seek not here,
Nor pomp, nor circumstance, nor moving tale;
But whatsoever of that angelic scale,
Whose feet are Earth-set, whose tops touch the Sphere,
By its own splendours may be rendered clear,
Shall show one soul, whether she rise or fail:
Faith’s sympathetic vision will prevail
To see more true things than to sense appear:
The soul sees with the eye as through a glass,
And, if God wills, without it; be it not said,
“This,” or “that is,” or “is not;” shadows pass
Before us: O! ere long may we be made
To own the temporary things we see
A mere penumbra of Eternity!
A barren heath, with bitter east-winds piping,
A garden full of sunshine and of bees,
A village school, a wandering home, a boyhood
Perplexed and various, shot with sin and shame,
A hot and wayward youth, led by false lights
To sloughs and bogs of danger and contempt,
A vague uneasiness, and ignorance—
For knowledge opens but to one key, Love,
The which I partly sought, but found it not—
Such were the earlier hours of Life’s drear night.
Oft in the dumb hour that precedes the dawn,
Before the cock crows to the waning stars,
When men sleep soundest, and the world is still,
A voice of strangest import came to me—
A welcome, but an awful voice. It came
From hills and green lanes, woods and dewy lawns;
It breathed of innocent pleasures, now not known,
Or, known, not loved; of feverish regret
For things perchance but little valued then,
Now lost for aye, and bitter to the heart;
It was a moaning and a warning voice;
A moan for Eden lost, a boding vague
Of coldness coming on, as if it said,
“God’s Spirit will not always strive with flesh.”
Fast fade the fields, yet not so fast as fade
The memories of childhood; fades from me
The misty distance of the Hampshire fields;
England is lost already to my heart,
And half the bitterness of death is past.
The moon has made a path upon the waves
Which will be mine to-morrow—toward the East—
The land that bred me cannot nourish me,
And I go forth. I will not mourn the chance.
We parted in the sunshine and the crowd,
The inquisitive gaze of noon; the busy hum
Of man about the port; with strangers by;
And cold Convention, with her tyrant forms,
Removed the solace, and drove home the sting.
We should have sundered on a lonely shore,
Where slowly broadened o’er a misty sea
The shimmer of a large, low-lying moon;
My vessel should have loomed against the night,
Nor shown impatience but by one flapped sail,
And in that hour we should have known a noise
Of water crawling gently up the stones,
And falling softly back with silver sound.
Such noise I hear; not now, tho’ tones of night
There are, which, in unquestioned diapason,
Accompany the murmurs of my soul.
By daylight nature jarred with jangling keys,
But now, all mingles well, the sounds are sad,
And I am sad to find myself alone.
So, standing hand in hand upon the beach
We should have parted, you gone back—ah me!—
To your sweet home, to muse upon the past,
I, to my Destiny beyond the sea,
With a heart touched, not torn, beyond a cure.
I muse upon your lingering words of love
In search of any comfort, as a child
Might play with desperate hand on his own hurt.
As “May the Eldorado that of old
Haunted your lonely visions, and your speech,
Be found a truth by you!” Or thus, “Alas!
I cannot hope that you shall be exempt
From the common lot;” or, “There is but one land
Whereto we send our dearest in all hope,
And doubt not that to follow them were bliss.”
And in a bygone letter “A poet’s heart
Is in your breast, though little uttered yet.
When the Sun leaves the Earth at eventide,
His glory-beams, which shone alike on all,
Leave but the higher hills; slowly withdrawn,
They linger long upon the peaks, till night
Wraps all alike in irrespective darkness:
And on the spirit of man there dwell at first
Beams of his native Heaven, and deck the child.
None but the higher natures keep those rays
Till Death brings night to all;” and “O love Truth,
But never deck her statuary limbs
With the presumptuous garb of paradox.”
Ah me! not even your partial words can cheer
My burthened soul to-night—hark! the ship’s bell
Marks the beginning of another day,
The day on which I sail! Whate’er I do,
Where’er I go, the world turns round the same,
And the great Universe’s pulses beat,
And He alone who is the Governor
And Centre of the circle of all spheres,
Knows what I am, or heeds; and when I die,
The stars will shine, and the whole globe turn round,
And the great Universe’s pulses beat,
And He alone will heed.
So runs the world—
You there, I here, God only everywhere.
I am weary of the ocean, emblem of Eternity.
Boundlessness is too ideal. Time and space suffice to me.
Life at sea is but the shadow of the life we led on land,
And the weary glass of Chronos hardly seems to drop a sand.
Life at sea is life suspended in a Present evermore,
All the Past is dim behind us, all the Future vague before.
’Tis an isthmus leading on from continent to continent,
Where the spirit, worn with waiting, sometimes dreams it is content.
For I dream, cast out from action, nothing more remains to do,
Gazing at the sky and ocean, looking up from blue to blue.
Watching in night’s constellations circles of the wheeling mast,
Nourishing a moody fancy with the visions of the Past;
Or if visions of the Future sometimes dimly glide between,
’Tis when memory shapes the To be, by reversing what has been;
That which was was dark and gloomy, clouds of doubt, and storms of sin,
Till I thought ‘Perchance the outer lends its shade to that within;
But the country which is coming is the home of warmth and light,
And the soul may spread her pinions there more beautifully bright.’
Still I erred; I know that change of climate is not change of soul;
Every ship has care for cargo, wheresoe’er the billows roll,
Where storms toss, or calms entrance her, from the line to either pole.
Let what will be, there is nothing wherewithal I may not cope.
Thus I sing between the lands of disappointment and of hope;
Thus I sing, the night wind freshens in the rigging, loft and low,
Fills the canvass, drives the light spray—on our destined path we go.
Oh, sought of old on misty mountain-tops,
And by the well-heads of long reverenced streams—
Places in which the cool air lapped men so,
And the all-coloured wavings of the trees,
And the soft, dark-blue distance, and the stir
Of black and white upon the ancient stems,
That they forgot their individual heats,
Merging them in the universal; sought
In frozen caves beneath the purple lights!
Thee, not the sounds of timbrel or of yell
In tropic palm-groves, lone among the waves
Displease; Thou dost not shun the narrow faith
That sees thee in misshapen human forms,
Wrought by artificers from fire-wood trunk;
Nor dost Thou hide Thee from the larger pomp
Of stole and alb, and censer-swinging lads,
And aged men who pray in alien tongues,
And fluted swell of organ, when the vaults
Reverberate the clamour, and the heavens
Blush through the tinted oriel, and all else,
Sight, sound, and deed, be ignorant or vain;
And Thou art found by those, austere and hot,
Who sunder from their brethren, and devote
A simple and unsumptuous rite to Thee,
In open field or tabernacle stern:
With each and all I will believe thou art,
Because with each the shrine is still the same,
The matchless temple, made without hands—man.
Life without Thee is life inanimate;
And better far false gods than none at all;
Yet, with them, is it but a fevered sleep
With vague and unintelligible dreams.
Come Thou to me, all lonely; Lo, my heart
Is empty, swept, and garnished, and I bring
There, to thine altar foot, my wingèd thoughts,
My hornèd resolutions, fruits and flowers—
Worthless, unless thy beams have quickened them:
Lo! what I have I sacrifice to Thee.
The stars are clear in heaven, and all the slopes
Are slumbering in the silence of the night;
I hear a distant noise of waterfalls;
Far to the northward the great hills of snow
Thrust up their moon-kissed pinnacles; deep peace
Is on the happy world—the peace of God.
The peace of God! when comes there such to me?
Yet life has changes; brothers, we know that,
Even from the bygone lustre; did we dream
(When first, amid the glimmer of the moon,
And the unnumbered laughings of the sea,
We launched our little vessel five years past)—
Dream of the voyage before us? Ah, since then
How many barks, as full of hope as ours,
And tended by as favourable winds,
Have perished from our knowledge; some gone down
To darkness, bearing, to the last, the hues
And beams of their destruction; some—ah, worse,
Still drift among the breakers of despair,
Without a compass—mastless, floating wrecks.
While, thanks to God—for surely not of us
The merit or the claim upon His love—
Our path is still upon serener waves,
Our rigging stout, our needle pointing true,
And our eyes fixed upon the Polar Star.
And is it true? can such sweet dreams not lie?
O true Egeria of a crownless lord!
Not by cool waterfall and mossy grot,
Beneath the mild light of a temperate sun,
With nature for a temple, do we meet;
But, as we parted, in a busy town,
Among the selfish throng of commerce; here,
Where alien schemers buy a chance of fortune
With sacrifice of all; we meet again—
And I who was the worst and least of those
Learned life’s sweet lesson from thy lips of love,
Young Alchemist, whose heaven-directed search
Has found the great Magistrum, oft denied
To wise men and to prophets of the world.
“Thou didst not think to teach me.” What of that?
Feeling is more than knowledge, thought than speech.
The lesson much I needed, and do still;
My life is not as I would; a dull round
Of trivial cares, and sordid, worldly aims,
Intrench’d by poverty, and sunder’d far
From all my spirit values; I, God wot,
To toil long years in this distemper’d clime,
Cut off from art and sweet commerce of books,
When, in the converse of congenial hearts,
A glorious work had crown’d my sinking head.
It was a dream; yet who is there can say,
“I have awakened, and will dream no more”?
Yet here is work too, though the end be far;
And here, even in exile, is a home—
For some short years a home; while yet I see
The roses not all wither’d on your cheek,
Our little ones still round their mother’s knee;
The sunshine of a hearth, though mostly cold,
And Love, that waits on Virtue—here is home.
Call not our mission exile; who shall dare
To carp at independence, or to rail
Because his fate suffers him not to share
The nippings and the throngings of the mart,
The wrestlings of our overcrowded home—
That other far-off home beyond the seas?
Oh, ’tis the poor man’s Paradise to know,
That day succeeding day shall still provide
Its never-failing sustenance for those
His heart is knit to; and to feel that heart,
Uncheck’d by old Convention, freely beat
And thrill with generous thoughts that link mankind,
And worship its own God, nor be coerced
Hither and thither with prescriptions hard,
And oft-resolved tenacious usages,
That loosen’d cling again at every turn
In that maternal isle.
Oh, proudly swell,
Thou breast of every free man—proudly rise,
Thou voice—for none shall check thine utterance;
And though thy hearers may seem few to thee,
Know, that the aftertime may warm thy words,
Till some of them shall ripen into deeds:
Know this in faith, and it shall be to thee
For an abiding sense of deathlessness.
And yet one would not die here; none can be
Without some vision of a cottage home,
Or in the pastures of the fields, or where
The tide of civilised life is eddying round
Some quiet nook, where men of thought repose,
Nursing the labours of their younger brains,
In great, imperial London.
Mine should be
Some rural spot, whence I could see afar
The cloud that rests for ever over her;
And the black towers of that minster old,
Where kings and poets (kings of their own souls),
Sown by the sedulous hand of Goodman Death,
Await the harvest-time HE will not see.
And I would have the immemorial Thames
To sparkle through my tall, surrounding trees;
And I would have the village church hard by,
That I might see the undulating green,
Where I and some of those I loved should lie.
Ah, foolish heart, that it should better thee
To know, that when thy flutterings shall have still’d—
The first repose that they shall ever know—
Thou shouldst rot here or there; the time shall come
(Ay, and is now), when thoughts like these shall be
Less vivid, less important than the dreams
Of long-forgotten slumbers, than the thoughts
Of prememorial childhood—almost less
Than the faint echoes of a former birth;
And thou, O heart, shall be like one of these,
Or as thou hadst been never—Peace, O Peace!
H. G. K.
THACKERAY’S LECTURES—SWIFT. — FOOTNOTES:
A good librarian, as well acquainted
with the insides of books as the
outsides, made the other day this
shrewd observation—that in his experience
every third work he took up
was defective, either in the title or the
first sentence. “What,” he continued,
“for example, is the meaning of the
word ‘humourist?’ By what authority
is it applied to a writer?—is it not misapplied
to a wit? unless it be meant
to degrade him. ‘The wit,’ says
Addison in the Spectator, ‘sinks imperceptibly
into a humourist.’ A
humourist is one whose conduct,
whose ways, are eccentric, ‘his actions
seldom directed by reason and
the nature of things,’ says Watts. It
is best the word should be confined
according to our dictionaries, to actions,
not extended to authorship.
The title of Mr Thackeray’s Lectures
would lead a lover of plain English
to expect narratives of eccentricities
taken from real life, and perhaps from
the acted buffooneries of itinerant
boards, the dominion of Mr Punch’s
dynasty—like other dynasties in this
age of presumed matter of fact, becoming
a ‘dissolving view.’” Mr
Thackeray’s English is generally so
good, so perfectly to be understood,
of such acceptable circulating coinage,
that we are surprised at this mistake
in the title of his book. Montaigne
would head his chapters with any title—as
we believe he ushered in one as
“On Coach-horses”—and said nothing
about them; and we readily
admit that the privilege of “Every
Man in his Humour” may be a fair
excuse for the author of English Humourists
of the Eighteenth Century.
