The Cornhill Magazine (Vol. 1 No. 2)

Invasion Panics. — FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To Goldenhair. (FROM HORACE.)

Framley Parsonage. — CHAPTER IV. A Matter of Conscience. — CHAPTER V. Amantium Iræ Amoris Integratio. — CHAPTER VI. Mr. Harold Smith’s Lecture.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know nothing of the kind.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He asked me if I were going.”

“Exactly; and Archdeacon Grantley will be there.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, Justinia!” at last she said.

“What, have you got bad news, too?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What letter, Fanny?”

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

“From Mr. Robarts,” she said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, mamma, do be moderate.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He especially begs me to tell you.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Heighty-tighty,” said her ladyship.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, Fanny!” said Justinia.

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

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

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

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

“Oh, yes, certainly, my dear.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Oh, Lady Lufton!”

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

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

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

“Oh, yes, Lady Lufton.”

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

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

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

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

“Oh, Lady Lufton!”

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

“Dear Lady Lufton, you must forgive him.”

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

“Wednesday week, I think.”

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

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

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

“Oh, I know he is; much better off.”

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

“Oh, no, Lady Lufton.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tithonus.

William Hogarth: PAINTER, ENGRAVER, AND PHILOSOPHER. Essays on the Man, the Work, and the Time. — I.— Little Boy Hogarth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unspoken Dialogue.

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

Studies in Animal Life. — CHAPTER II. — FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

Fig. 7.

Larvæ of the Gnat in two different stages of development (Magnified).

Fig. 8.

Cyclops
a large antennæ;
b smaller do.;
c egg-sacs (Magnified).

Fig. 9.

Daphnia: a pulsatile sac, or heart;
b eggs;
c digestive tube (Magnified).

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

Fig. 10.

Eurycercus: a heart;
b eggs; c digestive tube (Magnified).

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

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

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

Fig. 11.

Volvox Globator, with eight volvoces enclosed (Magnified).

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

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

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

Whether this loss of locomotion is to be regarded as a retrogression on the part of the plant, or animal, which becomes fixed, may be questioned; but there are curious indications of positive retrogression from a higher standard in the metamorphoses of some animals. Thus the beautiful marine worm, Terebella, which secretes a tube for itself, and lives in it, fixed to the rock, or oyster-shell, has in early life a distinct head, eyes, and feelers; but in growing to maturity, it loses all trace of head, eyes, and even of feelers, unless the beautiful tuft of streaming threads which it waves in the water be considered as replacing the feelers. There are the Barnacles, too, which in the first stage of their existence have three pairs of legs, a very simple single eye, and a mouth furnished with a proboscis. In the second stage they have six pairs of legs, two compound eyes, complex in structure, two feelers, but no mouth. In the third, or final stage, their legs are transformed into prehensile organs, they have recovered a mouth, but have lost their feelers, and their two complex eyes are degraded to a single and very simple eye-spot.

Fig. 12.

Water Beetle and its larva.

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

Fig. 13.

Dragon-fly larvæ: A ordinary aspect;
B with the huge nipper-like jaw extended.

Fig. 14.

A Limnæca Stagnalis, or water snail.

B Planorbis.

Fig. 15.

Paludina Vivipara.

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

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

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

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

Curious, if True. (EXTRACT FROM A LETTER FROM RICHARD WHITTINGHAM, ESQ.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And the climate agrees with her?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it you, my prince!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Life among the Lighthouses.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BESSY’S SPECTACLES.

Lovel the Widower. — CHAPTER II. In which Miss Prior is kept at the Door.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tom?” cries Elizabeth, with a pale, bewildered look. “His name wasn’t Tom, dear Mr. Batchelor; his name was Woo-woo-illiam!” and the tears begin again.

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

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

She nodded her poor head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You remember Lovel, the gentleman-pensioner?”

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

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

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

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

“Why a marquis, Huckles?” I ask.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Has the first bell rung?” asks Lovel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“He—he!” grins Bedford.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It is mamma,” says Bessy.

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

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

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

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

An Essay without End. — FOOTNOTES:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Transcriber’s Notes