We wish we could say that this
little volume were unobjectionable in
every other respect—but we cannot.
We do not see in it a fair, honest,
truth-searching and truth-declaring
spirit; yet the style is so captivating,
so insinuating in its deceiving plainness,
so suggestive of every evil in its simplicity,
so alluring onward, even when
the passages we have read have left
unpleasant impression, that it is impossible
to lay down the book, though
we fear to proceed. The reader may
be like to the poor bird under the
known fascination: he never loses
sight of the glittering eye—but it
looks, even in its confident gaiety, too
much like that which charms, and
delights in, a victim. We did not, it
is true, expect from the author of
“Vanity Fair” any flattering pictures
of men and manners, nor of the world
at large, of any age; but we were not
prepared for his so strongly expressed
dislike and condemnation of other
people’s misanthropy as these pages
exhibit, particularly in his character
of Swift.
And here we think we have a right
to protest against Biographical Lectures.
It is hardly possible for a lecturer
to be fair to his subject. He
has an audience to court and to please—to
put in good-humour with themselves—to
be flattered into a belief of
their own goodness, by a bad portraiture
of the eminent of the earth. He
has to dig out the virtues from the
grave to show what vices cling to
them—how they look when exhumed
in their corruption. Praise is seldom
piquant—commonplace is wearisome—startling
novelties must put truth to
a hazard. If the dead must be called
up to judgment of an earthly tribunal,
let it not be before a theatrical audience.
The lecturer is under the necessity
of being too much of an accuser;
and if from his own nature, or
from some misconception of the characters
he takes up, he be a willing one,
he has a power to condemn, that the
mere writer has not.
In many passages of the book before
us there are examples both of the lecturer’s
danger, and of his power:
many things said because of his audience;
and as such audience is generally
largely feminine, what advantage
has the over-moralising and
for the time over-moralised lecturer
against the dumb and bodiless culprit
called up from his mortal dust, should
there be a suspicion of want of tenderness,
or doubt of a fidelity and affection,
some hundred and fifty years
ago, and unpardonable for ever? The
lecture-table is no fit place, nor does
it offer a fit occasion, to discuss the
wondrous intricacies of any human
character. It is not enough that the
lecturer should have thought—there
should be a pause, wherein a reader
may think; but an audience cannot:
nor is the lecturer, however deeply
he may have thought, likely to have
such disinterested self-possession and
caution, in his oral descriptions and
appeals for praise or blame, as are
absolutely required for a truthful biographer.
It is a bold thing to bid
the illustrious dead come from the
sanctity of their graves, and stand before
the judgment-seat of the author
of Vanity Fair—to be questioned upon
their religion and their morals, and
not allowed, even if they could speak
for themselves, to answer. The lecturer
holds in his hand all their written
documents, and all that have been
written by scribes of old against them,
and he will read, but what he pleases—he,
the scrupulously moral, religious
man, doubly sanctified at all points for
his hour’s lecture in that temporary
professor’s garb of proprieties, which
he is under no necessity of wearing an
hour after he has dismissed his audience.
We are not for a moment insinuating
any dereliction of all the human
virtues and graces, as against Mr
Thackeray—but as a lecturer he must
put on something of a sanctimonious
or of a moral humbug; he is on his
stage, he has to act his part, to “fret
his hour.” He must do it well—he
will do it well; that is, to secure present
rapturous applause. The audience
is carried away quite out of its
sober judgment by the wit, the wisdom,
the pathos—and even the well-timed
bathos—the pity, the satire,
and the satire of all satire, in the pity.
The ghosts are dismissed—sent back,
as they should be, in the lecturer’s and
audience’s estimation, to their “dead
men’s bones and all rottenness,” no
longer to taint the air of this amiable,
judicious, and all-perfect nineteenth
century—epitomised in the audience.
Give Professor Owen part of an old
bone or a tooth, and he will on the
instant draw you the whole animal,
and tell you its habits and propensities.
What Professor has ever yet been able
to classify the wondrous varieties of
human character? How very limited
as yet the nomenclature! We know
there are in our moral dictionary the
religious, the irreligious, the virtuous,
the vicious, the prudent, the profligate,
the liberal, the avaricious, and
so on to a few names; but the varieties
comprehended under these terms—their
mixtures, which, like colours,
have no names—their strange complexities
and intertwining of virtues
and vices, graces and deformities, diversified
and mingled, and making
individualities—yet of all the myriads
of mankind that ever were, not one
the same, and scarcely alike: how little
way has science gone to their discovery,
and to mark their delineation!
A few sounds, designated by a few letters,
speak all thought, all literature,
that ever was or will be. The variety
is infinite, and ever creating a new infinite;
and there is some such mystery
in the endless variety of human
character. There are the same leading
features to all—these we recognise; but
there are hidden individualities that
escape research; there is a large terra
incognita, hard to find, and harder to
make a map of. And if any would
try to be a discoverer, here is his difficulty—can
he see beyond his own
ken? How difficult to have a conception
of a character the opposite to
one’s-self! What man is so gifted?
We are but portrait-painters, and no
portrait-painter ever yet painted beyond
himself—never represented on
canvass an intellect greater than his
own. In every likeness there is a something
of the artist too. We look to
other men, and think to find our own
idiosyncracies, and we are prepared to
love or hate accordingly. As the
painter views his sitter in the glass,
he is sure to see himself behind him.
You biographers, you judges, self-appointed
of other men, what a task
do you set yourselves!—have you
looked well into your own qualifications?
You venture to plunge into
the deep dark—to bring up the light
of truth, which, if you could find it,
would mayhap dazzle all your senses.
It is far safer for your reputation to go
out with Diogenes’s lantern, or your
own little one, and thrust it into men’s
faces, and make oath you cannot find
an honest one; and then draw the
glimmer of it close to your own foreheads,
and tell people to look there
for honesty. But this is our preface,
not Mr Thackeray’s. He is too bold
to need one. He rushes into his subject
without excuse or apology, either
for his own defects of delineation, or
of his subject’s character. If you
would desire to see with what consummate
ability, and with what perfect
reality in an unlikeness he can paint
a monster, read the first life of his Lecture,
that of the great man—and we
would fain believe, in spite of any of
his biographers, a good man—Dean
Swift.
If we may be allowed to judge from
a collection of contradictory statements
respecting Swift, no man’s life
can be more difficult for a new writer
to undertake, or for any reader to
comprehend. If we are to judge from
the unhesitating tone of the many biographers,
and their ready acceptance
of data, no life is so easy. The essayist
of the Times makes Swift himself
answerable for all the contradictions;
that they were all in him, and
that he was at all times, from his
birth to his death, mad. This is, indeed,
to make short work of it, and
save the unravelling the perplexed
skein of his history. Another writer
contends that he was never mad at
any period, not even the last of his
life. That he was always mad is preposterous,
unless we are to accept as
insanity what is out of and beyond
the common rate of men’s thoughts
and doings. We certainly lack in the
character of Swift the one prevalent
idea, which pervades and occupies
the whole mind of the madman. Such
may have one vivid, not many opposites
in him.
But the contradictions ascribed to
Swift are more like the impossibilities
of human nature—if they are to be
received as absolute characteristics,
and not as occasional exceptions, which
are apt, in the best of mankind, to
take the conceit out of the virtues
themselves, and to put them into a
temporary abeyance, and mark them
with a small infirmity, that they grow
not too proud.
The received histories, then, tell us
that Swift was sincerely religious, and
an infidel; that he was the tenderest
of men, a brute, a fiend, a naked
unreclaimable savage; a misanthrope,
and was the kindest of benefactors;
that he was avaricious, and so judiciously
liberal that he left no great
fortune behind him. Such is the summary;
the details are both delightful
and odious. The man who owns these
vices and virtues must indeed be a
monster or a madman! These are characters
very hard to fathom. Shakespeare
has delineated one, and he has
puzzled all the world except Shakespeare,
who chose to make his picture
more true by leaving it as a puzzle to
the world. Hamlet has been pronounced
mad from his conduct to
Ophelia, mainly if not solely. It is a
ready solution of the incomprehensible.
Swift was a Hamlet to Stella
and Vanessa; and as there are two
against him, versus Hamlet’s one love,
critics pronounce him doubly mad. It
is a very ingenious but not very satisfactory
way of getting out of the difficulty.
Mad or in his senses, he is a
character that provokes; provoked
writers are apt to be not fair ones;
and because they cannot quite comprehend,
they malign: damnant quod
non intelligunt, is also a rule guiding
biographers. Shall he have the qualities
“that might become an angel,” or
shall his portrait be “under the dark
cloud, and every feature be distorted
into that of a fiend?” You have
equal liberty from the records to depict
him as you please. The picture,
to be seen at large by an assembled
lecturer’s audience, must be strong
and coarse in the main, and exhibit
some tenderer tones to the near
benches in front.
“For a man of my level,” says
Swift of himself, “I have as bad a
name almost as I deserve! and I pray
God that those who give it me, may
never have reason to give me a better.”
He does not, you see, set up for
perfection, but through his present
maligners he slaps his after-biographers
in the face, who, if they be hurt,
will deny the wit or omit it, and prefer
instanter a charge of hypocrisy.
Angel or fiend! how charitable or
how unmerciful are lecturers and biographers!
and, being so able to distinguish
and choose, how very good
they must be themselves! Did the
reader ever happen to see a life of Tiberius
with two title-pages, both taken
from historical authorities; two characters
of one and the same person;
made up, too, of recorded facts? He
is “that inimitable monarch Tiberius,”
during most of his reign “the universal
dispenser of the blessings of
peace,” yet “he permitted the worst
of civil wars to rage at Rome!” We
may venture to use the words of the
essayist, speaking of Swift—“We
doubt whether the histories of the
world can furnish, for example and
instruction, for wonder and pity, for
admiration and scorn, for approval
and condemnation, a specimen of humanity
at once so illustrious and so
small.” We have, from perfect authorities,
Tiberius handed down for detestation
and for universal admiration.
The testimonies are not weak;
they are alike strong, and equally accepted
standards of historical evidence
and literature. “Swift stood a living
enigma.” It should seem there have
been many such enigmas. Shakespeare,
who knew all nature, gave
the world one to make out as it can.[19]
Grave history offers another. The
novelist, M. de Wailly, has tried his
hand at this enigma—Swift; but the
Frenchman, like most French novelists,
went altogether out of nature
to establish impossible theories. A
dramatist might reduce the tale within
the limits of nature, if he could but
once, for a few moments, be behind
the scenes of truth’s theatre—if he
knew accurately all the facts, or perhaps
one or two facts, that time has
concealed, and perhaps ever will conceal;
and which, discovered, would
solve the enigma at once. Of course,
the great enigma lies in Swift’s
amours. These apart, no man would
ever have ventured to assert the life-long
madness of Swift. Great men
and little have had, and, as long as
the world lasts, will have their
amours, honest ones and dishonest;
but, excepting for romance-writing
and gossiping of a day, such themes
have been thought unworthy history,
and to be but slightly notable even in
biography. Their natural secresy has
hitherto covered the correct ones with
a sanctity, and the incorrect with a
darker veil, that it is better not to
lift; nor is it easy at all times to distinguish
the right from the wrong.
The living resent the scrutiny: we
do not admire the impertinence, nor
easily admit the privilege of an amatorial
inquisition upon the characters
of the dead. And what has
curiosity gathered, after all, which
ought to justify honest people in maligning
Swift, Stella, or Vanessa?
A mass of contradictions. They cannot
all be true. Even Stella’s marriage,
stated as a fact by so many
writers, is denied, and upon as fair
evidence as its supposition. The first
account of it is given as many as
seven years after Swift’s death, and
twenty-four years after Stella’s.
There are two versions with respect
to the dying scene, and supposed dialogue
regarding the marriage. They
contradict each other; for, in the one,
Swift is made brutally to leave the
room, and never to have seen her
after; in the other, to have desired to
acknowledge the marriage, and that
Stella said, “It is too late.” Who
knows if either be true? and what
means “it is too late?” Do those
few simple words, overheard, necessarily
imply any such acknowledgment?
But there is proof that one
malicious statement is false. “This
behaviour,” says Mr Thomas Sheridan
(not Dr Sheridan, the friend of
Swift, for whom he has been mistaken,
and weight accordingly given to his
statement), threw Mrs Johnson into
unspeakable agonies; and for a time
she sunk under the weight of so cruel
a disappointment. But soon after,
roused by indignation, she inveighed
against his cruelty in the bitterest
terms; and sending for a lawyer,
made her will, bequeathing her fortune,
by her own name, to charitable
uses.” It is said this was done in the
presence of Dr Sheridan; but the
narrator was a mere lad when his
father, from whom he is said to have
received it, died. But this very will
is, if not of Swift’s dictation, the will
he had wished her to make (compare
it with Swift’s own will—the very
phraseology is strongly indicative of
his dictation); for he had thus written
to Mr Worral when in London,
during Stella’s severe illness: “I
wish it could be brought about that
she might make her will. Her intentions
are to leave the interest of all
her fortune to her mother and sister
during their lives, afterwards to Dr
Stevens’s hospital, to purchase lands
for such uses as she designs it.” Upon
this Mr Wilde, author of The Closing
Years of Dean Swift’s Life, remarks
most properly: “Now, such was not
only the tenor, but the very words of
the will made two years afterwards,
which Sheridan (Thomas, not Dr
Sheridan) would have his readers believe
was made in pique at the Dean’s
conduct.” Then it follows, that if
this paragraph in the tale, and told as
a consequence of the previous paragraph,
is untrue, as it is proved to be,
the first part, the brutal treatment,
falls to the ground. In any court the
evidence would be blotted from the
record. It is curious, and may have
possibly some bearing upon the Platonic
love of Swift and Stella, that
she should, in this will, have been
so enamoured of celibacy, that she
enjoins it upon the chaplain whom she
appointed to read prayers and preach
at the hospital. “It is likewise my
will that the said chaplain be an unmarried
man at the time of his election,
and so continue while he enjoys
the office of chaplain to the said hospital.”
This will is also curious, and
worthy of notice, in another respect.
Among the slanders upon Swift and
Stella, it had been circulated that she
had been not only his mistress, but had
had a child by him; and an old bellringer’s
testimony was adduced for
the fact. There may be in the mind
of the reader quite sufficient reasons
to render the story impossible; but
one item of the will is a bequest to
this supposed child by name. “I bequeath
to Bryan M‘Loglin (a child
who now lives with me, and whom I
keep on charity) twenty-five pounds,
to bind him out apprentice, as my
executors, or the survivors of them,
shall think fit.” Now, this is the
great case of cruelty against Swift,
and we think it is satisfactorily disposed
of. Have we any other notice
given that Swift behaved brutally to
Stella? None. Where is there any
evidence of her complaining? but
there is evidence of the tenderest
affection on Swift’s part. Stella’s
letters have never seen the light;
but, if we may judge by the answers
to them, there could have been no
charge of cruelty brought against him
by her. The whole is an assumption
from this narrative of Sheridan the
son, and, as we have shown, altogether
a misconception or a dream of his.
Even with respect to Stella’s parentage
authors do not agree—yet each
speaks as positively as if he had been
at the birth. Swift himself says that
her father was a younger brother of a
good family in Nottinghamshire, and
her mother of a lower degree. Some
assert that she was the natural
daughter of Sir Wm. Temple. Johnson
says, the daughter of Sir Wm.
Temple’s steward; but, in contradiction
to this, it is pretty clear that her
mother did not marry this steward,
whose name was Mosse, till after Sir
Wm. Temple’s death, when Stella
was in Ireland. Sir William left her
a thousand pounds, and, it is said,
declared to her her parentage. A
writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine
for 1757, who knew Stella’s mother,
and was otherwise well acquainted
with facts, is urged, in indignation at
the treacherous and spiteful narrative
by Lord Orrery, to write a defence of
the Dean. From this source, what
others had indeed suspected is strongly
asserted—that Swift was himself
the natural son of Temple. He thus
continues: “When Stella went to
Ireland, a marriage between her and
the Dean could not be foreseen; but
when she thought proper to communicate
to her friends the Dean’s proposal,
and her approbation of it, it
was then become absolutely necessary
for that person, who alone knew the
secret history of the parties concerned,
to reveal what otherwise might
have been buried in oblivion. But
was the Dean to blame, because he
was ignorant of his natural relation
to Stella? or can he justly be censured
because it was not made known
to him before the day of the marriage?
He admired her; he loved her; he
pitied her; and when fate placed the
everlasting barrier between them,
their affection became a true Platonic
love, if not something yet more exalted....
We are sometimes
told, that upon the Hanoverian
family succeeding to the throne of
Great Britain, Swift renounced all
hopes of farther preferment; and that
his temper became more morose, and
more intolerable every year. I acknowledge
the fact in part; but it
was not the loss of his hopes that
soured Swift alone; this was the unlucky
epocha of that discovery, that
convinced the Dean that the only
woman in the world who could make
him happy as a wife, was the only
woman in the world who could not be
that wife.” Delany also entertained
a suspicion in agreement with this
account. The supposition would seem
to throw light upon a mysterious passage
in Swift’s life, and to be sufficient
explanation of all his behaviour to
Stella. “Immediately subsequent to
the ceremony (the marriage) Swift’s
state of mind,” says Scott, “appears
to have been dreadful. Delany, as I
have heard from a friend of his relict,
being pressed to give his opinion on
this strange union, said, that about
the time it took place, he observed
Swift to be extremely gloomy and
agitated—so much so, that he went
to Archbishop King to mention his
apprehensions. On entering the library,
Swift rushed out with a countenance
of distraction, and passed
him without speaking. He found the
Archbishop in tears; and upon asking
the reason, he said, ‘You have
just met the most unhappy man on
earth, but on the subject of his wretchedness
you must never ask a question.’”
Sir Walter Scott does not admit
this story in the Gentleman’s
Magazine, but we doubt if the reason
of his doubt, or rejection of it, be
quite satisfactory. “It is enough to
say that Swift’s parents resided in
Ireland from before 1665 until his
birth in 1667, and that Temple was
residing in Holland from April 1666
until January 1668. Lord Orrery
says until 1670.” Dates, it appears,
are not always accurately ascertained.
We cannot determine that ambassadors
have no latitude for a little
ubiquity; but there is one very extraordinary
circumstance with regard
to Swift’s childhood, that seems to
involve in it no small degree of mystery.
“It happened, by whatever accident,
that Jonathan was not suckled
by his mother, but by a nurse, who
was a native of Whitehaven; and
when he was about a year old, her
affection for him was become so
strong, that, finding it necessary to
visit a relation who was dangerously
sick, and from whom she expected a
legacy, she found means to convey
the child on shipboard, without the
knowledge of his mother or his uncle,
and carried him with her to Whitehaven.
At this place he continued
near three years; for when the matter
was discovered, his mother sent
orders not to hazard a second voyage,
till he should be better able to bear
it. The nurse, however, gave other
testimonies of her affection to Jonathan,
for during his stay at Whitehaven
she had him taught to spell,
and when he was five years old he
was able to read a chapter in the
Bible.”
This undoubted incident is no small
temptation to a novelist to spin a fine
romance, and affiliate the child according
to his fancy. It is a strange story—a
very poor widow not suckling her
own child! kept three years away
from a parent, lest, having borne one
voyage well, the young child should
not be able to bear a second! The
said novelist may find sufficient reason
for the mother in after years recommending
him to Sir Wm. Temple,
and perhaps weave into his story
that the nominal mother was one intrusted
with a charge not her own.
Stella’s mother’s connection with the
Temple family may be as rationally
accounted for. The writer in the
Gentleman’s Magazine, already quoted,
seems to have had this account
of Johnston from the widow herself.
“This gentlewoman (Stella’s mother)
was the widow (as she always averred)
of one Johnston a merchant, who,
having been unfortunate in trade, afterwards
became master of a trading
sloop, which ran between England
and Holland, and there died.” Then,
again, to revert to the entanglement
of this mystery, although it is received
that there was a marriage—a private
marriage, as it is said, in the
garden, by the Bishop of Clogher—are
there really sufficient grounds for a
decision in the affirmative? It is
traced only to Delany and Sheridan
(who could not have known it but by
hearsay), and the assertion, on suspicion,
of the worst of all evidences with
regard to Swift, Orrery (he only knew
him in his declining years, as he confesses);
but Dr Lyon, Swift’s executor,
denied it; and Mrs Dingley, who
came to Ireland, after Sir William
Temple’s death, with Stella, and lived
with her till her death, laughed at it as
an idle tale. Mrs Brent, with whom
the Dean’s mother lodged, and who
subsequently was his housekeeper,
never believed it, and often told her
daughter so, who succeeded her as
housekeeper. It is said the secret
was told to Bishop Berkeley by the
Bishop of Clogher. “But,” says Sir
Walter Scott, “I must add, that if,
as affirmed by Mr Monck Mason,
Berkeley was in Italy from the period
of the marriage to the death of the
Bishop of Clogher, this communication
could not have taken place.” With
evidence so conflicting even as to the
marriage—so uncertain—and if a marriage,
as to the relationship between
the parties—as to the time of discovery—and
with that maddening possibility
of Swift’s physical infirmity alluded
to by Scott; it does appear that it is
the assumption of a very cruel critical
right, to fasten upon the character of
Swift a charge of fiendishness and
brutality towards Stella. Where
there are so many charitable ways
of accounting for his conduct, most
of which might well move our admiration
and our pity, and where
the tenderness of the parties towards
each other cannot for a moment be
doubted (vide Swift’s diary in his
letters, and his most touching letter
speaking of her death and burial),
there is nothing more improbable,
nothing more out of nature, than the
acquiescence of both Swift and Stella
in a condition which might well have
driven both mad, if that condition
had been avoidable. We have a
hesitation in believing in self-made
monsters. Novelists, romance-writers,
and dramatists, conjure them up
for their hour on the stage, but it is a
novelty to admit them into a biography
which professes to be true. As
to Lord Orrery, the first slanderer of
Swift after his death, we have a perfect
contempt for his character. He
sought the aged Swift for his own ends.
His father had bequeathed away from
him his library; in his vexation he
thought to vindicate himself by an
ambition to become a literary character.
As Alcibiades sought Socrates,
not for Socrates’ virtues, but because
his wisdom might aid him in his political
schemes; so Lord Orrery took the
leading literary characters of the day,
and especially Swift, into what companionship
he might. He cajoled and
flattered the old man, and at his death
maligned him. There was hypocrisy,
too; for it was contemptible in him to
have pretended a friendship so warm,
with a man whom he designated as a
tyrant, a brute, and irreligious. The
world are keen to follow evil report.
The ill life which is told by a friend
is authentic enough for subsequent
writers, who, like sheep, go over the
hedge after their leader. The writer
in the Gentleman’s Magazine for November
1757, speaks as one intimately,
and of long continuance, acquainted
with all the circumstances of the case.
He says significantly that he thinks
there are some living who have it in
their power, from authentic materials,
to throw light upon the subject. That
he was well acquainted with her mother
we learn from the following passage:
“I saw her myself in the autumn
of 1742 (about a year before her
death), and although far advanced in
years, she still preserved the remains
of a very fine face.” He minutely
describes Stella’s person as one who
had seen her. “Let those judge who
have been so happy as to have seen
this Stella, this Hetty Johnston, and
let those who have not, judge from
the following description”—and as
one who had conversed with her:
“Her mind was yet more beautiful
than her person, and her accomplishments
were such as to do honour to
the man who was so happy as to call
her daughter.” He tells the anecdote
(for which he says “I have undoubted
authority”) of her presence of mind
and courage in firing a pistol at a robber
on a ladder about to enter her
room at night. He tells the time, and
implies the cause of her leaving Moor
Park to reside in Ireland. “As soon
as she was woman enough to be intrusted
with her own conduct, she
left her mother, and Moor Park, and
went to Ireland to reside, by the
order of Sir William, who was yet
alive. She was conducted thither by
Swift; but of this I am not positive, as
I am that her mother parted with her
as one who was never to see her
again.” Upon that fact, then, he is
positive, and scrupulous of assertion
where not so. May it be conjectured
he had the information from the mother
herself, when he saw her so near
the time of her death? He asserts
that Sir William often “recommended
her tender innocence to the protection
of Swift, as she had no declared male
relation that could be her defender;”
that “from that time when they received
the proper notice of the secrets
of the family, they took care to converse
before witnesses, even though
they had never taken such precaution
before.” “Can we wonder,” he adds,
“that they should spend one day in
the year in fasting, praying, and tears,
from this period to her death? Might
it not be the anniversary of their marriage?”
“Swift had more forcible
reasons for not owning Stella for his
wife, than his lordship (Orrery) has
allowed; and that it was not his behaviour,
but her own unhappy situation,
that might perhaps shorten her
days.” The contributor, who signs
himself C.M.P.G.N.S.T.N.S., writes
purposely to vindicate the character
of Swift from the double slander of
Lord Orrery, who impeaches “the
Dean’s charity, his tenderness, and
even his humanity, in consequence of
his hitherto unaccountable behaviour
to his Stella, and of his long resentment
shown to his sister.” Lord
Orrery had said that Swift had persisted
in not owning his marriage from
pride, because he had reproached his
sister for marrying a low man, and
would never see her or communicate
with her after her marriage. That as
Stella was also of low origin, he feared
his reproaches might be thrown back
upon himself. Then follows an entire
contradiction of this unlikely statement
or surmise of Orrery—for that,
“after her husband’s and Lady Gifford’s
death, she (the sister, Mrs Fenton)
retired to Farnham, and boarded
with Mrs Mayne, Mrs Mosse boarding
there at the same time, with whom
she lived in the greatest intimacy;
and as she had not enough to maintain
her, the Dean paid her an annuity
as long as she lived—neither was that
annuity a trifle.” Another correspondent
in the same Magazine—for December
1757—as desirous of vindicating
the Dean, yet, nevertheless, points
out a supposed error with regard to
the passage in which mention is made
of “the unlucky epocha of that discovery,”
being that of the accession of
the Hanoverian family, and the loss
of Swift’s hopes. “But this,” he says,
“is inconsistent with Swift’s marrying
her in 1716, as (in page 487)
we are told he did; or in 1717, in
which year, I think, Lord Orrery
places this event.” We think this is
being too precise. Lord Oxford was
impeached and sent to the Tower in
1715, which is sufficiently near to be
called the same epocha. Or even if
we take the accession from the death
of Queen Anne—August 1714—the
disappointment must have been rankling
in the mind of Swift, still fresh,
at the time of the other event. He
likewise notices that Sir Wm. Temple
was abroad at and before Swift’s
birth; but, for reasons we have given,
we think this objection of no importance.
No mention is made of Vanessa
in the article in the Gentleman’s Magazine.
The author seems cautiously,
conscientiously, to abstain from every
item of Orrery’s narrative, but such
as he was assured of from his own
knowledge.
Johnson, in his life of Swift, speaks
disparagingly of Stella’s wit and accomplishments.
It was displeasing to
the great lexicographer that a woman
should spell badly. Bad spelling was,
we apprehend, the feminine accomplishment
of the day. Dr Drake, in
his essay on the literature and manners
of that age, says, “It was not
wonderful that our women could not
spell, when it may be said that our
men had not yet learnt to read.”
We prefer Swift’s account of this
matter. She was “versed,” he says,
“in Greek and Roman history—spoke
French perfectly—understood
Platonic and Epicurean philosophy,
and judged very well of the defects of
the latter. She made judicious abstracts
of the books she had read,” &c.
Of her manners: “It was not safe
nor prudent in her presence to offend
in the least word against modesty,
for she then gave full employment to
her wit, her contempt, and resentment,
under which stupidity and brutality
were forced to sink into confusion;
and the guilty person, by her
future avoiding him like a bear or a
satyr, was never in a way to transgress
again.” She thus replied to a
coxcomb who tried to put the ladies
in her company to the blush: “Sir,
all these ladies and I understand your
meaning very well, having, in spite of
our care, too often met with those of
your sex who wanted manners and
good sense. But, believe me, neither
virtuous nor even vicious women love
such kind of conversation. However,
I will leave you, and report your behaviour;
and whatever visit I make,
I shall first inquire at the door whether
you are in the house, that I may
be sure to avoid you.” “She understood
the nature of government, and
could point out all the errors of Hobbes,
both in that and religion.” This letter
of Swift’s is full of her praise; but we
know nothing more touching than the
passage which speaks of his sickening
feelings at the hour of her burial.
“January 30, Tuesday.—This is the
night of the funeral, which my sickness
will not suffer me to attend. It is
now nine at night, and I am removed
into another apartment that I may
not see the light in the church, which
is just over against the window of my
bed-chamber.” Were these words
written by a cruel man!! Well, if so,
we must admire a woman’s saying—as
it is put by Mr Thackeray: “Ah,
it was a hard fate that wrung from
them so many tears, and stabbed pitilessly”—(alas,
Mr Thackeray, why
will you put in that odious pitilessly?)—“that
pure and tender bosom! A hard
fate; but would she have changed it?
I have heard a woman say that she
would have taken Swift’s cruelty to
have had his tenderness.” And why,
Mr Thackeray, will you say of such a
man, when he was writing that they
had removed him into another apartment,
that he might not see the light
in the church, and was praising her
and loving her when he could speak or
write a word—why, we ask, should you
say, “in contemplation of her goodness,
his hard heart melts into pathos.”
Your own heart was a little ossifying
into hardness when you wrote this.
Ah! did you wish your female audience
to think how much more tender you
could be yourself? and so did you
offer this little apology for some hard
things in your novels? We wish you
had written an essay, and not read a
lecture. You would have been both
less hard and less tender,—for, in
truth, your tender passages in this
life of Swift, are very well to the purpose,
to catch your audience; but
they are “nihil ad rem.” And your
appeal to the “pure and tender bosoms,”
all against poor Swift, as a
detestable cannibal,—how, in his
Modest Proposal, “he rages against
children,” and “enters the nursery
with the tread and gaiety of an ogre,”
how he thought the “loving and having
children” an “unreasonableness,”
and “love and marriage” a “folly,”
because in his Lilliputian kingdom the
state removed children from their
parents and educated them; and you
wind up your appeal so lovingly, so
charmingly, so devotedly, so insinuatingly
to your fair audience, upon the
blessings of conjugal love and philoprogenitiveness,
that you must be the
dearest of lecturers, the pet of families,
the destroyer of ogres; and, as to that
monster Swift, the very children should
cry out, as they do in the Children
in the Wood, “Kill him again, Mr
Thackeray.” And this you did, knowing
all the while that the Modest
Proposal was a patriotic and political
satire—one of real kindness to the
people, whose children he supposes,
in the depth of his feeling and his
satire and bitter irony, the Government
should encourage the getting rid
of, rather than, in defiance of all his
(the Dean’s) schemes for the benefit
of Ireland, they should be made a burthen
to their parents, and miserable
themselves. All this you knew very
well: it was shabby and shameful of
you by your mere eloquence to make
this grave irony appear or be felt as
a reality and a cruelty, and tack on
to it an importation from Lilliput of a
state edict, as if it were one in Swift’s
mind with the Modest Proposal.
Yes,—you knew, the while these your
words were awakening detestation of
Swift, you were oratorising a very
great sham—all nonsense—stuff—that
would never pass current but
through the stamp of lectureship.
You knew how the witty Earl Bathurst,
a kind father with his loved children
about him, as good-naturedly
as you should have done, received
Swift’s benevolently intended satire.
“A man who has nine children to
feed,” says Lord Bathurst to Swift,
“can’t long afford alienos pascere
nummos; but I have four or five that
are very fit for the table. I only wait
for the Lord Mayor’s Day to dispose
of the largest, and shall be sure of
getting off the youngest whenever a
certain great man (Sir R. Walpole)
makes another entertainment at Chelsea.”
Here are your false words to
win all feminine sympathy. “In
fact, our great satirist was of opinion
that conjugal love was unadvisable, and
illustrated the theory by his own practice
and example—God help him!—which
made him about the most wretched
being in God’s world.” How cruel
was this in you, under some of the
probabilities, and all the possibilities
that may be, ought to be, charitably
referred to Swift’s case—in his loves
or his friendships, be they what they
will, for Stella and Vanessa. Vanessa—have
we then all this while forgotten
Vanessa? Hers is indeed a curious
story. It is told in Swift’s poem of
“Cadenus and Vanessa,” and published
after her death, at the dying
orders of Vanessa herself.
At the time Swift was moving in the
higher circles in London, he appears
to have been remarkable for the gracefulness
of his manners and his conversational
powers. These accomplishments
won for him many friendships
in the female society in which he found
himself. Indeed, in his letters, his
female correspondence possesses a
great charm, and speaks very highly
in favour of the wit and accomplishments
of the really well-educated
women of the day. Swift lived in
great familiarity with the Vanhomrighs.
The eldest daughter (another
Esther), ardent by nature, and desirous
of improving her mind, earnestly
gave herself up to Swift’s converse
and instruction. The result on her
part was love, on Swift’s friendship:
it is possible he may have felt
something stronger; but, with an inconsistency,
those who charge him
with a tenderer feeling deny him the
power of entertaining it. The story
is too well known to be repeated here.
She confessed her passion, and he insisted
upon friendship only. She followed
him to Ireland. She so expressed
her state of mind to him by
letter, that Swift had certainly reason
to apprehend fatal consequences, if
he altogether broke off his intimacy.
If it be true that Swift was by nature
cold, it is some excuse for imprudence
that he did not easily suspect, or perhaps
know, the dangerous and seducing
power of an attachment warmer
than friendship. It is evident he professed
nothing more. Whatever be
the case in that respect, there is no
reason to charge upon either an improper
intimacy. Mr Thackeray thinks
the two women died, killed by their
love for, and treatment by, Swift. It
is possible love, and disappointed love,
may have hastened both their deaths,
and made the wretchedness of Swift.
On all sides, the misery was one for
compassion, and such compassion as
may charitably cover much blame.
But even the story of Vanessa is told
differently. There is little certainty
to go upon, but enough for any man
who pleases to write vilely on. Lord
Orrery is very unmerciful on the character
of Vanessa. He, in downright
terms, charges her with having thrown
away her virtue and her religion, preferring
passion to one and wit to the
other. This certainly gives him a
good latitude for maligning his friend.
Did he ever give his friend Swift a
piece of his mind, and say to him, he
thought him a rascal, and would discontinue
his friendship? Oh, no; it
was pleasanter and very friendly to
tell all his spiteful things, after the
Dean was dead, to “his Ham,” that
they might be handed down to the
world from “father to son,” and so
the world must know “you would
have smiled to have found his house
a constant seraglio of very virtuous
women, who attended him from morning
till night, with an obedience,
an awe, and an assiduity, that are
seldom paid to the richest or the most
powerful lovers; no, not even to
the Great Seignior himself.” Yet the
facetious father of “my Ham” never
saw Stella, and knew perhaps as little
of the seraglio. Sir Walter Scott
says, as others also, we believe, that,
upon Vanessa’s applying to Stella
herself to know the nature of the undefined
connection between her and
Swift, she received from Stella an acknowledgment
of the marriage. If
this were true, it would of course
settle that question; but Lord Orrery,
from whom the first statement of the
marriage came, and who would readily
have seized such a confirmation of his
tale, says no such thing. On the contrary,
he says Vanessa wrote the letter
to Cadenus, not to Stella, and that
Swift brought his own written reply,
and, “throwing down the letter on her
table, with great passion hastened
back to his horse, carrying in his
countenance the frowns of anger and
indignation.” How are we to trust to
accounts so different? “She did
not,” he adds, “survive many days
(he should have said weeks, but days
tells more against his friend) the letter
delivered to her by Cadenus, but
during that short interval she was
sufficiently composed to cancel a will,
made in Swift’s favour, and to make
another,” &c. Who will not ask
the question,—Was there a will made
in Swift’s favour? It is against
probability; for be it remembered,
that the same story was told with
respect to Stella’s will, and it has
been clearly proved that her will
was such as Swift wished her to make.
Nor was it at all consistent with
Swift’s character, proud as he was,
and always so cautious to avoid any
scandal on Stella’s account, that he
would have allowed her to make a
will in his favour; and it would have
been still more revolting to his pride to
have accepted a legacy from Vanessa.
Orrery treats poor Vanessa worse
even than he does his friend. He
conjectures her motives as against
Swift, and writes of her death, “under
all the agonies of despair,” which, unless
he were present at the last scene,
he is not justified in doing, and reviles
her with a cruel uncharitableness.
The worst that ought to be
said of this miserable love and perplexing
friendship is said by Scott—“It
is easy for those who look back
on this melancholy story to blame the
assiduity of Swift or the imprudence
of Vanessa. But the first deviation
from the straight line of moral rectitude
is, in such a case, so very gradual,
and on the female side the shades of
colour which part esteem from affection,
and affection from passion, are
so imperceptibly heightened, that they
who fail to stop at the exact point
where wisdom bids, have much indulgence
to claim from all who share
with them the frailties of mortality.”
More than a hundred and fifty years
ago this sad tale, whatever it was in
reality, yet now a mystery, was acted
to the life in this strange world. The
scandal of few real romances seldom
lasts so long. It is time to cease
pursuing it with feelings of a recent
enmity; it is a better charity to hope,
that all that was of difference, of vexation,
of misery, nay, of wrong, has
become as unsubstantial as their dust,
and that they are where all that was
of love is sure to be, for love is eternal.
Poor Vanessa’s dust may still
rest in peace. Swift’s and Stella’s
have not been allowed the common
repose of the grave. Their bodies
have been disturbed. The phrenologists
have been busy with the skulls,
and their unhallowed curiosity has
been rewarded with a singular refutation
of their doctrine. The peculiarities
of Swift’s skull are—“the extreme
lowness of the forehead, those
parts which the phrenologists have
marked out as the organs of wit, causality,
and comparison, being scarcely
developed at all, but the head rose
gradually from benevolence backwards.
The portion of the occipital
bone assigned to the animal propensities,
philoprogenitiveness and amativeness,
&c., appeared excessive.”
There is something very shocking
in this disturbance of the dead. We
are inclined to join in Shakespeare’s
imprecation on the movers of bones.
Swift’s larynx has been stolen, and is
now, they say, in possession of the
purloiner in America. We wish it
had Swift’s human utterance, that
the thief might wish he had no ears.
An itinerant phrenologist is now
hawking about Pope’s skull. Matthews’
thigh-bone has circulated from
house to house. If ghosts ever visit
nowadays our earth, we could wish
them to come armed each with a
stout stick, and act upon the phrenologists
the “Fatal Curiosity.”
Johnson’s line—
“And Swift expires a driveller and a show,”
if it was not justified, as it certainly
was not, during the Dean’s last years,
in his melancholy state, may be justified
as a prophecy, and fulfilled when
his skull was handed about from
fashionable house and party, and exhibited
as a show.
Before we entirely quit the subject
of Swift’s amours, it is necessary to
mention a serious offer of marriage
which he certainly made, about the
year 1696. The lady—Miss Jane
Waring—did not at first receive his
advances very warmly. After four
years the courtship came to an end.
It seems Miss Waring became more
complying as Swift cooled. In a letter
he complained of her want of any
real affection for him. It is so worded
as to imply some doubts of her temper
and judgment. He writes as a man
would do who considers himself rather
bound in honour than by love, and
still offers marriage—upon terms.
These terms, those who profess to be
conversant in love proprieties, as in
other branches of criticism, say no
woman could comply with. We do
not profess to determine cases of that
nature. We apprehend all kinds of
terms have been complied with on both
sides without impeachment in the
Court of Love. This offer of marriage,
however, militates against Sir
Walter Scott’s hypothesis of physical
unfitness, and rather strengthens the
argument and statements of the
writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine.
We believe the exact date of the supposed
marriage has not been given.
If it did take place, what if it should
be possible it was on the day—his
birthday (or what he pleases to call
his birthday)—at the recurrence of
which he bewailed his birth by
reading the chapter in Job? Nor
must we omit, as it shows the shallow
grounds upon which defamation
often rests, a charge of violation made
against Swift at Kilroot, because such
a charge was found to have been really
made against one J. S., as it appeared
in a magistrate’s books. J. S. might
have stood for Jonathan Swift—let
him, therefore, bear the iniquity. It
might have been fastened upon any
or all of the numerous family of Smith,
or any other J. S. in the world. It
is curious that the first propagator,
who, possibly with truth, denied having
made the charge, as he might
have said the letters J. S. only—as
did the register—and unwittingly left
the appropriation to his listeners;—it
is curious, we observe, that this man
became raving mad, and was an inmate
in Swift’s hospital. The idle
tale has been disproved, and but one
of his worst maligners repeats it.
There are no passages in this portion
of Mr Thackeray’s Lectures more
odious, and more repugnant to our
taste and feeling, than those which
charge Swift with irreligion; nor are
they less offensive because the author
says—“I am not here, of course, to
speak of any man’s religious views,
except in so far as they influence his
literary character, his life, his humour.”
This denying latitude really
means quite the contrary to its preface;
for, since religion does concern
every man’s life, and he writes or
reads the life, he need not have said
he had nothing (of course) to do with
it, under any exceptions. But it
serves the purposes of assuming a reluctance
to touch upon the subject, and
of charging upon the necessity of the
case the many free and unnecessary
animadversions upon Swift’s character
as a priest of the Church of England.
The lecturer far outdoes the false
friend Orrery, who, speaking of his
Gulliver, says, “I am afraid he
glances at religion.” It is true, he
goes rather far to set up his friend
the Dean as an example of punishment
by Providence, which punishment
he admires and confesses as
according to righteous ways. His
lordship might have pitied, if angels
weep. Not a bit of it. “Here,” he
says, “a reflection naturally occurs,
which, without superstition, leads me
tacitly to admire and confess the ways
of Providence. For this great genius,
this mighty wit, who seemed to scorn
and scoff at all mankind, lived not
only to be an example of pride punished
in his own person, and an example
of terror to others, but lived to
undergo some of the greatest miseries
to which human nature is liable.”
Is this an instance of the charity which
“covereth a multitude of sins,” and
which saith, “Judge not”? If his
lordship had exercised on this occasion
his superstition, which he thus
adroitly puts aside, he would pretty
much have resolved Swift’s sins into
a material necessity. Thus he philosophises
on vice and virtue as effects—“These
effects take their sources
from causes almost mechanical.”
Mr Thackeray is still more severe—more
unjust. He will not allow his
strictness in his religious duties, not
even his family devotions, to pass as
current coin; they are shams and
counterfeits. The Swift too proud to
lie, was enacting hypocrisy in all this;
and how lucidly conclusive the argument!
Would any modern lecturer
like to be tried by it? “The boon-companion
of Pope and Bolingbroke,
who chose these as the friends of his
life, and the recipients of his confidence
and affection, must have heard
many an argument, and joined in
many a conversation, over Pope’s
port or ‘St John’s’ burgundy, which
would not bear to be repeated at
other men’s boards.” “Must have
heard.”!! Had the lecturer been
an eye and ear witness, he could not
have said more. Yet this must is a
very little must indeed. A letter of
Bolingbroke’s, and another from Pope
to Swift, which the lecturer, as he
ought to have done, had doubtless
read, perfectly reduces the little must
to nothing at all. Swift, it seems,
had written to Pope in some way to convert
him from Popery. Pope’s reply
parries off the Dean’s shafts by wit,
and the letter is very pleasant. Not so
Bolingbroke; and as he was of too free
a spirit to be false, and a hypocrite,
at the time he wrote his reply he was
not that bold speculator in atheistical
arguments which he may have afterwards
been; or if he was a hypocrite,
that alternative defends Swift, for it
shows the improbability of the arguments
over the burgundy having been
in their familiar converse; for Bolingbroke
was at least no fool to contradict
himself before Swift. These are his
remarkable words, defending himself
from the appellation of a freethinker,
in its irreligious sense: “For since
the truth of Christianity is as evident
as matters of fact, on the belief of
which so much depends, ought to be,
and agreeable to all our ideas of
justice, these freethinkers (such as he
had described) must needs be Christians
on the best foundation—on that
which St Paul himself established (I
think it was St Paul), Omnia probate,
quod bonum est tenete.” It is not needful
for us to vindicate Bolingbroke, nor
even to express any great satisfaction
at this passage; our purpose is to show
Swift’s religious sincerity, and the
probable nature of the conversations
with Pope and Bolingbroke from these
letters.
But to the excess of severity in the
lecturer. He contrasts “Harry Fielding
and Dick Steele” with Swift for religious
sincerity. These “were,” he says,
“especially loud, and I believe fervent,
in their expressions of belief.” He
admits them to have been unreasoning,
and Church of England men. “But
Swift, his mind had had a different
schooling, and possessed a very different
logical power. He was not bred
up in a tipsy guardroom, and did not
learn to reason in a Covent Garden
tavern. He could conduct an argument
from beginning to end. He
could see forward with a fatal clearness.
In his old age, looking at the
Tale of a Tub, when he said, ‘Good
God! what a genius I had when I
wrote that book!’ I think he was
admiring, not the genius, but the consequences
to which the genius had
brought him—a vast genius, a magnificent
genius—a genius wonderfully
bright, and dazzling, and strong, to
seize, to know, to see, to flash upon
falsehood, and scorch it into perdition,
to penetrate into the hidden motives,
and expose the black thoughts of men;
an awful, an evil spirit:” and yet Mr
Thackeray would make this evil spirit
a spirit of truth, of logical power, of
brightness to seize, to know, to see,
to flash upon falsehood; in fact, that
irreligion was the natural result of
true good logical reasoning, and therefore
Swift had no religion. We have
no business to charge the lecturer
with irreligious sentiments; indeed
we feel assured that he had no irreligious
motive whatever in the utterance
of this passage; nor could he
have had, with any discretion, before
a mixed modern audience: in the
hurry of his eloquence, he overlooked
the want of precise nicety of expression
due to such a subject. We could
wish that he had otherwise worded
this passage, which, to the minds of
the many, will certainly convey a
notion that the legitimate conclusion
of reasonable logical arguments is
infidelity. Yet more. “Ah! man!
you educated in the Epicurean Temple’s
library—you whose friends were
Pope and St John—what made you
to swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself
to a life-long hypocrisy before
Heaven, which you adored with such
real wonder, humility, and reverence?
For Swift’s was a reverent spirit; for
Swift could love and could pray.”
But his love, according to the lecturer,
was cruelty, and his prayer a sham!!
Let no man ever own a friend, however
he became his friend, of dubious opinions.
The lecturer is cautious. Miss
Martineau sent her mind into a diseased
cow, and it was healed. Pope and
Bolingbroke must have sent theirs into
Swift, and he was Bolingbroked and
Poped to the utmost corruption and
defilement. We may here as well ask
how poor Swift was positively to know
the ultimate sceptical opinions of Bolingbroke?
They were published in his
works, by Mallet, after his lordship’s
death.
Johnson doubted not the sincerity
of Swift’s religion. He vindicates the
Tale of a Tub, which Mr Thackeray
makes a text for his vituperation, from
“ill intention.” “He was a Churchman
rationally zealous.” “To his
duty as a Dean he was very attentive.”
“In his church he restored
the practice of weekly communion,
and distributed the sacramental elements
in the most solemn and devout
manner with his own hands. He
came to his church every morning,
preached commonly in his turn, and
attended the evening anthem, that it
might not be negligently performed.”
Swift himself spoke disparagingly of
his sermons. Mr Thackeray does more
than take him at his word; he pronounces
that “they have scarce a
Christian characteristic. They might
be preached from the steps of a synagogue,
or the floor of a mosque, or the
box of a coffeehouse almost. There
is little or no cant; he is too great
and too proud for that; and, so far as
the badness of his sermons goes, he is
honest.” Is Mr Thackeray really a
judge of “Christian characteristics?”
or does he pronounce without having
read Swift’s sermon on the Trinity,
so much and so deservedly admired,
and certainly of a Christian character?
But of these sermons quite as good a
judge is Samuel Johnson as our lecturer,
who says, “This censure of
himself, if judgment be made from
those sermons which have been printed,
was unreasonably severe.” Johnson
ascribes the suspicion of irreligion
to his dread of hypocrisy. Mr
Thackeray makes hypocrisy his religion.
Even the essayist in the
Times, who considers him a madman
from his birth, admits him to have
been “sincerely religious, scrupulously
attentive to the duties of his holy
office, vigorously defending the position
and privileges of his order: he
positively played into the hands of
infidelity, by the steps he took, both
in his conduct and writings, to expose
the cant and hypocrisy which he
detested as heartily as he admired
and practised unaffected piety.” If,
then, according to this writer, there
was a mistake, it was not of his heart.
What different judgments, and of so recent
dates—a sincerely religious man,
of practical unaffected piety, and, per
contra, a long-life hypocrite before
Heaven. We may well say, “Look on
this picture and on this.” Reflect,
reader, upon the double title-page to
Life of Tiberius, on the mysteries of
every man’s life; and the seeming
contradictions which can never be explained
here. A simple truth might
explain them, but truth hides itself,
and historians and biographers cannot
afford time for accurate search,
nor the reading world patience for
the delays which truth’s narrative
would demand.
The Tale of a Tub, it has been
said, was the obstacle to Swift’s
preferment—it may have been the
ostensible excuse. If the Duchess of
Somerset went down on her knees to
prevent a bishopric being offered him,
another excuse was wanted than the
real one. It was ascribed to Swift
that he had ridiculed her red hair:
such a crime is seldom forgiven. But
the “spretæ injuria formæ” will not
be producible as an objection. This
Tale of a Tub has been often condemned
and excused, and will be
while literature lasts, and is received
amongst persons of different temperaments.
There are some so grave that
wit is condemned by them before they
know the subject upon which it is
exercised. To many it is folly, because
beyond their conception. We
know no reason why the man of wit
should not be religious; if there be,
wit is a crime; yet it is a gift of
nature, and so imperative upon the
possessor that he can scarcely withhold
it. It is his genius. Wit has its
logical forms of argument. Errors in
religion, as in manners, present themselves
to the man of wit both in a
serious and ludicrous light; the two
views combine, there is the instant
flash for illumination or destruction.
The corruptions in a church, as in that
of Rome, being the growth of ages,
engrafted into the habits and manners
of a people, are not to be put down by
solemn sermons only: arguments in a
new and captivating manner must be
adopted, and applied to the ready understanding
and familiar common-sense
of those on whom more grave
and sedate argumentation is lost.
The Reformers were not remiss to
take wit as an ally. Even now, those
who are temporarily shocked at the
apparent lightness with which it was
employed in former days, as they read
works such as the Tale of a Tub may
have received with it solid arguments,
never so vividly put to them, and
which are still excellent preservatives
against Romanism. The enemy who
does not like it will call it ribaldry,
buffoonery, and magnify it into a
deadly sin. The vituperation of it
marks its power. This kind of writing,
even on the gravest subjects, is
more defensible than those who are
hurt by it will admit. In a state of
warfare, and church is militant, we
must not throw away legitimate arms.
If wit be a gift, it is a legitimate
weapon, and a powerful one. It deals
terrible blows on the head of hypocrisy.
We owe to it more perhaps
than we think. It may be fairly
asked, Were the Provincial Letters
injurious to the cause of religion?
The Epistolæ Obscurorum Virorum
helped to demolish some strongholds
of iniquity. Rabelais, disgusting as
he is to modern readers in too many
parts, was acceptable to bishops and
archbishops. They pardoned much
for the depth of sense, knowledge of
mankind, and solid learning in the
curate of Meudon. There are offences
against taste, that are not necessarily
offences against religion.
There is many an offensive work, especially
in modern literature, where
taste is guarded and religion hurt.
Is there a natural antipathy between
wit and religion, or between wit and
morals? We trust not; for by it all
mankind may be reached—at least
those who can be reached by no other
appeal, to whom that may be the
first, though not the last. In times
of controversy all must come into the
field, the light-armed as well as the
heavy-armed, and they must use
their own weapons. David slew Goliath
with a pebble and a sling. He
had tried these; they were scorned
by the giant, but they slew him.
But this genius of art is imperative,
and unless you shut the church-doors
against it, and anathematise it (and to
do so would be dangerous), it will
throw about its weapons. Danger
cannot put it down. It has its minor
seriousness, though you see it not;
it has its deep wisdom, and such an
abundance of gravity, that it can
afford to play with it. It bids the
man endowed with it use it even upon
the scaffold, as did Sir Thomas More.
Admit, that, if it is a power for good
or evil, that very admission legitimatises
it. The infidel, the scoffer, will
use it, and he will be in the enemy’s
camp. Yes, we must have, in the
gravest cause, our sharpshooters too.
There have been buffoons for the
gravest purposes as for the vilest. It
is well to be cautious in condemning
all. Demosthenes could not prevail
upon the people of Athens to give
attention to him where their safety
was concerned, and he abandoned
his seriousness, and told them a story
of the “shadow of an ass.” Buffoonery
may be a part put on—the
disguise, but the serious purpose is
under it. Brutus was an able actor.
A man may be allowed to put on a
madness, when it would be death to
proclaim himself, so as to be believed,
in his senses. What shall we say of
the grave buffoon, the wittiest, the
wisest, the patriotic, who risked his
life to play the fool, because he knew
it was the only means of convincing
the people, when he, Aristophanes,
could not get an actor to take the
part of Cleon, and took it himself,
not knowing but that a cup of poison
awaited him when the play was ended?
It is as well to come to the conclusion
that the wit, even the buffoon, may
be respectable—nay, give them a
higher name—even great characters.
Their gifts are instincts, are meant
for use. As the poet says, they cut
in twain weighty matters: “Magnas
plerumque secant res.” We fear that
if we were to drive the lighter soldiers
of wit out of the religious camp,
those enlisted on the opposite side
would set up a shout, rush in, and,
setting about them lustily, have things
pretty much their own way. Apply
this as at least an apology for Swift.
You must have the man with his wit—it
was his uncontrollable passion.
And, be it remembered, when he conceived,
if not wrote, the Tale of a
Tub, he was in the riotous spirit of
his youth. And abstract from it its
wondrous argument, deep sense of
illustration, and weigh them, how
ponderous the mass is, how able to
crush the long age-constructed machinery
of designing Popery! But
heavy as is the abstract, it would
have lain inert matter, but for those
nicely-adjusted springs of wit, which,
light as they seem, lift buoyantly
the ponderous power, that it may
fall where directed. If any have
a Romish tendency, we would recommend
him to read the Tale of a
Tub, without fear that it will take
religion out of his head or his heart.
We perfectly agree with Johnson as
to the intention, in contradiction to Mr
Thackeray, who says, “The man
who wrote that wild book could not
but be aware what must be the sequel
of the propositions he laid down.”
And thus is it cruelly added, “It is
my belief that he suffered frightfully
from the consciousness of his own
scepticism, and that he had bent his
pride so far down as to put his apostacy
out to hire.” Charity, which
“believeth all things,” never believed
that.
The virtues reign by turns in this
world of ours. Each one is the
Queen Quintessence of her time, and
commands a fashion upon her subjects.
They bear the hue of her
livery in their aspects. What is in
their bosoms it is not so easy to determine;
their tongues are obedient
to the fashion, and often join in chorus
of universal cant. Philanthropy is
now the common language, we doubt
if it is the common doing, of the age.
We are rather suspicious of it, not
very well liking its connections, equality
and fraternity, and suspect it to
be of a spurious breed, considering
some of its exhibitions on the stage
of the world within the memory of
many of us. As the aura popularis
has been long, and is still blowing
rather strong from that quarter, it
may appear “brutal” to say a syllable
per contra. There never was a fitter
time to lift up the hands and eyes in
astonishment at Swift’s misanthropy.
See the monster, how he hated mankind!
Perhaps he was a misanthrope.
That he was a good hater we verily
believe, but for a misanthrope he was
one of the kindest to those who deserved
and needed his assistance. It
is said of him that he made the fortunes
of forty families—that when
he had power, he exerted it to the
utmost, perseveringly, to advance the
interests of this or that man, and did
many acts of benevolence secretly
and delicately;—witness his payment
to Mrs Dingley of £52 per annum,
which he made her believe was her
own; and he paid it as her agent for
money in the funds, and took her
receipt accordingly, and this was not
known till after his death. Very numerous
are the anecdotes of this nature,
but here we have no space for
them. Such misanthropes are not
very bad people—even though, detesting
the assumption of uncommon
philanthropy, they put on now and
then a little roughness, as Swift undoubtedly
did, and many very kind
people very often do. But he wrote
Gulliver, that bitter satire on mankind,
for which Mr Thackeray the lecturer
is greatly shocked at him.
“As for the moral, I think it is horrible,
shameful, unmanly, blasphemous;
and, giant and great as this
Dean is, I say we should hoot him.”
Certainly hoot him—pelt him out of
your Vanity Fair, which, though bad
enough, is far too good for him, for
the law there is to treat bad mankind
very tenderly, and to make
the good come off but second
best, and look a trifle ridiculous.
There have been strong vigorous satirists,
universally read and admired,
and made the stock literature of all
countries too, and the authors have
been hitherto thought highly moral
and dignified characters; and they
were personal, too, as ever Swift was
(not that we admire his personalities—they
were part his, and part belonged
to his time), and their language as
coarse. What are we to say of Juvenal,
if we condemn Swift on that
score? What of his sixth and tenth
satires? The yahoo for mankind is
not more hideous than the Tabraca
monkey, which so frightfully represents
men’s old age, in that famous
tenth satire on the “Vanity of Human
Wishes.” It is, indeed, a morbid
philanthropy, a maudlin philanthropy,
that will not give detested vices the
lash. What is brutal vice?—degraded
human nature, such as our police
courts have of late exhibited it, our
Cannons, and kickers, and beaters of
women—the burkers of our times,
murderers for the sake of body-selling,
to whom yahoos are as far better
creatures. Yet, in our philanthropic
days, we must not compare man to
low animals. Indeed, we make companion
of the faithful dog—we pet
the obedient horse—we love them—and
we are better for the affection
we bestow, and it is in a great degree
perhaps reciprocal; but such brutes
in human shape, we shrink from comparing
our dumb friends with them.
They have made themselves an antipathy
to human nature, and our nature
an antipathy to them.
One would think, to hear some
people talk about this Gulliver, that
Swift had originated such hideous
comparisons with the brute creation,
and that he alone had brought his
animali parlanti on the stage. Chaucer,
whom everybody loves, makes the
cock say, as thus Dryden says it for
him:—
“And I with pleasure see
Man strutting on two legs, and aping me.”
Cock and Fox.
But let us put the matter thus: In
depicting the lowest vices of human
nature, Swift, like Hogarth, made
them appear more odious, and the
former less offensive, by at least ideally
or rather formally removing them from
our species. The transforming them
to brutes in something like human
shape, renders the human image less
distinct; covers them with a gauze,
through which you can bear the sight,
and contemplate what brutalised
human nature may become. The
satirist Hogarth is as strong, and by
too near a resemblance, more disgusting,
yet is he a great moralist. Is
the Yahoo of Swift worse, or so offensive
to our pride, as the heroes and
heroines of “Beer and Gin Alley,”
or the cruelty scenes of Hogarth?
Yet who ever called these doings of
the painter-satirist “shameful, unmanly,
blasphemous.” Hoot him, Mr
Lecturer, hoot both or neither. No—the
hoot of the Lecturer was nothing
but a little oratorical extravagance,
for an already indignant audience,
touched upon that tender modern virtue,
general philanthropy. Out of
his lectures, the lecturer is a true,
good, loving, kind-hearted, generous
man; his real “hoot” would sound
as gently as the “roar” of any
“sucking dove.” But at a lecture-table,
the audience must be indulged
in their own ways. The lecturer puts
by his nature and puts on his art.
He is acting the magician for the
moment, and not himself, and thus
his art excuses to him this patting on
the back our mock philanthropy;
mock, for it is out of nature, and
not real. Honest genuine nature
is indignant, and has an impulse as
its instinct to punish villany. Who
ever read history, and did not wish a
Cæsar Borgia hanged? Philanthropists
are very near being nuisances;
they go out of the social course, which
runs in circles—at first small ones
too, home. There is room for the exercise
of plenty of charity, amiableness,
goodness; where is the need a
man should burthen himself with the
whole census? We live for the most
part in circles, and if we do good,
true, and serviceable duty within
them, it little matters if some, with a
pardonable eccentricity, deem them
magic circles, and that all on the
outside of the circumference are
fiends ready to leap in open-mouthed
to devour them. Professing philanthropists
are apt to have too little
thought of what is nearest, and to
stretch out beyond the natural reach
of their arms. They are breakers into
other people’s circles, and perpetually
guilty of a kind of affectionate burglary—and
therefore not punishable,
but to be pitied as a trifle insane.
Poor Swift! how his friends wept at
his last sad condition, which the hard
hearts who knew him not, a century
and a half after, choose to call Heaven’s
punishment, and his misery a “remorse.”
How his true friends grieved
for him! and such friends, too—men
of generous natures that lift humanity
out of that, its vexatious condition,
which provokes universal satire. He
had a circle of friends whom he dearly
loved, and who as dearly loved him.
No matter how many yahoos go to
the whipping-post. Take care of the
home circles, and ever keep the temper
sweet in that temperate zone, which
the natural course of society has provided
for you; and be sure the world
won’t be a bit worse off, if you light
your cigar at your own hearth, and
pleasantly write a pretty sharp satire
on the world at large. We know not
if it is not a fair position to lay down,
that all satirists are amiable men; our
best have been eminently so. Poor
gentle Cowper, in his loving frenzy,
wielded the knout stoutly, and had it
been in his religion, would have whipped
himself like a pure Franciscan;
and yet he loved his neighbour. And
it is our belief that Swift was good
and amiable, and as little like a yahoo
as those who depict him as one.
Nature gave him a biting power, and
it was her instinct that made him use
it; and what if he exaggerated? It is
the poet’s licence. What did Juvenal?
and what did he more than Juvenal?
Oh, this at once bold and squeamish
age!—bold to do bad things, and to
cry out against having them told or
punished, but delighting in dressing
up an imaginary monster and ticketing
it with the name of Jonathan Swift,
dead a century ago!!
And was there so little vice and villany
in the world in Swift’s time, or in
Hogarth’s time, that it should have
been allowed to escape? Party was virulent
and merciless, and divided men, so
that statesmen had no time to care for
good public morals. To be a defeated
minister was to be sent to the Tower,
as Swift’s friend Harley was, and kept
there two years. They were corrupt
times—yahoo times. What says the
sober historian, the narrator of facts,
about 1717? There are accounts of the
“Mug-houses,” when the Whig and
Tory factions divided the nation.
There was the attack on these Mug-houses,
retaliations and riots, and
there were “Mohocks,” of which we
read too pleasantly now in the Spectator,
who went about with drawn
swords, and kept the city in terror.
It is somewhere about the year 1730
of which the historian speaks thus:—“A
great remissness of government
prevailed at this time in England.
Peace both at home and abroad continued
to be the great object of the
minister. Prosperity in commerce
introduced luxury—hence necessities
were created, and these drove the
lower classes of people into the most
abandoned wickedness. Averse to all
penal and sanguinary measures, the
minister gave not that encouragement
to the ordinary magistrates that would
enable them to give an effectual check
to vice among the multitude. This
produced a very pernicious effect
among the higher class, so that almost
universal degeneracy of manners prevailed.
It was not safe to travel the
roads or walk the streets; and often
the civil officers themselves dared
neither to repel the violences nor punish
the crimes that were committed. A
species of villains now started up, unknown
to former times, who made it
their business to write letters to men
of substance, threatening to set fire to
their houses in case they refused their
demands; and sometimes their threats
were carried into execution. In short,
the peculiar depravity of the times
became at length so alarming that
the government was obliged to interpose,
and a considerable reward was
offered for discovering the ruffians
concerned in such execrable practices.”[20]
If Swift’s miseries were so large as
to make Archbishop King shed tears,
and pronounce him the most unhappy
man on earth, on the subject of whose
wretchedness no question may be asked;
and if, remembering this, we reflect upon
his great and active doings, it will
not be without admiration that we shall
see how manfully he strove against
being overwhelmed with inevitable
calamities; and if we think him too
much inclined to view mankind ill, we
should reflect that he lived in such
times as we have been describing,
and had ill-treatment enough from
mankind to render his best struggles
for contentment at times hard, and
that he preserved his friendships to
the last.
The fortuitous disappointments of
life may be borne with a humble
patience, the virtue in misery; the
disappointments which our fellow-creatures
inflict by their falseness and
wickedness, are apt in a degree to
make generous natures misanthropic;
but even then their best feelings do
but retreat from their advanced posts—retire
within, and cling with greater
love and resolution to the home fortress,
fortified and sustained by a little
army of dear friends. So it was with
Swift: out in the world he was the
traveller Gulliver—but the best friendships
made his world his home. Even
in the strictest sense of home, such a
home as Swift had, of so strange a
home-love, we know not to what
great degree we should look on that
with pity. It is to be hoped, not one
of his revilers have had his miseries—which
even his friend was with tears
requested not to look into.
The animosities of Whigs and
Tories were extreme. Swift declared
himself a Whig in politics, a Tory as
high-churchman. In the course of
political experience, it is evident one
of the principles must give way. Swift
saw to what the Whig policy tended:
the higher interests prevailed with
him—he joined the Tories. Giant as
he was, we are not surprised at the
strong expressions of the essayist
whom we have before quoted, “under
Harley, Swift reigned, Swift was the
Government, Swift was Queen, Lords,
and Commons. There was tremendous
work to do, and Swift did it all.” We
do not mean to say Swift was not a
thorough man of the world; nor that
he did not look to his own interests,
as men of the world do; but at the
same time, it would be hard to show
that he was profligate as to political
principle. He may have changed his
views, or political principles may have
shifted themselves. We firmly believe
him to have been honest. But he left
the Whig ranks. Having done so, he
was too great not to be feared, and so
hated—and is it too much to say that
this Whig hatred with regard to him
has come down to our day, and unforgiving
as it is, as it cannot persecute
the man, persecutes his memory?
It is next to impossible not to see
that political rancour has directed
and dipped into its own malignant
gall the pen of Lord Jeffrey, who in
that essay, which has now become
cheap railway reading, heaps all possible
abuse on Swift, ascribing to him
all bad motives—is furiously wroth
with him even now, because he abandoned
the Whigs. It is the very
burthen of his vituperative essay. He
(Swift) is a political apostate, and a
libeller of the Whigs against his conscience;
and this Lord Jeffrey gathers
from his letters. Indeed! and was
it in Lord Jeffrey’s mind so dreadful
an offence (if true) this writing against
his conscience, and to be discovered
in private letters, at supposed variance
with published documents, by
this said Dean? We fear Lord Jeffrey
was not aware that he was passing
a very severe censure upon his
own conduct when he wrote thus of
Swift; for we remember reading a
letter by the said Lord Jeffrey in entire
contradiction to that which, as
Editor of the Edinburgh Review, he
had given out to the world. In this
private letter, published in his “Life,”
he writes in perfect terror, and in the
deepest despair of the nation, arising
from the dangerous tendency of articles
in that Review, with, as we conceive,
a very poor apology, that he
could not restrain his ardent writers.
Party blinded him then, and thus he
vents his rancour further, forgetful of
the lampoons of the Whig Tom Moore,
the Twopenny Post-bag, and a long
list—and of the Whig Byron, and
his doings in that line. “In all situations
the Tories have been the greatest
libellers, and, as is fitting, the great
prosecutors of libels.” Lord Jeffrey,
when he wrote this, was as forgetful of
his own party as of himself in particular—of
the many personalities in his
own review, as of Whig writings. Unfortunately
for them, they were not so
gifted with wit as their opponents,
but their malignity on that account
was the greater. What is to be said
of Lord Holland’s note-book? But
Lord Jeffrey was not the one to condemn,
however others might be justified
in doing so, even personal libels,
which, in his own case, as editor and
political Whig agent, he justifies, and,
more than that, sets up a principle to
maintain his justification. It would
appear that one of his contributors
had been shocked at the personal
libels in the Edinburgh, and had remonstrated.
Jeffrey thus defends the
practice: “To come, for instance, to
the attacks on the person of the Sovereign.
Many people, and I profess
myself to be one, may think such a
proceeding at variance with the dictates
of good taste, of dangerous example,
and repugnant to good feelings;
and therefore will not themselves
have recourse to it.” (Here
his memory should have hinted—
“Qui facit per alium facit per se.”)
“Yet,” he continues, “it would be
difficult to deny that it is, or may be,
a lawful weapon to be employed in
the great and eternal contest between
the court and the country. Can there
be any doubt that the personal influence
and personal character of the
Sovereign is an element, and a pretty
important element, in the practical
constitution of the government, and
always forms part of the strength or
weakness of the administration he
employs? In the abstract, therefore,
I cannot think that attempts to
weaken that influence, to abate a
dangerous popularity, or even to excite
odium towards a corrupt and servile
ministry, by making the prince,
on whose favour they depend, generally
contemptible or hateful, are absolutely
to be interdicted or protested
against. Excesses no doubt may be
committed. But the system of attacking
abuses of power, by attacking
the person who instigates or carries
them through by general popularity
or personal influence, is lawful enough,
I think, and may form a large scheme
of Whig opposition—not the best
or the noblest part, certainly, but one
not without its use, and that may, on
some occasions, be altogether indispensable.”—Letter
to Francis Horner,
Esq., 12th March 1815.
The semi-apologetic qualifying expressions
“against good taste and
feeling,” only make one smile, as
showing the clear sin against conscience,
in thus falling into or recommending
the large scheme of Whig
opposition. One might imagine him
to have been one of Mr Puff’s conspirators
in his tragedy, who had
manufactured from the play a particularly
Whig party-prayer—a prayer
to their god of battle, whoever he
was,—certainly one a mighty assistant
in such conspiracies.
“Behold thy votaries submissive beg,
That thou wilt deign to grant them all they ask;
Assist them to accomplish all their ends,
And sanctify whatever means they use
To gain them.”—The Critic.
Every one will now agree, of course,
with Lord Jeffrey, that the Tories
have ever been the great libellers!!!
Was it ever known that Tom Moore,
or even the editor of the Edinburgh
Review, were prosecuted!! We do
not justify Swift in all his libels—some
bad enough. They were strange
times, and of no common licence; and
who was more licentiously attacked
than Swift himself? And he knew
how to retaliate, and he did it terribly
and effectually. Many badly-written
things were ascribed to Swift which
he did not write. But we must not
take the code of manners of one age,
and a more refined age, and utterly
condemn, by reference to them, the
manners of another, as a chargeable
offence against an individual. Much
that Swift wrote could not be written
now; much that was written by Mr
Thackeray’s other “Humourists” could
not be written now; and yet the objections
are on the score of manners
wanting in refinement, and not that
morals were offended. In Swift’s
time, both in literature and politics,
men wrote coarsely, and acted somewhat
coarsely too; for they wrote in
disgust, which was scarcely lessened
by a fear of the pillory. Retaliations
were severe. De Foe, who knew
well what political prosecution was,
wrote thus on Lord Haversham’s
speech: “But fate, that makes footballs
of men, kicks some up stairs
and some down; some are advanced
without honour, others suppressed
without infamy; some are raised without
merit, some are crushed without
crime; and no man knows, by the beginning
of things, whether his course
shall issue in a peerage or a pillory”—in
most witty and satiric allusion to
Lord Haversham’s and his own condition.
Swift’s “Account of the Court
and Empire of Japan,” written in
1728, is no untrue representation of
the factions and ministerial profligacy
of that period. The Dean, as an Irish
patriot—for he heartily took up the
cause of Ireland—was persecuted,
and a reward of £300 offered for the
discovery of the author of one of the
Drapier’s Letters. The anecdote told
on this occasion is very characteristic
of Swift. He was too proud to live in
fear of any man. His butler, whom
alone he trusted, conveyed these letters
to the printer. When the proclamation
of reward came out, this
servant strolled from the house, and
staid out all night and part of next
day. It was feared he had betrayed
his master. When he returned, the
Dean ordered him instantly to strip
himself of his livery, and ordered him
to leave the house; “For,” says he,
“I know my life is in your power,
and I will not bear, out of fear,
either your insolence or negligence.”
The man was, however, honest and
humble, and even desired to be confined
till the danger should be over.
But his master turned him out. The
sequel should be told. When the
time of information had expired, he
received the butler again; and “soon
afterwards ordered him and the rest
of the servants into his presence, without
telling his intentions, and bade
them take notice that their fellow-servant
was no longer Robert the
butler, but that his integrity had
made him Mr Blakeney, Verger of
St Patrick’s, whose income was between
thirty and forty pounds a-year.”
As it has fallen in the way
to give this narrative of his conduct
to a deserving servant, it may not be
amiss, in this place, to offer a pendant;
and it may be given the more readily,
as those who wish to view him as a
misanthropic brute, and they who
would commend him for his humanity,
may make it their text for their
praise or their abuse. “A poor old
woman brought a petition to the deanery;
the servant read the petition, and
turned her about her business. Swift
saw it, and had the woman brought
in, warmed and comforted with bread
and wine, and dismissed the man for
his inhumanity.”
To revert, however, to his political
course. When the Tory Ministry was
broken up, he never swerved from
his friendships, nor did he court one
probable future minister at the expense
of the other. Indeed, at the
beginning of the break-up, he clung
the more closely to Harley, the dismissed
minister. But even this conduct
has been misrepresented, by
those who viewed all his actions upside
down, as a deep policy, that he
might be sure of a friend at court
whichever side might ultimately win.
That he might appear wanting in
no possible impossible vice, avarice
has been added to the number adduced.
Even Johnson charges his
economy upon his “love of a shilling.”
This does appear to us, after
much examination of data, a very
gratuitous accusation. His early habits
were necessarily those of a poor
man; he never was a rich one; and
he was far above the meanness of enlarging
his means at the expense of
his deanery, its present interests, or
of his successor, by any selfish regard
to fines. Due economy is often taken
to be avarice. Nor does it follow
that reasonable parsimony, when constantly
practised for a worthy purpose,
is avarice. Such avarice is at
least not uncommon in great and
good minds. Swift so often made it
known that he had a good object, and
which he fulfilled, that it seems quite
malicious to forget his motives, and
to ascribe his by no means large
accumulations to a miserly disposition.
He did not in fact, after all,
leave a very ample endowment for
his hospital for the insane. The first
£500 which he could call his own he
devoted to loans, in small sums, to
poor yet industrious men. Had he
been avaricious, he might have accumulated
a fortune by his writings.
A very small sum (we believe for his
Gulliver) was the only payment received
for all his writings. Had he
been naturally avaricious, he would
not have returned, with marked displeasure,
a donation sent him by Harley.
There was a sturdy manliness
in his pride which forbade him to incur
serious debt; and this pride
caused him to measure nicely, or
rather say frugally, his expenditure.
He had, indeed, a “love of a shilling,”
as he ought to have had, for he knew
for what purpose he husbanded it.
We know an instance of seeming parsimony
that originated in, and was
itself, an admirable virtue. It was in
rather humble life. The man had
given up his little patrimony—his all—to
the maintenance of two sisters,
whom he truly loved; and when he
went out into the world, trusting to
his industry alone, he made a vow to
himself that the half of every shilling
he could save should go to his sisters.
This man drove hard bargains; by
habit he came to think that what he
spent idly was a half robbery. Many
a hard name, doubtless, was cast at
this tender-hearted man in his progress
through little-knowing and ill-judging
society.
We do not attempt a delineation of
Swift’s character. We are conscious
that it was too great for our pen. It
must be a deep philosophy that is
able to search into such a mind,
and bring all the seeming contradictions
into order, and sift his best qualities,
from their mixtures of eccentricities,
from a real or imaginary
insanity. This part of the subject
has been ably treated, and with medical
discrimination, by Mr Wilde in
his Closing Years of Dean Swift’s Life,
from whose work we gladly quote
some just animadversions upon his
vituperators.
“To the slights thrown upon his
memory by the Jeffreys, Broughams,
Macaulays, De Quinceys, and other
modern literati, answers and refutations
have been already given. Of
these attacks, which exhibit all the
bitterness of contemporary and personal
enmity, it is only necessary to
request a careful analysis, when they
will be found to be gross exaggerations
of some trivial circumstances,
but written in all the unbecoming
spirit of partisanship; while the opinions
of his contemporaries, Harley,
Bolingbroke, Pope, Arbuthnot, Delany,
&c., are a sufficient guarantee
for the opinion which was entertained
of Swift by those who knew him best
and longest.”
It was well said, with reference to
Jeffrey’s article in the Edinburgh
Review, “But Swift is dead, as Jeffrey
well knew when he reviewed his
works.” If men of mark will be so
unjust, unscrupulous, uncharitable, as
to apply “base perfidy” to such a
man as Swift, no wonder if the small
fry of revilers, whose lower minds
could never by any possibility rise to
the conception of such a character as
Swift, should lift their shrieking voices
to the same notes, as if they would
claim a vain consequence by seeming
to belong to the pack. Mr Howitt
odiously alludes to the discarded story
which we have noticed, the slander at
Kilroot, and grounds upon it a charge
of “dissipated habits” in his youth.
This writer, lacking the ability and
influence of the superior libellers, as
is common with such men, yelps his
shrill vulgarities the louder in such
expressions as “selfish tyranny,”
“wretched shuffler,” “contemptible
fellow.”
It is a vile thing, this vice of modern
times—this love of pulling down
the names of great men of a past age—of
blotting and slurring over every
decent epitaph written in men’s hearts
about them. That men of note themselves
should fall into it, is but a sad
proof that rivalry and partisanship in
politics make the judgment unjust.
We remember the reproof Canning
gave to Sir Samuel Romilly, no common
man, who indeed acknowledged
Mr Pitt’s talents, but denied that he
was a great man. “Heroic times are
these we live in,” said Canning,
“with men at our elbow of such
gigantic qualities as to render those
of Pitt ordinary in the comparison.
Ah! who is there living, in this house
or out of it, who, taking measure of his
own mind or that of his coevals, can
be justified in pronouncing that William
Pitt was not a great man?” Of
all our modern revilers of Swift, the
pullers to pieces of his fame and character,
is there any that might not
shrink from putting his own measure
of either to the comparison? Political
hatred lasts too long—it reverses the
law of canonisation: if there is to be
worship, it must be immediate. A
century destroys it; but enmity survives.
“Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on,” &c.
We commenced with the intention of
reviewing Mr Thackeray’s Lectures,
but have stopped short at his life of
Swift, and yet feel that we have but
touched upon the subject-matter relating
to that great man; and hope to
refer to it, with some notice and extracts
from his works, at a future
time.
And what is Swift? What is any
dead man that we should defend his
name, which is nothing but a name—and
not that to him? What is Swift to
us, more than “Hecuba” to the poor
player, or “he to Hecuba,” that we
should rise with indignation to plead
his cause? Praise or blame to the
man dead a century and more, is nothing
for him, no, nor to any one of
his race (for affections of that kind
are lost in a wide distribution).
Shakespeare makes even honour of a
shorter date. “What is honour to
him who died o’ Wednesday?” Very
soon individual man melts away from
his individuality, and merges into the
general character; he becomes quite
an undistinguishable part of the whole
generation; his appearance unknown.
Could the great and the small visit us
from the dead—they who “rode on
white asses,” and they who were
gibbeted—they whom the “king delighted
to honour,” and they whom
the hangman handled—there is no
“usher of black rod” that could call
them out by their names. Their individualities
are gone—their names
must go in search of them in vain—they
will fasten nowhere with certainty—none
know which is which.
Let Cæsar come with his murderers,
and who shall tell which is Cæsar?
After a generation, there is no one on
earth to grieve for the guilty or unfortunate,
unless in a fiction or tale. We
laugh at the weeping lady who puts her
tears to the account of the “anniversary
of the death of poor dear Queen
Elizabeth.” Feelings and affections
of past ages are all gone, and become
but a cold history, that the poet or
the romance-writer may warm again
in their sport. They no longer belong
to those who had them. While
memory and affection lasts there is a
kind of vitality, but it soon goes.
“Non omnis moriar” is a motto to
be translated elsewhere. The atmosphere
of fame, for this earth, rises,
like that we breathe, but a little way
above it, and is ever shifting.
But if the individual thus melts
away, not so the general character;
that will remain—and in that the living
are concerned. We deem it a
part of a true philanthropy if we can
pull out one name from the pit of defamation
into which it has been unhandsomely
thrust, and can place it
upon the record of our general nature,
that our common humanity may be
raised, and, as much as may be, glorified
thereby. Such has been our
motive (for with this motive alone is
Swift anything to us), and we hope
we have succeeded in rescuing one of
nature’s great men from unmerited
obloquy.
We have spoken freely of Mr
Thackeray’s Lectures, with reference
to his character of Swift.
We believe that he has unfortunately
followed a lead; and, in so
doing, has been encouraged to a bias
by his natural gift—satire. We say
not this to his dispraise. Like other
natural gifts, the satiric puts out ever
its polyp feelers, and appropriates
whatever comes within its reach, and
promises nutriment. It is not indeed
likely, in this our world, to be starved
for lack of sustenance; nor would
society be the better if it were. But
we do doubt if it be quite the talent
required in a biographer. We would
not have Mr Thackeray abate one
atom of the severity of his wit; and
we believe him to have an abhorrence
of everything vicious, mean, and degrading,
and that his purpose in all
his writings is to make vice odious.
He habitually hunts that prey: having
seen the hollowness of professions,
he drives his merciless pen through it,
and sticks the culprit upon its point,
and draws him out upon the clean
sheet, and blackens him, and laughs
at the figure he has made of him. A
writer of such a stamp ought to be
considered, what he really is, a moralist—therefore
a benefactor in our
social system.
But with this power, let him touch
the living vices till they shrink away
cowed. The portraiture of the vices
of men who lived a century or
more ago, real or imaginary, may
only serve to feed the too flagrant
vice of the living—self-congratulating
vanity. If then he must write,
or lecture, on biography, we would
earnestly recommend him to do it
with a fear of himself. His other
works have contributed many hours
of delight to the days of most of
us; and in the little volume before
us, setting aside his lecture on Swift,
there is much to amuse and to instruct.
The sharp contrasting choice
of his positions, and easy natural
manner, not forcing but enticing the
reader to reflection, must ever make
Mr Thackeray a popular writer.
Were he less sure of the public ear,
and the public voice in his favour,
we should not have endeavoured to
rescue the character of Swift from his
grasp; and we believe him to be of
that generous nature to rejoice, if we
have, as we hope, been successful in
the attempt. We cannot speak too
highly of Mr Thackeray as one most
accomplished in his art: his style,
eminently English, is unmistakably
plain and energetic. It is original—so
curt, yet so strong; there is
never amplification without a purpose,
nor without the charm of a
new image. Thoughts are clad in the
words that best suit them. With
him, pauses speak; and often a full
stop, unexpected in a passage, is
eloquent. You think that he has not
said all, because he has said so little:
yet that little is all; and there is left
suggestion for feelings which words
would destroy. He is never redundant.
So perfect is this his art that
his very restraint seems an abandon.
He knows when and how to gain the
credit of forbearance, where in fact
there is none. In his mastery over
this his peculiar manner, he brings it
to bear upon the pathetic or the ridiculous
with equal effect; and, like a
consummate satirist, makes even the
tragic more tragic, more ghastly, by
a slight connection with the light, the
ridiculous, a certain air of indifference.
We instance the passage of the death
of Rawdon, in his Vanity Fair. Few
are the words, but there is a history
in them. The apparent carelessness
in dismissing his hero reminds one of
that in Richard the Third.
“The Lady Anne hath bade the world good night.”
His strongest ridicule is made doubly
ridiculous by the gravity he tacks to
it. It sticks like a burr upon the
habit of his unfortunate victim. He
puts the rags of low motives upon
seeming respectability, and makes
presumption look beggarly—effecting
that which the Latin satirist says real
poverty does—ridiculos homines facit.
Most severe in his indifference, his
light playfulness is fearfully Dantesque;
it is ever onward, as if sure
of its catastrophe. We do not know
any author who can say so much in
few common words. These are characteristics
of genius. It has often been
said, and perhaps with truth, that the
reader shuts the book uncomfortable,
not very much in love with human nature:
we are by no means sure that this
is absolutely wrong; such is the feeling
on looking at Hogarth’s pictures. It
was the author’s intention, in both
cases, to be a moral satirist, not a
romance-writer. It has been objected
that he allows the vicious too much
success; but he may plead that so it
is in life: even the Psalmist expressed
his surprise at the prosperity of the
wicked. There is truth to the life in
this treatment; a certain seeming success
tells not the whole. It is a more
serious charge that he has made virtue
and goodness insipid. We wish he
could persuade himself that there is
romance in real life, and that it is full
of energies; its true portraiture would
give a grace to his works. Cervantes
and Le Sage were not all satire; their
beautiful touches of romance hurt not
the general character of their works;
the fantastic frame-lines mar not the
pathos of the picture. With this recommendation
we close our article,
with trust in the good sense and good
feeling of Mr Thackeray, rejoiced to
think that his powerful genius is in
action: whatever vein he may be in,
he will be sure to instruct and amuse,
and accumulate fame to himself. If
the virtues do not look their very best,
when he ushers them into company, at
least vice will never have to boast of
gentle treatment—he will make it look
as it deserves; and if he does not always
thrust it out of doors in rags and
penury, he will set upon it, and leave
its further punishment for conjecture.
[19] It is curious this twofold character of Tiberius—surprising that historians should
have credited this single existence of a civilised cannibal—this recorded “eater of
human flesh, and drinker of human blood.” The learned writer of this volume on
Tiberius, with truthful scrutiny, sifts every evidence, weighs testimony against testimony,
and testimony of the same authority against itself, and after patient investigation
concludes, as the reasonable solution of the historical enigma, that Tiberius
was not only “of all kings or autocrats the most venerable,” but that he was, “in
the fourteenth year of his reign, a believer in the divinity of Jesus Christ,” and,
“during the last eight years of his reign, the nursing-father of the infant Catholic
Church.” It will be readily perceived that the supposition of Tiberius being a
Christian, at a time when Christianity was universally held to be an odious and
justly-persecuted superstition, must have presented, through known facts and
rumours, to the world at large, and to the philosophic minds of historians in particular,
an idea of human character so novel and so confused, as to be, in the absence
of a clue, and a test which they could not admit, altogether incomprehensible. What
could they do with the sacramental fact—the eating human flesh and drinking
human blood, by one known for his abstemiousness?
“Τοσαυτης δ’εν τοτε της καταζασεως εοης,
και μηδ’ απαρνησασθαι τινος δυναμενε το μη ε και
των σαρκων αυτε ηδεως εμφαγειν.”—Dion. C.
“Fastidit vinum, quia jam bibit iste cruorem
Tam bibit hunc avide quam bibit iste merum.”—Suet.
The sacramental fact discovered, and undeniable, yet not known as the sacramental
fact, must have made up a riddle of contradictions, which it was not in the power
of that age to solve. In its ignorance it made a monster. Men are apt to see more
than nature ever exhibits.
NOTE TO THE ARTICLE ON THE NEW READINGS IN SHAKESPEARE. — Transcriber’s Note:
We have received, although only at the eleventh hour, a copy of Notes and
Queries (September 17, 1853), in which Icon animadverts with proper severity
on the unwarrantable conduct of A. E. B. in attacking our harmless selves
in the manner he did. He also compliments our article in a strain which
makes us blush even deeper than we did when the “gnat” stung us. We
thank both him and the editor for the handsome apology which has been
made to us—for such we consider it—in the name of Notes and Queries; and
we confess that, had we been aware of their friendly disposition sooner, we
might have modified some of the remarks made at the opening of this paper.
Let the excellent concern, however, take our remarks as kindly as we did
theirs; and let all who are connected with it consider, that when a man is
struck at in the dark, he must defend himself in the dark, fall his blows where
they may. The worthy editor seems to be much more pestered by the fussiness
and irritability of his little tribe of correspondents than we are. He
complains of this very sorely. He will perhaps find that we have given them
a lesson how to behave; and if he passes the remainder of his days in peace
and quiet, untormented by the small hornets whom he has in charge, he will
know whom he has to thank for it, and will feel grateful accordingly. May
Notes and Queries go on and prosper; for, when it commits a mistake, it has
the manliness and good sense to avow it, and to make all suitable reparation.
Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.
Words may have multiple spelling variations or inconsistent
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Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially
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Changed:
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